Career Coaching Secrets

The Power of Certification: Ash Rao on Building Your Coaching Foundation

• Davis Nguyen

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Rexhen Doda interviews Ash Rao, a certified career coach and speaker. With 18 years in global talent acquisition, Ash helps mid-career tech professionals achieve leadership roles. Her coaching journey started from her corporate recruiting passion, building her business from scratch.

Ash's main marketing channel is LinkedIn, where she actively engages and posts content. Her goals include diversifying into speaking and writing, and she stresses the importance of professional certification. Key lessons learned involve adapting to revenue uncertainty and the need for strong marketing. Ash advises coaches to specialize, start small, and avoid overthinking.

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Ash Rao:

Even though I have a lot of experience, I did want to kind of go in and get my professional certification, which I highly recommend for any career coach. You know, having some sort of a formal education or certification is going to give you that foundation, no matter how much experience you have. If you have the bandwidth to do that, then I would highly recommend that. I did the professional career coaching certification and definitely, you know, I attended programs like recently I was very Welcome

Davis Nguyen:

to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. Before Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted with two career coaching businesses that are now doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or just building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Rajen, and today's guest is Ash Rao. Ash is a certified professional career coach and speaker who helps mid-career tech professionals unlock executive presence and attract their next level leadership roles. Ash has been featured in top publications like Thrive Global, Fast Company, and Powerhouse Global Magazine. With over 18 years in global talent acquisition at Fortune 500 companies, Ash brings unmatched insight into what it really takes to stand out in a crowded job market without bragging or burnout. So it's a pleasure for me to have you on the podcast. Welcome to the show, Ash.

Ash Rao:

Thank you. Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction, Reggie. I'm happy to be here.

Rexhen Doda:

It's a pleasure to have you on. Ash, can you tell me a little bit more about how this whole thing started? How did you get into coaching and start your own coaching business? What inspired you?

Ash Rao:

Yeah, that's a great question. So I come from an executive recruiting background and I worked in global talent acquisition and I have had a very long career in corporate America with almost like 18 years of experience. Again, like, you know, working in corporate America for so long, again, being in recruiting, the major part of my job was to hire and coach leaders and help them get their dream jobs and help them unlock their potential to go closer to their dream careers. And whether it's simple stuff like resume revamp or interview tips to all the way until how to be a good leader, how to think and act like a leader. So these were like very critical part of my job, even in corporate America. And that's the part that I love the most. So there came a time where I decided that I'm going to take the part of the job that I love the most and do something on my own. So that's how I, you know, it's been a very recent journey for me. I started this late last year. So that's what inspired me. And to help somebody achieve their dream goals, that's what keeps me going.

Rexhen Doda:

And how does it look like? So how does it look like from the moment you started it last year to now at this point that you are in right now? How does that journey look like?

Ash Rao:

So when I started, I started from the scratch. I did not have any background in entrepreneurship or I didn't know how to build a business. One thing that I was very confident about was my subject matter expertise, right? What I was confident about was my whole experience, my skills and talents in helping others reach and reach their goals in the tech career that they were in. So that part, I was very confident about, but There are a lot of things when it comes to running a business. So it took me a lot of time to put some routines and systems in place. And it's not just enough to be a good coach, but you need to be a good business owner as well. And that takes a lot. So that has been the learning journey for me these past few months. And I'm still learning and growing. But yeah, I mean, that's how I started off not knowing anything. I'm not an expert yet, but I have some systems and processes in place and I have some sort of a sales funnel and I keep the business going. So that's where I am right now.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you for sharing that. And you also mentioned something about you working with tech professionals or mid-career tech professionals. Is that the target audience that you're focused on or if it just happens to be in tech?

Ash Rao:

Yeah, because I have been a tech recruiter. I'm an engineer myself and engineer. And then I have my MBA and all of my corporate experience has been within tech recruiting and the product recruiting. So I would say very well versed with the tech world. And especially when it comes to helping the emerging leaders and mid-career professionals, I think that's where I excel the most. So I'm more focused in that audience, yes.

Rexhen Doda:

And where do you go about finding them? So what marketing channel is working best now?

Ash Rao:

Yeah, I've been experimenting quite a lot. So I recently launched my YouTube. I have my Instagram going. I have, you know, I'm trying to play around with a lot of social media channels. But my major go-to channel has been LinkedIn. That's where, you know, LinkedIn is the go-to place for all the tech professionals. And that's where I find my lead. So that's probably like my number one channel. Yes.

Rexhen Doda:

And is there a strategy that you're currently utilizing in LinkedIn?

Ash Rao:

I wouldn't say strategy but I am trying to be more active on LinkedIn posting content regularly and I have my services page up and it's also about engaging with the people out in that you know within LinkedIn and whenever I see an open to work tag on any of the people in my network I reach out to them and make sure that there's anything that I can help so just staying very active on the platform is helping helping me actually gain the visibility and people are now noticing that this is what i do and they are i'm able to get a lot of referrals as well

Rexhen Doda:

thank you thank you for sharing that and yeah i think that linkedin is not only for the tech professionals, but actually every coach finds out that LinkedIn is kind of like the main channel because everyone who is interested in their career, growing their career, improving their career, even finding a job, most of those people are going to be spending time on LinkedIn as the main platform for that. I also wanted to ask you, do you have any goals that you are working towards in the next one to three years?

