Teaser

Damien Schreurs: What was your state of mind when you transitioned from the PC to the Mac?

Vincent Gressieker: I was a bit apprehensive about whether I could get familiar with the controls quickly enough, but from the first moment I used it, I was very happy. This was two years ago, or maybe even longer. It’s great; I love it.

Nova AI: Welcome to Macpreneur, the show for seasoned solopreneurs looking to streamline their business on a Mac. Unlock the secrets to saving time and money with your host and technology mentor, Damien Schreurs.

Introduction to Vincent Gressieker

Damien Schreurs: Hello, hello! Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Vincent Gressieker. Vincent is an independent business advisor and consultant from Germany. He has more than 20 years of experience in business, working as a consultant, executive, and entrepreneur. He helps his clients scale their businesses to the next stage of growth.

Vincent published the book ‘Work Like a Warrior’ in early 2024. The aim of the book is to enable individuals to be more satisfied and successful in any organization, leading to better company results and greater economic value for society as a whole. He launched his public speaking career at Mindvalley University this year.

He lives in Berlin, has two teenage kids, and is a Burning Man enthusiast. Vincent, welcome to the show.

Vincent Gressieker: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be here.

Damien Schreurs: I think you’re the first guest who is very close to where I live in Luxembourg.

Vincent Gressieker: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Damien Schreurs: I’m happy to have this European perspective from time to time.

Vincent Gressieker: I’ve also been to Luxembourg once.

Damien Schreurs: Very good.

Vincent’s Current Tech Setup

Damien Schreurs: Let’s start with your current setup. Which Mac do you have now to run your business?

Vincent Gressieker: Yes, I work with a MacBook Air M1 from 2020. The OS is Sonoma, and the main other components I work with are the AirPods Max and an iPhone 13. These are the three primary elements that I spend a lot of time working with.

Damien Schreurs: Do you use only the built-in screen, or do you have an external monitor?

Vincent Gressieker: I also have an external monitor that I use in my home office with an adapter and a bunch of other stuff connected to it.

Damien Schreurs: So you’re using both screens at the same time?

Vincent Gressieker: Yes, I do. The other monitor is not an Apple brand; it’s some generic thing. I don’t even know what it is—maybe Fujitsu or something.

Damien Schreurs: I’m currently recording this episode on a 27-inch iMac, the last Intel model they released. I have a 14-inch MacBook Pro, but every time I work on it, I feel constrained. If I were to only have a laptop, I would definitely want a secondary screen as well.

Vincent Gressieker: Absolutely. That’s really necessary. The only issue I have at the moment is with my hard drive. I think the next time I get something, I need a bigger hard drive. I have 250 gigabytes, and I always have to clean it up. I’ve been starting to get into content creation around YouTube videos and other stuff, which takes a lot of memory. I have to constantly shift things between different elements. Other than that, I’ve been very happy with this setup for the last two years. It’s been perfect for me. 

Damien Schreurs: Unfortunately, one drawback of the Apple Silicon era is that the hard drive is soldered to the motherboard, making it impossible to change later. There are only two solutions to the storage problem. Solution number one is to buy a new Mac with more storage.

Vincent Gressieker: Mm-hmm.

Damien Schreurs: Solution number two is a bit of a kludge, but it’s possible to boot a Mac from an external drive, specifically an external SSD. You could buy, say, a 1TB SSD.

Vincent Gressieker: Mm-hmm.

Damien Schreurs: You can clone the internal hard drive of the Mac onto the external SSD and then configure the computer to boot from the external SSD whenever it starts up.

Vincent Gressieker: Oh, I did not know that. Okay.

Damien Schreurs: I used this solution not for lack of space, but for my very old iMac, my second iMac from 2014, which didn’t have an SSD. It had a fusion drive and became very slow. Rather than buy a new computer, I booted it from an external SSD, which made it run much faster.

That helped me for a few years before I eventually bought a new one.

Vincent Gressieker: That’s interesting because, so far, I’m still really happy with the MacBook. I was recommended this by a friend of mine when I made the switch. This was my first Apple laptop; before that, I had only worked with Microsoft products or PC products. When I reached out to him for advice on whether I should make the leap, he said, “If you buy this, you’re going to have a good time for many years, and you won’t need to worry about replacing it soon.” 

I had some old external hard drives that I easily formatted. I’m not an expert in technical stuff, but formatting was easy. Now, I’m shifting things onto the hard drive, which is almost a terabyte, so there’s a lot of space for everything. That’s my current solution, but it’s working fine.

