Let me begin by sharing the story of how Individual Advantages (IA) became what it is today. Individual Advantages has been the name of our company since 1996. The inspiration for the name has escaped many people through the years, including my wife René. In fact, she recently told me that she misunderstood the name for the first 21 years of our company’s existence. This revelation came during one of our morning coffee conversations while we were discussing this very book.

While I have always passionately understood the meaning behind our company name, we have often struggled to have a clear public identity because of it. Countless people have said to me, “Why don’t you come up with a better company name than ‘Individual Advantages’?” Even more frustrating was the confusion when I explained what Individual Advantages was: A company that helps other companies understand the correlation between people, process, and technology, and the advantages each of these (I)individually has within the workplace. Looking back on this explanation, it still makes sense to me, though now I understand why people would look at me with confusion in their eyes for so many years.

In those early years, I found it difficult to create our best public image while still keeping the true meaning of IA. For me, Individual Advantages was never about a name but about my belief in what actually makes companies viable: the (I)individual and the influence each has. Through the years, I played around with names and logos that I hoped would help our clients and potential clients realize who we are and what we do. In doing so, we continued to apply our tried-and-true approach to solving the (I)individual business problems posed to us by clients and influencing them in a positive way to the end result.

The other names we tried never captured the true message of IA; in fact, I felt those names lost a certain amount of who we were as an organization. In the mid-2000s, we tried Business Efficiency Group. That name said who we are and that we help businesses but it did not express our beliefs about (I)individuals or the influence they have. In 2009, we again tried a new brand: YourBizDr.Com. The success of this brand was amazing and paved the way for me to share the true value of who we have always attempted to be: a positive influence to the many (I)individuals we have been blessed to work with.

The name YourBizDr.Com came from my close friend Kevin, who called me the “Biz Doctor” and suggested that we apply our practices via virtual services to more people. So, we did. From 2009 to 2014, we helped over 18,000 business owners, managers, and employees realize their (I)individual influence through our virtual services. However, each time I found our company coming back to our foundation of work: helping (I)individuals realize their influence. Working with people to better understand themselves, their organization, and their teams often necessitates deep human interaction. To understand and advise on the complexities of people and organizations requires more than simply answering questions through a chat box or email. So, I reverted my individual work to face-to-face and conventional brick-and-mortar consulting services.

In 2014, when we had the opportunity to sell our virtual consultancy, I was relieved. It’s hard to consult with such a large group of clients and influence viable change over the internet through hundreds of disconnected (I)individuals. As an advisory firm, I prefer IA to work shoulder to shoulder helping our clients understand their (I)individual influence and that of their individuals, departments, divisions, or company. That sale has positively influenced our ability to bring The “I” in Team series to the world.

In 2017, I finally listened to my team and we changed the name of our consulting operations group from Individual Advantages to IA Business Advisors. For years, our clients referred to us as IA, and I appreciate the simplicity it offers our team and our clients. Today, IA is an organization that influences thousands of (I)individuals around the world while being comprised of hundreds of (I)individuals whose primary goal is to positively influence our clients.

Professional (I)individual influence, as you can see, has been a journey for me, my family, and the (I)individuals who have worked with me these past 30 years. Defining your individual influence will be a journey for you, too. Our goal is that you will take away from this book a plethora of individual advantages, the most significant being that you are the single most important individual in this world; your influence matters. It is through you that other individual influences are created.