We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Derron Steenbergen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Derron, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

From the time I was young I was always fascinated by the word “swagger”. I liked how it sounded and the confidence I felt when I said it…
Now, fast forward many years to a time when I was an adult leading sales teams. One of the challenges for any leader is to drive the energy of their team. I started noticing that I was spending much of my time trying to engage, inspire and motivate them. There were days it worked, and others that, well, not so much. I consistently took my teams to conferences and continuing education opportunities. All too often we would leave with my team expressing the waste of time they felt attending and myself feeling let down at a missed opportunity.

SO, I decided to start my own training and speaking company. I felt I had a message to deliver and the energy and desire to make it happen. The first order of business…what do I call it? After writing down several “okay” names on a restaurant napkin, it hit me. Build it around the work Swagger! So, the Swagger Institute was born.

We are business consulting company specializing in motivational speaking, sales and leadership training, customer service training and organizational development.

Too many people are living life “luke warm”. Our mission is to teach, coach, inspire and motivate. Helping businesses and individuals discover their swagger drives us each and every day. Our motto is…Swagger On!!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

From the time I was young I was always fascinated by the word “swagger”. I liked how it sounded and the confidence I felt when I said it…
Now, fast forward many years to a time when I was an adult leading sales teams. One of the challenges for any leader is to drive the energy of their team. I started noticing that I was spending much of my time trying to engage, inspire and motivate them. There were days it worked, and others that, well, not so much. I consistently took my teams to conferences and continuing education opportunities. All too often we would leave with my team expressing the waste of time they felt attending and myself feeling let down at a missed opportunity.

SO, I decided to start my own training and speaking company. I felt I had a message to deliver and the energy and desire to make it happen. The first order of business…what do I call it? After writing down several “okay” names on a restaurant napkin, it hit me. Build it around the work Swagger! So, the Swagger Institute was born.

We are business consulting company specializing in motivational speaking, sales and leadership training, customer service training and organizational development.

Too many people are living life “luke warm”. Our mission is to teach, coach, inspire and motivate. Helping businesses and individuals discover their swagger drives us each and every day. Our motto is…Swagger On!!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Remember Covid. I was an in person, live event speaker and trainer who was early in my “build my own business” journey. The pandemic hit and I thought it was over. We could not be with people. How would I survive? I was out fishing with my Dad when over half my year cancelled in a day. I was at the least, concerned, and at most, devastated. I was finally doing what I had always wanted to do and it had been blown up.

But wait, what if? I was mowing my yard when an idea hit me. What if I could offer virtual conventions to businesses and associations who were having to cancel their events. I reached to someone who I had done a handful of virtual webinars with and threw out the idea. Immediately we began working on something that would become our massive “pivot”.

We started with a major online, virtual training event called Rising Above. We had several thousand business people attend. We had happy hour, with live entertainment. Remember, we were still in lockdown and no could go out. It was a huge success. We are now planning our 7th Rising Above. It transitioned from a Covid event, to simply, a very good annual training event.

From there, we lauched The Ten Minute Trainer Network. With virtual fatigue setting in as the pandemic lingered, we decided to build an app based OTT platform that offered video training. All of our content was and is delivered in ten minute or less segments.

It has been an enormous success and probably only happened as a result of a need to pivot and reinvent.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

This one is easy! My first year in the adult world and my first year in a sales role, I failed miserably. Yes, you are right, I am now a sales trainer. What?! It makes no sense, right?

The lesson I learned was that no one wanted to hear about me or my story. You see, I was young and green, with no experience. I thought people would buy from me because of me. I crack up thinking about that naive guy. It was only when I figured out that it was not about me and my story, but the client and their story that I started to have success. Help them solve their problems and they buy me, my product and my services.

One of my favorite quotes ever is by Dale Carnegie…”you can make more friends in two months by being interested in people than you can in two years getting people interested in you’

Contact Info:

• Website: www,Swaggerinstitute.com
• Instagram: @swaggerinstitute
• Facebook: Swagger Institute
• Linkedin: Derron Steenbergen
• Youtube: The Swagger Institute
• Other: Podcast- What’s Your Jump?