“Mindset Shifts and Million-Dollar Goals with Dr. Peter James”

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Dr. Peter James, founder of HCG Strategic Partners, leadership coach, and transformational change expert. Peter shares his journey from corporate layoffs to building a boutique coaching and consulting firm that now serves industries like healthcare, pharma, government, nonprofits, and higher education.

He discusses how his firm blends executive coaching, leadership development, and culture transformation to help organizations grow from the inside out. Peter also opens up about his strategic plan to scale to $1 million in revenue by 2026, the importance of hiring the right team, and why authentic connections outperform digital ads in his business development.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drpeterajames/overlay/contact-info/
Website: https://www.shiftyourmindset.com/

Transcript

Peter James: 0:00

From a financial uh perspective, we're looking to hit one million dollars next year. That that's our sweet spot that we're looking for or pressing in um going into twenty twenty six. And so it'd be very strategic. And when you when you're a small boutique consultancy, coaching and consultancy, you have to be very specific and strategic about your plans as you um continue to step on into. We'd like to work with some of our larger organizations and then also um look to beef up our team to include other coaches as well as consultants. So if you are out there and you align with some of those things that I've spoken about already, we might need to have a conversation.

Davis Nguyen : 0:38

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 Wynne, 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: 1:09

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Sewards Podcast. I'm your host, Reggen, and today's guest is Dr. Peter James, a business strategist, leadership coach, and transformational change expert who helps organizations shift mindset, strengthen culture, and drive performance from inside out. As the founder of HCG Strategic Partners, Peter brings over 15 years of experience supporting leaders and teams through high performance coaching, leadership development, and culture transformation. And it's a pleasure for me to have Peter on the podcast today. Welcome to the show.

Peter James: 1:43

Thank you so much for having me. I truly appreciate it.

Rexhen Doda: 1:45

It's a pleasure, man. And I wanted to uh dive a little bit deeper into like how you got started with your coaching business. I know it's many years ago, but what inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching business?

Peter James: 2:00

I was in corporate some years ago, and I've experienced a lot of changes inside the corporate environment, a lot of reorganizations, layoffs, whatever you want to call it. There was a lot going on around 2008 time frame, and it really stuck out to me. As a matter of fact, I experienced three layoffs in a matter of 18 months. And I I figured if that person to my right or left could get laid off, then I surely could. So I wanted to discover my own purpose, my fulfillment, for lack of a better word. And that's when I discovered coaching. I got my own coach. I didn't discover that coaching was going to be it, but I did get my own coach. And uh coaching changed my life so much so that I went ahead and pursued coaching and got my own coaching certification. And the rest is kind of history of the launching of the organization, and still to this day, um, I'm a coach through and through uh and love it overall.

Rexhen Doda: 2:53

Interesting. So after 15 years of doing this, I'm assuming there's probably a type of client that you typically like to work with. So how would you and I didn't mention this earlier, but when it comes to our podcast, there's two audiences. One audience or one group of audience is other coaches, either career coaches, executive coaches, leadership coaches, but we also have the borrowed audience of all of the guests that we've had on the show before. And uh, we might potentially be reaching out, or someone that you could potentially work with might be listening. So, how would you describe that ideal client profile? Is there a certain specific industry, demographic, psychographic? Do they have some common goals or other commonalities?

Peter James: 3:37

Yeah, good question. So I guess based on your question, I really need to be specific about my niche so I can identify who that is. Love the question, Behrid. Um and actually, we worked with so many different companies and organizations, but our targets are this. If I had to narrow it down, it's based on a little bit of my history. So our targets are healthcare, pharmaceutical, government, nonprofits, and higher education organizations. And our goal is to help strengthen those organizations from the inside out. And we do it three specific ways, ways that you described it in the outset. Leadership development initiatives, executive and leadership coaching, and then also, of course, transformational change initiatives. So our clients are usually executives, small business owners sometimes as well, who are looking to strengthen their organization in order to get better outcomes. And how do you get better outcomes? It's usually from the inside out. It doesn't mean you negate what's going on externally, but you got to work on yourself, work on your organization and your individuals, especially your leaders, as you continue to move forward.

Rexhen Doda: 4:40

How would you describe the engagement they have with you? Like, is it like a one-on-one program coaching? Is the group coaching? Is there some sort of a program length there?