Ash Rao:

Oh, yeah. I mean, I do have just one second. I'm so sorry. I should have silenced that. Sorry about that. That's okay. What was the question? The goals, right? Yes. I have a lot of goals and I'm very, very excited about somewhat diversifying my business, spreading coaching and getting into professional speaking and doing the keynotes, masterminds and presentations and stuff like that where I can go beyond coaching and help out the tech team. That's one area that I'm looking to grow in and there are so many ways. So in my mind, I have all these ideas about maybe writing a book down the line and hosting a podcast, which is more in line with the career and leadership, more apt for the tech professionals. These are some immediate goals that I'm slowly trying to work on.

Rexhen Doda:

Is there any revenue number in mind for the future as a goal?

Ash Rao:

I actually, I am... kind of focusing on establishing myself first you know um you know having a very steady business model and helping as many people as possible and then i need to you know down the line definitely i will have some revenue goals as such but it's too early for me

Rexhen Doda:

um yeah and uh it's it's kind of like uh not always easy to put a number when it comes to a goal and revenue because uh well at least in this economy, things are not as predictable as they probably used to be. I wanted to ask also, when it comes to investments, has there been any coaching programs, masterminds, or communities that you've found particularly valuable for your business, that in a way they have helped your business grow?

Ash Rao:

I did definitely, you know, even though I have a lot of experience, I did want to kind of go in and get my professional certification. So, which I highly recommend for any career coach, you know, having some sort of a formal education or certification is going to give you that foundation, no matter how much experience you have, if you have the bandwidth to do that, then I would highly recommend that I did the professional career coaching certification. And And I definitely, you know, I attended programs like recently I was very actively involved with something called Women of Vision Leadership Institute where we had a lot of sessions. We were able to, you know, actually deliver keynotes and workshop sessions. And it's also an opportunity to meet like-minded people and network with the right people and learn and you mentor others and you also get mentored along the way so that's one of the must I think that's that's a big investment that you should do not apart from that obviously there's an investment of time you're doing this taking out and you know you you gave up something to do this so that's time and effort so all this in the hope that the investment will pay off very soon

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you for explaining this. With the last eight months that you worked in this coaching business, has there been an unexpected lesson learned, something you wish you had known when you first started your coaching business?

Ash Rao:

Definitely, there are a lot of lessons. I came into this business thinking that I was very confident in myself, in what I could offer to my clients. I kind of came in very confident about that but what I did not realize was running a business is much more than just coaching right and I am learning you know some some easy lessons some hard lessons one is that within the corporate umbrella I was very you know I enjoyed a very nice like a fat paycheck in the brand and it was a very comfortable life now I'm I'm getting used to, for example, very uncertainty of revenue, uncertainty of, you know, some months are like my calendar is completely booked and other months are like, okay, you know, I'm wide open and I'm yet to kind of, you know, work on a lead generation process in place, right? So there are many, many lessons that I'm learning along the way. I'm also learning, obviously, to pay attention to the social media strategy. Working in the corporate, there I wasn't like super active on the social media side. At least I wasn't having the pressure of it, but I do realize the importance of it now at running a business owner. So, I mean, these are just a couple of challenges, but there are a lot of challenges which I'm, you know, overcoming and learning and growing. It's been a fun experience. Every failure is also a chance for me to rebound and learn from the lesson and get better. Yeah.

Rexhen Doda:

Absolutely. Yeah. You learn through these mistakes. And with a coaching business, oftentimes we found that, at least when it comes to generating leads, that there isn't like a method that is always going to work. Some of these methods only work temporarily. Or let's say if LinkedIn's LinkedIn decides to shut down tomorrow, that also becomes a challenge for everyone that is only relied on LinkedIn for generating leads. So yeah, I feel like some of these challenges are going to be similar in a group of different coaches um and my final question to you is you've already shared quite a few tips uh here and there with the questions but is there any uh final advice you'd like to give to other career coaches around your level that are looking to scale their impact

Ash Rao:

yeah so Advice is, I would say that before starting your business, be clear about who you want to serve, who your target audience is, because your services are not for anybody and everybody, right? Like, don't generalize, but specialize. going by what your experience is. So start small. In my case, obviously, I come from a tech recruiting background. So my major focus area would be helping the tech leaders. And because I do have that expertise, so I would say, you know, starting off with what you know, and what your, you know, experiences, that would be a good starting point. And second is, don't overthink this and take it step by step. Not everybody has all the answers. None of us have all the answers and we are going to learn along the way. So it's okay to make mistakes and take it step by step by step. So that's how I'm doing it and I'm enjoying the journey so far.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ash. It's been a lovely episode. For anyone who wants to connect with you and find you, they can find you on Ash Rao on LinkedIn and potentially they could also find you on your website. Is it ashrao.com?

Ash Rao:

That's correct, yes.

Rexhen Doda:

So you could find, for anyone who's watching this, you could find Rash in our LinkedIn, also in her website, ashrao.com. So Ash, thank you so much for taking the time. This was a lovely episode. Thanks so much.

Ash Rao:

Thank you so much for having me. And it was a pleasure speaking to you.

Davis Nguyen:

that's it for this episode of career coaching secrets if you enjoyed this conversation you can subscribe to youtube spotify apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes this conversation was brought to you by purple circle where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out to learn more about purple circle our community and how we can help you grow your business visit join purple circle.com so