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Connect with Carl
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlgould/
https://carlgould.com/
https://7stageadvisors.com/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] There's Carl, add to stream. Let me change this up. I was thinking that our  wasn't going to show up but he is.

Carl Gould: [00:00:21] I was getting an error message.

Russ Johns: [00:00:24] Oh no.

Carl Gould: [00:00:26] Yeah. Reloading the site. Sorry.

Russ Johns: [00:00:31] Hey, Carl, how are you doing?

Carl Gould: [00:00:33] I'm really good. How you doing?

Russ Johns: [00:00:36] Happy international women's day.

Carl Gould: [00:00:38] It's a good day for it's.... well done all international women.

Russ Johns: [00:00:44] Yes. Yes, women all over the world. Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast. I know that we've had a few bumps in the road getting you here. And and I know you're a good friend, Karl with a K Gibbons. We had him on and we were having great conversations and a lot of things taking place and it's been a crazy few years. And I just wanted to catch up with you and share a few of your talents and gifts with the pirate community. So welcome aboard. Thank you for being here.

Carl Gould: [00:01:15] Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And it's greaat to be able to contribute to your listeners today.

Russ Johns: [00:01:21] It's interesting that we haven't connected, yet in the past because we have a lot of things, a lot of mutual friends that we were connected with, like Karl, Karl introduced us and I know that you've been busy. So tell us a little bit for those that don't know , you're a speaker, author coach and a growth strategist. However, you had a lot of business activity before you were even 40 and it's, some of these activities have been productive and now you're helping other people be productive in a way. So give us a snapshot of how you got to where you are today and what's been going on.

Carl Gould: [00:02:04] I started out pretty traditionally. I was going to college for accounting and finance, and I had a pretty bad leg injury my second year. And then  after six months of being in a cast and learning to use my leg again and all that, I had to figure out a way to make some money. And now six months out of school, once you're not in school for six months, all of your loans come due, everyone wants to get paid back. So I didn't have, I didn't have much choice there. And so I had to figure out a way to make money. And what I knew at that point was landscaping and what I knew was construction. And I started a landscaping company and I had that business for eight years and then I sold it. And then after that, I started a construction company, home building residential renovations as well as commercial. And I had that business until 2004. And I sold that one first couple of years in business, I went to a personal development seminar, really fell in love with the idea of helping people design and chase their dreams. And I decided I really wanted to get into the world of coaching. And I really found a passion with that. And speaking of international women's day, you would really credit the coaching industry being where it is today to the the women coaches in the early days while they don't get credit for starting the industry. They sure built it because the overwhelming majority of coaches in the beginning were women and they really gave it the, I think the legitimacy that it has today because of the results that they got early days, it was just remarkable. I remember when I was part of coaching teams in the 1990s and 2000, the majority of them were women and they were rock stars, absolute rock stars. I learned so much from them.

Russ Johns: [00:03:44] A lot of talented, a lot of talented individuals are out there. I know that.

Carl Gould: [00:03:48] Yeah. And it was a phenomenal side hustle because the, coaching by its very nature is often done on phone and now video chat and remotely, so it not only is a a great science of getting results, but it's very flexible. So that was my side hustle to the nineties was. I had a if there was such a term at the time I was a coach as my side hustle and and then I and if there were hashtags back then, my goal at the time was to hang up the #hangupthehammer because I had a construction company that ran me more than I ran it, but through working with my coaches I was able to find a much  better way to run the business. And and over time it was great. I I was able to get to a point where I can sell those companies and move on to, the coaching businesses that I always really wanted to have. That was really my passion play from the time that I got into coaching to today, that was really my passion play, and it's something that I always really wanted to do. And and so now starting in 2002, I launched the business that I have today, or branded the business that I have today. And now I spend my time working with entrepreneurs and high potential and high performing people from all around the world. We've done business in 68 countries at this point. And I speak, write books and coach people to our team on our growth methodology and show them how to take their business to the next level.

Russ Johns: [00:05:11] That's fantastic. Carl I find it fascinating that you started your career out of necessity and you found your passion as you evolve through business in life. And a lot of people, I think that's the case. You don't necessarily know where you're going to end up and you're asking college what are you going to be when you graduate? And a lot of people, that's the wrong question to ask. It's almost as if what experience are you going to look for after you go out into the world and start working. And a lot of people don't understand all of the essence of. What work is and what, the time and effort and energy it takes. Like you said, the construction company ran you as much as you ran it. And there's a lot of things like that. And I think coaching is so critical. And one of those things that always comes back to me is how do I want to spend my time? How do I want to enjoy my day? How do I want to relate to people just like this? Having a conversation with you in the morning first thing is a great activity for me. And it brings me a lot of joy and hopefully a lot of information that people can use. And so as you've evolved into coaching and you've defined that you enjoy it, you like it. How has it evolved since 2004, since you've ventured out  into the world and and grown it  as a business?

