Career Coaching Secrets
Career Coaching Secrets is a podcast spotlighting the stories, strategies, and transformations created by today’s top career, leadership, and executive coaches.
Each episode dives into the real-world journeys behind coaching businesses—how they started, scaled, and succeeded—along with lessons learned, client success stories, and practical takeaways for aspiring or established coaches.
Whether you’re helping professionals pivot careers, grow as leaders, or step into entrepreneurship, this show offers an inside look at what it takes to build a purpose-driven, profitable coaching practice.
Career Coaching Secrets
Booked-Out Without Burnout: The Shift That Changed Everything for Davis Nguyen
Special Episode: How Davis, Founder of Career Coaching Secrets, Built a Fully Booked Coaching Business Without Chasing Algorithms
This isn’t just another interview, it’s a special behind-the-scenes episode featuring Davis, the founder of Career Coaching Secrets.
In this rare appearance, Davis sits down to share the real story behind why he started this podcast, how he almost quit coaching, and the pivotal shifts that helped him build a 7-figure coaching business rooted in trust and alignment.
You’ll hear:
- Why more visibility doesn’t always mean more clients
- How one mentor question completely changed his business
- The “channel-match” strategy Davis now uses to help coaches scale without burning out
- His honest take on what growth really looks like
Whether you're just starting out or scaling your coaching practice, this episode will challenge the way you think about visibility, content, and sustainable success.
My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdavisnguyen/
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
There's a reason why Warren Buffett has had so many coaches and mentors. There's so many reasons why the best golfers have coaches. There's a reason why people do it. It's like, we always tell ourselves that as a coach, we want our clients to get coaching, but you got to also live it too. Or as one of our Purple Circle members who works for pharmacists said so, so, so beautifully. He was a guest and he said, when he was asked, why do you invest so much in coaching? And he said, Davis, I invest in coaching because I'm teaching my students clients to get in coaching is kind of like a doctor who takes medicine but doesn't believe in medicine themselves.. Right? 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 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. business. Hey everyone, Davis Nguyen here and welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets. So normally it would be me or another Purple Circle team member being the host and bringing on career coaches to be interviewed. But this is actually a really special episode because we had a Purple Circle member, she'll introduce herself, who actually wanted to host this episode and have me as a guest. So Carol, why don't you share a little bit of background about how this episode came to be?
Carol Jian:Okay, sure. Hello everyone, I'm Carol and I worked with Davis for a few months and I, of course I heard about his background his story and also the his podcast as well career coaching secret and I thought oh I listened a lot of different career coaches their stories and it was very impressed but Davies where are you like I also want to know your story and I also want to know your journey why you have this podcast and why you want to become a coach and I'm just curious so I asked him like I sent a message and say hey yeah why not I want to interview you by the way I'm not the professional podcast host you can see and also probably my English is also a problem but anyway I think today here what we want to know is his story like why davis you are here in taiwan or why you decide to have this podcast career coaching secret and what's your story yeah this is why we are here today
Davis Nguyen:all right well it's gonna be me uh as a guest so it'll be really interesting
Carol Jian:okay so actually the first question that i already mentioned before is what inspired you to create a career coaching secret podcast
Davis Nguyen:So the Career Coaching Secrets podcast started because it's a podcast I wish I had when I was starting my first career coaching business. So just a background for anyone who's listening and learning about me for the first time is my career coaching business actually came as an accident because it wasn't planned at all. And so the short story of it is that my family, I grew up in Atlanta, went to college, and then after college, I moved out to San Francisco where I became a management consultant. And I was on this trajectory where, well, what's next? Do I go to business school? Do I continue my path to being a management consultant. But at the time, I was hired to work at an education startup that was doing coaching. And at the time, they eventually would figure out how to grow the business. I was in charge of growing that coaching business from when they were making like $100,000 to eventually they would make like million-dollar weeks. But there was a time period we were going through when we were struggling. And my mom called and said, hey, Davis, I have a $21,000 medical bill. And so my mom's in Atlanta, and I'm in San Francisco at the time. And she... just asked me for this money and I just didn't have the money. I didn't have the money saved up and I needed to figure out a way to do it. And at the time I was working at this coaching company and I was working Monday through Friday. I was working crazy hours trying to make them this million dollar week, which eventually we got to, but I needed a way to make, to solve that $21,000 medical bill. And so, I figured, well, what skills do I have? And one of the things was that a lot of people wanted jobs that I've had previously, for example, working at Bain & Company as a management consultant. So just on the weekends, Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays, I started a resume writing and interview prep company where I helped students just prepare for their interviews with companies like Accenture, Deloitte, Bain. And I was like, well, people are paying me for this. Let me just do it. And as I was going through, I was trying to figure out everything myself. And in the beginning, it was just me doing everything. I was doing the marketing. I was doing the sales. I was doing the resume writing. I was doing the interview prep. I was doing the admin work. I was doing everything. And I wish I had a community of career coaches who are ahead of me to tell me where I need to go. And that first year, eventually I would pay off that medical bill within months. And then by the end of the first year, I ended up making $249,000. Oh, wow. Yeah, just on the weekends, right? Just the weekends. And that following year, we'd eventually just, it'd be me, assistant, and a part-time coach. And we took it, same thing, resume writing and interview prep. We took it to a million dollars that following year when I went full-time. So by that first year, And even that first time full time, I wish that I joined a lot of communities. I did a lot of coaching, which we'll get into, but there was nothing like for just career coaches, because I would invest, let's say I would invest 20, 30, 40, $50,000 to join coaching programs, communities and everything. And it was great. Obviously I wouldn't be here without them, but it was just missing that element of, well, I'm a coach. have a particular need and my clients are a particular type of person and so it was missing i couldn't find it and so that's why eventually when i did scale my career coaching business called my consulting offer to where it is today with full leadership team and had so much time i had a bunch of career coaches reach back out to me and just ask me to just talk to them and eventually i was like wow we need a way to have these dialogues in public so that people can know that they're not alone in their journey and so that's that's the short story of how career coaching secrets came to be was that it was just, I noticed that there was a need for conversations to be open about what it means to be a great coach. How do you get clients? How do you remove yourself in a business? What are the stresses? When the economy changes, what happens? So that's what started it.
Carol Jian:Okay. It's very interesting, actually, because for me, it's like, oh, you can't find the resources for your journey. Then you just decide to become that resource. That's amazing. But I would like to know what led you to start and what to make you decide that you want to become a coach. Because for me, it's like you start from pay your mom's medical bill. And then it's kind of, for me, it's like, oh, everything starts from fire. Like, oh, I need to finish this. I need to just... try to make money? And in the end, why you figure out that actually you can be a coach?
