Career Coaching Secrets

Steve Lavner: Blending Candor, Humor, and Career Wisdom

• Davis Nguyen

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Host Regen interviews Steve Lavner, an executive recruiter and career coach with 25+ years in financial communications. Steve's coaching grew from his recruiting background, helping clients find clarity and their next career move.

He primarily finds clients through LinkedIn content and university outreach, emphasizing honesty and leveraging his "insider" recruiter perspective. Steve recommends coaches hire their own coach and be generous in professional communities. His current challenge is scaling and pricing for returning clients.

His key advice: "Don't burn bridges." Treat people well, be generous with your time, and stay passionate about your clients' careers.

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Steve Lavner:

And I might have shed a tear or two, Reg, and I might have. You know, it's like you got to do those things and take inventory of what you are in order to know what you're actually telling people to do. But aside from that, you know, the communities, just be generous with your time. If you're generous with your time...

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome 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 businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million 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.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regine, and today's guest is Steve Lapner, a seasoned talent partner, executive recruiter, and career coach with over 25 years of experience helping individuals and organizations in high stakes world of financial communications. On the coaching side, he works with communications professionals to help them find clarity, confidence, and their next big move. He's known for blending creativity, candor, and humor and he brings a unique perspective on building teams, shaping careers, and navigating the ever-evolving job market. And it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve Lavner:

It's good to be here. Thanks for having me, Reggie.

Rexhen Doda:

It's a pleasure for us, Steve. So I want to know, like, it's been a while, not a while, it's been a few years that you've been in this industry. What inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching

Steve Lavner:

business? I think a couple things. First thing is I've been in executive search and recruiting and talent acquisition for over 25 years, since around 1999, 2000. And I think part of that job, if you're going to be successful as a recruiter, is coaching. Either it's coaching the hiring manager, it's coaching the candidate and you know it's like matchmaking my grandmother would be proud of me saying that it's like matchmaking you know we're trying to bring two parties together have them meet in the middle and have it be a long marriage so I think the ability to understand and be empathetic to one side and to the other and what I used to always say when I was on the executive search side is that at some point I'm working for the candidate as well You know, I'll start out by recruiting for the client, but at some point it switches over and I'm going to be working for both of them. And I think that piece, which I didn't really realize for the first 15, 20 years of what I was doing, was coaching. And the other part to that is I think I've noticed just in my life, I've always been a little bit more comfortable being the number two in whatever it was I was doing. Happy to give someone else, you know, whether it's the spotlight or the credit even. Maybe. Maybe that's not always a good thing. But in coaching, it's a great thing because you can sort of pass on what I know, what I see. And that's probably the... The reason I think I'm good at it as well, I studied theater in college and I was a pretty good director, I think. And it's sort of the same thing. It's a third eye. You don't have to be a great actor to be a good director. Quentin Tarantino has shown us that. So, you know, it's just about I can see things, I can make comments, make edits. That's really where I think I... initially figured that out.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And so throughout these years of coaching, because we're going to focus on coaching mostly, which part of the coaching journey would you say you find the most rewarding since you started doing this?

Steve Lavner:

The part where they get the job and they pay me money? No, bad answer. The part where I think the most rewarding is actually when someone actually You can feel they have some sort of personal eye-opening moment. I can think of a few situations where I've been coaching someone who came in thinking they wanted one thing, and throughout the conversations, sort of it hits at some point that they realize they actually don't want that. They want this. And now that there's clarity, we can get there. I love getting to a little bit of a clear moment with the client.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. when it comes to the clients, is there a specific target audience, meaning like a specific industry, demographic, or certain niche that you typically focus on? We did talk in the intro about financial communications, but...

Steve Lavner:

Yeah, it's broader than that. I mean, I think if I just focused on financial communications, I'd have a little bit of spare time. But Certainly communications, PR, marketing. These are worlds that I understand as best as someone could who hasn't actually spent a day in communications, PR, or marketing. I've grown intimate with the worlds through recruiting and through understanding people's jobs and their sort of career arches. So I don't think that's a niche. I don't think it necessarily would prohibit anyone from benefiting from a third eye, looking at them, even if it's someone who doesn't understand their industry completely. But that's the area that I've focused on somewhat by default, but also it's a nice way to offer one specific thing.

