Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Tim Dwyer, Founder & Director with Tolemy

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

An educator, consultant, and business builder, Tim teaches entrepreneurs, business owners, and CEOs how to design, build, and activate business strategies based on a foundation of their core brand assets.A master at helping businesses curate and communicate their true value in the market. Tim loves making a difference in people’s lives.Tim works with industry leaders who have chosen to do things differently. These are the pioneers of industry who, when they see a trend or a gap in the market, take action to create value the market wants to see. A storyteller, Tim shares life in business experiences through analogy – bringing business frameworks to life.Tim is highly skilled at connecting to the bigger vision, breaking down the complexities of business, and empowering entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve their vision.With over 30 years of supporting enterprises and growing businesses, Tim has built teams of capable, passionate, purpose-led professionals who can activate business growth.Tim is an entrepreneur, business growth specialist, keynote speaker, and industry leader in business education and consulting to private enterprises. Tim offers a choice of delivery methods including consulting, coaching, training, facilitation, and mentoring.Learn more: https://www.timdwyer.net.au/The Tolemy MapGet on the book notification list: http://www.Tolemy.comInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-tim-dwyer-founder-director-with-tolemy

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. Influential Entrepreneurs is sponsored by Marketing Huddle, where we build an authority positioning portfolio for entrepreneurs using podcast and TV interviews and guaranteed press coverage. For more information, go to Mike Saunders360.com. Today we have with us Tim Dwyer, who's the founder and director with Ptolemy. Tim, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike.

Pleasure to be here. Hey, so I'm excited to talk with you. I know you've got quite the industry experience, and I want to hear all about that. And typically, I like to start with your story and background, and we want to hear that too. But I would want to hear what is the story behind the name, Ptolemy. Yeah, so many years ago, over 20 years ago now, I experienced Google Maps for the first time, and I thought about it going, wow, this is amazing. It's taken all the frustration and stress out of traveling from A to B when you've never been there before.

And I had a dream. I thought, oh, I wonder if we could create equivalent of the Google Maps for business. and so I set about looking at mapping systems and I've always been interested in mapping systems and so I created, ended up creating five years ago a mapping system that's the complete map for business on how to go from A to B and when I took it to my designer

and I showed him what I'd created and what I was doing with it, I said I need a name for a business that's going to house this mapping system. So he went back and he went out and he looked back in history and found a gentleman by the name of Ptolemy who lived in 150 AD. And Ptolemy was the first person to map longitude and latitude

across the earth's circumference and created the mapping system that we still use today to navigate the world. And it was spelt with a silent P at the front of it. So I dropped the silent P and I dropped the silent P. I said, right, well, that's perfect. So let's call it Ptolemy after Ptolemy of 150 AD. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that is really, really cool. So give us a little bit of your story and background. How did you get into the entrepreneurial business industry? Yeah, so I headed up a strategy for a very large corporate here in Australia where I had a one and a half million clients to look after. And they were all small and medium enterprises. And at the time, I was trying to work out, well, how do I support them in their growth? And I couldn't work it out.

And so I decided, well, the only way I'm going to work it out is by actually becoming a small business myself. And so 25 years ago, I left corporate world and started a consulting business and consulting to small and medium enterprise. And I've been on that journey for the last 25 years and I've been mapping all the mind or the structures and the mathematics behind growth in business. Then I went into the emotional side of things and mapped how feelings and emotions impact decision making and impact success. And then finally, I topped it all off with going into the spirituality of it all. So how to navigate the spirit of business as well as the heart of business, as well as the mind of business. You know, there's so much more that goes into business success, right? Like you talk about the spiritual side of things.

and it could be knowledge-based. It could be the spiritual side of things. Talk a little bit about some of the cycles and ups and downs that you're noticing that you start working with your clients on. So business, over the last 25 years, we've been working with businesses of all sizes and all revenue sizes as well as numbers. And what we've done is we've mapped how they got to where they got to. So we've mapped all the successes and we've mapped all of the failures. And in doing so, we've seen patterns that happen in business. Now, these patterns, what I call from spin to spring.

So businesses get caught in a spin at certain cycles inside their growth. And that can get caught inside these spin cycles for a very, very long time. And so what we've done is we've gone, okay, what were the reasons for the spin cycles? So I'll give you a couple of examples. I'll give you an example from a mind, which is the maths and then the heart and then the spirit. So in the mathematics and structures, over 90, I think it's as high as 95% of businesses globally never go past 10 people. And the reason for that is they don't map the map the map.

management structures that they need for growth. So they grow organically as opposed to strategically. And as a result, they get caught in a spin cycle before 10 people. And they keep butting their heads against it. And then they end up not growing past it because they haven't built the necessary structures to grow. Then there's another percentage of businesses that drop off between 10 and 20 people because they don't build a culture. They don't build a culture book and they don't expand.