Davis Nguyen:It was kind of a combination of a few things. So when my mom called and said, hey, Davis, I need $21,000. I didn't have $21,000. And I was thinking like, well, what can I do? I honestly had a list. I had a list of things I could do. I was like, well, maybe after work, I could drive for Uber. But I realized, oh, that's going to take forever to do it. And I think also be able to get a car. I was like, it's not going to work. Second, can I get a second job? I was like, well, I was already working crazy hours. So I needed something that was flexible, something that I could make a lot of money, but something that I could potentially, I didn't think it was going to be a permanent. So I want to be able to turn it off, right? So for example, creating a online store or something wouldn't be that because I didn't have the money to invest in inventory. And so for me, coaching was that answer because with coaching, you don't need anything to start except for a way to call your clients and a way to get clients. So that was the first thing. And then the second was, at the time I didn't know if I would enjoy it or not, but I just know I needed the money. And so that's what started me with coaching was that weekend when I was thinking through how to pay that bill, I just started different ideas. I failed so many businesses prior that I didn't think I could succeed. And so I started just going online and then started getting my first clients. And I was like, wow, people are actually paying me. In the beginning, people were paying me like $500 to $1,000 and $2,000. And I was like, wow, I can make a lot of money. And of course, that first year making almost $250,000 just on the weekends, it proved to me that, wow, as a coaching business, you can make a lot of money. But two, as clients, Clients started getting jobs. I just love their success stories, like being able to call, celebrate with them. And then third was the flexibility, because I realized that this is way before remote working was popular. I could be anywhere. So for example, when I had a family member who was medically ill, I could fly home and still coach from home. Or when I wanted to celebrate a friend's birthday, I can go to that city and work from there. And I just love the fact that it gave me time flexibility It gave me income, but it also gave me the impact that I wanted to make. And so that's why I decided to stay as a coach, even after the medical bill was paid off. And the rest of it grew from there. And it started with just me living in this old apartment, trying to pay this bill, just being able to work on the weekends to eventually having a full-time job. team when it was like that first year when we got the million which is me an assistant and a part-time coach all remote and eventually over time we kept it remote so even when we build our team out to be 40 plus coaches 43 at the time of this recording and team members we still stayed remote and then we have team retreats and everything but i just love that flexibility that people can choose we where they want to be because prior to that i was when i was working in management consulting you either had to be in the office or you had to be at your client site And for me, I didn't like flying every week. I didn't like being on trains, staying in hotel rooms. I wanted to be able to live life on my own terms, but also be able to make great income, but also be able to make great impact. And so coaching gave me all of that. And of course, as the business grew, it just... It just taught me even more that, wow, I chose the right thing.
Carol Jian:Oh, that's good. That's good. Because I also worked with you in the Purple Circle as well. And then I figured out you actually provide a lot of resources and support me to, of course, get my revenue. And so actually, this is another story that I worked with Davis before. I wasn't a coach. I was very afraid and he just... encouraged me that I can be a coach. And after, because I was like him, like working crazy hours and I'm not able to raise my salary or just stuck there. So I want to earn more and I don't want to be burned out. So that time he actually helped me a lot. So after two weeks, actually, when I work with you, I am able to quit my job. I was able to quit my job. And then now I'm just completely focused on my coaching. But that time, because you just mentioned, you discover that in the coaching industry, they don't have a lot of resources. Would you like to share more about that? For example, like what kind of resource or what kind of support that you was looking for and you couldn't find it and now you want to build it?
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, there was a lot. When I first started and I was growing my business, I was just trying to find help because in the beginning, I was just trying to figure out, am I pricing right? Like, how do I figure out what the right pricing was? I would find all these websites and blogs with it, but there wasn't anyone who was doing coaching at the level that I wanted to be able to do to be able to guide me through it. And it was like, once I got the pricing, I was like, well, where do I get clients? So, for example, if you search up career coaching guides, you'll get companies that do certifications, they'll give you initials and things after your name and all that, but they don't really give you the foundations for how to do marketing. And so I had to join a lot of marketing communities and also paid for a lot of consulting for marketers. But for example, they would come from other types of business consulting. They would do marketing consulting, whatever it was, but it wasn't particular to career coaches. They didn't understand. So for example, they would have me build these complicated marketing funnels, but really I just wanted to be able to serve the people I was with as I didn't want to spend my whole day doing marketing or to be able to feel like I was scammy or to be able to figure like it was salesy or anything like that. I just want to be able to reach the right people and to be able to serve them, but that community didn't exist. So I had to figure it out myself. And as I grew, I started figuring out, well, what else can I do? I'll give you an example, which is when we started enrolling, in the beginning when it was just me, we were just enrolling a couple of clients every month and then became every single week. But then when we started hitting dozens of clients per week and then eventually hundreds per month, I needed to figure out a way to scale our coaching so that it didn't rely on me and I'm making the right decisions. And so I remember... there wasn't a career coach I could reach out to. And so I went on LinkedIn and started reaching out. And one person I reached out to, Jonathan, he's amazing. And he was the director of academics at a company called Kaplan. So Kaplan is one of the largest prep companies in the world for testing, for admissions testing, everything. And so I reached out and I said, hey, I'm looking to build this. We'd love to hire you as a consultant. And so he charged me his hourly rate, which is nowadays beyond fair. And he said, hey, let's build out your infrastructure. He didn't get career coaching, but he understood how to systematize the process, so I had to apply it. But eventually that became the guide of how we were able to scale. And he would teach me other things like, oh yeah, you probably want to be able to have these legal documents as well. You'll probably want to be able to have these agreements with your coaches. This is how you think about certain aspects of it. So even if he didn't have the particulars, I could apply it, but I had to pay him for his consultant, but it was very general advice. So I had to be able to apply it. So I'm still thankful today to Jonathan, but I should set an example. So as we scaled our coaching team from just me to eventually 40 people, I needed to figure out the infrastructure. How do I quality control? How do I hire? How do I retain them? How do I pay them? How do I give bonuses? All these I need to figure out myself as well. Same thing with the marketing too. Same thing with the sales. It was just... I had to find out so many resources to eventually get there, which I'm grateful for. But I was like, wow, I wish there was just a one way that I can just go through. And of course, you mentioned that's why, like, well, in your case, you worked really hard when you were working full time. And also on the evenings, you were just working on your business a few hours. And that's how we were able to replace your income. But I just wanted to be able to be that person for someone eventually. And so that's how I was like, well, I have all this career coaching knowledge, but how do I... Do it in a way that benefits other people as well. And so that's what influenced me to be able to figure out, well, how do we get these resources to other coaches who are doing meaningful work? But deep down, they know that they are meant for more. They know that they can make bigger impact. They know that they can have more income and they know that they can have a better life for themselves and the people around them.