Rexhen Doda:

And how do people currently find you? What marketing channel works well for you right now?

Steve Lavner:

It's always really been LinkedIn. I've I also, I've reached out to a number of universities as well, but I'll get to that in a second. LinkedIn is probably the way that, you know, I'm posting things on LinkedIn. I try to stay engaged in conversations on LinkedIn. I want to stay in front of folks, know what I do, try to help people even when they're not paying me so that I think staying engaged in those conversations, you know, coaching is a really important personal thing. It's kind of like hiring a shrink. You're going to share things with them that you don't share with everyone and the sessions are confidential and all of that. So when I put myself out on LinkedIn, the idea is I'm here to be honest and tell you what I think I know works. And that's generally been the way that I've gotten clients. Word of mouth after that, but I think initially it's LinkedIn. And then Secondary Channel is really approaching a lot of the universities that focus on communications. And just getting in front of some of the students doesn't pay me much. And that's a good thing. That's fine. Because really the idea is I do want to help people get into the industry. If they're in the industry and I've helped them already, maybe they'll come back to me. Maybe they won't. But so far that's been another big... big stream of folks that come to me.

Rexhen Doda:

So when you say come back to you, would it be like coming back for a pivot or maybe coming up for a different role?

Steve Lavner:

Or just within a role, you're having a problem with your boss. You want to come across as more senior. So anything is within that world I can hopefully be helpful with.

Rexhen Doda:

And just to dive just a little bit deeper into the LinkedIn strategy. Yes. How are you doing it currently? I see that you're posting on LinkedIn regularly. Is content the only strategy or is there something else to it?

Steve Lavner:

I guess there would be something else if the content wasn't working. For me, the content has been working. I haven't gotten into, I mean, I know there's other things you can do with SEO and email marketing, whatever it is, it hasn't come to that for me. My base of clients was sort of built into what my day job was. So, you know, recruiting, maybe some people see that as a reason to talk to me that I've been on the other side of the table. But, you know, mainly it's just been the content that drives them.

Rexhen Doda:

Is there a specific like strategy when it comes to content?

Steve Lavner:

Yeah, I think that the strategy is... I don't want to come across like I'm full of it. I don't want to come across that I know what every answer to every question is. The idea is that what makes me special is not that I have some great special wisdom. What makes me special is that I've seen a lot of things. So I want people to understand that I've been on that other side of the table, like I say. If someone... recognizes how powerful that is, which it really is. When I need to get coached for something, I will call other recruiter friends of mine and I'll talk it through. Whatever I'm going through, I'll talk it through with them. And the understanding that a recruiter has is very different, sort of like macroeconomics as opposed to microeconomics. You're seeing something a little bit So certain things fly out as issues that people have. Little things that people haven't really heard of. That people haven't said they have the issue of and I'm able to point it out to them. Does that make sense?

Rexhen Doda:

That makes a lot of sense. And so that is the advantage, right, of being like the gatekeeper and also working as a career coach is you get to have this insider information from that specific position. And sometimes I feel like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of the roles that some people might be losing might not be because they were not the best candidates. Sometimes it could just like be that the role just got filled or like the role got canceled or something like that. Different reasons. Do you feel like that?

