What Self-Assessment Does That a Consultant Cannot

Robby Bryant:0:01
Welcome back to the High Ticket AI Systems podcast, where we talk with real coaches, consultants, and agency owners about what is really working to help them grow their business today in 2026. Today I am joined by my guest, Alex Romanovich, consultant, legend in the making. Alex, would you mind giving the listeners a quick little introduction on yourself and you know what you're doing at Global Edge Markets?

Alex Romanovich:0:26
Absolutely. hello Robbie and hello to you and to your audience. I'm assuming worldwide. So Kamichiwa and hello and and so forth. my path to consulting was actually interesting. I actually started consulting work back in IBM days, IBM global services days.

And but never considered consulting, being consultant on my own. so it was a fairly circuitous path in terms of being a product manager, being an engineer, being a systems engineer, then switching over to sales and marketing with IBM and the companies like Silicon Graphics that nobody probably remembers, and then continuing on the path working with tech companies, and then later on and with startups and early stage companies, investors worldwide. So it's been a very interesting career in terms of working with very large brands and you know, helping start a a a a community of chief marketing officers called the CMO Club, which was later on sold to Salesforce, and working with mega companies like EPAM systems, you know, over four billion dollars in revenue.

To working with some very small companies that and in many cases fly by night startups and investors who are struggling to to invest and justify those investments. all of that accumulated into lots of knowledge and lots of experience globally. I have traveled to seventy three countries worldwide. I've done business in about eight. and I decided after running my own digital media and digital marketing agency on Madison Avenue, I decided to for the past seven years to invest into Global Edge Markets, which is a business management go-to-market consultancy for global entrepreneurs and global brands seeking to expand globally. And sometimes they don't have an opportunity to experience success in their local market, which could be extremely small. You know, companies like

Alex Romanovich:2:41
excuse me, countries like Finland or Lithuania or to a certain extent even Singapore, who are always looking to branch out and expand, using the knowledge, using their skills, using their instruments they built you know and so forth. And that's what my consulting path is really all about.

Robby Bryant:3:03
Amazing. So you've had a quite an impressive career spanning many decades. I have to imagine you have watched a lot of other consultants and coaching agencies kind of rise and fall in your time. being that you have so much experience, what do you think has kind of made your skills stick out and and help you become so successful and help you work with the the vast array of companies that you've helped?

Alex Romanovich:3:32
Yeah. There's a glamorous side of consulting and the poetic side of consulting. And then there is, you know, something you see in the movies, something you read about in the books. And then there is a very practical and very tedious and very I would say even boring side of consulting that basically said, Look, you have to justify the resources. You have to find the the a good quality resource and balance it with you know, the ability to deliver that resource.

For the customer. you have to possess the knowledge. You hopefully you know more than the customer. otherwise you become a you know, as consultants sometimes called, a resource that tells you something you already know, just packaged a little differently. so the successes and failures that I've seen with myself and people around me.

Always dependent on your ability to be resilient to understand the balance between the the value, between the knowledge, between the skills, and also the practical side of it. You know, something that helps you pay bills at you know every day and pay resources and pay your partners or commissions, you know, and so forth and so on. So consulting is not as glamorous as you know as as being portrayed sometimes, but it's also not as ugly. as it's being portrayed by by some folks as well.

Robby Bryant:4:59
Yeah, that that makes total sense. I feel like it's been a a constant theme recently with just you know, in my experience, the people I've been talking to, this conversation of ego and how ego kind of has to shift depending on where someone is in their entrepreneurial journey. you know, when when you're very young and you're first getting into something, whether it's starting a business or sales or you know, you go out door knocking. I started knocking doors. you almost have to have an immense level of overconfidence and ego to to say, I have no facilities, no networks, no skills yet, but I'm I'm gonna go out there and win at this. And then when you get farther down the line, and you're you're in a position where you actually kind of know what you know, and maybe you know a little bit of what you don't know too. If you don't start to lower that ego, it could hinder you from growing.

In your experience as someone who has worked with you know some some very high level sophisticated companies and clients, do you find that ego ever almost gets in the way of your ability to to consult someone i if the client say has too much ego or if they think they know what the the problem is already? are you understanding what I'm putting down?