Carol Jian:Yeah, I think that is very important for me when I just start my business, actually, because I have no clue what's going on. And also, I don't know what's the challenge behind. So it's like, oh, you tell me I have to do this, I have to do that. I have no idea why I have to do this right now. But you just say, hey, follow, because you will know, you will know. And after I was just like, oh, yeah, if I didn't do that, I couldn't have what I have now. So It's like, oh, you made SOP for my business and I just follow and you speed up my journey a lot, a lot. So this is something that I feel really amazing when I work with you. And this morning, actually, I looked at the podcast and we already had over 200 guests. What have you noticed about the guests who stand out from everyone else?
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, it's amazing, right? We have over 200 guests now. It's amazing when I realized I just started with, well, let's see if anyone even wants to have this podcast. As I'm listening to and hosting these episodes, over the 200 episodes that we've had, I've noticed a couple of things. And when it comes to being a great guest on it, I'll tell you a story of my own and then I'll demonstrate. There was a time a couple of years ago when I was invited to be on a podcast. So I had a couple million at this point already in revenue. And I was giving a talk at a conference and someone who hosted a major podcast came up to me and just said, hey, I would love to have you on the podcast. These are some of the guests I've had. I was super impressed. I was like, wow, I get to be a part of this community. And I remember like, wow, this is a really big podcast. I need to prepare. And I was trying to figure out How do I come off as impressive? I was like, well, hey, let's talk about how I got a million dollars in a year. Let's talk about how I grew a team to 40 people. Let's talk about how I have a general manager who runs it. Let's talk about how I have people who want to buy the business. Let's talk about all these impressive things. And after the episode, I felt good. And I asked the host how it went. She was like, good. But as we know, good just basically means that that could have been better, right? And... fast forward a couple years and i was invited back to a similar podcast and this time around i had nothing to prove on it because i already made everything i wanted and so i just showed up and instead i started just sharing all the things that didn't work like for example i i shared a story of how great guys so last year we got over 13 000 leads and clients But there was a time when I was struggling to even get one. And I shared those stories of what it was like when I was just refreshing my inbox to see, did I get a book call? Or for example, I hosted a webinar and then no one wanted to book a call with me. So I just said, oh, is our type form broken? It's like, what's happening? And I would talk about a time, like for example, those moments where I'm just like, oh my gosh, my first refund request and everything else. I'm sharing all these failure stories. But more importantly, the lessons I learned and also how I fixed it and what it looks like today. And that episode, the host said, wow, It was amazing. And I was like, well, let's see what happens. And the episode went live the following month. And we looked at the stats. It was one of the most popular episodes they ever had. Oh, wow. And I talked to the host about it. And I asked, what changed? What do you think was different? It's like, David, it's just looking at my own guess. I think you were the most vulnerable. Like every guest comes in, they feel like they have to be this Wonder Woman. Yeah, or the Superman who has everything. And that's what I noticed about our guests, the ones that, if you look at the metrics on it, at some point I'll have to share you the metrics, but if you look at some of the best episodes we had, the people who our listeners want back, the ones that take the most comments, things like that, it's not the person who comes in and says, hey, I figured everything out. This is what it looks like. Life is great. It's the people saying, yeah, my business was great during COVID and afterwards it wasn't great. This is what I'm figuring out. They were just so vulnerable and super open about their stories, their struggles. And that's what really stands out because I learned it the hard way, which is that, yeah, you can be super impressive, Superman, get everything there, but really, you lose that humanity, you lose the sense of being a real person. And so that's why if you ever follow me on LinkedIn or anything, you just notice I share stupid things about my day, things that I made a mistake with. Like for example, I tried to do my own plumbing once and it created a leak, but it taught me a lesson. I should have just paid $100 to have someone fix that instead of just me trying, ah, it's a YouTube video and a $5 pipe here, I can fix that. So just being guests who are very open about their journey is the first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed is that they share with not just information, but insights. So for example, they don't say, oh, by the way, I tried this YouTube hack and it got me reviews. They were sharing insights like, I was struggling with YouTube until I realized how to use the Sam Zeller method to be able to find out topics. And once I do it, it reduced my time to be able to create content, but create great content I can focus on coaching. So they're sharing insights about how they got there, not just that they got there as like information. So that's the second. And the third of the three things I've noticed is that they say engaged, as in I can kind of tell which guests are going to use the podcast in a great way and make a big impact because they stay in touch with the community. They're like, hey, Davis, is there anyone else you think I should be in contact with? Can I refer you another guest? Is there anything coming up that could be helpful? Hey, Davis, I'm struggling with this. And even this week, I got an email from a guest who came on. He was one of the early guests. He probably guest in the 20s back that time. And he was just updating me on the things that we talked about. And he was struggling with something. I said, hey, actually, have you tried this? And he said, and then he tried it by the end of the week. And he's like, oh, wow, that actually really worked, right? It's like that. staying in contact. So the guests who think about this show as just, I'm just going to record it and then it's done, it's fine as in you're a guest, you can do that. But the ones I find that get the most value and the ones that come back, the ones who get the most return on their time, they actually invest in thinking about, well, how do I make the most of this time and the connections I have with the Career Coaching Secrets podcast and the community?
Carol Jian:That's really nice. That's really beautiful actually for me because you mentioned that People usually just want to share their result. So it will make them look nice, right? But if you only share result and you don't share your journey, probably it's not resonate with others because most of the people are in the journey now. So they can't see their result if you just skip your journey with them. So I really like that. And about your, you just mentioned about the challenge. I also want to dive into that is what has been the most challenging moment for you as a coach?
