Career Coaching Secrets

Unlocking Revenue: Christopher Ewald on Building High-Performance Electrical Teams

• Davis Nguyen

Share episode

Host Regen interviews Christopher Ewald, a sales and leadership coach and author of The Intensity Method. With over 30 years of experience, Christopher helps electrical industry leaders transform teams and boost sales.

Christopher's journey includes coaching high school football and life coaching before specializing in the electrical sector, serving clients from multi-billion dollar firms to small contractors. LinkedIn is his primary client acquisition channel, where he emphasizes consistency, patience, and personal connection over AI or excessive upfront system investments.

His biggest challenge remains lead generation, and his core advice for scaling coaches is unwavering persistence: success comes from daily grit over years, not overnight. He also recommends leveraging one's existing network to "get customers" rather than just "finding customers."

Find Christopher Ewald:


You can also watch this podcast on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/@CareerCoachingSecrets

If you are a career coach looking to grow your business you can find out more about Purple Circle at http://joinpurplecircle.com

Get Exclusive Access to Our In-Depth Analysis of 71 Successful Career Coaches, Learn exactly what worked (and what didn't) in the career coaching industry in 2024: https://joinpurplecircle.com/white-paper-replay

Christopher Ewald:

A variety. So you're talking about anything from multi-billion dollar businesses all the way down to, you know, a couple million dollar business. And then our customers tend to be even potentially smaller than that. So that's the cool part about the industry. You're not, sometimes I'm sitting with the C-suite at a major corporation or automotive manufacturer, and then I'm sitting with an electrical contractor who's got his truck out in the driveway and he's working out of his garage. Pretty cool industry to be in, to be able to mix a little bit of both, so. 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 $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching business myself, and I've been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over a hundred million dollars each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business. us.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Chris Ewald. He is a sales and leadership coach, electrical industry expert, and author of The Intensity Method. With over two decades of experience transforming underperforming teams into revenue-driving powerhouses, Chris helps electrical business leaders build confidence, close bigger deals, and lead with purpose. Whether you're trying to grow your sales pipeline, level up your leadership or scale a high performance team, Chris brings the tools and intensity to light up your next breakthrough. And it's a pleasure for me to have Chris on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Christopher Ewald:

Oh, thanks for having me. I'm fired up to be here. Let's have some fun.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. So I wanted to learn from how this got started. Obviously, there's many years of experience into this. So what inspired you to become a coach? And Start your own coaching business. Two things.

Christopher Ewald:

I think a lot of stories today happen with the words when COVID happened, right? So I've coached my entire life. I started doing middle school girls coaching. basketball way back in the late 80s. So I've been coaching ever since and I've coached in sports and I've coached in business and other aspects as well. When COVID happened, I learned that that coaching skill was pretty, you know, there was a lot of need for coaching as people were uncertain and there was a lot of change going on around them. You know, as I had been around a few years, I had seen a couple of those big life events. So I had some relatability to it, kind of felt like this was something that we'd been through with a different package, but some of those type of big life events. And I decided to turn that into, at that time, a life coaching business. So I became a certified master life coach and had a lot of fun doing that for a few years. As that business evolved, I decided that business coaching was something else I would like to do where I could capture a bigger audience. And then, of course, since I've been in the electrical industry for 30 years, a leadership and sales coach in the electrical industry just made a lot of sense. So it's been the company itself, the coaching company has been around I'm about five years, but I've been coaching for over 30, so.

Rexhen Doda:

Wow, that's a very in-depth and like many years of experience, especially. So I really like to interview coaches that have been doing it for so many years. So now which part of your coaching journey, would you find the most rewarding since you started doing this? Talking about the most recent.