Peter James: 4:49

Yeah, good question. Um and so it's a little bit of both of what you described, plus even some workshops and things like that. So there's definitely that one-on-one coaching. Usually it stretches from anywhere from six months to a year. That's a sweet spot. Anything less than that, you're kind of just beginning the process to a certain extent. There's also group coaching, whether it's with your teams or groups that exist, that usually goes a little bit shorter, maybe about three months. But the beauty of being in a group is because not only are you being challenged from the coach leader, but you're also challenging each other in that group setting. So that's phenomenal also. And then of course, um, there's the workshops, whether it's the change initiatives, the leadership development programs, or the academies that we're developing, continue to develop for organizations. We try to make them as bespoke as possible, but however, there's quite a few angles or quite a few things that are continued to bring to each and every engagement as we move forward.

Rexhen Doda: 5:49

In order for you to see these to see meaningful change to these leaders, typically it probably has to take more or like closer to six months or more than six months. And that's how long it lasts typically. Right now, when it comes to people finding you or you finding them marketing-wise, do you see that there's any marketing channel that works better than the others or is there a mixture of channels?

Peter James: 6:13

So let me go back to your previous question, if I could add on to that a little bit as well. Yes, that uh never can be a one-and-done type of thing for clients in order for outcomes or actions and behaviors that are need to be shifted to stick. So I can't do a presentation on communication one time and now everyone's a master of communication. No, it just doesn't work like that. There has to be some accountability, some practicing in order to allow it to stick better than if it was just one time hearing it and then trying to execute on it. So that's definitely a thing, whether it is the coaching, the training in the workshops, or even the transformational change, how do we continue to make it stick? Ideally, coaching is involved with all of that to a certain extent. So now to your question, how do we find clients or how do clients find us? I love organic marketing, I will say there, Jenna. What does that really mean? I love engaging with people one-on-one or in an audience or speaking in order to allow them to hear what we do. So we do a lot of speaking at conferences, obviously, some podcasts here and there as in this one. Yes, we exist on digitally. LinkedIn is a great place to find me for sure, Peter A. James in Chicago. That's an excellent place to find us. But then also we're also on Instagram. Um I mentioned LinkedIn as well. We have a website, um, hcgstrategies.com as well. So there's a myriad of ways, but developing the relationship is something that I go after in order to understand the needs of the person that I'm talking about. It's never a one-and-done thing. It's never that I'm here and I want to work with you tomorrow. It's wait, let's let you understand clearly what we do, but let me understand your gaps and your needs so that we can possibly help to fulfill them.

Rexhen Doda: 8:02

So right now, to to to look into the future for the next one to three years, do you have any specific goals or business goals that you're working towards, Elf?

Peter James: 8:12

Definitely some financial goals. I think uh if you're in any business, you have to have those annual goals, even those quarterly goals. But then also there's the processes and the programs that you want to put put into place, how many clients you ideally would like to work with, the types of clients that you want to work with. So, yes, the answer to your question is yes, we have all of those goals. Now, as we're recording, it's getting to be late 2020. So, yeah, I'm already mentally in 2026 planning. Um, we've got some engagements with some major clients, but also planning um how to to get more business from even smaller clients or clot clients that we just don't even know at this point right now, potential clients. So the answer to your question is yes. We are definitely working towards some financial but also some programming goals as well.

Rexhen Doda: 8:59

Don't have to talk about finance if you don't want to, but we can talk about the others as well.

Peter James: 9:03

Yeah, so from a financial uh perspective, we're looking to hit one million dollars next year. That that's our sweet spot that we're looking for pressing in um going into 2026. And so it's to be very strategic. And when you when you're a small boutique consultancy, coaching and consultancy, you have to be very specific and strategic about your plans as you um continue to step on into. Like to work with some of our larger organizations, and then also um look to beef up our team to include other coaches as well as consultants. So if you are out there and you align with some of those things that I've spoken about already, we might need to have a conversation.

Rexhen Doda: 9:41

Cool. And right now, do you have a team already, like a team structure?

Peter James: 9:45

I do for sure. We have um about five administrative team of about five, but then we also work with uh contracted coaches and consultants and trainers who help to fulfill a lot of our organizational um goals and our our client needs as we move forward. I'm the lead strategist, the lead presenter, the lead coach as well, but we definitely have a team of coaches and consultants that join us as needed.

Rexhen Doda: 10:08

So you're also doing some coaching yourself as well.

Peter James: 10:11

And why do I continue to do it? I love it. There's nothing like that aha moment from being a coach yourself when your client gets it and is making a shift. One of the biggest phrases that um I use is shift your mindset. And so if you can shift your mindset in order to, again, think differently, but then act and behave differently as you move forward as a leader or even as an employee. That's a win-win situation. So to answer your question, yes, I'm still I'm still in the trenches, but more so because I love it. Less and less as I was earlier on in the tenure because, you know, as you probably already know, there's in the more mature you are in your organization, you need to be working more on the business than in the business.