Davis Nguyen:there's been multiple challenges when i was building my consulting offer so i'll tell you about them in different phases so whenever whenever i think about the coaching business and what phase they're in there's really four phases and you'll remember this when we did your onboarding as a purple circle member is that there there's four phases there's the first phase which is the pioneer this is when you're doing everything yourself because if you're not moving the wagon the wagon does not move like you're moving everything right but eventually at some point usually you're For some people, they move fast enough in roughly about four months and some within a year. You move to what I call the pacer's phase. And so the pacer phase is when you have some systems, some processes, maybe you have an assistant who's helping you, but you get to set the pace. For example, if you want your business to just stay at, let's say, a business that's doing $200,000 every single year in profits, you can stay there. But if you want to move faster and move to, let's say, $2 million in profit a year, you can decide that, right? You're setting the pace, but it's up to you. But you're still controlling everything. And then eventually at level three, you become a pilot. So a pilot at this point is, you think about an airplane pilot. They're not the ones making sure that all the passengers have their seat belts on. They're not making sure that the tires have the air. They're not making sure your luggage is in the cargo. They're just focused on their one thing, right? They do really well, which is piloting the plane. And so for a lot of coaches, they reach this point of what their pilot is. For some people, it's marketing. For some people, it is the product. For some, it's the relationships. For others, it's being the visionary for their business is thinking about what's next for their industry what's going on stages and talking right they do that one thing that they do really well but everything else has systems and processes and eventually level four is a passenger and a level four passenger is when you get to enjoy the ride and you just say hey take me to the moon and you have a team and a pilot who takes you to the moon and i'll tell you the difficulties that came from each of the levels so when i was a pioneer this is my first year yes i made quarter of a million dollars, but I'll tell you a lot of it came from referrals. And so when I tried to grow from a quarter of a million to 1 million, one of my biggest difficulties, the challenge was how do I get leads? And I'll share the story, which is, I remember this, which is I remember we were just getting so many referrals when I was in the pioneer stage. And I thought, oh, referrals are great. People are sending me more of their friends. This is great. I'm like the king of my space for referrals. This is amazing. We didn't even have a website. We didn't have a website yet until like we hit near a million. I was like, yes. And then I remember one day, it was like a week later, I had no sales calls, no emails, no introductions, no referrals.
Carol Jian:You just panicked.
Davis Nguyen:I panicked. I was like, oh my gosh, I have to pay an assistant. I have a part-time coach. I quit a job and I went full-time. I was like, oh my gosh, I need to figure this out. And that was the biggest challenge there was like figuring out how do I get consistent leads coming in And we'll save it for another time or another story. But eventually we were cracking. And of course I mentioned earlier, I was at a conference. I was talking about how I got like 13,000 clients and leads. Like we had to go to that transformation. So the first challenge I went through was how do I get consistent leads? And, but once we cracked that process, I had all these leads coming in. I remember one time I woke up and my assistant was like, Davis, we got 50 people who want to talk to you this week.
Carol Jian:I was like,
Davis Nguyen:Oh my gosh. It really worked. What do we do? And so we needed to get the sales process going, right? And so by the time that happened, my second challenge was when I became a pacer, I couldn't do everything myself. I needed to start removing myself. And one of them was I couldn't take 50 sales calls and also serve our clients. And so that was the point where I mentioned earlier in the interview, I had to reach out for help to figure out, well, how do I build a coaching team that... could take it over for me or build a better model? And how do I remove myself from the sales process? Because I didn't know, I didn't have a mentor who was doing this. I had various coaches that I'd hire, but not one person. I had to figure this out. But eventually I would figure out and hire a coaching team and a sales team that removed me away from that aspect of it. So I can actually focus on growing the business versus just working and putting out fires. So that was the second challenge I faced was in the pacer was, what do I focus on now that I have all these leads? Like, do I work on sales? Do I work on product? Do I work on my pricing? Like, what's that direction? But once I got past the pacer mark, I became the pilot. At this point, I had solid sales, coaching, admin support and everything. It was like, well, what do I do really well? And I was like, well, leading the team, hiring really good talent. And so I needed to be able to figure out, well, how do I promote the people in my company to be the marketing manager, the sales manager, the head coach, the head of operations, to be able to take care of all that. And so that was the third challenge I had was how do I promote great leaders and to be able to have a space for them to want to grow, right? So that was it. But eventually then I would hire a general manager who would take over the business and then that hit up to level four, which is that passenger. and at the point of passengers when we started getting people who wanted to buy the business and everything else the biggest challenge during the passenger phase was what do you do with all the time that you have because all of a sudden i realized that all of a sudden i went from when i was a pioneer working on my business saturdays sundays to when i worked full-time was working like 40 50 60 hour work weeks trying to get everything there to now all of a sudden i'm like the team doesn't need me like i can set the direction the vision but That doesn't change every day. Like, what do I do with my time? And the challenge I had was my own boredom. Like, what do I do with this? Because I remember in the beginning, I would show up to meetings with all these ideas and people like, Davis, that's going to break what we're doing. We're on a good trend. And some things, they're right. They were closer to the ground than I was. They were actually coaching clients and everything. And some ideas were terrible ideas because I thought it were great, but I didn't have context, right? And so the biggest challenge was that passenger was like, what do you do with all the time? Yeah.
Carol Jian:I get it, I get it. It's very, now it looks like very far from me, but somehow I feel like when I work with you, it's kind of, yeah, I will get it fast. I don't know why, but I better prepare. I better prepare if I have a lot of time, what I'm going to do. If my team or my business is working well now, what I can provide for my team or for my business or even for my clients. Can I bring more value about that? That's very interesting. So now I ask, I just ask your challenge, but now I would like to ask about what do you find most rewarding since you started this coaching business?
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, when I started my consulting offer, I'll tell you my most rewarding thing. And it's the same thing as now even at Purple Circle. But I'll tell you my consulting offer. In the beginning, I thought it was the money that I would make, but I'll let you know that at some point, the money doesn't matter as much. Again, it's hard to, if I was telling myself to the young Davis who had that $21,000 that the money won't matter, he'll be like, you are a stupid old man.
Carol Jian:It's like, go, okay.
Davis Nguyen:I need the money.
Carol Jian:Yeah.
Davis Nguyen:But at some point, you'll realize the money, and what you care about is the impact and what you can do for others. And Carol, I want you to get to that point too, but you'll see that. And so what ended up happening was my favorite part actually became every time a client got a result, I would ask them, hey, congratulations on getting your job at PWC. Would it be okay if I recorded a testimonial? And these testimonials would be on the videos and you can find them on the Mic Consulting Offer website still. There's over like 200, 300 of them. They're like clients going on video and just saying, wow, you really changed my life. And that was my favorite part. In fact, even during the low moments of when I was building my consulting offer. So I'll give you some of the low moments. For example, during COVID, when all of a sudden job hiring was freezing, or when I hired and trained my first general manager and she left, or when we had a website hack, that someone hacked our website, I was having these down days. I would just go and listen to the testimonials. And it would just really lift my day there. And so I would say that was my favorite part of being a coach is seeing the results and seeing the lives that people have changed. And it's still the same day today, which is so my favorite things on Purple Circle is when people post their wins. So it doesn't matter. For example, I remember one time you're like, oh my gosh, I got my first $4,000 week. I was like, congratulations. And of course, that same week, I was like, it was another coach was like, oh, I got my first $40,000 a week, right? But both are equally important and amazing to be able to share. And so to me, that's That's my favorite part.