Carl Gould: [00:06:29] When I started coaching and I would tell people like, hey, I'm a professional coach. They would say, wow, Carl, that's really exciting. Congratulations, what sport? What sport do you coach, , what team, and I said no, I'm like a trainer for your goals, a personal trainer for your goals. I take your business to the gym. I take your life to the gym and, and they're scratch that. Like what? I don't get it. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so I, I would have these conversations with them. And back then, it was enough to just say, you're a coach. If you said you're a, and then it became evolved. You were either a business coach or a life coach. And then and then it started to niche down. So the coaching has gotten really mature. So a couple of things have happened. One, it could be a full-time business now. Back in the nineties, the full-time coach made $23,000 a year in the two thousands of full-time coach made $78,000 a year. You simply can't live on that. And and, but now you can be invoicing a six figures per year, just like an accountant or a financial advisor or an attorney, that sort of thing, but technology, I think, has been the biggest breakthrough. It's allowed you to reach more people. When I started as a coach, you didn't have conference lines. One coach on coachee. That was it .

Russ Johns: [00:07:47] Yeah. One coach, one phone call.

Carl Gould: [00:07:49] Exactly.

Russ Johns: [00:07:50] So fast forward and speaking of the technology. The world changed  a year ago, essentially. And so now everybody is getting familiar with zoom calls. Everybody's getting familiar with the technology required to get work done remotely. How has that impacted your business? Cause I know it has definitely impacted my business and the ability and the opportunity to connect with people has increased and improved with being familiar with the technology. So how has that increased the improved your business or changed it?

Carl Gould: [00:08:24] What's interesting is that it's brought the rest of the world closer to coaching, as opposed to coaching, having the ability to get closer to the company. So what I mean by that is, as coaches we've been remote forever, We've been remote. We've been virtual. We've also been in person, but we were the pioneers of remote. And in-person when I first started out as a phone-based coach and I was doing coaching for other companies. There are some clients I've never met. Don't know what their faces are only coached to an intake form. And so the rest of the world has accepted the remote and virtual and video-based work environment, which is where coaches have been all the time. So in a way it's bought the rest of the world closer to us. So there's a greater acceptance for this medium. And not that everyone likes it anymore. At some point it's nice to go see a person and feel the energy in the room. I think what people are realizing now is that, I really do appreciate the energy. I get in a room with other people there. Pre pandemic, there was nobody saying, hey, the best way to run an office is to go remote. We were just, we were forced there, but it doesn't change all the statistics that say that the most productive teams are in a room together in a collaborative environment and they work together. Oh, that hasn't changed. COVID just put a pause on that. And what I think COVID has done is it's made people realize you need to be a little bit more flexible in your approach. And you don't just tolerate a certain, approach, like I'm just going to tolerate remote for now. No, you have to excel while being remote. You have to excel without being able to sit next to your colleague, right? So it went from just tolerating it to now we have to accept it as a way of a business and we have to excel within it. We still have to hit all of our goals.

Russ Johns: [00:10:12] Yeah, I've been a remote worker for a well over 10 years. And so for myself,  it wasn't a huge impact in my day-to-day activities. And I know so many other people have been impacted in different ways. And so a lot of speakers, I know speakers have been impacted a lot that I've talked to, my friends that are speakers and go out on the speaking, they depend on it. Immediately, their business, their events were turned off. Now I'm getting back event coordinators that are doing live streams, which I help them with their livestream activities, through the #PirateSyndicate. And that's an activity that's increasing and I think will continue to increase and grow as an industry. Much coaching has matured over the last decade and I think that a lot of people are open to the idea that they may not necessarily need to travel to get the information or make a connection with somebody and that connection could be  virtual and with zoom and everything else, it's like we're having a conversation just like we were across the table at a coffee shop. The reality is that I think a lot of people still want that physical connection, going and meeting, having dinner or a networking event of some kind there's a lot of people that crave the social interaction and so that's going to be evolving over the years. So what do you see as the next big challenge for coaches in the coaching industry and what you're facing in 2021?

Carl Gould: [00:11:48] I think I agree that technology is here to stay and I think the hybrid event is here to stay. What has happened, though, over the last year was in order to survive, the coaching content has been long going towards free for a while. You can watch a Ted talk. You can, you get a free download, white papers and reports have been out there for awhile, but COVID really accelerated that. So all of your thought leadership is heading straight towards free, the big, so the big change or challenge for coaches is going to be how to get your clients to pay for your content. Number one and how to get people back to live or in-person coaching and training and events. I think you're going to have to find that way because you're not going to be able to just survive doing what you did pre pandemic. The podcasting world, there used to be home study courses, but just watch, we watch a series of podcasts and you can glean, not that that is exactly the same, but there's so much out there for free that I don't have to buy your home study course because you're 45 minute auto run, evergreen webinar has 30 minutes of training content in it. So if I see enough of those, I'll get the basics and then I've got to find my monetization strategy beyond that. So whether that's a mastermind group where you're running immersive retreats or you're doing in person mentoring or brainstorming or hot seat training or that sort of thing, that's going to be the next challenge.