Alex Romanovich:6:22
Absolutely, absolutely. And I've experienced that with myself. I've been humbled a few times in my earlier career. and you know you know you have to also practice you can be aggressive, you can be very forthright, you can be very direct, but don't confuse that with ego and being arrogant. arrogance is not something that is viewed very positively.

Especially now, especially with the advances of new technology like artificial intelligence and so forth. You can't you you you know, you can't profess to say that listen, I know a lot, I have a lot of experience. A lot of that experience is already packaged. It's already packaged in the artificial intelligence, is already packaged with best practices and methodologies, you know, and so forth. we recently launched something that we call GemIQ.

Global Edge Markets acronym is GEM. And we always joke that you know it's it was always very difficult to compete with GEM and GEMS, you know, in terms of search engine optimization and search or whatever, but it's actually helping us because it GEM, exactly. G-E-M. You know, the acronym for global edge markets is GEM, GEM, right? so it's you know, it is it's actually working for us.

Robby Bryant:7:33
You mean like a a gem?

Okay. Yep.

Alex Romanovich:7:49
in terms of slogans and marketing slogans and branding and so forth. You know, we uncover jams all over the place, we all over the world, we help companies become gems and and so forth. however that experience of taking our process, our knowledge, our methodologies, and packaging it into a number of assessments and self-service assessments that allow companies to actually look in the mirror and say, listen, am I ready to go to the new market? Am I ready to go and experience enterprise sales? Am I ready to transform my business with the use of AI and so forth? So there are a number of different indicators for companies that otherwise you would have to hire consultants, some of them arrogant, some of them that will say, hey, I know everything about AI there is to know, and you don't. and a you know, with the use of AI, with the use of methods, with the use of knowledge that has been accumulating for so many years, you now have the ability to self to self assess to you know in the self-serving kind of a model and not hire somebody in the very first instance, right? And this is a very good analogy, a very good sort of description of how to avoid that arrogance, how to avoid that experience. almost a a an experience that could be sometimes very disappointing because again arrogance does not equate to knowledge arrogance does not or bravado or you know ego pure ego does not translate into knowledge necessarily does not translate into methods into processes especially when they're becoming personalized And they're trying to align with you know exactly what you're doing and not something that somebody already knows and trying to template you into into their methods.

Robby Bryant:10:01
Follow-up question, what do you think would be more harmful to a company growing? Would it be a leader who has too big of an ego to let somebody else show them what their problem is, or would it be a consultant who comes in and their ego is too large and maybe they aren't fully looking at the full picture the way the company would would want them to?

Alex Romanovich:10:26
well first of all, I have a a theory that ego attracts ego, right? people that are very egotistical, people that are very arrogant actually appreciate and you know appreciate similar type of folks, right? appreciate that narcissism, appreciate that you know that approach, if you will. So it's very un it would be very unusual.

If somebody who would be very humble but would know their business well, somebody who would have the knowledge of their business, you know, for many, many years would ha would portray a number of you know you know, forgive me for the background noise from New York City, from the streets of New York City, somebody that would possess the the methods and so forth that would attract attract somebody with a huge ego.

Robby Bryant:11:14
No worries.

Alex Romanovich:11:22
So that that would probably an immediate clash of characters, if you will. However, I think it's equally dangerous to invite somebody in who does not understand your business, who does not understand your trials and tribulations, does not understand the industry challenges, does not understand a lot of different things about your business, or does not make the time or the effort to learn it.

Right. Now you have to be careful because a lot of clients in our b in the consulting business do not want to pay for somebody to learn something about their company. You know, you probably heard the saying that says, you know, listen, I don't want to pay you to learn more about my business. Right. I don't want you, I don't want to pay you to do an audit or to do a you know to do a a a you know, what's the word that a lot of people hate? you know, to do some kind of a like a disc exactly that that's the word I was looking for, the discovery process or some kind of an X ray you know methodology or something like that. and this is why a good self serving or self service I should say assessment, self assessment could be a very interesting approach to say, look,

Robby Bryant:12:26
Like a discovery process.