Carol Jian:Yeah, I still remember when before I work with you, I communicate with you after and you encourage me to start my own business, right? And I was so afraid because I never did that before. I have no leads. I have no experience about coaching business. I have no clue about what is this. And I was so afraid. And you just say, don't worry. You can just follow, right? So I send you a message on WhatsApp and I say, Like I had the feeling you would change my life. I'm not sure if you remember this, but.
Davis Nguyen:I remember that at some point we'll have to do a testimony with you and then we can screenshot that WhatsApp message up.
Carol Jian:Yeah, that's really amazing. Because for me, if I think about now, right now and two months ago, I would never imagine that I am here right now, quit my job, focus on my business and I don't have to worry about like burnout or worry about other things. I just need to, I just have to be focused on my business right now. And this is amazing. It's really amazing. So another thing is, yeah, that you also share with me about like, oh, there's a moment that you have no leads, but also there's a moment that you have a lot of leads. and you don't know how to handle that process, right? Can you tell us about the time when your leads or your marketing strategy go viral, but it doesn't actually help your business? Do you have that experience?
Davis Nguyen:So many experiences with that. And so I'll tell you one thing. I'd rather have more leads than less leads. If you have to think about those two situations, there's no situation I want to go back. I'm like, Hey, I have no sales call this week. Oh my gosh, why am I paying my team? No situation. I loved it when my assistant at the time, she's amazing. And so she has her own coaching business today too, which is I'm so proud of her. And so I remember she said, hey, Davis, I can't fit all people, 50 people into your calendar. I was like, oh my gosh, but We promised them, we got to figure this out. Do I work midnight? Wait, they're not going to take a call at midnight. Why am I taking a call at midnight? So we need to figure out this arrangement, right? And so, but the question you had too was like, how to get there? And I would say that to me, the most important thing is one of the things that we, I always tell people is like, you have to have consistent leads. So it doesn't matter, for example, if you have, a post that goes viral or an ad that works really well. And now one week you get like 50 people who want to work with you. If it means that for the rest of the year, no one wants to work with you because you have to have that consistency. And so I'll share with you, and a lot of my friends who are YouTubers, who are Instagram influencers or whatnot, and they'll say the same thing. It's like having a viral post makes you feel really good. You get the metrics and everything, but it doesn't necessarily translate into... Revenue. Exactly. It doesn't translate into revenue. I'll share with you two times that we went viral on it for my consulting offer. And both times I thought, wow, this is going to change everything. And it didn't. So by the way, still better than no leads. So one time we ran a marketing campaign, very simple. We hosted a webinar, invited people from various universities to come to this online before COVID. And then all of a sudden we had about 300 people who showed up for that webinar. And then a hundred people wanted to work with us afterwards, but we didn't do a lot of good screening beforehand is before I built in a process for all that. And all of a sudden we realized, oh, wow, they're going to be really hard to work with. They don't have the budget. There's like a lot of things. And it basically wasted the sales team's time, wasted the potential client's time and just made for bad results afterwards because we didn't screen it. And so that's a result where like, oh my gosh, I'm going to make it, but then your results suffer. And so that's a puzzle number one. As a number two, sometimes it breaks your capacity, what you have. And so during COVID, when hiring was stopped, what I personally did was with my relationships to each of the companies, I reached out and said, hey, are you guys going to do any remote internships and whatnot? And I made this list. And so I posted on my LinkedIn that's like, hey, know anyone who lost an internship during COVID? We have a list of companies who are looking to hire. Just comment below. And that was the most viral post at the time that we had on LinkedIn. And I just couldn't handle the inflow comments like, Davis, we don't have enough. Because I thought, hey, maybe 20 people will reply back, not like 200. And so that went viral. But sometimes Purple Circle members, when they start working, they think that a viral post is the answer. And sometimes, I do this sometimes on purpose, where I'll help them craft a message that will hit all their metrics. So they'll see a viral post. So for example, we had a Purple Circle member who went to a retreat with us, and she was getting some impressions, and all of a sudden, she got this viral post and got a bunch of... great clients and leads afterwards but it's like how do you sustain it right and so sometimes what I'll do is like alright you want to do a viral post we'll do a local viral post it's not going to get millions but we're going to do a local viral post that gets like 10 times more views or 100 times depending on what number it is and I just want you to experience it so you know what it's like and then afterwards they're like oh I see what you mean Davis so I'll give you an example of this was that there's a Purple Circle member eventually he they they just recently won the million dollar club award which is you already know it which is for anyone who's watching it's basically a purple circle that says you hit a million dollars since joining purple circle right so he had a post that went viral because i was like hey this post works it's gonna work on your niche i promise you as in i can only promise you because we've done it so many times and nine out of ten times it went viral and so i gave him the post he was like oh my gosh davis i got 80 people who want to work with me. And then of course he goes to the cab and say, oh, I don't want to work with all of them though. And so he got the point, right? It's like, you want to attract the right people at a consistent amount, but it taught him the lesson. I was like, okay, Davis, I get it. Let's just go consistency. But he needs to get that boost in the beginning to be able to get that.
Carol Jian:Yeah. That's pretty cute. I have to say that it's like when you're a child, your mom tell you, hey, don't do that. But in the end, you just really want to do that. really want to experience that. And your mom say, okay, go. And you just, okay, I come back. I quit. I don't want to do that anymore. I
Davis Nguyen:think sometimes you have to be able to experience something and the right type of mentor or coach will be able to give you that experience. So I'll give you where I learned that from, which is that when I was building my coaching company, I hired someone who had built out a large coaching team to coach me through. And he said, by the way, you'll want these clauses in your coaching contract. And I was like, oh, those seem very harsh. It feels like I'm trying to cheat this person out. I'm not going to include it. And basically one of the clauses I left out was, yeah, no one's going to steal my clients. Why would I put a non-competition, non-solicitation? And then we had a coach who just basically stole everything.
Carol Jian:Yeah, he
Davis Nguyen:had like 50 clients at the time. So he just basically stole them and I couldn't do anything because I didn't have any on the contract. Because even though the person told me, hey, you need this, to me, I'm like...
Carol Jian:But now you know.
Davis Nguyen:But now I know, right? So I think the lesson there is sometimes you just got to trust the process and not go through it. So that's one. Just have someone to tell you the pathways. So nowadays, for example, I'm a lot more concerned than that. I'll give you an example of it is there was a Purpose Circle member company that I invested in and we put a contract in that works both ways. And the person who taught me that, he charged like $5,000 an hour. And that was the most valuable lesson he taught me. He's like, oh, by the way, when you structure a deal to invest in coaching companies, you should include this part into the deal. And I asked him the why behind. I was like, okay, that makes sense. So I'm like, Why would I ever work? And then afterwards it came out and I was like, I'm glad we had that because it worked for both sides really well, but I wouldn't have thought about that. And sometimes, but it took him, he's been doing this for 15 years. And so to be able to get that down into that one hour was very valuable. I wouldn't have learned that. Again, I would have learned it when the member and I had gone through the process and then we were like, oh, we're missing this, but I'm glad that we didn't have to learn from a mistake. But yeah, sometimes you just have to give people what they want. And so they were very adamant in this particular case about going viral. And so I was like, all right, just do this. And they did. And I've done this multiple times. And eventually, I get some point, people get the message that you got to be consistent, consistent with the right leads, not just viral for just to be viral.
