Career Coaching Secrets

Building a Personal Brand That Elevates Leadership & Career Growth with Duane Furlong

• Davis Nguyen

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In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Duane Furlong, a seasoned entrepreneur, leadership coach, and founder of Duane Furlong Studios, where he helps executives and high-performing teams elevate their leadership skills and personal brands. With a passion for unlocking potential and fostering growth, Duane draws on years of experience in business strategy, coaching, and content creation to inspire others to lead with confidence and authenticity. Tune in as we discuss personal branding, leadership development, and building a successful career with purpose.

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/duane-furlong/
https://duanefurlongstudios.com/


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

Duane Furlong:

You can't be the goofball in your own snapshot from the iPhone to send to that. You know what I'm saying? So people want to, why am I expensive? Because of the service. White glove services and what we do for you. And coaches that have used me, they see it. They send their people over. You know, they send their employees over because after their experience, they're like, whoa, this is what we need.

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 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 $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 Regan and today's guest is Duane Furlong, the photographer behind Scottsdale's top rated headshot studio and a specialist in signature confidence coaching that helps professionals look confident, credible and genuinely approachable on camera. Duane and his team serve everyone from CEOs and attorneys to Fortune 500 sales organizations, both in studio and on location for teams of five to 500 and they're known for natural polished images and retouching that looks like you, not airbrushed. With 300 plus five star Google reviews, Dwayne has turned I hate being photographed into finally I love my headshot using a proven coaching process that removes photo awkwardness and captures brand building expression in minutes. And it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Dwayne. Thank you. I'm looking forward to this. I'm looking forward to it too. So thank you for taking the time to come. I wanted to ask you when it comes to your business, initially, how did it come to be this business that it is right now, which includes a part of coaching in it, too. And like we mentioned, signature confidence coaching in it, want to know what inspired you to get to this stage? And how did it all get started?

Duane Furlong:

So get started, I graduated with a finance degree and went into healthcare finance for 18 plus years 2017. The company I worked for, decided just to lay off our group. And I've always loved photography, did it part-time, started back as a kid. My mentor, Peter Hurley in LA and learned the tricks of the trade back in 17. And I'm like, you know what? We're just going to go for it all. January 1st, 2018, officially started full-time.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. Amazing. And when we're looking at LinkedIn, it's almost 15 years with this business. And so when we think about the clients that you work with, we're talking a about the coaches as well. And on the intro, we mentioned CEOs and a few other types of clients. But if we were to dive a bit deeper into the ideal client profile for you, how would you describe, is there any type of client that you typically find yourself working much, much better on?

Duane Furlong:

I think our ideal are the C-suites, executive teams. They value the quality, but they also want the preciseness. To get in, make them look like a million dollars, coach them and get out. But it's usually, it looks like our targets are entrepreneurs, the coaches, like we were talking before, the high-end business coaches and C-suite. Those are our target.

Rexhen Doda:

And how is it like to work with you? For the coaches who are listening, for the CEOs who are listening, because we have a mixture of two, how is it like to work with you? Is there some sort of packages that you're offering typically to these clients?

Duane Furlong:

So there are no packages. I have gone under the philosophy for the last eight years, you only pay for what you want. Working with me is a lot of my clients don't want to be in front of the camera. And my assistants have always, I'm a goofball. I get them to open up. I'm cool. I am. I don't care if it's a fortune 500 CEO, I will get them laughing. So they get that million dollar expression. I tell dad jokes. I just tell, say things that you wouldn't expect, you know, because we're both humans, you know, whoever's in front of my camera, they don't, they get, they freeze. I coach them on how to do things properly, but I also will say things that throws them off and gets them laughing.

Rexhen Doda:

Amazing. And so when it comes to marketing, what is working really well for you? What marketing channel do you find that is typically most effective with your business?

Duane Furlong:

We are seeing LinkedIn as a primary channel that we are targeting. Most business professionals are there. Yes, we get some from the SEO, Google world, but I would say our primary focus is LinkedIn because you're on LinkedIn. They see you a picture. Where did you get it? Oh, we want something like that. And there's been research that the most business entrepreneurs are on LinkedIn, you know, versus scraping to try to find the right people on Google.

Rexhen Doda:

One thing about your business right now and looking into the future for the next one to three years, do you have some specific goals you're working towards?

Duane Furlong:

Yes. A big goal of mine is to have Becca, my associate that you also talked with, to really help take over some of the headshots. I've been training her for the last couple of years where she can handle some of the mid management or college graduate and stuff like that. So I can continue to build my other business and the high-end headshot business. My goal is to do a couple of shoots a week, maybe one or two on locations a month and have her handle the rest of the business while I built my other businesses. Cool.

Rexhen Doda:

I like that. And right now, when it comes to investments that you've done in your business, what would you say have been some good investments that you either learned a lot from or got a good return from? And what have been some investments that you would have preferred to have avoided if there's any of those?

Duane Furlong:

I would say one of the best investments, well, there's three investments that I feel is absolutely crucial. And a lot of people overlook this as people. A lot of people forget about that. They feel They think about the equipment and stuff like that. But without investing in the right persons, you're nowhere. You know, and the coaches will validate that also. Investing in Taylor and Becca and training, those are huge assets. The other investment I feel personally in luck is my camera, my medium format. I stepped up about two years ago from full frame to this and it's changed the entire dynamic. So that was a huge investment and I feel it's amazing and it works. Things that haven't worked out, the phone. homo, you know, oh, I want that new toy.