Alex Romanovich:12:50
let me actually share with the number of tools or even AI some of the things that I already know and let's see what the accumulation of that knowledge and those methodologies can tell me. Right. And then I can go back to that same arrogant consultant and say, Look, I n not only I know a lot about my own business, I also know about a lot about some of the methodologies that McKinsey is using or could be using. to approach something like this. So I can you know I can actually y leverage and use some of these methods to you know self assess, to diagnose on my own terms. so it's very, very dangerous to have somebody who's arrogant but not knowledgeable to attract to your business.

Robby Bryant:13:42
Yeah, that makes complete sense. That if you're not you you know, typically a boastful, prideful person, you're probably not going to end up working with somebody who is exhibiting a lot of those traits. And that was interesting that you said people don't want to pay you to go through that discovery process, but I feel like a leader, you know, a well rounded leader would be able to look at their situation and say, Okay, obviously I don't understand the full picture.

I need to bring somebody in who has dealt with these types of things before. But I I feel like they would also should have the tact at that point to understand every business is so unique. This guy is going to need to take some time to get to know exactly what we do, all of our processes, all of our theories behind everything. You don't find that?

Alex Romanovich:14:23
Yes.

Alex Romanovich:14:33
I do find that, and this is goes back to your question about arrogance and about ego. there are a lot of folks in very senior roles that are being displaced right now. They're a lot of folks that are in transition. They're you know, frankly, they're being laid off from you know, major corporations, from major consulting companies like McKinsey, like BCG, like IBM Global Services, like Monitor and and so forth and so on. So in that sense.

The question then becomes, what are those people going to do? Are they actually going to go and consult on their own? Are they gonna you know, will they be using or developing their own methodologies, you know, and so forth. the point is that you know, you you have to you you cannot be a generalist and consult somebody in manufacturing, in robotics, and machinery. Okay? That's not going to work.

So you have to go through your own self alignment and self assessment process to understand listen, what are my strengths? Where am I going to actually be, you know, when where can I afford to be arrogant or to be aggressive, so to speak? Right? so if you come from a particular industry, great. That's your grounding. That is your focus area. If you know, it's a lot easier for you.

To learn more about consulting methods and coaching methods and mentorship methods, knowing something about the industry or knowing a lot about the industry than the other way around. Right? So, in that sense, I think there is a if you are in a position of just starting the consulting engagement or just starting consulting path, if you will, because you got displaced or because you don't have your job anymore, and so forth, self-assess yourself.

Robby Bryant:16:08
Course.

Alex Romanovich:16:27
You know, become that you know critical component, become that you know, criticism component of yourself to see, look, where am I aligned best? Who can you know w what value can I bring to the table for small and medium-sized business if I was in a very large company? How can I scale myself down, for example, instead of scaling yourself up? how can I embrace their problems?

And personalize, you know, their issues and sort of adapt what I know to what they really need. Those are the kinds of things you have to have. Number one. Number two, you have to possess a certain level, or I would say high level, of emotional intelligence. You have to almost put yourself in their shoes and say, look, economically that makes absolutely no sense. I would love to sell you more of the engagement, I would love to sell you more hours and so forth, but economically.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And this is where AI tools come to play. you know, it happens a lot with some of the early stage companies, when investors, you know, take the those business plans, take those financial models, plug that into some of the tools, look into their experience and knowledge and say, Hey, you know, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They're not prepared at all. They're they have not done the homework. Go back and do your homework, right? And humble yourself.

Because we're not gonna invest into this particular company on those particular terms.

Robby Bryant:17:58
Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. I think that is what completely separates a smarter consultant from someone who is just thinking more like a business and in terms of profits, like you said. Like, yeah, I would love to take some more of your money and run another campaign. but if I do that step now, you might not be around the the next time you would have had to hire me or the next time or the next time. So yeah, by not taking your money now to do XYZ, which you think I should, I'll actually advise you against that so that you can continue to flourish and you know, you'll you'll keep giving me business and we can work like a what do you call it a symbiotic partnership. I think a lot of what you said resonates a lot with our own agency. You know, I I think we

Alex Romanovich:18:43
Correct.