Transition from PC to Mac

Damien Schreurs: Let’s talk about your transition from PC to Mac. You were recommended a Mac. Did you have any fears? What was your state of mind during that transition?

Vincent Gressieker: Since I had been working with PCs my whole professional life, I was in a big consulting company for 15 years, exclusively using PC laptops. I only knew one friend who was a huge fan of Apple. He bought his own Apple laptop many years ago and was even able to run company software on it, which probably wasn’t company policy, but he did it anyway. 

I started becoming very interested in Apple when the iPhone arrived in 2007, largely due to my friend’s excitement about it. I was totally hooked and have been using iPhones since then. However, I did have some apprehension about switching to Mac, which is why I reached out to him. 

The main reason I contacted him was that I was seriously annoyed with the latest laptop I bought, which was my first after leaving the big company and becoming self-employed. I had founded a company and was working as a consultant, so I bought a Dell laptop. 

I was already frustrated with the whole Microsoft ecosystem and the difficulties getting everything to work with Teams and logins. At some point, the laptop broke due to a hard drive failure, which was the last straw. I’m not the type of person who wants to fix things; I don’t have the patience for that. 

So I thought, do I go through that again or do something completely different? I was apprehensive about whether I could get familiar with the controls quickly enough, but from the first moment I used it, I was very happy. This was two years ago, or maybe even longer, and I love it.

Damien Schreurs: Very good.

Consulting Tools and Applications

Damien Schreurs: What type of applications do you use for your consulting business?

Vincent Gressieker: I actually use Microsoft software like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. However, there’s a shift happening in how I use apps. I don’t use that many actual Mac apps yet; we’ll see how it goes. Apart from Safari, there’s not much else because a lot of work is happening in the cloud. 

For example, during my first consulting engagement two years ago, I accessed my client’s applications through Chrome and used Slack and Google Docs, so I had no need for anything else. I was used to PowerPoint, so I continued using it and haven’t transitioned to Keynote yet. 

Now, something interesting is happening: you can create presentations with AI, so I’ve started using gamma.ai. At the moment, there’s still no need to switch to Keynote. That’s the current state of affairs with my setup.

Damien Schreurs: With the rise of cloud services and software as a service, the differences between using a Mac and a PC have almost vanished because most things run in a browser. However, it can be challenging to stay productive because you can end up with dozens or even hundreds of tabs open.

Vincent Gressieker: I would never do that. Just kidding. Yeah, no.

Damien Schreurs: I’m guilty of that.

Vincent Gressieker: Guilty.

Damien Schreurs: I have two browsers: one Safari browser that keeps everything I had open when I close and reopen it, and another browser that clears everything and starts fresh.

Vincent Gressieker: Yeah, that makes sense.

Damien Schreurs: Did you know that with Safari on Sonoma, you can turn a website into a Mac app? For example, if you visit Slack or Discord frequently, you can save it as an app. It will use the favicon as the app icon, and the icon will show in the dock. You can then click on the dock to open it, like a mini Safari window but independent from Safari.

Vincent Gressieker: I’ve seen this at Mindvalley. Mindvalley is mostly an online community for personal growth topics. They had something like this at their live sessions where you could download an app that looked like an agenda but also allowed you to set up your own events during the time everyone comes together.

Damien Schreurs: We’ve had that on the iPhone and iPad for a while now, but on the Mac, it’s only since Sonoma that we have this feature with Safari. Since I’m still on Ventura, I can’t use that functionality on my Mac. I’m using a paid tool called WebCatalog, which allows you to convert a website into an app and create a mini app with multiple websites connected to it. 

For example, I’m part of the BNI here in Luxembourg, and I have my BNI app with several tabs, each being a separate website. I also have a “social time” tab for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Discord. It’s just one big window that I use to stay focused on my BNI tasks without being distracted by other tabs or browsers.

Vincent Gressieker: This is something I talk about in my book as well. If something like this makes it easier for you to align with your goals, it simplifies the process. You know exactly how to bundle and access what you need. 

This is why the Apple ecosystem, with its integrated ideas, is so much better than the more open PC world. For me, at least, it’s a huge win. Another refreshing aspect is that I don’t seem to have any problems with viruses or anything. It appears to be more secure than the whole PC world. 

Damien Schreurs: I think it’s a mix of two things. The platform and macOS are stronger against viruses or cyber attacks, but it’s also true that its market share is low—around 10 percent or less globally. So, the bad actors tend to target the 90 percent of the population.