Carol Jian:Yeah, I agree. I really agree. I also like one thing. I listen to podcasts a lot. And one thing that I realized is if I learn others' story or their mistakes, at least I have choice to do or to don't do but if I don't know or I don't listen or I don't or I just even I just don't know and then image if you don't know you just have no choice So this is something that I really like to listen to your podcast as well because there's a lot of career coaches. They just share their story or they share their mistakes, what they made with their clients or what's their difficulties that when they're facing. So this is something that I really like. And another thing is you went through a lot. As your journey, you went through a lot. What kind of course that you are actually a man for or... how you would define your success in today? So
Davis Nguyen:I'm going to comment on one thing before we go down to that question is that, yeah, you mentioned that you love, by the way, I love that you're listening to the podcast still, is that, yeah, I mentioned, you mentioned earlier, like what makes a guest stand out, and this is it, is the co-hosts who come in, like, by the way, I'm super impressed when people come in and say, I have a $5 million coaching business doing resumes. I have a $10 million doing interview coaching mindset. I'm super impressed, all of that as well. But, when people really share about these are the things I learned along the way, that's how other people grow. And that's what I care about, right? Because the reason I mentioned that is that it leads to your question, which is, well, what is growth like for me today? And so for my consulting offer, once we have a leadership team, I was able to focus my time on Purple Circle. So I mentioned earlier that when you get to that level four, when you become a passenger, you basically have to do two things. Either one, a lot of people jump back into their business and it just messes everything up. Or two, you figure out something else to do. And there was only so many board games that I can play or so many escape rooms I can do. And so I was like, I need to do something. And so at the time, I had four coaches who reached out to me and they were like, Davis, I want to grow my business. And I was like, yeah, guys, I'm a career coach, not a business coach. But they kept asking. And so I ended up working with them. And they became the startup purpose circle, which is, can this framework actually work? And so I took four of them. And then by the end of it, the goal that they had in mind was that they wanted to grow. But to them, growth is very different. Some people just want to be able to have $250,000 in income. Other people are like, no, I want to sell the business. Everyone's like, I want millions. And so there's different goals. And so when they all came in, I said, well, let's just take it as a year. No promises, but let's see what we can do. And so the growth became very different. After a year, One of them, she ended up making the most money she's ever made. They hit her a million dollars in revenue, and she and her four kids got to move away from their rental home and moved into their first home. She used the money as a down payment for her house. So that was beautiful. One person ended up selling his business and ended up being able to have a bucket list of things he wanted to do with his life. So he basically spent the next two years just heading off those bucket lists. Third, they went from about $100,000 to $2.5 million, and... they decided to just take their honeymoon as a couple because they didn't have that honeymoon when they were building their business and if everyone still runs it he's just past three million which i'm super proud of but you kind of see that different growth paths are there and for me for purple circle is where my focus is right now and for our podcast it is just making sure that we're growing responsibly so again it's not for me i already made money to change my life but it's more of i want to be able to impact other people so that's why our mission is like impact a billion lives but we want to do it sustainably we want to show that hey you can grow but also have a great life and a great community and a great number of processes as well and that you can do it without burnout you can do it consistently and you can deliver great results so that's what i care about nowadays in terms of it so we are growing and so i think that's a common theme for people who stay in our community is growth there's nothing wrong if you just want like one or two more clients but to me it's kind of like i want to be able to live out my potential so i want to be able to impact as many lives as possible obviously the income will come but it's like if I know I'm capable more I want to be able to inspire people I want my kids to think like oh wow dad really went out there did his best he failed but he got back up he kept in like I want them to feel inspired on it and so that's part of the stories that you get to see in the so when I when I started the career coaching secrets podcast I realized I was not alone in that journey obviously there are coaches who just want one or two clients a month that's totally fine and but for a lot of offers they realize that there's a lot of potential that's untapped and they want to be able to tap it
Carol Jian:Yeah, I think for me, the most successful life or successful business probably is not how much money you make, is how many people you impact, right?
Davis Nguyen:Exactly. You want to be able to impact it, but you're also not a charity, right? So you also want to be able to pay the bills, have a good life and all the other things in between.
Carol Jian:Yeah, that's really inspired me as well. You mentioned that you want to be able to impact someone else or their life or that your kid got inspired from you, your story. Has there ever been a question or a thing from a mentor or your client or your coach that completely shift how you saw your business or like they inspired you?
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, there was a mentor who asked me. Imagine that someone else had your exact skills, exact experience, childhood and everything they grew up. They're you. Do you think they should be able to do more with their life? I was like, oh, shoot.
Carol Jian:That hit me so hard.
Davis Nguyen:That hit me so, so hard. I was like, yeah. And so that was what motivates me on those hard days. It's kind of like, and even the high days, like, should I be able to do more? And I do. And so that was like, yeah, I should be able to accomplish more. And so that allows me to go through. I was like, well, to figure out, well, what do I need? So, for example, in my low days when we were struggling with leads before we got those, I was like, if someone like me, should they be able to get more leads? I'm like, absolutely. Then afterwards, like, well, they have all these leads. Someone like me, should they be able to outsource the sales part and be able to remove themselves? Absolutely. And then someone with me, with my skills and what I can do, can they... get client results at scale without losing who they are. It's like, yeah, it keeps me going.
Carol Jian:So that
Davis Nguyen:hit me really hard.
Carol Jian:That was a good question. Yeah. Okay, so now I'm interested about what kind of investment, investing in yourself or in your business that you made is the biggest difference for you?
