The Power of Purposeful Coaching with Dr. Erin Wheeler

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Dr. Erin Wheeler, an accomplished higher education leader, executive coach, and student success strategist. With over two decades of experience in leadership development and academic coaching, Dr. Wheeler shares her powerful insights on how to build resilience, lead with authenticity, and foster growth in both professional and educational settings. Tune in as we explore her journey from academia to coaching, uncovering practical strategies for creating meaningful impact in your career and community.

You can find her on:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinwheelerphd/

https://gracefullyproductive.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gracefullyproductive/

https://www.youtube.com/@ErinWheelerphd

Transcript

Erin Wheeler: 0:00

There are some new coaches listening that I can inspire. I hate marketing. I don't know if that's okay to say it. I hate it. Like you know how you can be okay with doing something. People say, oh my god, that's great. But you know other people can do it better. And so I've been bootstrapping for a long time doing my own marketing and hitting all the regular bumps, spending and wasting money on ads, trying to figure out the algorithm while trying to figure out the business structure. And so now I feel like I'm in a very subtle part. For me, I want to do marketing authentically. And finding my strengths, I'm a Gallup strengths coach. That means a lot to me as well, leaning on that practice of finding using your strengths to do everything that you need to do.

Davis Nguyen: 0:42

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, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin Yee: 1:13

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Dr. Erin Wheeler. She is the founder of Gracefully Productive, been a coach for over 15 plus years. Welcome to the show, Aaron.

Erin Wheeler: 1:27

Thank you for having me.

Kevin Yee: 1:28

I want to ask you, 15 years is quite a long time. And so I would love to hear the origin story.

Erin Wheeler: 1:38

So I said 15 years, but I feel like I've been in a support position ever since I was in high school. When I tell my story, I was 17 in high school. My mom was a LPN, and her friends are going to try to get into college for RN. And I was tutoring my parents' friends at that time so they could get prepared for the ACT, which is weird. And so ever since then, I love to be in that support capacity. I've all in college I was a tutor. I was a peer mentor. And so I've just evolved and I loved it so much. I abandoned biology. I've abandoned my dreams as a biomedical scientist and went into STEM education where I studied how do we best support student success. And during that time, my mentor, she actually worked as a coach for both students and faculty in learning to learn. And so I was actually a teaching and learning consultant, which was actually an academic coach for all those hard subjects, organic chemistry, physics, all of those subjects. And so that's where it really began. And being in that position, um, even now my title was academic coach. When that student sat in the seat, they had a whole life. I had vets, I had parents, I had fresh out of, I don't even know what life is, students, right? And so before I can even get to this is how you go about studying for this course, it was all about habits. It was all about mindset. It was all about how do you view this and disrupting their previous thought patterns about school and learning and achievement and success. That's really where it starts. So I did that for about four years, and then I continued to do college success, helping students to get into college who are low, low income, first gen. And then those students grew up into adults and they came back to me for life success. And so, and that was I was transitioning as well, wanting to work more with leaders and people in positions and in adulting phase that where you're wondering, you're not quite young, you're not quite old, you're right in the middle. And so that's where Gracely Productive was born, out of my exhaustion from burnout from my career and finding clarity and how I get got to a better place.

Kevin Yee: 3:54

Yeah, I love that origin story of how you're explaining your burnout and then also helping like underprivileged kids get into college. So let's fast forward to today, I guess. Like everybody talks about ideal client avatar or ideal client profiles, target audience. And so these days, who do you kind of help and what do you help them with, I guess, in your coaching business?