Vincent Gressieker: Right.

Damien Schreurs: I’m listening to a podcast called Security Now, and the host, Steve Gibson, has a nice analogy to security: it’s porous. It’s not an on-off switch; it’s not simply secure or insecure. The more pressure you put on something, the more likely something will get through.

Vincent Gressieker: Do you know the Swiss cheese model used in the aviation industry for risk analysis? The idea is that you have layers of security to prevent risks from causing a dramatic effect. Each layer has some holes, which could be smaller or bigger depending on how everything is set up. When they analyze different behaviors and skills, they can identify the factors that led to a crash. The more things go wrong, the bigger the holes become, and eventually, one event can slip through all those holes and cause a catastrophe. That’s the gist of it. 

Damien Schreurs: Yeah.

Security and Malware Protection

Damien Schreurs: So for my B2B client, I usually recommend installing an anti-malware tool in addition to what is built into the Mac, because it doesn’t catch nearly enough. There are a couple of dozen malware families that the built-in macOS tool, called XProtect, recognizes. In any case, any anti-malware tool is often more effective at blocking something it knows.

Vincent Gressieker: Mm hmm.

Damien Schreurs: Now, there are some anti-malware tools that help reduce the risk of getting something unknown on the computer. I actually use the paid version of Sophos, and the reason why I use it is that it also helps with web filtering. Most issues come from the web, so by blocking my computer from trying to connect to a known malware site, domain, or IP address, I know that I have that extra protection, which macOS does not offer. These kinds of features also include monitoring the usage of the webcam and performing malware scans. For private users, I don’t think it’s important to have an anti-malware tool, but for businesses and professionals, I believe it’s a small addition that can make a significant difference.

It can stop about 80 percent of the low-hanging fruit that the bad guys try to exploit.

Vincent Gressieker: Yeah, that makes sense. I’ve been thinking about what it takes to actually make that move. It’s interesting now that I’ve switched to Apple products; it doesn’t feel daunting anymore. Being in that environment feels normal now, but before that, it was almost like a huge leap.

It’s kind of when your ego plays tricks on you in a small sense, and you feel scared of something. Some people might say, “Oh, I don’t need this,” or they think there’s been so much talk about how, because it’s a smaller community, they somehow believe they are better than busy users, which is, of course, nonsense.

That makes no sense at all. There are always people looking for status symbols, but that’s just a waste of time. We’re trying to get things done, so let’s not waste time worrying about impressions or what people think of us.

I’m really happy that I was able to sacrifice all that old stuff I had been doing and just go for this new approach, which works so much better for me.

Damien Schreurs: Now, for the listeners, some of them may still be on Windows and contemplating the idea of switching to a Mac. There is actually a built-in tool now to transfer data from Windows to the Mac. It’s called Migration Assistant. Apple has created an application that runs on Windows, which needs to be installed on the Windows PC. Both the Windows PC and the Mac need to be on the same network, and then there is a mechanism to transfer configuration data, such as email accounts from Outlook, which can be reconfigured on the Mac.

You can also move data from the Documents folder, Image folder, Movie folder, and Music folder, transferring things from the PC to the Mac. Nowadays, if people are using cloud storage solutions like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive, it’s even easier. You just install the app on the Mac, log in again, and then re-download all your files.

Vincent Gressieker: Yeah.

Damien Schreurs: Okay, so let’s go to the next section of the show.

Content Creation and Social Media

Damien Schreurs: Do you have a tip or a trick that you discovered recently on your Mac?

Vincent Gressieker: Maybe just a general piece of advice, because I’ve been switching a lot between different components. I have a webcam, this microphone, and some other things that I’m using. I also have a little DJ controller because, you know, in my free time, I like to play music and DJ.

When I first started doing it, I assumed that everything would always work like plug and play. However, you use the old USB files as a connector. What I’ve learned through experience is that you need to find the right setup and learn how to change the different technologies.

You’re always at the top of the screen, and you need to find the right selection box to connect all these different things. So when you’re working with several components, don’t despair if something isn’t working. Just look in there, and you will find the setup. For example, with this microphone, I bought it, and it worked on one app, but then it didn’t work anymore. It wasn’t even recognized, and I couldn’t find it again. Eventually, I figured out that I just needed to go in there and look for it, and then it was there. So it may not be a great tip, but for someone like me who uses a lot of different components, it was valuable to orient myself to that.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, that’s called Control Center, and it’s in the top right corner of the menu bar. I don’t remember exactly which version of macOS it came with, but it’s part of the unification of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Now we have something on the Mac that’s very familiar to people who started with an iPhone and an iPad. As you said, you click there and you see everything you need to know. If I can add a small tip on top of that, in the Control Center, you have the sound area and the display area. You can actually drag and drop them.