Russ Johns: [00:13:25] Yeah. And I think as you're saying this and putting this out here, I think that there's a great argument for two areas of growth in coaching for that specific reason. Is one that there's so much noise out there and so many, if you listen to, strategies and growth long enough, You'll get arguments about this one's right. This one's right. There's conflicts. And I think the real value that a coach brings to the table and somebody that can actually accelerate your development by not having so much noise in your life, just give me a a series of tasks that I need to do to complete, to get to the other side of this exercise. So I can learn, get muscle memory from knowing what I need to do next. A lot of people get confused about what to do next. I'm stuck in that all the time. An entrepreneur you're breaking trail, going down a path of something that you have to figure it out and you have to work around obstacles. You have to work around everything else. And what the value of a coach isn't that they can't teach you something that isn't available for free, but they can develop something unique for your personality, your business, and see the roadblocks that you may not be able to see. So a unique challenge and diving into that focused area of results is going to be huge benefit. And the other thing is from a development standard, is that. There's a lot of things that people put out there that is just, it's been out there for a long time and they're just spinning it into a different session. And I think sorting through those details and making sure that what works can and can really help individuals out there in the world.

Carl Gould: [00:15:14] That's the part I think you really hit on. I think we are in a time right now. There was a time when, if a client said to me, Hey Carl, can you help me with this business plan? Or can you help me with this? Or can you help me with that? I would've thought, yeah, they're being lazy or they're trying to delegate back to the coach and I would fight that. And I'm not so sure I'm convinced of that anymore. I think there's so much information out there. Like you said, there's 50 ways to write a business plan. So it's not enough to say, Hey, listen, just go Google, how to write a business plan. I did that. I got 35 answers. I'm more confused now having done the research then when I did it before. So I think a coach has to have that. So I'm seeing it more for a little bit. I have some traditional life. Coaching, clients and pure coaching, you never provide an answer to the client. Essentially. You ask them questions and you help them find their resourcefulness and help them come to the best conclusion possible for them. Sure. We're coming from a resourceful state now. There's so much information out there that when they go out to the market, if there is not. Or they'll go onto the internet and there's just so much information that's confusing and it's not confusing. If you're an expert or you have expertise as to what's going on. But since they're a lay person, our practice has morphed a little bit where we're a bit of a hybrid coaching and consulting. We're clear with the client when we're doing both, but we will have we'll say, let me put my consulting hat here on, because yes, I can see you've downloaded these five representative business plans. Here's the one that, let me give you reasons why each one of these could be useful, then you can choose. So I find we're giving a little bit more direction than than we have in the past. And I just think there is such, there are so much to navigate through, it's like, Taking a champion swimmer and literally dropping him in the middle of the ocean where they can't see land in any direction I can say all day long. How do you feel as a swimmer? You feel good? You feel confident? How do you like, I love my abilities where's shore? I can't see it. There's there. I'm surrounded by so much water point me towards shore and I'll get there. All right. That way. All right, and they'll go. So I think it's like that there was just such a tsunami of information that gets created every day. It's just hard to sort through. And I think a coach now needs to have some working knowledge and experience in what they're doing, so they could be a resource to their clients, not just their accountability partner, processing partner and strategic planning partner.

Russ Johns: [00:17:47] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why I created the #PirateSyndicate™, this, the #PirateBroadcast™ had been doing for a year, hundreds of episodes built the process, hopefully it was an easy process for you. And I got a producer that follows up and a business owner. I think, as a coach, you could probably agree with this is that you need to identify the best use of your time. And, creating content is important for businesses. If you're not creating content, you're kinda missing out on a lot of opportunities, in my opinion. And there's so many people that say I don't have time to create content. Absolutely. It takes time. It takes a lot of effort. So there's two key people that are interested in the #PirateSyndicate™, the people that just want it done for them. They just want to show up, turn on the mic and be complete. And then there's the other person that says, I want to know everything about it. I want to teach my team how to make this happen, so I have control over it. And so that's the two areas of the #PirateSyndicate™ that support the whole. The whole process of getting, creating content and with the #PirateBroadcast™ is the experiment. So that's really the coaching effort, if you will, is the idea that teach by showing, I'm going to eat my own dog food and do my own thing here. And then the #PirateSyndicate™ I can actually deliver to individuals that just want it done. I don't want to deal with the technical stuff. I'm going to go out and grow my business. Do the leadership role that's when they would call you up and say, hey, let's make sure that I'm focused on what I need to focus in on. I don't need to get down in the weeds. I don't need to make sure that everything is being done. I just need to make sure that the people I have in place are doing what they need to do. And I think that's a huge, different than a mindset. You said it earlier, running your business or the business is running you. And I think that's where you really shine is the ability and opportunity to see and deliver  that outcome to people. So I want to make sure that your people get that idea.

