Dennis Geelen

Coaching and mentoring to help you start and scale your one-person business.

Founder

Zero In

The mission of Zero In is to help as many businesses and leaders build a brand customers love and a company people are passionate to work for.  

So where do you need to focus (or Zero In)?
Solve the problem of INDIFFERENCE!

Indifferent customers have no compelling reason to purchase your product or service rather than your competitors' product or service. 

Indifferent employees are complacent because they are not passionate about coming to work each day.

Utilize the resources, books, and courses from Zero In to increase your customer retention, improve your customer experience, and build a passionate culture of innovation giving your team the ability to find new and better ways to serve your customers.

"Customers DO NOT buy your product or service, they buy what it can DO FOR THEM"
Customer-centricity means knowing your customers and giving them what they crave.  This helps you to build trust and loyalty, but also a solid reputation.  Loyal customers become fans of your brand and refer other customers to you.

"If you don't find new and better ways to serve your customers, SOMEONE ELSE WILL!"
Being Innovative brings new ideas, which is crucial to a business being able to find new and better ways to add value for your customers.  With innovation comes creative new products and services, increases in efficiency and, as a result, improved profitability.

BE THE BRAND CUSTOMERS LOVE AND THE COMPANY PEOPLE ARE PASSIONATE TO WORK FOR

Founder and Chief Difference Maker

The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

About the Commonwell
We are committed to profitable growth, team development, ingenuity, while having fun at work.  We offer a complete range of insurance products including residential, automobile, commercial, farm and watercraft. We encourage a work-life balance and we are serious about what we do!

About my Role
As Manager of the PMO, I lead a group project managers and business analysts to implement the project management office from the ground up.

About the PMO
Projects at the Commonwell are measured against timelines, budget, delivery of scope, but most importantly the realization of the intended benefits of each project.  Over 85% of projects at the Commonwell were consistantly green throughout 2018.

Manager, Project and Portfolio Management Office

As Manager of Application Services, I am responsible for planning, coordinating and managing the activities of the Application Services team within the Information Systems (IS) Department. This includes leadership and development of the IS team members, as well as providing direction and support for IS solutions to meet the present and future needs of the organization.

Manager of Application Services

Kawartha Lakes Food Source

Kawartha Lakes Food Source is a community effort to reduce hunger in the City of Kawartha Lakes by:

1. Maintaining a central warehouse to supply food to organizations that provide food to individuals in need,
2. Raising public awareness, and
3. Working in concert with other local not-for-profit organizations.

Board Of Directors

Operitel Corporation (An OpenText Company) 

ABout OpenText
OpenText, The Information Company™, a market leader in Enterprise Information Management software and solutions, enables intelligent and connected enterprises by managing, leveraging, securing and gaining insight into enterprise information, on-premises or in the cloud. 

About my Role
Directed a team of PS and R&D resources to develop and implement the LearnFlex LMS platform for over 40 clients.

Director of R&D and Professional Services

TELUS

Manager - Payment Solutions Development and Support

Emergis - A Telus Company

Manager

Emergis Inc

Business Coach | Keynote Speaker | Author of The Happy Accidents newsletter and The Accidental Solopreneur book

What I Do
I help teams, organizations, and solopreneurs flourish by focusing on what really matters: people.

As a speaker, author, and consultant, I equip audiences with practical, human-centered strategies to thrive in uncertain times, build meaningful businesses, and create lasting impact.

Who I Work With
• Event organizers seeking keynote speakers on serendipity, growth, and personal transformation
• Businesses and nonprofits looking to create stronger cultures, customer experiences, and leadership teams
• Solopreneurs who want to design businesses that give them both income and freedom


What I’ve Created
• Author of The Zero In Formula and The Accidental Solopreneur (bestseller)
• Creator of top-rated online courses for solopreneurs and authors
• Host of the Happy Accidents podcast and newsletter
• Keynote talks including 'The Power of Serendipity', 'Start Before You’re Ready', and 'Rooted in Humans'


Want to Work Together?
Let’s talk if you’re looking for:
✅ A keynote speaker for your next event
✅ A workshop or webinar for your team
✅ A course to help you grow as a solopreneur or author


DM me if you’d like to connect about speaking, workshops, or collaborations.