If you want the sound to be in the menu bar at all times and not have to click in the Control Center, just drag and drop the sound icon onto the menu bar, and then you’ll have it there.

Vincent Gressieker: Mm hmm. Okay.

Damien Schreurs: There are a few things like that you can display; you can drag and drop them, and they will then appear on the menu.

Vincent Gressieker: Yeah. Where do you get your tips about these things?

Damien Schreurs: Well, I follow a bunch of blogs and listen to other Mac podcasts. To name a few, I enjoy MacPower Users and MacBreak Weekly. These are long podcasts compared to Macpreneur, with episodes lasting an hour and a half, sometimes two hours. I listen to them at 1.7 speed, and there’s always a golden nugget at some point in these episodes. In terms of blogs, I follow Apple Insider and MacRumors; those are the main ones.

Vincent Gressieker: Hmm. I just remembered something that I use a lot: AirDrop. I move many things between my phone and my MacBook, and I also use it for notes. For example, when I started creating content like short and long videos, I work with ChatGPT and my notepad to streamline the whole process from the initial idea to posting the video. There are so many different things that need to happen in between, and that makes it a lot easier to move text and different files from my laptop, the MacBook, to my iPhone. Then, of course, I can also move the different videos, save them, and free up space on my phone.

Damien Schreurs: Mm hmm.

Vincent Gressieker: So yeah, AirDrop is a big thing.

Vincent’s Mac Wish

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, so we’re almost at the end of the show. Now comes the question: if you were in charge of the Mac division at Apple, what would be your first priority?

Vincent Gressieker: I’ve been using content creation apps, and I think there’s an opportunity to integrate different elements on the Mac. Maybe it’s already there, but I’m not aware of it. I believe there’s potential for integrating several apps to create something cohesive.

This could apply to presentations, AI-assisted content, or videos, including short videos. There are still many steps involved in the process, so I think this would be a really cool feature to implement.

Integrating these different tools from the perspective of an end result would be beneficial. There’s so much happening in the industry; there are websites that can create AI-generated videos, but there’s still a gap in tailoring the content to specific needs.

So that would be something to consider.

Damien Schreurs: I actually hope that Apple will move in that direction with their Apple intelligence features. At the moment, it’s mostly text—rewriting, summarizing, or changing the tone—along with image generation. However, they haven’t announced anything regarding videos yet. I think they are a bit behind compared to Adobe, for instance, where AI video tools can extend the length of a video and even change its aspect ratio.

Vincent Gressieker: Hmm.

Damien Schreurs: Like you, I suspect or hope that Apple will work on that and start integrating generative AI features.

Vincent Gressieker: Yes. Another issue I’ve tried to explore is how to post a video immediately to several platforms. I started experimenting with Buffer, but it didn’t work very well. Perhaps I did something wrong; I don’t want to dismiss it as a bad option.

Maybe it is the best one; I don’t know. From what I’ve heard, there seem to be a lot of integration issues and technical challenges that make it difficult. However, it would be a game changer to have an app that connects to various platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Rumble. That would be amazing.

Currently, you can accelerate the editing process significantly. I work with CapCut, which is quite impressive because it automatically generates subtitles and recognizes gaps in the video, making the editing process much faster. It’s huge, so why not have that as a Mac app, perhaps even better integrated?

This is primarily aimed at TikTok, but if you want to use other apps, there’s an opportunity to create something that works just as well in different niches.

Damien Schreurs: The issue here is that there are not only technical hurdles but also platform-specific challenges. Each platform prefers users to post natively; they absolutely dislike tools like Buffer. I’ve used Buffer for a long time but stopped because I didn’t have the reach. Each platform recognized that I scheduled it with Buffer.

Vincent Gressieker: Right.

Damien Schreurs: That’s ultimately why I believe it’s a solvable problem. I think we will have to live with the burden of manually hitting publish on each platform, as that’s what they want. Even with LinkedIn, I stopped scheduling teaser posts for episodes.

Vincent Gressieker: Mm hmm. Wow.

Damien Schreurs: If I schedule it, they know it’s scheduled, and they can tell if I’m connected or not on the platform. If I’m not connected when the post is scheduled, it will have less reach than if I am live on the platform when the post is submitted. Now, I usually publish posts manually after noon or in the late afternoon. Within a few minutes, I add the URL to the blog post as a first comment to show that there’s a human behind the post.