Carl Gould: [00:19:54] Yeah. Right on.  I hear what you're saying and with all this new opportunity that we have and all these new technologies and all the new tools we have available to us and all this opportunity comes with it, more complexity. And I think that's just something that we have to be aware of. And like I said, it's not enough to just arrive in drive, as you say. I think you've got to put the time in, you've got to put the time in and make sure that you are on top of your craft in a way that you maybe hadn't been before, because the reality is that it's never been more competitive. It's never been more opportunistic, but it's never been more challenging at the same time. And the complexity again allows you another level of niching down. But you do have to be on top of your game here. I think that's one of my takeaways from this current time that we're in.

Russ Johns: [00:20:44] Yeah. So who is it that you like to connect with and how do you like to, for people to connect with you, Carl?

Carl Gould: [00:20:51] Easy way to get me is through carlgould.com.  I also have a website 7stageadvisors.com. So any one of those, I'm pretty easy to find online. And if you go to carlgould.com or 7stageadvisors.com, we offer a free business analysis to any one of your listeners that want to spend up to two hours with a growth advisor. So feel free to take us up on that. And we'll show you five different ways to to grow your business.

Russ Johns: [00:21:20] I want to give a shout out to a few people in the room today that showed up here. Russ Hedge good morning out from Oregon up. Good morning. Russ and Carl, thank you for starting my day off. Great, good morning pirates, he says. Tracie is here. You probably interacted with Tracie. She's an awesome individual that helps make the show always better. Hiett Ives in here from Houston. Good morning, Hiett, how are you doing? He says coaching is definitely evolving and niching I think is probably what he's trying to say.

Carl Gould: [00:21:53] Definitely niching down. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:21:54] Angie always an awesome adventure to see you in the morning. Thank you. And I was thinking Mahesh. Mahesh says, gigs, it was very nice.  And then Sheri Lally is in the house, entrepreneur might not swim it, but can supply the water wings.

Carl Gould: [00:22:09] No doubt, depending on if they're more the CEO type and they're delegating. Yeah. They'll build the boat. They'll hire the swimmer right on. Right on.

Russ Johns: [00:22:18] I love this conversation, Carl, and I want to make sure that we actually drop a nugget that people can relate to. What's the biggest challenge that you helped solve for people in their business today? In today's environment?

Carl Gould: [00:22:35] There's a few, but initially almost the first thing I do with everyone is I look at their pricing strategy. Almost everyone I meet is emotionally attached to their pricing strategy and they're undervaluing their service. So your pricing is the number, right? There you go. Guilty. Your pricing is the number one way that you communicate with your clientele, the moment you announce your pricing, you tell them who you are, but more importantly, you try to tell them who they are. And that's very delicate balance. And so one of the first things we do is look at your pricing strategy, which includes your offerings and what you bundleand not, a la carte this. And so there's a lot more to it than just saying here's what I charge.  It's one of the first things that we do because almost always the pricing is way off.

Russ Johns: [00:23:21] I love that. I love that. And so many business owners right now, they did it, they started, they created a business because they had to either pay their college debt or they had a skill, fortunately, and there's really a good, solid reason. They started a business, either solving their own problem or solving someone else's problem they noticed. And a lot of entrepreneurs are looking, they see opportunities everywhere. The distractions that we receive every day is because there are so many opportunities out there  for myself. That's all I see. It's okay, let's solve these problems. We'll be doing well.

Carl Gould: [00:24:01] No doubt. No doubt. Thank you so much for having me on, this has been great. And yeah.  We ought to do  an interaction one of these times with with the listeners, that was awesome. All of their shout outs, well done. That was pretty good.

Russ Johns: [00:24:13] Thank you. Thank you so much, Carl. I know you're busy and all the #gratitude in the world for you being here. And I look forward to next steps and also now that you're officially a pirate, you can always come back and do more. We should have you and Karl, are you you gonna connect with Karl anytime?

Carl Gould: [00:24:29] Absolutely. I see Gibbons all the time. I'll mention it and we'll come back together.

Russ Johns: [00:24:34] That would be an awesome conversation with you, too. All right, my friend, have a great day. Have a fantastic week. Take care

Carl Gould: [00:24:42] everyone. Bye.

Russ Johns: [00:24:47] Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

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