Steve Lavner:

It's a hundred percent the truth. And it's, it's something I I've told people and I don't think they understand. I don't think they believe me always. You know, look, Roles get open for so many reasons at companies. Sometimes they have to open a role because there's someone internally they want to bring in and they legally need to open a job, you know, job rec. Sometimes they have in mind someone from another company and so they already have someone in mind and the interview process is going to go on maybe, but... It might not get you anywhere. And then there are times, I think, where people open roles. And this happens more than you would think. People open roles without the intention on filling them. They open the role. It's almost like it's like proving a political point. You know, you get pushback from your boss or the head of the firm or whatever it is from senior leadership to say we need a digital marketer. We need a digital marketer and we need one today. And that we don't need a digital marketer because whoever on my, you know, Regin on my left is not a trained digital marketer, but is doing that role and doing it well. And we don't need that. It would be a waste of money. It'd be a waste of time. And it would screw up the team dynamic, all that stuff. So they'll open the role just to prove the senior leadership wrong. I've been hired, you know, as an external recruiter times where I go through the process and realize one of the hiring managers doesn't want to hire anyone. It's a heck of a thing. It makes you understand retainers, you know?

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah.

Steve Lavner:

You know what

Rexhen Doda:

I mean? Yeah, just like when you're thinking about this is for anyone who's like thinking of jobs, applying to them, you just continue to do the process because...

Steve Lavner:

You got to get out there. Yeah. Yeah, and... And I also think, I think knowing what you're good for and what you're not good for is super important. And a lot of people plaster the walls with applications and within those, even if it's 50 applications, if you're not right for them, you're just not right for them. And no matter what, those are transferable skills. I would choose someone with the skill over the transferable skill probably nine times out of 10, if I'm a hiring manager. As a recruiter, I'm hoping that the hiring manager will say, or as a coach, I'm hoping that we can get you in somewhere and take those transferable skills that you have that maybe don't perfectly fit the job description and say, here's why I'm right. Let's focus the resume. This is what I'm right for. But when it comes down to it, if Wendy's needs someone to flip burgers, they're not gonna go to Kentucky Fried Chicken, they're gonna go to Burger King. And it's very hard to, unless you have an advocate on the inside, it's very hard to convince them not to do that.

Rexhen Doda:

Absolutely. Now, I wanna talk to you about the coaching business. Do you have any goals right now that you're working towards with your coaching business for the next one to three years?

Steve Lavner:

Yeah, I think I would really like to do a few things. Mainly, I just want to continue doing what I'm doing, have more time to do things that don't necessarily pay as much as others, like speaking with students. I love it when you're not going to get a junior in college who has a lot of money to spare on a career coach, but getting in front of them is great. So just being more established. I think being able to maybe work a bit more strategically in leadership, in companies with their leadership. So getting in and talking a bit about, you know, more about executive presence and really the strategic pieces within coaching, that I think are a little bit more finely painted as opposed to broader strokes. And then I wouldn't mind doing what you're doing. I love the idea of a podcast. My goodness. Interviewing all these people all day, it makes me want to interview people all day. So I love the idea of hearing people's stories. And I think sharing people's stories is the most fun thing I can think of. Excuse me.

Rexhen Doda:

I feel like it would be a great focus, especially if you're also thinking about marketing as well, it could be a good focus over the podcast. Now that there's... things like ChatGPT, the AI and everything, the content sometimes on LinkedIn. Now, it's working, so I'm not saying anything. I was just saying that a lot of content is going into LinkedIn is AI. I feel like the trust in it is slowly declining, and a lot of people don't know if there's a lot of effort in these posts.

Steve Lavner:

It's true. It's 100% true. I feel like this is a part of it that has not yet come to

Rexhen Doda:

that level.

Steve Lavner:

Not yet?

Rexhen Doda:

yeah

Steve Lavner:

yeah

Rexhen Doda:

you can do video but i don't think you can do podcasts like this so

Steve Lavner:

no until ai starts creating the ai and then we're you know

Rexhen Doda:

then they're having their own podcast

Steve Lavner:

they're having their own podcasts oh

Rexhen Doda:

be great their own guests so

Steve Lavner:

on language what does it matter audience i think they'll go back to nielsen ratings

Rexhen Doda:

so What about investments? What has been an investment in your coaching business that you feel like, oh, that was worth it? That was worth investing the money into because there could be a lot of investments that are not worth it. So I was thinking like any coaching programs, any masterminds, any communities or any investments in yourself, whatever you have invested money on that you feel like that was worth it.