Robby Bryant:18:50
have a constant conversation around relationships and you know in twenty twenty six people are looking for human touch with all this AI automations going on and a lot of the people we work with are resonating the same messages and it's almost like when you're out you know talking with with prospects let's just say you you can kind of tell okay this is gonna work we're gonna be able to help these people they're going to be able to help us Or you can kinda tell like, you know, I I think I would be able to make this work, or or maybe I could, you know, get them to hire me, but it's it's gonna they're gonna be one of those clients. and and I think that's an an important thing to look for as you become more mature, as you gain more experience, knowing kind of not just who do I wanna sell to, but who do I actually want to work with, who do I want to be a part of my business growing it. And We love to talk about client acquisition on the show. In your own experience with global edge markets, what do you do? What what do you, you know, give out that lets you attract the type of clients you want?

Alex Romanovich:19:58
Well, the you know, I ran a marketing agency and a lead gen agency for quite some time, and a lot of those techniques and a lot of those strategies are still very valid for today's consulting and business management consulting and solopreneur consulting type of firms. there are multiple ways of generating leads, obviously. There are multiple tools that are out there, there are multiple platform companies that will promise you the the world that will promise you, hey, you know, we're HubSpot or we're Salesforce and we you know, we're an amazing CRM system. The leads will literally come off the platform to you and, you know, we're we're sales navigator and and and you know from LinkedIn and so forth. And we're the perfect tool to generate leads and so forth. However, lead generation process today should not be confused with

Robby Bryant:20:45
Right, right.

Alex Romanovich:20:56
the process that promises automation or promises something that says, Hey, I am going to give you an amazing platform, all in one platform, that is going to start writing emails for you, that is going to scan your e you know, inbox, that is going to respond on your behalf, that is going to drill into your data and package those absolutely amazing responses and outreach campaigns and so forth and so on. guess what? There are spam filters, there are inbox you know you know gatekeepers, you know, automated gatekeepers. There are a number of different tools that actually would want to prevent that behavior, those tools and so forth. They will prevent crawling, they will prevent scraping, you know, and so forth. So lead generation today is still technology-based, but lead generation today is also human-based.

We have a very good approach, and I s I'm a still strong believer in making sure that you have good quality content that you produce, that you become sort of a mini publisher, and with the advances in AI, with the advances in other tools, you actually can become a better publisher. just make sure that you don't forget about your own voice, your own human voice and humanized voice. number one, it has to be authentic, it has to come from you. it has to be supported by research and it has to be supported by you know tips and tricks and some of the knowledge that you can share pro bono before you you know make your first consulting dollar if you will so that's one approach and that still works. The other approach is still very human. Go to the conferences, you know, pick your particular field. If it's manufacturing, great. You know, I recently was a in Chicago at Automate 2026 was an amazing, amazing show, amazing conference, gave you kind of a a glimpse as to what's happening in the world of robotics and the humanoid robotics and industrial robotics and machinery, automation on the manufacturing floor and so forth and so on. I mean you could probably learn from that environment. You can learn from a three or four day conference so much. Is it an investment? Absolutely. You have to invest

Alex Romanovich:23:23
your time, you have to invest your money, but the amount of value you get by talking to people, by understanding their challenges, by understanding the vendor, you know, the vendor community, by understanding the client community, go into some of the award meetings, understanding what actually is being awarded to whom and what is being considered leadership, what is being considered success in that particular industry. That's invaluable. so I strongly suggest for you to pick a sp a particular area and go to that trade conference, try to avoid some of the generalist conferences or something, but go to that you know, I prior to that I was in the American Physics Society conference, about fifteen thousand physicists from you know from all over the world coming to Denver to talk about quantum computing. I've learned s more about quantum computing in those three days than I've learned in the past ten to fifteen years.

Robby Bryant:24:21
Yeah. Are are you a physicist?

Alex Romanovich:24:22
so again, I'm not a physicist. No. Do I look like physicists? No. No, I'm not I'm not a physicist, but I know a lot of physicists. And I appreciate it it you know what? And it's those are the types of experiences that you have to endure. I almost thrive, I almost absolutely love to pursue a very uncomfortable experience, right? That's what made me leave IBM after 15 years.

Robby Bryant:24:26
almost.