Erin Wheeler: 4:16

So my ideal client, and I'm still trying to refine this. So my ideal client are leaders of color in any facet, whether you are a CEO, you're a founder, you are vice president of a higher education institution, but more particular, leaders of color and social impact roles. So because I come from higher education, I was a CEO of a nonprofit, that's where I've been all of my life. That has a different feel because it's hard work. Not saying corporate America doesn't have that feel, but in this field, we are desperately underpaid for what we do, but we love it so much and it fuels burnout. I feel like it's a whole different perspective, and so I definitely get that. And so when I refine down if leaders of color and social impact roles will be one of the clients that I serve, and because my research is in new how do you overcome something new, new student, new college success, all of those things. I love working with founders, which I realize. Although I'm technically a new founder, but as I'm listening and learning, I've realized that I have a lot to offer. Maybe not like other people who've been in the business and have scaled. But I love founders because that's still hard work, it's still social impact, and still that different kind of getting off the ground phase.

Kevin Yee: 5:31

And I'm also really curious too because you mentioned CEO, you work with CEOs, founders. What are some challenges that people of color have versus like non-people of color? Like what are some hidden challenges that a lot of people might not realize?

Erin Wheeler: 5:45

I talk about in terms of thought, right? For every thought that a non-person of color has, people of color have about three. And when you go into the workplace or just every day going to Target, going to Walmart, you have to think, is this because my color? Is this because of my gender? Or they're just a rude, nasty person. Did my work not get recognized because it sucks? Did it not get recognized because of my color or my gender? And so it's always those three, but we tend to work in thus helping other people. And those factors, it really causes burnout, first mentally, then physically.

Kevin Yee: 6:25

So you work with leaders of color, they could be CEOs, founders, etc. Let's talk about your marketing for a second. What kind of marketing are you doing at this point in your business journey? And how are people kind of finding you like about your coaching services?

Erin Wheeler: 6:40

I hope there are some new coaches listening that I can inspire. I hate marketing. I don't know if that's okay to say it. I hate it. Like, you know how you can be okay with doing something. People say, oh my god, that's great, but you know other people can do it better. And so I've been bootstrapping for a long time doing my own marketing and hitting all the regular bumps, spending and wasting money on ads, trying to figure out the algorithm while trying to figure out the business structure. And so now I feel like I'm in a very subtle part. For me, I want to do marketing authentically and finding my strengths. I'm a Gallup strengths coach. That means a lot to me as well, leaning on that practice of finding using your strengths to do everything that you need to do. So for me, it's very organically. I am by trade an educator, and so and I love to write and I love to teach. And so, me actually doing what I love to do and doing it well, I'm letting that serve as my marketing. And that has worked for me. Anytime I try to try like a trendy thing, TikToks, the reels, it doesn't work. But anytime I'll post a newsletter or you know, posting on LinkedIn and even going back to YouTube to be really be more strategic in that way, use that to chop it up and put it on Instagram and have a simple call to action. That's been working for me, and I'm working to refine that to make that better.

Kevin Yee: 8:02

And so people are finding about your services. I'm sure that they want to work with you. And so when you actually engage with them and do a coaching engagement, what does that kind of look like? Because some coaches they prefer one-on-one coaching, others prefer like group coaching, some prefer like organizational training. Which ones have you kind of gravitated to so far in your business journey so far?

Erin Wheeler: 8:22

So I do like one-to-one, but I'm not an extreme introvert, but I am, and so I'm learning my limits with that. And so uh even just this year, I'm putting that as my like kind of premium tier offer, right? But I want to again meet everyone where they are, and so I even tried out a group coaching program that was like six months, and that was like so much for me that I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. So I am working on podcasting and like those mini micro lessons. I can meet people so they can be. I want to follow people not just one time, I want them to be follow them on their journey and stick with them for a long time. So I know one-to-one gets to be expensive. I don't want that one interaction. I want to build a community where we're all learning and we're all growing. That's what I'm working on. That's actually, I know we talked about the scale part. I really do believe that's gonna be one of my most important strategies to scale, preserving my own sanity.

Kevin Yee: 9:22

Which also leads me to another thing, too. I would love your advice on this, especially being kind of a newer coach, as you mentioned, with your business. A lot of coaches, they actually struggle with like pricing strategies, right? And people just struggle with knowing how much to charge. And of course, you don't have to give any hard numbers, but I'm kind of curious about what kind of pricing strategies have you gravitated to. Like some coaches they prefer hourly, some people do like packages, some people do project-based, value-based, retainer subscriptions. There's just so many models, right? And so, which ones have you kind of gravitated to so far in your journey?