the culturally, and as a result, they could get caught in another spin. And then as a business goes past 30 to 40 people, there's another spin cycle that happens there, where businesses need to specialize in their business lines. And so these spin cycles happen at 70 people. They happen at 150 to 100 to 200 people. And there's a different reason for this structural spin cycle being created. So we now know how to structure a business for each growth cycle from a mathematics as well as a people numbers side of things. And then if we look at it from an emotional side of things, businesses get caught up when a negative emotion, a perceived negative emotion gets caught in the business. So a business might suffer anxiety or it might experience

frustration or stress or disconnection or lost. And all of these emotions have a reason for them. And when we dive into the reason for the emotion, we can then resolve the growth issue. So if I give you one example, if a business and the founder is frustrated, frustration is a direct correlation to a capability gap somewhere in the business. It could be a capability gap with the founder of themselves, or it could be a capability gap inside the delivery or inside sales or inside service.

There'll be something that's a capability gap that's causing the frustration. So when we learn to listen to our emotions, we can use them as the compass to find out what we need to work on inside our business. And then the final bit is the spirit, which is driven to draw on. And this is where we work out why a founder or why a business started in the first place. And that's normally because of a historical event that happened in the founder's life. That gives them drive to start the business in the first place. Then after a period of time, the business becomes successful. and the founder then gets lost and they go,

what was all this for? And then they start connecting into their intuition even more because normally there's an element of intuition in every decision making for why we do what it is that we do. But when we learn to connect into that intuition, we can then use that as the guidance method for making decisions of where we go in business, not knowing sometimes the reasoning at the time,

just going because it feels right. And so we then can teach and show people how to connect into their intuition, then use their emotions as a compass and then use the mathematics as the logic that supports the growth. You know, what you just described there sounds like such a process that you can't just Google and say, let me six X my scaling of my company. What have you found as the biggest obstacle to look out for in working through those steps and cycles? Well, in business, business is a creative process. And we need to have the space to create, to dream and to connect with ourselves of what it is that we're really here to do, which is the purpose. And the biggest mistake that I see in every single business is when

they flip from purpose led to profit led. And you'll see, you'll see the biggest mistakes in business where they, they move away from creating what it is that they're passionate for, and they move into thinking about profits over the creative process. And as a result of that, they lose their way. There's a, there's a fabulous interview with Steve Jobs that's just come out on to Max, which Steve is interviewed, and he talks about the fact of when he was kicked out of Apple, and he was kicked out by a gentleman that was profit-led and was process-led, not purpose-led, and creative-led. As a result, he drove Apple into the ground, and Apple came to within six months of bankruptcy in 1995, when Steve Jobs then took it over again, and he then flipped it back to

purpose back to creativity. And in the interview, he even says back to spirituality. And so it was a spirit-led business again. And what we see in today's world with Apple being the leading company in the world is a result of that approach. So when I go into businesses, I see it all the time. I see where they've lost their way because they've been influenced to flip from purpose to profit. And as a result, they then go process over creativity, and then that's what creates a spin and the stall in business. Yeah. That focus on profit is super important because if you don't have a profit, you don't keep the doors open, you don't pay the bills. So we know you have to have a profit, you know, like you see on Shark Tank, where they say, oh, you did a million dollars last year in revenue.

congratulations. What were your expenses? And they say $1.4 million. You know, so the top line doesn't really mean much. So you have to focus on profit. But to your point, it cannot be the overarching focus or else you're going to get your values out of whack. There's going to be corners that are cut. There's going to be relationships that are either made that shouldn't be made or should be cut off and you stick with it.

So talk a little bit about how are you going to? notice those red flags so that you can deal with them before they become problems. Yeah, so that's a really good point because you still need to know the financials and you need to know the profit drivers because business is absolutely about creating value and getting a return for that value so that you can then reinvest more profits back into creating more value. So the profit is the outcome of the purpose. And if you've got a really good business model and a fantastic brand, well, then you're going to create massive good profits and good returns

so that you can then reinvest that into your purpose and your passion. Now, the lead indicator in all of this is when I go into an organisation, I'll look at how they make decisions. And if they're making decisions from an abundance, point of view and they're making it in line with their purpose and their passion, then in the future that those decisions will create a positive outcome. And even if they have to change course because something happens in the marketplace, they will gain a learning or something from that decision that will create success.

The flip side of that is when a business looks at a decision and makes it out of scarce, or fear, every business decision that's made out of scarcity or fear at some point in the future, that will have a negative outcome. So when I go into a business, I look at all the decisions and I can point out exactly which ones were the ones that created the success and which ones were the ones that created stall points. Yep. You know, it makes me think of the old saying, money is a byproduct of the value created and you can substitute money for profit. You know, profit is the byproduct of value created, not some cheap

product that you can just sell a lot of and then you don't stand behind, but true value. And when the value can be relationships created or value in a problem that you solve for an industry sector, now you've got something substantial to build from and money and profit will follow. Is that something you have founded your work as well? Yeah, absolutely. So the way I define the purpose of business, there's two elements to it. So the first element is we're here to create value, the maximum value, with the most amount of leverage whilst having the most amount of fun.