That must have been intimidating being around all those

Robby Bryant:24:46
Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:24:50
after being at the top of my game, after making some really good money in the in the late nineties, I said, you know what? I dread, I absolutely am afraid of this career of 25 or 30 years of IBM. I want to venture into something entrepreneurial, right? And I think you have to to a certain extent today, especially today, in the world of that is even more competitive than ever before.

In the world of innovation, in the world of technology is moving so quickly, you have to stress yourself, you have to give yourself a a good stress test and immerse yourself into some of these environments to say, you know what, the only way I'm gonna learn is if I'm gonna jump into it.

Robby Bryant:25:36
Right. Yeah, and and that's a an incredible point that I don't feel like people bring up enough anymore these days, and I'm certainly a victim of it too, is you can go meet people in person. Not everything has to be online with with tech, in social media, whether it's LinkedIn or or whatever, but you can go meet people in person. and to be fair, I think the the amount of ways to do that are dwindling.

Alex Romanovich:25:51
Yes.

Robby Bryant:26:05
But if you're someone who can overcome that and put yourself in the right position, y you'll just be the person that's in the right place at the right time to make the the right connection.

Alex Romanovich:26:15
Absolutely. And I think the your ability to go someplace to capture that experience. I mean, you have a podcast, we have a podcast, to capture those conversations and turn them into really good quality content, to be courageous, not to be afraid to stick your neck out there and say, Listen, I may not understand everything, but I understand one very important thing that the world is still human.

Yes, we're gonna have robotics. Yes, we're gonna have artificial intelligence. Yes, we you know, a lot of us will be replaced in in you know in certain positions. But what's not gonna be replaced is your ability to drive, your ability to lead, your ability to set the tone, your ability to take the content and or or gather content and turn that into something valuable, you know, almost productize it, almost package it. And imagine that you are A consultant selling to a particular customer who does not understand this, right? And your job is to teach them. Your job is to pass that experience on to them so they can be successful. Right. And so if you if you possess that ability, if you can be humble enough to say, look, I'm learning and I'd like to share that learning with you, right? And I think that's that's a human quality that no AI will will be able to compete with.

Robby Bryant:27:40
So I think what I'm getting from this is Alex Romanovich is not the slightest bit worried about some robot coming to take his job anytime soon.

Alex Romanovich:27:51
Absolutely not, because I'll be teaching that robot to you know, a lot of things that the robot needs to know to do that job, right?

Robby Bryant:27:57
There you go. And then it will just go take everybody else's job.

Alex Romanovich:28:01
Well, again, self development is gonna be extremely important. Courage is gonna be extremely important. You're gonna have to flex your muscles. You're gonna have to go to the gym and and exercise and learn and flex your muscles and prepare yourself for what's coming. And half of that stuff we don't even know what's coming, right?

Robby Bryant:28:22
Your your mental human muscles you're talking about. Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:28:26
Absolutely. Your mental human muscles, your emotions, your emotional intelligence, your ability to process information in a very unique way. you know, our brains are wired uniquely. Every brain is a very unique type of wiring experience, if you will. And your job is to learn more about yourself. And I think AI is gonna give you that ability, that self-assessment, that self service model that says, you know what?

Let me before I even do consulting, let me learn more about myself, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are, and so forth. And I think that's a good starting point.

Robby Bryant:29:04
Yeah, totally. I I feel like using AI, at least, you know, how I use AI, it's it calls me out on a lot of my own bullshit and, you know, tells me some some perhaps misconceptions that I have, whether it's about work or just relationships in my life. i it's weird how a a a robot, you know, some something that's just memorized a bunch of patterns can can help you out so much.

Alex Romanovich:29:27
And I think you're asking the right questions. The questions about ego, right? Listen, I've been in the industry for thirty plus years. You know, AI with all the hallucinations and everything that's out there right now, all the garbage that it's spitting out and so forth, can cannot possibly compete with me. Yes, it can. What it can do is it can stress your ego, it can actually push you, it can offer different angles that you haven't even thought about.

Robby Bryant:29:41
Mm-hmm.

Alex Romanovich:29:55
And it can give you a lot more information in the form of research, in a in the form of crawling the competition, if you will. You know, competitive analysis and so forth. Something that would take you hours and hours and possibly days and weeks, something that can give you that in about you know, in about a few minutes. So that's important. That's very important. That self-assessment is extremely important.