Erin Wheeler: 9:55

I actually simplified. When I said I did away with that six-month program thing, I've actually worked with my coach because I know that was something internally for me to see my value in terms of money. And so she helped me to again do it authentically. She really told me, Erin, this is your business, you run it how you want to. Tell me your priorities, tell me your thoughts. And so we worked on a on a formula. For me, I I say, okay, how many hours do I want to work per year? How much do I want to make? And then that came up with my hourly rate, and so that became like a standard hourly rate for a one-to-one. And I just have like a simple package where if you pay up front, there's a discount. If you want to do month to month or pay, you know, pay per, that's another rate. But I didn't want to make it complicated. I want to have it to where I could customize for any client, but just have very standard package.

Kevin Yee: 10:47

Thank you for your transparency on that. And it's kind of cool seeing that you have your own coach and just like rely leaning on your own coach for guidance there, too. And this leads me to my next point, right? Like, so as you are getting the marketing running, as you are getting more clients, I'm curious about your future goals. Like, where do you want this coaching business to take you in the next few years? Do you have any secret dreams, big ambitions knows no one knows about? Do you want to hire? I'm very curious about that.

Erin Wheeler: 11:15

That is a great question. I think for me, even this path that I'm on, I was working, of course, full-time in a higher education. This was part of my can I have control over my life? And so I want to still keep that again. She said, build your business how you want to build it. I don't want to sacrifice my well-being and my peace for a big business. So I still want my ideal business is to, of course, help me to cover my expenses, invest, and uh still lead a life that is flexible. I have time to do everything I need to do without burning out. And so that's actually my like that's a dream. Whatever revenue I can reach to do that, of course. Everybody would love to be a multi-million dollar coaching company, but you really don't know what they do or have to worry about to keep that million-dollar company. And so, actually, my goal is to create streams of income from this company to make sure that I have some passive income. So, again, creating things that could sell without me, or I can create one time and sell those evergreen products that still help people five years from now. That's where I see myself growing the business and like my ideal five years from now. I have passive income. I'm doing speaking, also resting, enjoying my family, maybe having some people in the background to run my business. I don't want a large team, but the people to do the stuff that I hate to do, which is money and marketing.

Kevin Yee: 12:45

It sounds like more of a lifestyle business. That's what you're looking to create in the future. Perfect. I'm also really curious too, like in your current season of business right now, what are some challenges that you're noticing that most people wouldn't know that Aaron is struggling with?

Erin Wheeler: 13:00

For me, it's doing the background work. So I don't want to call it busy work, but sometimes it could be the busy work, right? I paused the newsletters, I paused the constant social media, and I really went back and got a lot of the business straight. And so for me, it's hard for me to ask for help because I've been bootstrapping, doing it all on my own, everything's everywhere, but I know where everything is. And so I paused to actually okay, what do I need for someone to come in and help me with marketing? Can I explain my business? Do I have a document somewhere that actually lays out all my goals, my business goals, my color scheme, my images, my logos, or is it fractured in a million places? It was. So I took the time to do like business development. Like that was when I rethought my business structure and I repackaged some things. I had some clarity on where I wanted to go. So because of that, I wasn't getting, I probably wasn't getting as many clients, but I feel like it will set me up to do better, to be a better coach, to be a better businesswoman. And those few months have really helped me. I took some time to really, you know, do some solid content work and not just put out quick things. It's content I can break into pieces and use over the next year. So pausing and not doing a lot of client work or client acquisition work this last two last well, last two quarters I've been doing that.

Kevin Yee: 14:21

Now, Aaron, I would love to play a game with you if you're open to it. This is through the lens of investments because you know a lot of coaches and entrepreneurs, right? They invest in things like coaches, like you mentioned before, trainings, marketing, team members, a lot of different things. So I'm curious about your stories. I'm gonna prompt you four different phrases, and you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, your first business investment you remember.