So business is meant to be pleasurable. It's meant to be exciting. And I love business. I think it's the most fun you can have. and when we create value and we transfer that value to other people and we see the results that it gets from it gives so much pleasure and so much fun. So when we look at that, we then go back over into what I call the quintessential business and the quintessential life.

And there's three components to that. And I've coined the term it's connection, exploration and expansion. So connection is all about relationships. So we're here to be in service of those people that are at our market, so to speak. We're here to be of service of our market and we're here to be of service of our people and our team. And so that's the connection piece, which is how do we connect with them so that we can better be of service? The exploration component is life is a lifelong journey of learning. So it's when things are foreign to us.

It's when things that we don't understand. That's where we can lean into and learn something new, either from a mind or a heart or a spirit perspective of ourselves. And going through a lifelong learning means that we can then expand ourselves, expand our energy, expand our impact, and expand our enjoyment of this journey. So talking about expanding, it makes me think about once you've kind of, of articulated and clarified your passion purpose and success, how do you amplify that? Because I feel like, you know, like Tony Robbins talks about Kani, constant and never-ending improvement. First,

you need to figure out what your passion is, your purpose is, and what success looks like. But then you can't just settle on that and go, I've checked the box. How do you multiply that and amplify that to make sure it's constantly being improved? So, yeah, so great question. So, Business has got two elements to it. And these two elements are the success and failure points of all businesses. And they can all be tracked back to one of these two points. The first point is culture. So culture is incredibly important to help people expand their business.

They need people that are culturally aligned, and people that are coming in with positive energy, not drama. I mean, we need drama because drama leads to working out problems and solutions, but we don't get caught up in it. And so we need culture of creativity, a culture of innovation, a culture of continual change, because as businesses grow, they change all the time. And so people need to be comfortable with discomfort,

because things need to change and grow. And so that's number one. Culture needs to be the foundation of every business growth. The second component is that of capability. Now, capability is understanding how a business actually works. So, for instance, brand-led businesses grow over six times faster than sales-led businesses. having a good business model where your profit is guided by how much volume you can create as well as how much margin you can get as a return for the value that you have.

And then you need structures in place that can then support the growth. Now, in business, when we lead with our strategy and our vision, with our brand at the head of it all, and then the business model that follows that up, and then implement from the inside out with our structures and making sure that we're managing it very, very well and leading our business, then if everyone's got a similar viewpoint of how business works, then you can transfer the capability from the founder

through to the leadership team, through to everyone in the business, and build the necessary capability to actually then expand. There's actually 72, items to build in terms of capability in business that sit in 12 areas of business. And when businesses learn how to do those elements and learn the base principles of them and then learn how to share those base principles inside their business, then growth is unlimited.

You know, and think about businesses that have multiple employees and levels of management. So let's say that the C-suite is polished up their vision, mission, all of that. How important is it to make sure that that is fully integrated in with what all the levels of the employees so that you've got your frontline employee saying the same thing as the C-suite? It's critical. Most people, when they do vision, mission statements, purpose statements, they're quite often used as marketing taglines. they're not really lived inside the business, whereas purpose is an energy, mission is an energy,

and it needs to be lived and it needs to be the guiding principles behind decision-making. When that happens, then what happens is a business ignites inside. So it becomes this energy ball inside the organisation, and that becomes attractive to the marketplace. And so people want to come and work for that business. people want to come and buy from that business because there's just something special about it. There's an energy that people can't often explain what it is that they like about it,

but they just love it because there's this energy that exudes out of the organization. It's like when you see an individual walk into a room that is truly connected to themselves and they are authentic. When people walk into a room that are truly, authentic. They've got this magnetism and people just are drawn towards them and they want to speak to them. They want to know who they are. The same thing goes for a business. When a business is

ignited and it's authentic and it's living its purpose and it's living its values, it's got this massive magnetism that people just want to be part of. Yeah. It's the power or the law of attraction in action. You know, it's like, I just can't explain it, but we just seem to have a synergy here and it resonates with me and all of that. That's it. That's it. Love it. Love it. Well, I tell you, this has been really interesting, Tim. It's really powerful to see what you've put together and how you serve the industry. If someone is interested in learning more, reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way that they can do that? So over the last five, four to five years, Mike, I've been writing a book. So I've taken all

the learnings and everything that I've explained and talked through in this interview. And I've put it into a book. And the book's called the Ptolemy Map. And that will be launched in August 2025. So if people are interested in seeing the map, there's pictures, there's drawings, there's mapping systems, there's principles. And it looks at the mind and the heart and the spirit of business. And it gives case examples of where it's worked and where it hasn't.

So it not only gives the success, but it also shows where the failures sit. And so that book, if people are interested in that book, they can go totolemy.com, and there's a tab there called Book, and they can put their name and address in there. And as soon as it's ready to be distributed in August, they can get a copy. Excellent. Well, Tim, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you very much, Mike.

Really, really appreciate it. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. www.influential entrepreneursradio.com.