Are you making common mistakes that could hold back your sales team's success? In this episode of The Coaching Equation, we dive deep into the top five sales leadership mistakes that leaders unknowingly make and, more importantly, how to fix them. We discuss the problem of setting clear expectations for sales teams and how to communicate, clarify, and verify sales outcomes effectively. Discover what a healthy sales environment looks like and the common missteps sales leaders make when attempting to create one. Explore the difference between coaching and management, how a typical sales team is structured, and how to find the sweet spot between autonomy and micro-management. Gain insights into the value of regular check-ins with team members, the leadership style that is successful in sales, the characteristics of a true leader, and much more! Join us as we uncover the keys to becoming a more effective sales leader and learn how to turn these common mistakes into stepping stones for success.

Key Points From This Episode:

• The importance of setting clear expectations and communicating effectively.
• What role certainty plays in sales and why it’s vital for the success of sales teams.
• How setting reasonable and achievable goals keeps your sales team motivated.
• Key differences between setting sales targets and sales standards.
• Common pitfalls leaders should avoid when creating a work environment.
• Tips for dealing with team members who are not hitting their sales targets.
• When to be a coach and when to be a manager as a sales leader.
• Strategies for balancing team autonomy with management outcomes.
• The type of environment a servant leader fosters compared to a traditional leader.
• Final takeaways and how to start becoming a better leader today!

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Outwitting the Devil

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

We make decisions all the time. Are you conscious of the ones you’re making? During this episode, we are joined by Focusologist Penny Zenker, a captivating public speaker, business strategy coach, and best-selling author. Her work has been featured on NBC News, Forbes, ESPN, and more, and today she joins us to share her insights on the psychology of productivity and focus. Penny’s story begins with a tragic event at the age of 19, and she talks about the turning point that this created in her life, totally transforming her relationship to meaning, control, and making the most of her one precious life. Diving into the content of her TED Talk, she distinguishes between positivity and intentionality, before sharing insights on productivity from her book, The Productivity Zone. Penny gets real about her own relationship to focus, and how she reels in her tendency to say yes to everything before unpacking her thoughtful delegation strategy. We discuss what it might look like to shed the all-or-nothing approach to delegation and hiring by really understanding the value of your time, and how to set priorities according to Penny’s two-quadrant theory. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear how Penny makes the complex simple, through her memorable, accessible approach.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Background on guest Penny Zenker, author, public speaker, and productivity specialist.
• The story behind the moniker, ‘the Focusologist’.
• How Penny first became interested in the work she specializes in today.
• Finding meaning in her father’s death when she was 19.
• The semester abroad that she spent at JP Morgan.
• Asking the question, “What else could this mean?”.
• Her role at Tony Robbins and how being rejected for speaking sparked a new journey.
• More on her TED Talk, The Energy of Thought.
• Distinguishing between positivity and intentionality.
• Becoming conscious of the decisions we are making.
• Insights from her book, The Productivity Zone, on barriers to productivity.
• Three things that support getting into the zone as a high achiever
• Examples of how Penny resets and approaches her tendency to say yes to everything.
• How failing to delegate can sabotage productivity, especially as a leader.
• Challenging yourself to ask questions about where you are most effective and where you can let go.
• Penny’s thoughts on hiring others and understanding the value of your time.
• Setting the necessary criteria to set priorities.
• Becoming more dynamic in changing the way that we do things.
• Where to pre-order The Reset Mindset.
• Why her approach to focus is different: it’s simple, accessible, sticky language.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Penny Zenker

Penny Zenker on X
Penny Zenker on LinkedIn

Penny Zenker’s TEDx Talk

The Reset Mindset

The Productivity Zone

Tony Robbins

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

In life and business, you either win or you learn! During this episode, we dive further into Co-Host Brook Bishop’s journey into sales success. In this continuation episode, Brook gets into all the muscle that he built in the early part of his sales career, learning how to turn that into massive amounts of sales revenue and eventually scaling a team level to the tune of 30 million dollars. Tuning in, you’ll get countless lessons from Brook on turning difficulty into opportunity and identifying systems, processes, and patterns for faster sales and success. He takes this a step further and teaches listeners how to turn this into a template that facilitates scaling. With insights from different points in his career, Brook shows how he has found opportunity in difficult circumstances, and shares what he has learned and won along the way. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 of this conversation, visit iTunes and do so before pressing play on this one. Thanks for listening!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing Part 2 of our conversation with Co-Hose Brook Bishop’s journey to sales success and mastery.
• What he learned from working behind the scenes at Buffini & Company.
• Brook’s intention to master each role beyond its function to educate himself.
• Becoming calculated in the process of building a network.
• How developing his understanding of personalities and strengths enabled him to create rapport with others.
• Obstacles to climbing the leadership ranks at Buffini.
• Advice from his mentor after leaving the Buffini marriage.
• Extracting opportunity out of difficulty.
• Building his own coaching practice and branching out into different industries.
• How Brook met the team at Tony Robbins before being headhunted to work with them.
• The role of taking inspired action in facilitating opportunities.
• Starting to work at Tony Robbins and getting his team’s attention by getting insane results.
• Why it is so important to be strategic with every opportunity.
• Changing his life mission to triple his income and cut his errors in half.
• Distinguishing between what you are saying and what a client needs to hear.
• How his accolades dovetailed into results while working at Tony Robbins.
• Finding clear ‘whys’ for himself and his clients to motivate his success.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mastering Sales Pt 1: Lessons from Brook Bishop’s Path to Success