Christopher Ewald:

Yeah, ironically enough, it comes not in the most recent part of the coaching business. It came from coaching my high school football team as a volunteer to start. And we, and the reason I mentioned that is because that team wasn't necessarily riddled with success over the years. It was kind of known as a underachieving program. Got the opportunity to volunteer for a coach. And what I got to do was take all that experience, all that coaching experience in business and life coaching and all those things, combine them and apply them to a high school football team. And boy, that was a blast. And we, you know, we had a couple of successful turnarounds, made the playoffs a few years in a row, had some playoffs experience. So that was, as much as that was not related to my business or my life coaching, that was probably one of the most rewarding experiences as you go and you take something that's underperforming and turn it into something that's high

Rexhen Doda:

performing. Right now, if you were to describe your coaching business, or actually not the coaching business, but looking at the people that you work with, what is the ideal client right now? And how does the transformation look like for them after working with you? So think of this as someone in this industry or your ideal clients actually listening to this and is interesting knowing how this works. So what's happened in

Christopher Ewald:

the electrical industry over there is there's this whole industry that, and I would tell you, I call it the land of misfit toys. No one grows up to be in the electrical industry, right? But I stumbled into it like many, many others, and it's a wonderful industry. I'm a big advocate for it because it has great partners. It has great manufacturers and distributors and manufacturers, representatives, the way we go to market to service contractors, industrials, OEMs. So it's an awesome industry. What I've learned about the industry, though, is it's tend to gotten a little aged, that there was a population that may or may not look a little bit like me that kind of came in at a certain time. And now that there's, we're going through this huge transformation and that transformation is, you know, these, the veterans who learn their way through, through just pure grit and hard work are retiring and enjoying that piece of their life. And now we got a whole brand new group of people who, who haven't had that experience and they're getting thrust in because it was such a big generation that's moving out. We're just trying to force people into this. And then they're learning on the fly. My job as a coach is to take, take those years, uh, you know, experience and history, distill down the, what sometimes seems to be complex principles, make them simple and consumable and teachable, and then get our, get the industry out there. Functionally, we're a sales industry. So we're working a lot on sales. And of course, to me, sales and leadership are tied hand in hand. So I, that's where I spend the most of my time coaching.

Rexhen Doda:

For someone, and again, So basically they have their own businesses. The people that you're working with have their own. Are we talking about small businesses here?

Christopher Ewald:

A variety. So you're talking about anything from multi-billion dollar businesses all the way down to a couple million dollar business. And then our customers tend to be even potentially smaller than that. So that's the cool part about the industry. Sometimes I'm sitting with the C-suite at a major corporation or automotive manufacturer, and then I'm sitting with an electrical contractor who's got his truck out in the driveway and he's working out of his garage. Pretty cool industry. industry to be in, to be able to mix a little bit of both.

Davis Nguyen:

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda:

Okay, cool. That makes a lot of sense. And right now, where do you find your clients or where do clients find you? What marketing channel is working best for

Christopher Ewald:

you? So for LinkedIn has by far been the best social media platform. And I will tell you that when I started, and I think this is a big for any coaches who are starting a business and they don't know where to start. My advice is to pick one social profile because if you try to do them all right at the get go, you really do none, right? You end up just just doing spatterings of everything so so but but the cool part about the finding clients and building a funnel of leads if you get really good at one it's transferable to others so that was uh you know i find right now linkedin is my place but i'll tell you it evolved from believe it or not facebook where i was using my power connections the people who knew me so as i built my business i needed those people and and you kind of want to ignore them because you're kind of like i don't you know i'm doing this thing and you know and this is kind of a person personal site, but they are the ones that will give you the most referrals and the most business. So, so, you know, start with somewhere where you know the most people and then, and then branch it out from there.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And right now it's

Christopher Ewald:

mostly LinkedIn, you said, right? technology that we're experiencing, right? It's hard to believe sometimes even what you're seeing, you're going to see a lot of stuff generated. It's, you know, I love AI, I'm a big fan. It's helped me a lot. But I would say that, you know, somehow you got to make a personal connection. And that's why for me, videos, podcasts, and then I do, of course, in person events all the time. That's how I get my connections.

Rexhen Doda:

And video is very, it's right now very easily to detect, it's easy to detect AI. Sure. Sure. Especially when you're you're authentic in your own way. AI might not be able to do that. Amen. So far, at least.