Steve Lavner:

Well, I would recommend any coach getting a session of coaching. Hire a coach. It's eye-opening. And do all the exercises and go through what you're having people do. I tend to not be someone who's really touchy-feely. And some of the exercises I give people aren't. a little touchy-feely, and I've done them, and I might have shed a tear or two, Reg, and I might have. You know, it's like you've got to do those things and take inventory of what you are in order to know what you're actually telling people to do. But aside from that, you know, the communities, just be generous with your time. If you're generous with your time, it will come back to you. But, you know, you talk about, I don't know if you've ever tried to do this, but you try to sort of get involved in a community, but you don't quite have the time or really the desire to be involved in that community. You're not going to get involved in that community. And even if you are, you know, they're not going to come to you for questions. It's just not going to happen. They don't care. Your worth in those communities is only based on what you're putting into it. So um any sort of you know linkedin community i'm part of or um coaching groups i don't have a lot but anything like that i just make sure i'm really present when i'm doing it which is not always easy to be present because you're like what am i doing so just you have to be passionate about it

Rexhen Doda:

absolutely and Also, what about challenges right now? What is a challenge that you're trying to solve for next within your coaching business?

Steve Lavner:

Scaling up, you know, figuring out pricing for return customers and sort of what that looks like. And, you know, you can have like the initial package and then you have the 30, 60, 90 of when they're in the job. But I think there's room for something that's a little bit bigger than that you're not going to get retainer clients in coaching but I think you should certainly again this is about being generous with your time I think and staying involved in your former people that you've coached stay involved in their careers but that's a challenge how do you break it unless I'm starting to hire other coaches and create my own curriculum I don't know. I don't know if that's the way I want to go. It

Rexhen Doda:

has been a method.

Steve Lavner:

Yeah. I know. And I've seen some of those courses and they're not bad. I just wonder what, I don't know, to me that's, I don't think I would get out of that what I get out of And maybe it's teaching broader classes. One of the things I offer is college students, four students at a time doing a six-week program. It's a nice cohort to have in there and feels a little bit more fun. And they split the cost a little bit. But I like that, maybe something more like that. I have three very young kids, so I'm not running out anywhere doing anything, any great changes in my coaching right now, I don't think, other than just pushing forward. Do

Rexhen Doda:

you have a team right now that helps you out?

Steve Lavner:

Other than the kids? No.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, that's a great team, though.

Steve Lavner:

Not if you met my middle one. One and a half, four, and five, so... Cool. Unless you want the team peeing on you. It's not going to do great for your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, it's going to keep you alert. It will keep everyone alert, yeah. They keep everyone alert. What final advice would you like to give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact? It would be like an advice you'd give to yourself.

Steve Lavner:

Don't burn bridges. Don't burn bridges. Answer everyone. Stay in front of everyone. If... And I think that can go further than just coaching. Don't burn bridges. I mean, everything that's happened to me in my life has been, I've had a facilitator who I did not treat like dirt. So treat people well. As I said a couple of times, be generous with your time and just try to do the things that you're passionate about. You have to make money too, but Certainly when you're doing the thing that makes you money, try to enjoy it. Try to find the great things about it. Try to get in front of the people that you're coaching and be as passionate about their careers as you are about your career. It's an easy thing to do because it should be interesting. That'd be the thing that drove you to get involved in coaching, right? So hopefully that pays off.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Steve. For anyone who wants to reach out to you or connect with you, they can go into LinkedIn, Steve Lavner, and they can, they'll be able to find you there. Yeah. There's, let me check. Is there also a website?

Steve Lavner:

There's a website, stevelavnercoaching.com. Yeah, stevelavnercoaching.com. Steve Lavner on LinkedIn. Stavner, maybe will be the name of my company someday. But yeah, Yeah, yeah, anything like that. And just drop me a note. I'm very happy to hop on a call and whatever.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. And, yeah, looking forward to maybe next year we'll do a second one.

Davis Nguyen:

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda:

Thanks, Regin. That's it

Davis Nguyen:

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.