Buffini

Tony Robbins

Heritage Profile

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Success and sales do not happen overnight. Co-host Brook Bishop has an incredible story of success, and during this episode, he shares the details of his climb to sales mastery. We are able to bring you so many lessons from his journey in this episode. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about his introduction to sales and how he learned to ask better questions in order to get better results. He shares his experience of selling lobster before getting his first sales role and enrolling 92% of his clients into timeshares within the first few months. He shares the life-altering power of certainty that helped him to be unrelenting in his pursuits, and how that principle has served him in many areas of his life. Along with learning through adversity in sales, two more huge lessons emerge from our conversation with Brook, and you will see how his experiences bring to life the power of creating your own opportunities and pre-framing client conversations before entering into them. Our conversation is not only entertaining and fun, but you will get nuggets that took Brook years to figure out in a matter of minutes!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing this episode, where Co-Host Brook Bishop is interviewed about his journey.
• The story of his introduction to sales through his Uncle before getting his first sales job.
• What he learned from asking his school if he could take a different approach.
• How the certainty of ‘If I do x, I will get y,’ changes your actions and your reality.
• His story of selling lobster through getting all the people on his team to work in his favor.
• The approach he took when he first started working in sales as a 19-year-old.
• Enrolling 92% of the people he sat with into timeshares in his third month.
• What might have been different if he hadn’t experienced challenges before succeeding.
• How a mentorship experience encouraged Brook to stick through the hard times.
• Meeting Real Estate Sales Trainer Daniel Pendley and becoming a salesperson for him.
• Rekindling relationships with people that Daniel had fallen out of favor with.
• Two lessons from his story: creating your own opportunities, and pre-framing the conversation.
• Highlights from today’s conversation that you can apply to your own journey.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Brook Bishop
Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Daniel Pendley

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Business coaches elevate themselves to the next level when they realize that coaching is about running a business, not having a job. Today we welcome the incredible business coach, Mike Savage to the show to discuss the business of coaching. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about Mike’s interesting career arc going from owning a comic book store, to becoming a coach, and eventually training other coaches. We delve into how Mike knew that business training was imperative to being a coach before discussing the identity shift required to go from working a job to owning a business. Mike goes on to tell us why he decided to make his niche business coaching, his incredible new initiative to take people to space, deciding on a rate as a business coach, why the pay-to-play model is best when starting out as a coach, and so much more! Finally, our guest stresses the importance of being coachable as a coach and accepting feedback and advice from people with more experience. This is an episode you don’t want to miss out on so be sure to press play now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing today’s guest, Mike Savage.
• How Brook and Mike know each other.
• Mike tells us about going from being a comic book store owner to being a coaching expert.
• What made Mike realize that he needed business training to become a better coach.
• The identity shift that is required to go from having a job to owning a business.
• What made him decide to be a business coach specifically.
• Mike tells us about his new venture whereby he will take people to space.
• How to know when to increase your rate as a business coach.
• Why people who want to become coaches have been natural coaches for their entire lives.
• Mike shares some tips for getting started as a business coach.
• What the pay-to-play model is and why Mike likes it so much.
• Why you need to take feedback and advice from successful coaches.
• The importance of getting help as a business owner.
• Why you need to be coachable if you are a coach.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mike Savage on LinkedIn