Robby Bryant:30:20
Yeah, I totally agree. If you're using it properly, if you if you know how to prompt it correctly to use it as a tool, it can be a huge help. On the other hand, I think it's also possible that people can use it improperly and they can have a lot of you know, frankly, wrong information be fed back to them and and and to feed their their false narrative. But that's that's a whole other conversation.

Alex Romanovich:30:35
Yes.

Alex Romanovich:30:47
It's whole other conversation. Hallucinations, galore, right. Actually, I'm one of our clients is a company called Jackson AI. And Jackson is a very interesting platform. And there are a few other platforms similar to that one that are basically talking about, you know, offering AI for AI, checking AI for hallucinations, making sure that it's checked against policy, against standards, against the truth, against data.

Robby Bryant:30:51
Yeah.

Robby Bryant:31:09
Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:31:16
That's been collected and it's you know has been used in the real data format. because you're absolutely correct. you know, AI can call you on some of this pardoned expression bullshit, but it can produce some of it on its own.

Robby Bryant:31:31
Yeah, no, totally. Alex, I I want to kind of start to reel this in. before we totally bring it to a close. I'm curious, you know, as someone who has gone through the ranks as much as you have for let's say the next twelve months in talking, you know, dreams, numbers, visions, what are you hoping to bring to global edge market or yourself?

Alex Romanovich:31:56
great question by the way. And the answer is self development. I continue to self develop, I continue to go back into the past and extract only the most useful things I can extract. for example, I'm doing quite a bit of vibe coding right now. I used to be an engineer, I used to be a developer, and of even though I developed in the very different languages with you know. very unsophisticated tools and so forth. The structural, you know, the the the the left side of the brain, the right side of the brain meet together and the structure meets creation. And I think that's very important is to stress yourself in in that way and to really discover what are your strengths that you can bring to the table right now. Right. So that's that's one one piece of it, if you will. The other piece of it is

Robby Bryant:32:49
Amazing.

Alex Romanovich:32:52
The future is moving, you know, well, we're moving towards the future very, very quickly. the the best you can do is learn and apply some of that learning in situations where you can sort of fuse your knowledge, fuse your experience with some of the challenges that your customers may have, your partners may have, and you may have. and that process of fusion. is an extremely important process. so I think I'm you know the next year, the next six to twelve months is going to continue to be the the world of discovery for us and for me personally. That process of fusion, the fusion of experience, knowledge, new technologies, and you know, learning, if you will, and passing all of that on to our customers and partners. Sharing is the best form of learning.

So that's what's gonna you know, that's what's gonna happen in the next six to twelve months.

Robby Bryant:33:57
Amazing. So big ideas are getting bigger.

Alex Romanovich:34:02
Right. And I you know, I'm I am sorry for being very general and kind of high level, but if we had to get into the details, we would probably need l at least three to four hours.

Robby Bryant:34:12
Okay, yeah, we can schedule I got three hours tomorrow.

Alex Romanovich:34:16
I I was kidding. I was kidding. we we do have a podcast. and we're about to launch a set of self-service products and self-assessment products. And we're gonna continue, you know, generating good content on the different channels so you can look me up and look our company up and so forth. we appreciate you giving us time and sharing this with your audience. But hey.

There's lots and lots of information out there and lots of knowledge to be shared.

Robby Bryant:34:49
Awesome. Thank you so much, Alex. You you weren't too high level at all. I think you you provided so much insight just in kind of the way you you mull over some of the facts in your own minds. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you or Global X Markets?

Alex Romanovich:35:05
Go to Global Edge Markets, which is our website. You can also look me up, Alex Romanovich. You know, Google will do the rest. And our podcast is Global Edge Talk. so those are very you know, just like it sounds, just like it's spelled. So easy, easy ways to find us.

Robby Bryant:35:24
Amazing. Thank you so much, Alex. We appreciate you coming on the show. We appreciate everything that you've all the knowledge you've bestowed upon us. And to the audience, that was the episode. We will catch you on the next one.

Alex Romanovich:35:35
Thank you so much.