It hasn’t been automated. The only tool I see that could help is something like Zapier or Make.com, but only if we can create a draft. We could potentially automate 90 percent of the process and then manually tweak a few things on each platform since they all have their own rules. 

For example, with LinkedIn, I’ve learned that a maximum of five hashtags is allowed; exceeding that will result in penalties. Other platforms allow unlimited hashtags. Additionally, LinkedIn doesn’t permit URLs in posts; they can only be included in comments, and having a URL in a post will lead to deprioritization.

Each platform has unique specifications regarding reach, so we can’t simply take the same content and post it everywhere. We won’t achieve the engagement or results we expect.

Vincent Gressieker: Okay. Well, that’s great advice. Thank you for that. I did not know that. I will certainly try it out.

Damien Schreurs: Yes, for Instagram and Facebook, I managed to batch post for both using Meta Business Suite. I can’t do this on my smartphone; I need to use my Mac. So, I access Meta Business Suite from the desktop, and I can post a reel that gets pushed to both Instagram and Facebook simultaneously. You can even select an option to have it appear as a story.

Vincent Gressieker: So, it’s a reel, it’s a story, and it goes on Facebook as well.

Damien Schreurs: Exactly. I’ve connected the Mac Preneur Facebook page to the Mac Preneur Instagram account. Both accounts are linked, so I just click one button to create a reel. Both accounts are selected, and I upload the teaser video and some text.

Vincent Gressieker: And that’s through Meta Business Suite?

Damien Schreurs: Yes, it is. You can do both through Meta Business Suite.

Vincent Gressieker: Okay, interesting. I usually upload my reels on Instagram, and there’s an option to share them on Facebook, which I leave on. It automatically gets shared on Facebook, but I’m not sure which method is better.

Connecting with Vincent

Damien Schreurs: Okay, very good. So we’re almost at the end of the show. Where can people find you, Vincent?

Vincent Gressieker: People can find me on LinkedIn under my real name, of course, Vincent Gressieker. That is the key go-to place for my consulting and advisory business. I specialize in integration; it’s all about process integration and systems integration. A lot of companies, when they’re growing, tend to vertically optimize. This leads to sales operations and finance becoming more complex, with more people and more experts joining, but this is not really the game changer.

If you truly want to grow successfully, you need to integrate horizontally. This is my area of expertise, particularly with companies that have revenue ranging from about 10 million to 500 million. So, if anyone here has this as a challenge or knows someone who does, please reach out to me. I’m happy to help.

I’ve also been building content on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel under my real name as well, where I’m posting some short videos, and now I’m also creating longer videos about what I would describe as almost eternal issues surrounding integration processes, such as end-to-end processes like order to cash.

Additionally, I discuss the correct operating model between IT and corporate functions like finance and operations. It’s a significant topic. If someone has challenges in these areas, they can take a look at my content or reach out to me. Finally, I’m also on TikTok, which caters to a broader audience and focuses more on leadership topics and my book, ‘Work Like a Warrior’.

You can find this on Amazon as an eBook or physical hardcover. Lastly, I’m on Instagram and Facebook, which again target a wider audience. These platforms focus on how to overcome the limitations of your ego to become happier and more successful.

There are many factors holding us back, including anxieties and a distorted self-image that is often wrong in most cases. In my book, I take people through my personal journey, which has included many challenges, such as burnout and a failed marriage, as well as difficult work situations.

I summarize the various elements that are essential to consider when working in an organization, allowing you to see through what’s in front of you, gain a safe distance, and then act in a better way. This approach benefits not only the company but also yourself, leading to greater success and happiness.

Damien Schreurs: Thank you. I will include all the links in the show notes so you can reach Vincent. Thank you very much for being on the show, Vincent.

Vincent Gressieker: Thank you for having me.

Applying to be a guest too

Damien Schreurs: If, like Vincent, you would like to share how you are using your Mac to run your solopreneur business, it’s very simple. Just visit macpreneur.com/apply. 

If you are already on Podmatch, just click on the button, and you will land on a show profile. Otherwise, fill out the application form, and I will get back to you within a few days.

Once again, it’s macpreneur.com/apply.

Outro

Damien Schreurs: If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow solopreneur and tag Vincent and me on LinkedIn, telling us what you enjoyed most about this episode. 

Until next time, I’m Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day!

Nova AI: Thank you for listening to the Macpreneur Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with a friend right now.