Mike Savage on X

Mike Savage on Instagram

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Are you ready to transform your coaching business into a profitable powerhouse? Today, we introduce you to a third member of Empire Partners and VP of Operations, Vanessa Malkin. Vanessa is renowned for optimizing client operations through her blend of empathy, creativity, and communication skills. With a solid background in program management and talent operations, she brings a wealth of knowledge from her time at high-profile organizations. In our conversation, Vannessa walks us through the value of solid documentation systems, the framework needed for developing processes, and how they help grow your business. We discuss the fundamentals of process documentation, the pivotal role of people in effective processes, and the common challenges entrepreneurs face in creating them. Discover helpful resources for designing processes, ways to visually document processes, how effective processes help optimize workflow, and how processes can help with onboarding new employees. Gain insights into why entrepreneurs should not hesitate to hire help when they need it, leveraging processes to delegate tasks effectively, common recruiting misconceptions, the costs of burnout, and more! Join us as we unpack the ins and outs of developing documentation systems and how they set you up for success with Vanessa Malkin!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Vanessa’s professional background and her role at Empire Partners.
• What process documentation is and why it is important.
• Learn about the role people play in documenting processes.
• Simple and practical ways to begin building effective processes.
• Vital aspects that need to be considered in developing processes.
• How Vanessa became interested in process documentation.
• Why you cannot have a thriving business without processes in place.
• Find out how processes help with recruiting and training new employees.
• Recommendations and tips for hiring your first employee.
• Final takeaways and how Empire can help with your recruiting needs.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Vanessa Malkin on LinkedIn

Zoom

Loom

Fathom AI Notetaker

Lucidchart

Empire Coaching Assistance

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Some things that are true about life are also true about business. Just like in life, not everything is going to go your way. Business challenges are inevitable, but what can business leaders do to ensure they can overcome them? Today, we unpack how to identify problems before they arise and proactive steps to take to overcome any hurdle. In this episode, we break down the seven causes of a crisis to be aware of and how to prepare for them effectively. We discuss how technological innovation can impact business and the mistake of building it around a single technology platform. Find out how to steer through cultural changes that drive client and customer behaviors, negotiate the economic circumstances that result in a business crisis, and align your business model to the appropriate demographic. Discover how changes in your and your employees’ lives can create complications and how to tackle the obstacles posed by rising competition. Join us as we uncover the steps behind being proactive instead of reactive and keeping your business moving forward during any crisis. Tune in now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• An overview of today’s topic and why anticipating problems is vital for success.
• How changes and innovation in the technology landscape can impact business.
• Reasons you need to be aware of new and emerging marketing technologies.
• Cultural changes and how they create shifts in client and customer behavior.
• Hear examples of cultural shifts and the steps for effectively navigating them.
• Unpack how fluctuations in the economy create hurdles in the marketplace.
• Learn how the shifts and changes in your customers’ lives influence business.
• Insights into how employee wellbeing shapes the success of a business.
• Life stages in determining business decisions and common pitfalls to avoid.
• Navigating the issues that arise from competition in the marketplace.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Episode 3: Avoiding AI Mistakes and Mastering Marketing for Coaches with Stephen Hilgart

Empire Sales Script

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes

Have you ever wondered how word-of-mouth marketing can grow your coaching business? In today’s episode, we sit down with Joe Blackburn to delve into the intricacies of business, sales, and word-of-mouth marketing. Joe is a distinguished coach, finance expert, and the founder of Lion’s Eye Coaching. Driven by his faith and a passion for helping others realize their potential, Joe is committed to guiding business owners in leading multi-million-dollar teams and developing strategies for transformative growth. In our conversation, Joe talks about his origins in finance and what motivated him to leave the corporate world behind and start his own business. Discover how he transitioned from employee to entrepreneur and the mindset needed to start a coaching business. Explore the barriers to growing a coaching business, what makes word-of-mouth marketing different, and the opportunities it offers. Hear why fostering authentic referrals is a lost art, the power of networking, the role of influencers, and the steps to building genuine relationships with clients. Gain insights into the misconceptions surrounding word-of-mouth marketing, common word-of-mouth marketing mistakes, and why it is vital for growth. Joe also shares details about his coaching program and how to get involved. Tune in, and discover the secret sauce behind word-of-mouth marketing and the many opportunities it offers with Joe Blackburn!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Joe’s background in finance and how it led him to coaching.
• The moment he realized the corporate career path was not for him.
• What starting a coaching business taught him.
• Why Joe is passionate about word-of-mouth marketing.
• His unique approach to outreach and marketing.
• Key steps for building and fostering authentic relationships.
• Common word-of-mouth marketing pitfalls to avoid.
• Gaps and missed opportunities in the coaching business.
• Joe’s word-of-mouth marketing program and how to get involved.
• Final takeaways and valuable resources to get started.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Joe Blackburn

Joe Blackburn on LinkedIn

Ryan Lang on LinkedIn

Brook Bishop on LinkedIn

Empire Partners

Empire Academy

The Coaching Equation Podcast on iTunes