Rexhen Doda: 10:52

Yeah, and it it's a topic that we talk a lot in this podcast because um for the coaches who like to grow their coaching business, it's a different story if you want to keep it to like a certain level and you figure out a way with the operations to maintain that. But if you want to grow it, the analogy I like to use here is that of a baker um opening his own business is potentially not really gonna bake anymore, is not gonna make bread, is actually gonna work on top of that business, handle all the operations and manage. So one of the areas that a lot of coaches uh I wouldn't say struggle with, but don't like to work on has been uh marketing and sales, uh, especially in the beginning stages. Later on, that that that tends to uh be less of an issue, and then it becomes more of an issue of hiring the right talent, hiring the right coaches to be on your team and deliver at the same level that you would deliver yourself. Where would you say is like kind of like the main challenges for you?

Peter James: 11:54

Yeah, so I'll start out and echo a little bit of what you said there first. I think one thing that differentiates me and then also what we do is I am a business guy through and through. I I um I teach um business and entrepreneurship at the college level. So I love the administrative side of the business. I look at the profits and losses sheet every single day. I am in bed with my marketing guy on a regular basis because I want to know what he's thinking. He wants to know what I'm thinking. So we're having these conversations on how better to market. As an example, how we market today is not how we marketed five years ago at all, right? I have a business development person as well that I have in-depth conversations of our ideal target markets and how we're going after them and the best way to attract them. So I love that background. I also have an executive assistant that you know I work with, and she's runs all my emails and my calendars. So while I have those, I'm very intimately involved in them. Probably evolved a little bit too much, but I enjoy that aspect. Do I enjoy it more than the coaching and the presenting? I would say that it's it's equitable. It's definitely equitable, uh Regin, uh, from that perspective. But I think in order for your business to be successful, especially from a coaching and consulting practice, have to, a certain part of you has to love that side too, for it to be able to grow. And unfortunately, I see too many coaches who love coaching way more than they do that marketing and sales as you described, or even other back end sides of it, which are so necessary to continue to groom in order for your business to grow.

Rexhen Doda: 13:36

Absolutely. So going back to my previous question is like in terms of like challenges, where do you see the bigger one right now? Marketing and sales, right?

Peter James: 13:44

To your point. And and and while I think I am fairly good at it, I feel like the marketing environment continues to shift around us. Think about it. Again, um, I'm an older guy, so this digital marketing thing continues to evolve. And it's important to have some type of digital presence. You heard me say, I love to get out and meet people and engage with them. During the pandemic, that was next to impossible. So, how am I marketing the organization better digitally? And the pandemic taught me a lot on how to do that better. But I will even say that now it's an evolution. What are my customers needing now? What do they want to hear? How can they trust us to be able to share their wallet with me? That's a big question right there, right? So I'm continuing to struggle to figure that out, if that makes sense. But what I have embraced though is this it's a it's a never-ending struggle to kind of figure it out. You don't think it's ever a destination. It's almost a what's next. It's like change. When you know, when you're going through change, you can either be on the front end or the back end. But when you're on the front end, when you're finished to change, what needs to change next. And so that's uh hopefully that's helpful.

Rexhen Doda: 15:03

And I absolutely agree with you, is uh even like I have a marketing background. So marketing is something that I focus on most of the time. And if I don't focus on it for like two months, my tactics are no longer gonna work what I did two months ago. So they tend to age pretty quickly.

Peter James: 15:21

So you have to you have to stay on top of it a little bit, Regin. You have to you have to keep your ear to the ground, but then uh even more importantly, understand the changing dynamics of the needs of your customers or potential customers. Are you keeping up with that and meeting them where they are? That can be challenging, especially for a small boutique firm. And that just means a lot of work has to be done, yeah.

Rexhen Doda: 15:44

Yeah, yeah. And it takes also multiple when it comes to speaking engagements, it's a little bit easier to convert them or to get them to trust you because they actually see you, you're a real real person, they listen to you, and either they saw you on stage, so that gives you some credibility. But when it comes to someone that found you online to begin with, it takes might take seven touch points, eleven touch points until they actually take action. They might have followed your content for a while before they even book a discovery call with you. And in your case, it's mostly organic, which is great because it means fewer touch points there. But let's assume you were doing ads at some point. That would be an even longer journey.