Christopher Ewald:

Yeah, exactly. It's a wonderful tool. And like I said, I'm fascinated by it. I study it. I think it's really cool. I also think that, you know, if there's people who has hesitation and maybe some fear about it, I think it's only going to exemplify our personal connections. And so, yeah, it is going to take jobs. It is going to do things that, but the technology does that regardless of its AI or internet or a washing machine. That's what it's intended to do but what we want to do is really emphasize our personal connections and thus sales and leadership coaching

Rexhen Doda:

so right now in linkedin um what is the strategy is it content video content or are you also doing reach kind

Christopher Ewald:

of

Rexhen Doda:

yeah as i'm in this

Christopher Ewald:

very fortunate position that i'm mostly just doing some photo text overlays it's pretty basic, frankly, to be honest with you. I'm not, you know, the number one rule, if anybody who's looking to grow their coaching business via social, you just got to be consistent and you got to have that keyword that nobody wants to have. And that's patience. It's going to take time. No one knows who you are. You got to keep showing up. It's like a salesperson. When I was young in the business, I just had to keep showing up at the door, right? Knocking on the door and trying to get, it's the same with social. You just got to stay consistent with it. And even I struggle with consistency at times because we have lives and 4th of July holidays here in the state. and things like that, right? So things get busy, but stay as consistent as you can and then land on your message and discover your niche. You asked me what's my ideal customer was. That didn't happen day one and it's changed over time. So that's just something, that's a constant discovery. And right now it's, I'm talking to electrical leaders in the electrical space and that could be a distributor, a contractor, it could be anybody who's in that space because that's what I know. But that has changed over the years and it will change again.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool, thank you. Thank you for sharing all of that. And now the other question is investment. What have been some investments that you've done on your coaching business that you feel like, oh, that was a very good investment or like the return on that investment was good? So what I'm trying to go after is what could be good investments for coaches? That could be any coaching program, masterminds, communities, investments in yourself, anything that you can think of actually.

Christopher Ewald:

Okay, yeah, oh, I got, yeah, this is easy.

Rexhen Doda:

I got like seven

Christopher Ewald:

of them. Okay, so first of all, If you're going to be a coach trying to do it on your own, and I was one of those coaches, then I would highly suggest you take some time and you discover AI and you discover its capabilities and how it can help you grow your business and make you look like you're more than you are as just an individual or a solopreneur. Then I am a consumer of podcasts. What a great free tool as you start a business and you're bootstrapping, or even if you got a loan of some sort. Podcasts, there are so many people who are giving you the best advice you can get. A couple of people that I admire are Alex Hormozy, Grant Cardone. I listen to a whole bunch of different podcasts, so it's hard to think. Andy Frisella is another one. These are people who talk about entrepreneurial mindset, how to get your business rolling, how to have that persistence, and then And also strategies on how to build and scale your business. So there's so much content that the hard part is distilling it. So I really try to do two or three and stay there for a little while, get that content and then move on to another one. Those are the two big things that I think if you're starting a coaching business, you want to do. I don't believe there's a bad investment in yourself. If you're going to go and train on some skill set, I'm currently looking at doing some public speakings. I've been doing public speaking for 30 years, but I know I still have more to learn uh so those are things i there's not a bad investment if you're investing in yourself i will put a caveat what i've seen a lot in the coaching business is people try to make the systems the best systems that there are they'll spend thousands and thousands of dollars with with all of the equipment and all the softwares and all the subscriptions and and i would say hesitate there take a pause get a few things good and then let and build a revenue stream and then start to do all the investment i've seen so many try to do investment upfront And then they're frustrated because they're trying to recoup their losses instead of focus on their gains.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And so throughout these investments, you'd say investment on time. keep learning from industry experts. We're talking about Alex Ramosi, Grant Cardone, all of these people that are doing these podcasts on a very high level, business experts. You also mentioned not investing initially in the systems. Get your business going first. Don't waste a lot of time or focus in the systems because that is something you can optimize later. It's not like you have a thousand clients coming in day one that you need to have the systems, right? Nailed it. Cool. And right now, what would you say is... the biggest challenge for you? What is the challenge you're trying to solve for next in your coaching business?