Davis Nguyen:So I would say that when it comes to investments, I think about it in three different types of category. It's time, it's energy, but it's also financial, right? So I was like, how do I grow this? So when I say like, in terms of time, is it give me back time to spend time with the people I love and do the people I care about? Energy, does it lift me up? And then the most people think about investment is just financial, it's like money back, but it's just more than that. So I'll give you some of the examples as well, is when it comes to time, I always think about, well, How do I get more time back to spend time with my family? And how do I spend time with the ones I love, my friends? So I'll tell you silly investments I've made that might be silly for others, but to me, they're so, so, so impactful. So for example, during the week, I realized that I do... Before, I would do a lot of time cleaning or cooking, but that would take away time from everything else I do, right? I'm like, well, how about I just hire a cleaner and a chef to be able to do all that? Obviously, now I say that. Again, younger me would be like, what the crap, man? We got a $21,000 medical bill. What are you doing hiring a cleaner and a chef? We got to help our mom, right? But it's really impactful because whenever I come back home to Atlanta and I can have those as well, my mom doesn't have to clean up the home. My grandparents don't have to think about it. I was just like, hey, let's just get a day cleaner. Let's just go out and someone will take care of us. It feels like a really good way to get time back because you can't get time back. is I realized, so anything that I can do to make, get me time back, I love doing it, right? So that's the first. The second is energy, is what lifts up my energy, right? in terms of the investment. So this could be, for example, going to a community that I really enjoy. So for example, I love two communities in particular. Since we just talked about this, like one is going to church really lifts me up, right? Just being able to be there with everyone else is like a really good spirit when I need it. So investment in energy. So I'm trading my time to be there at the service, at the sermon, to be able to do that. But you don't have to be religious. There could be other communities too. For example, I am a part of Toastmasters. I love Toastmasters because it's a basically fun group of people. And during my low moments when I was running a business, I would go to these Toastmasters meetings and there were people from all walks of life. There were people who were day laborers to people who were salespeople, door to door, to people who were tech executives, CEOs. And we all just hang out in a room and realize, you know what? We all go through struggles, but it's a good environment to be in. So that's the time, right? How do I back by time? Energy is like, how do I gain more energy? And then financial as well. How do I speed up the learning curve? And I would say that the best investments I ever made on those were just investing in people who were ahead of me. And so I'll talk about two instances, which is one, very relevant for those who are listening here, is one for, I'll talk about a small one, which is a podcast. Whenever I started our podcast, I didn't want to just figure out everything from scratch. I wanted us to make a big impact. How do we get great guests, editing and everything else? Instead of trying to figure it out myself, I literally just found a podcast I really liked and I've been listening to and I just emailed the producer and I just said, hey, can I just pay you to tell me how you guys set up everything? And he said, here's our fee. I was like, yeah, sure, done. And so we just went in and had multiple sessions. But then that sped up our learning curve so much in terms of how do we get 200 giga. Obviously, the things we have to learn ourselves, but it was just more of we learned that. And they've been doing it for 10 years on a podcast. I've been doing it at that point, zero, except for being a guest. And all of a sudden, I can get 10 years worth of knowledge in just a few hours. That's amazing.
Carol Jian:Yeah, that's really amazing. That's
Davis Nguyen:amazing. So that's the type of investment I get back, right? Yeah. A larger one in terms of financials, I noticed that when I hired the right coach and I joined the right mastermind, the right community, that has given me the best investment. So I'll tell you one of the ones is for Purple Circle. So for my consulting offer, it took me two years to hit our first million dollar mark within Purple Circle. It took us less than six months to be able to be on that track, to be able to get to that six figures. And then seven months to hit seven figures. So I gave a talk at a conference once called Seven Figures in Seven Months. And the reason being was that There's another founder in another space who's running coaching companies, similar to what we do at Purple Circle, but except for fitness coaches. I actually went to his conference because again, this is when there's nothing for career coaches. So I went to a fitness coaching conference to learn about what can I do in my career coaching business. And I was sitting there, I was like, oh wow, he's changing a lot of lives here in the fitness space. How do I do that? And so for career coaching. And so when I started Purple Circle, I literally just reached out to him and his team and said, hey, can I talk to the CEO? And the guy's like, oh, CEO doesn't do one-on-ones. And I was like, just tell me the amount of money. And his salesperson says, all right, I got to talk to my manager. And the manager's like, I got to talk to the COO. And so the CEO reached out and eventually chief of staff, all these people. And basically, eventually they said, okay, he'll do it. You'll get one afternoon with him.
Carol Jian:Afternoon?
Davis Nguyen:Get one afternoon with him. It is $25,000. Oh, wow. And I said, Okay. Because I knew he had done this for seven years. Like, I'm going to do it. He's like, okay. $25,000. I'm like, great. He's like, but you have to make it in full payment. I'm like, great. Do you do credit card or do you want to bank transfer? I was like, great. We're going to do bank transfer. Oh, by the way, you have to meet him near his home. He's not going to... Oh, that's fine. I'll fly over. And we did. And so when we did the... We did it. And it was one of the best things. I flew into his city and... And as I'm flying, when I land, I get a text from his assistant saying, so sorry, CEO just had a death in the family. He's on the way to the airplane. He has to catch his family. And I was like, I just flew here. And I'm like, can you meet me at the airport? I'm here anyways. And so we literally just chatted nearby the airport at a Starbucks. And that was our chat. And so it was one of the most impactful. He taught me like all the things that to not mess up on, all the things to do right. And so that's just really short changes it right for you. It's like when someone has been there and done that, you can either do it through years of trial and error or you just do success leaves clues always. And so for me, it was like, that's always been my, how I got into everything. When I was growing up, most kids in my community, they don't think about college. They don't even finish high school. it was a community, it was like one of the worst communities to grow up in. And so I didn't have a role model. And so to get into college, I just basically just read the college newspapers of the ones I liked. And I said, all right, Harvard, Yale, I'm just gonna read those newspapers and just
Carol Jian:email.
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, and I would just read, and I've talked about this on the podcast already, but I'll just summarize the version of it, which was like, I just started code emailing students at Harvard and Yale who are on the newspaper and said, can you help me? And I basically said, I would love to do that. And they gave me the path to how to get to Harvard and Yale, and I got to Harvard and Yale. And when I was at Harvard and Yale, I was trying to get into Bain and Company and McKinsey and Company, and they were hiring 1% out of 30,000 applicants. So I reached out to Bain Consultants, McKinsey, same thing, right? And then when I was, at the company trying to build my marketing. I hired marketing coaches. When I was trying to scale the team, I hired a sales team. I hired two sales coaches who had built out sales teams. It's just the biggest cheat code. I was on YouTube, and I know I shouldn't be spending time on YouTube. And so for anyone who watches, there's a fantastic YouTube creator named MrBeast. And so MrBeast is amazing at what he does. And there was an interview with MrBeast that just really enforced what I was thinking. And MrBeast said, you know, This is one thing I tell my team. Imagine, for example, for this video, we're trying to build the world's largest chocolate cake. You know what we do? And I'm just like listening. He says, we hire the person who currently has the record for building the biggest chocolate cake. And you learn everything. And he says that, and he said a quote, he said that consultants are God's gift.