Some of you may remember this headline from back in 2023:

“Bosses try threats to get workers back in offices.”

I couldn’t help but wonder…
how well do we think that worked out?

This right here is another kind of culture gap.
You don’t build motivation through ultimatums.

You build it through environments that make work worth showing up for.
Because a few things are true in business:
 • You can force people to attend meetings.
 • You can’t force them to care.
 • Presence isn’t the same as engagement.

If you want people back in the office (or to be engaged...where ever they are working from) don’t rely on fear. 

Create pull, not push.

A workplace people want to return to is:
 ✅ Interesting – where curiosity and creativity are encouraged.
 ✅ Challenging – where people grow, not grind.
 ✅ Rewarding – where effort actually matters.

That’s what my Motivated Employee™ Framework is built to help leaders design systems where people are motivated by purpose, not pressure.

So here’s the question worth asking:
Is your workplace inspiring people to show up… or just requiring them to?

Keynote Speaker | Author | Consultant

Everyone talks about burnout…

But almost nobody talks about its quieter twin: bore-out. 

And it’s a real problem

Burnout happens when you’re overloaded. And it's pretty obvious when even your top performing employees have too much on their plate.

Bore-out is the opposite, but equally dangerous. It happens when your people are under-challenged. When their work is repetitive, meaningless, or doesn’t tap into their strengths.

Both can drive your top employees out the door, but again, only one really tends to get the attention of leaders.

I want to change that.

Join me on Dec 2 for a free one our webinar where we'll be diving into how to create an environment where your top performers find their work to be interesting, challenging, and rewarding.

See the link in the comments below 👇

This is Brian Chesky, CEO of AirBNB. Net worth of $10B.

And yet… he describes feeling lonely, disconnected, and unfulfilled after reaching the top.

That’s not just a CEO problem, it’s a human problem.

Because when your work stops being interesting, challenging, and rewarding, it doesn’t matter how successful you are, it starts to feel empty.

The same thing happens inside organizations every day:
- Employees burn out.
- High performers lose their spark.
- The middle disengages.

Not because they’re lazy, but because the environment around them doesn’t make effort matter.

That’s why I created The Motivated Employee™ Framework. To help leaders build systems where people feel motivated by design, not by chance.
✅ Work that’s interesting keeps people curious.
✅ Work that’s challenging keeps them growing.
✅ Work that’s rewarding makes it all feel worth it.

When those three elements align, motivation isn’t something you have to manage.

It happens naturally.

If you lead a team and want to build this kind of environment,
 join me on Dec 2 for a free webinar on The Motivated Employee™.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/g5KXKm-7

I’ve always loved the movie Groundhog Day.

We all laugh it off as this absurd comedy. It’s funny, weird, and impossible.

But… was there actually a deep hidden truth buried in that story?

Groundhog Day came out in 1993, starring Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a cynical weatherman who gets stuck living the exact same day over and over again.

No matter what he does… he wakes up back at 6 a.m. to Sonny & Cher.
At first it’s chaos.
Then boredom.
Then frustration
But eventually… it becomes the path to mastery, growth, and transformation.

And that’s the part we tend to overlook.
Because beneath the comedy is this huge lesson: Repetition (done with intention) creates breakthroughs.

Just look at Kobe Bryant.
He wasn’t the most naturally gifted player in the NBA. But he was the one who repeated the same drills thousands of times more than anyone else.

He turned repetition into a competitive superpower.

Or MrBeast.
His early YouTube videos? Not great.
But he studied analytics obsessively, posted relentlessly, experimented nonstop… until the repetition finally clicked.

Now he’s the biggest creator on the planet.

Or even musicians like Ed Sheeran, who said songwriting is like running rusty water through a pipe, you’ve got to keep writing to get the bad songs out before the good ones start flowing.

Just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, these people didn’t rise because they had one big moment.

They rose because they were willing to do the same thing over and over… until it became something extraordinary.

So here’s my question for you:
What’s another famous example of someone who turned repetition into a breakthrough?

Drop it in the comments. I want to hear your picks.

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