Christopher Ewald:

So I think there's only two real true fundamental challenges in business. One's getting leads and then one's managing all your leads when you got enough leads, right? So that's the two breakthroughs. So I'm still in that getting leads as my coaching career has grown. You know, I'm not in the place of where I have so many leads I don't need to tell them to stop, right? So I'm going to stay there for a little while until I get that funnel, that top of that sales funnel full. And then I understand that once you get to that place, then you're going to have to learn how to manage it. That's where the systems come in. That's where you're hiring people. That's where you take care of those types of things. So getting leads, I've been very much word of mouth and I've been very successful with it. So a little bit fortunate from that perspective, but I'm also, you have a marketing background. I'm fascinated by marketing. So to me, there's a lot of fun in studying social media and then how to actually not just go get leads, but convert customers. That's a lot of fun.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. Yeah. Good strategy, by the way. flood the top of the funnel, try to filter the good ones into your funnel later on. That makes a lot of sense. So what advice would you give? And this is the final question. What advice would you give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact just like you are?

Christopher Ewald:

Perfect. My advice would be this. I think there's one true formula for success. And I truly believe this. And I've studied this stuff for years and years and years. And if you are persistent, you will have success. The problem that I see, and I think everybody sees this, and we all feel it. We're all humans. We all want that success to happen day one. Even if you listen to the most successful businesses of all time, they are not talking even about one, three, and five years. They're talking about decades, 15 years, 20. And that amount of patience and that amount of frustration and that amount of grit that you have to show in those formative conversations years building your business is tough. And now you can also accelerate that with a bunch of activity, right? If you're doing a lot of things, great. And I highly advocate doing so. But you also, if you think it's going to happen overnight, I've now written two books. If you write a book and you think it's going to be a bestseller first time go around, good luck. That's not likely going to happen. So you got to just understand that the goal you have is I'm going to be persistent every day. I'm going to show up. I'm going to be grit. I'm going to do at least something even if it's small. With that approach, I guarantee success.

Rexhen Doda:

So consistency and yeah. keeping it for a long term. Don't think of it just like, oh, it's going to work in a short period of time, one year. Try two years, five years, 10

Christopher Ewald:

years. I really think you need to have those goals. I really think one, three, and five years is where you start as a new business owner. Don't go to 10 yet because you're just worried about trying to generate a revenue stream. Once the revenue starts to make a little more sense, and then one quick other piece of advice, don't spend time trying to find customers. Spend time getting customers, meaning use your network. Use the people that you know. Ask them to help you or ask them if they know somebody who can help you if you're in your coaching business. Doing that alone and not spending hours and hours on social media where you're just really a ghost to everybody, that will benefit you if that was one little key nugget that someone would start with.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thanks so much, Chris. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast. For anyone who wants to reach out to you or connect with you, they can go into LinkedIn and search your name. It might show up as Christopher Ewald. So yeah, just to clarify that. Look for the bald guy. I'm pretty sure that if you search Chris Ewald, it will still show up in the first results, but Christopher in LinkedIn. Is there any other way people could reach out to you or connect with

Christopher Ewald:

you? I'm on all socials. I have a website, intensitymethod.com that is where you can go and book some time with me if you want to talk about what we have to offer. But LinkedIn is where I find that to be the most effective for the business. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. I'm on TikTok and YouTube as well because with those videos, I'm trying to get more channels. But really, the most effective way is through the website and through LinkedIn.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Chris. We'll make sure to also put the website link into the description of this video. So thank you so much and looking forward to meeting you again, maybe in a year or so. Sounds good. Thank you, Reggie. I appreciate your time, man. This is awesome.

Davis Nguyen:

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit joinpurplecircle.com.