Carol Jian:oh wow and i was like
Davis Nguyen:game right saving time and so anywho success success leaves clues and so that's what i think about is i always think about like who's ahead of me and i just get them it doesn't matter it could be i'm so silly but for example when i play board games if i'm stuck at it i just i just ask people who are better than me i was like how do i get better at this
Carol Jian:i really love it i really love your attitude on investing in yourself because A lot of people, they don't realize this. For example, now you spend 25,000 at this moment, but if you divide in 10 years, it means you need to spend 10 years to figure this out. Yeah, and then 25,000 is like nothing. But during these 10 years, if you learn this, you can probably, you can learn 250,000 or even 10,000 times more than that. Yeah.
Davis Nguyen:Exactly. And so it's like you skip this, right? Because when people are starting a business like podcast and people are like, Davis, why can't we just, I remember even some people like Davis, it's a podcast. It can't be that hard. I'm like, yeah, but this over here, they're doing thousands of podcasts. I'm just getting started. And so they just basically skipped us. And I remember I just had a call with them when I was just checking out with the producer because I want us to grow our practice even more. And so a week ago I had the same call with the producer. I was like, oh my gosh, you moved so fast. Like you literally covered what we did in four years in less than a year. And I was like, yeah, because you showed me what to do. And he was like, yeah, we have to figure out this stuff the hard way. And so I was like, by the way, now I want to step the next step. Let's go.
Carol Jian:That's why I feel like when I work with you, I don't need to worry a lot. I just follow your advice because you hire a lot of coaches in your life. So for me, it's like even speed up more, you know? So that's really beautiful. And you mentioned about, oh, the investment have like invest in your time, invest in your energy or invest in your financial, right? But a lot of time that we want to earn more money is we want to have better life, the life that you want. So have you ever seen like, one breakthrough moment from your client or like members, they kind of like report a word and then into their family, team, or community, like change their life.
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, do you mean for my coaching business, my consulting offer, or do you mean for Purple Circle?
Carol Jian:For Purple Circle.
Davis Nguyen:Yeah, for Purple Circle, so many. I shared with you earlier in the podcast, one of the first Purple Circle members, she was taking care of her four kids, now five, and it was just... she didn't have the means to be able to do it. And she became a coach because she felt like that was also the right vehicle. And I remember the moment she cried once because it was one of our coaching sessions. And she's, when she first came to me, she said, Davis, there's no way that people, I can get that many leads. And when we got enough leads, we had to get sales. And she was just like, overburdened with sales. And she's like, David, I got to give up my summer now that my kids are out of school, but I got it. And I was like, no, let's hire you a sales team. She's like, there's no one who can do sales as good as me. And Three months later, we had a sales team, two amazing women that we hired for her. And that was the first summer that she had time with her kids and that cried. And then afterwards, when she's at Davis, by the way, just want to send you the screenshot. This is the down payment we're making on our home. We're moving out of our rental. And I was like, man, so beautiful. And so there's been a lot of stories like that as well. And you also met Ray as well, who he lost his home before he became a coach. And then... He went from making $2,000 a month to making six figures within the year. And then this year they're on track for 4 million. So obviously that took multiple years, but it had been stories like that where it just really touches me. And then of course, Alex was at our last retreat and he shared about how he nearly shut down his business. And now he's just like, he gets to write and write his next books. The business runs on its own. He's only working Monday through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is basically creative writing time for him. And so those are like some of the transformations that I've been most proud of. But again, there's nothing wrong with taking someone who's already rich and making them richer. Like There's nothing wrong with that, but you said some of the outside of money, I would say some of those have been the biggest ones.
Carol Jian:Wow, that's really amazing. And okay, the last question that I really want to ask is also for me. What advice would you give to other coaches who are looking for to scale their impact, not just their income, their impact?
Davis Nguyen:So the advice I would give depends on... where you are on the stage. So earlier in this podcast, I mentioned that there's four stages of the business, which is the pioneer, the pacer, the pilot, and then the passenger. If you are a pioneer, likely you're trying to get consistent revenue going up, so it's higher, right? So focus on your lead generation. And once you have enough lead generation, making sure that you have enough sales capacity, and after that, making sure that you can fulfill on it, right? Because if you have all the leads in the world and you're converting them, but you're a very bad coach, it'll come back to haunt you. So when you're on to Pioneer, just focus on getting consistent leads that's growing, consistent sales and delivering on that. Then when you go on to Pacer, you need to make the decision of what is it that you want to do? Do you want to take this as a lifestyle business? Let's say make $200,000, $300,000 in profit a year, or do you want to take it higher and make multiple millions? Because there are going to be trade-offs in between those, right? There's no right or wrong answer. It's the wrong answer for you, but you want to be able to think about that answer. And once you're at the pilot stage is how do you surround yourself with really good systems and really good people, right? Along the way. And once you're a passenger, it's like, hey, Don't break something that's already working. Think about what you want to be able to do next. As much as every coach thinks that you're unique, we are unique, but our process is the same. It's like people have been there. They've done it already. Just instead of trying to figure it out on your own, just go there. There's a reason why Warren Buffett has had so many coaches and mentors. There's so many reasons why the best golfers have coaches. There's a reason why people do it. It's like we always tell ourselves that as a coach, We want our clients to get coaching, but you got to also live it too. Or as one of our Purple Circle members who works for pharmacists said so, so, so beautifully. He was a guest and he said, when he was asked, why do you invest so much in coaching? And he said, Davis, I invest in coaching because I'm teaching my clients clients to get in coaching. It's kind of like a doctor who takes medicine but doesn't believe in medicine themselves.
Carol Jian:Oh, that's terrible.
Davis Nguyen:So basically, the two summaries I have, so two advice instead of one, which is really funny because when I ask guests, like, what's the one advice? It's one, identify what's the bottleneck in your business right now that you want to change. Is it more leads? Is it consistent sales? Is it fulfillment operations? And then just find someone who's done it and just shortcut the change. I think that's one of the themes I've noticed from our guests, over the 200 guests we've had is, I would say that that's probably the most common theme of how the ones who eventually get to the level they want is they just got to the next level. They figured out someone who had already done it and just got there.
Carol Jian:Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing this with me, with us. I think it's very beautiful. And there's a lot of mindset. Also, your story is very impressive. And then I really like it and I really love your mindset as well. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Davis Nguyen:Hey, thanks for reaching. Well, first off, thanks for being a Purple Circle member. And also second, thanks for reaching out. This was a very, I mean, when I got the email, I thought, wait, wait, are you saying you want to be back on a guest on the Career Coaching Secrets? She's like, no, I want to interview you. I was like, oh, okay. Well, we'll be in the same city soon. So let's, let's arrange it. And so I'm really glad that we were able to do this. So thank you. 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.