Speaker 02:

Then

Duane Furlong:

you're looking like it wasn't really worth it and stuff like that. Because as a photographer, you can buy new laptops and desktops and monitors and this and that. And before you know it, you're $100,000.

Rexhen Doda:

Absolutely. And when thinking about the coaches that we usually interview, there's career coaches, executive coaches, leadership coaches. It's so important to show up professionally in these coaching sessions. and looking professionally on camera for video content as well. And you and I were actually discussing this a little bit earlier and you were sharing with me some of your setup as well in terms of like the tools that you find most useful. Now, when thinking about the tools that a coach who's listening just does some coaching sessions and might do some shorts on LinkedIn or shorts on YouTube, is there a particular setup that you'd recommend?

Duane Furlong:

The camera I use is the Osmo that we talked about the osmo 3 with the content creator like that is probably one of my biggest assets for on the go because i know of a coach he will take his camera all the time with them even if he's taking a walk or you know he'll always be doing that that is the camera the iphone is great but if you have something a powerful you can do a lot more with it as i've discovered over the last year and a half and besides that lighting lighting lighting don't use a cheap ring light Invest in a correct light. It may cost you three to 500 bucks, but if you're looking great on camera for Zooms and stuff like that, for coaching, that brings you up to the next level. Don't use the laptop camera if you can. Use something like what we're using today is the Osmo with the microphone. You sound better, more professional, and it's easier to do things in post and also the lights. That is probably the key, even with my headshot photography. the lights everything's all about the lighting

Rexhen Doda:

because we live in a modern world right now where you're not really showing up in person anymore to meet people so in a way are no longer wearing suits but how we are presented in the screen when doing these calls it has the same type of effect of someone showing up professionally in the office wearing a suit this is the next level of that where we're showing professionally on the camera yeah and so what are some challenges that you're facing right now with your business when we focus on the coaching part of it?

Duane Furlong:

The challenges, and I was actually just talking to my wife about this and my accountant, is the challenge right now is nobody knows what's going on. So there's been a dip plus the holidays, kids back in school, but the biggest thing is people are worried about spending the money. So we're marketing in a different way versus even six months ago, eight months ago, three months ago. We're really, really focused on LinkedIn more than the Google side of it. I'm sending out 25 connections a day. Rebecca is. We're following up with people, former clients, just to let them know what's going on. So LinkedIn right now is probably the savior for everybody. That's in the business world, coaching world versus just waiting for that phone call.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And the thing about the coaches who are listening that want to scale up their coaching business and grow their coaching business is You've worked with coaches yourself as well. And from your perspective, from the type of work that you do, what advice would you give to these coaches who are trying to grow to the next level? And you can give it perspective of the setup as well and how important it is when it comes to the image that you show up online.

Duane Furlong:

That's absolutely critical is the image. If you were charging thousands a month for coaching, you know, don't have a low quality image. And stop. I've talked to many coaches like your look is yourself. signature, your identity. So spend the money. My average coaches, when they come in to get their headshots, I would say range between 1,200 to 2,500 that they would drop because it's not just the headshot. It's half bodies. It's some branding. It's guiding them to who they are. So when they're putting out their press releases or presentations, they have a multitude of different images, but it's all about the look, the craft of how we get them to look friendly confident, but also strong to say, I will get you that CFO job or the business that needs to be moved from X to say 5 million to 10 million for coaching. Because with me and I tell everybody the same way, I'll look at LinkedIn and if I need an expert for something and I can have three people lined up, one has a very nice, well-lit picture and they all have the same qualifications. One is a cutout and the other one is just very poorly lit. I'm going to choose the person that resonates with the amazing picture. And I know that sounds crass, but that's the way people are.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, because in a way, when you think about it, first of all, that is the one that leaves an impression on you. That is the one that you feel like, oh, if he has invested in himself, then he's probably more serious about the work that he's doing. So it kind of like, in a way, makes you feel more confident working with someone who invests in themselves, takes this seriously and wants to show up more professionally. You can think about if he's showing up professionally in this meeting with me, potentially he's going to show up professionally in the areas he's going to help me with as well.

Duane Furlong:

Exactly. Versus a cutout from a wedding or an AI headshot. I hate to say it. We can see those headshots a mile away. Yeah, absolutely. People always ask, are they going to take your business? No, because you can't provide what I do. You can't be the goofball in your own snapshot from the iPhone to send to that. You know what I'm saying? So people want to... Why am I expensive? Because of the service. White glove services and what we do for you. And coaches that have used me, they see it. They send their people over. You know, they send their employees over because after their experience, they're like, whoa, this is what we need.

Rexhen Doda:

Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Dwayne. And thank you so much for coming to our podcast today. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, they can go into LinkedIn, look up Dwayne Furlong and find the name And also in this video for the ones who are seeing the video when it comes to spelling is D-U-A-N-E, Duane Furlong, F-U-R-L-O-N-G. So that's how you'll find it on LinkedIn. And yeah, is

Duane Furlong:

there- Yeah, connect with me and let's talk. I mean, I'm here to help everybody.

Rexhen Doda:

There's also the website, duanefurlongstudios.com. I believe we can send people there as well. Yes. Yep. Cool. Yep. I'll put that in the description of this podcast so people can click on it easy. But yeah, thank you so much, Duane. It was a pleasure to have you.

Davis Nguyen:

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.