Peter James: 16:27

I'm laughing because I have tried it all there, Regin. I've tried it. You name it, I have given it a shot. I've spent money on it to a certain extent. And where we've gotten to right now has been through trial and error. And then also I know what works best for me and the team overall. Now that may shift again in another year, right, Regent? It may shift a little bit, but what's working well is the touch points, the shaking of the hands, the having those insightful conversations, the building relationships, but then also having the back-end digital atmosphere for them to, if they want to do some more research on us, that's available for them to be able to do so. Kind of like you did with LinkedIn before we got on the call, right?

Rexhen Doda: 17:11

Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to shift topics a little bit, and this is again an important topic for every coach who's listening. When it comes to investments, and this goes back to that research that we're gonna do as well. What have been some investments that you feel really good about? Either learned a lot or got a good return from, uh, and these could be investments of money, time, or both. And then also, what have been some investments that you would have preferred to have avoided if there's any bad investments as well? Which I'm pretty sure uh with the experience, there must have been some.

Peter James: 17:43

Yeah, lots of stuff I've invested in that I wish I could get that money back, the origin for sure. You know, I have to say, best investment for my business has been my employees, hands down. Hiring the right people to be in the right positions at the right time in order to do what they do. They're experts in what they do, that has been invaluable, invaluable. I've invested in different programs, marketing programs, coaching programs that help us. I've tried most of them. And what you hear today about how we go about it is based on hey, what hasn't worked? Here's a great example. I've been invested thousands of dollars on investing putting money into digital marketing ads, reaching out to people digitally, and it pretty much has not worked. Most of our clients do not find us online. Now, don't get me wrong, that online aspect is needed for support us to support people for branding, yes, number one, but also for that research component that you mentioned as well. When they want to do research on us, that's got to be available for them easily. If it's hard for them, then they're gonna go on to the next person or the next company, right? So I want to make that easy for them. But so I put myself in presentations and workshops and conferences and podcasts and in different in places to be able to engage. And then I talk about our clients. I do that intentionally because I want people to be able to hear and visualize what it would be like to work with us. And once they feel comfortable in that space, then they want to have a further conversation. And I love further conversations, Regent.

Rexhen Doda: 19:30

So when you say bad investments, generally it has been things in marketing that you've invested money on that didn't really turn much of anything. Ads or any type of program. Cool.

Peter James: 19:41

So that's let me interject something real quickly, Regin, if I could. When I say bad, let me rephrase that a little bit, have been investments that I wouldn't do again. I learned a lot from them. I learned a lot what not to put more money into. That's invaluable, I think, to a certain extent as well. Right? But I've then now it's materialized into who we are today to a certain extent, if that makes sense.

Rexhen Doda: 20:06

Yeah. Totally agree with you. I also wanted to go into my final question, which is for the coaches again that are listening that want to scale just like you do, what have been like when thing about scaling, not just scaling revenue, but actually scaling impact, making bigger impact? What advice would you like to give to these coaches that are trying to scale their impact?

Peter James: 20:29

We kind of alluded to it a little bit in our in our conversation earlier. And this is how can you begin to love the business side of your business just as much in order to set yourself up for better success? So, yeah, you're a great coach, you are credentials, you're a certified coach, yes. However, what is it gonna take now to market and sell more efficiently, to manage your clients better, to promote your business, brand your business better. Maybe you need to begin to write more, maybe you need to begin to speak more, identify those back-end preparation items that are very needed in order for your business to be successful.

Rexhen Doda: 21:13

Thank you. Thank you so much, Peter. And thank you so much for coming to our podcast today. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, you can go into number one, they can go into LinkedIn, look up Peter Peter James. They'll be able to find your profile. Second, and we'll put this on the description as well, is the website, which I believe the URL should be shiftyourmindset.com.

Peter James: 21:37

That's one of them. HCgstrategies.com is the preferred one though for sure.

Rexhen Doda: 21:41

Okay. Accgstrategy.com, and we'll put that in the description as well. So is there any other way you mentioned basically they could look up your name and also maybe find you on other platforms? But these should be like the two main ones.

Peter James: 21:55

Listen, you can give me a call. My number's 312-291-1118. Give me a call, shoot me a text, let me know you heard, and if you want to have a conversation, you heard me here, have a conversation. I'd love to be able to just have a conversation with you. I'm a little old-fashioned, so the phones still work for me too, there originally.

Rexhen Doda: 22:12

Thank you. Thank you so much, Peter.

Davis Nguyen : 22:14

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 join purplecircle.com.