Erin Wheeler: 14:43

Website hosting. I thought it was great, and then I went up to somebody's site and it loaded in two seconds, and I was like, what is wrong? But yeah, so that was my first one. But I built my first website, so it's all good there. Nice, everybody. Last business investment you made, a virtual assistant, a real one.

Kevin Yee: 14:59

Oh, like an in real life assistant then.

Erin Wheeler: 15:02

Well, it was okay, a real consistent. I actually did a hiring, like actually went through the hiring process, looked at work, like it was in the past I used kind of like fly-by-night VAs, but this time I took time to actually have a hiring process, and you know, just in case they didn't work out, I'm not gonna miss a beat because I actually have a system in place to hire and put people in place. Yeah.

Kevin Yee: 15:25

Best business investment you made.

Erin Wheeler: 15:28

My coaching management system. And I'm very when I say I'm very financially efficient, I'm really going to make sure all the boxes are checked. And so for me, it's honey book, and I hope I can point to this episode and say that I'm I'm an influencer. But that started when they first began, and I kept it. It was one of their kind of pilot subscriptions if you had like a certain number of revenue, and so they grew, and I saw how they grew, and they're like, Okay, you can't keep using this at this price. It was a number, and I was like, Oh gosh, let me go find something else. And I couldn't, and I could, but it didn't give me what they wanted. I was like, you know what? Let me pay this, and I don't regret it because I've you know tried and true. I used it, but that's one of the things that I feel like you shouldn't skimp on, especially when it's working for you've used it over the years.

Kevin Yee: 16:17

Worst investment that you kind of wish you got your money back from.

Erin Wheeler: 16:21

Facebook ads. I think this is before I had an iteration of my coaching program that I wanted to feel, so build a funnel, they will come. And so I had this marketing agency for coaches, and they're like, So we could do this, this, and this, and you know, we'll try to add dollars and stuff like that. And their trial period just kind of like it kept going up and up and up, and like the leads were very few and poor. Like, I don't see quantity of leads as a good or bad thing, like if it's a few and they're quality and then we're ready to buy, fine. But they're both few and low quality leads, and the bill just kept racking up. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And I realized that I really needed, and this is kind of why I do coaching for leaders of color. There's not very many coaches of color, and two, you need to understand the nuance and what they're going through. In order to for you to do proper marketing, you need to know that too. And so I feel like I wasted money because coaching is very is nuanced, and it's not something that's just you just hear people say, Oh, my coach, my coach, my coach. That's not something that even for top CEOs, it's like you get there, you pull yourself up, and you rarely ask for help. But you know, in mainstream society, coaching is one of the keys to help you be successful. And so that marketing piece that was my learning. You have to have someone, you one as in me, you have to understand your client demographic what they want if you are going to ever get back to having optimal ads. And so I said I wasn't doing it anymore, whether it was meta or anywhere, and it's worked for me in terms of this because I feel like I can put that money anywhere else. Whether it was a VA, better recording equipment for YouTube record, like I could you can do anything else with that money. I feel like it's only you have to know exactly what you're doing, and you have to have a level of revenue and a level of risk to do that.

Kevin Yee: 18:22

As you're sharing these stories, I'm sure like different memories are coming up for you. And so I guess kind of over the years, as you reflect on these, how has your decision-making process changed in what to invest in and what not to invest in?

Erin Wheeler: 18:36

I feel like it's changed because I've tried and I failed, which some people are scared of. That's the downside or the upside of entrepreneurship, depending if you're a daredevil. I've tried and I failed. Although I could regret it, I'm appreciative of it early on. I tried and I failed when I actually had a full-time income and had a little bit of wiggle room to fail. But now, as a full-time entrepreneur, I don't have that wiggle room. And I have to think strategically, gained clarity and made it clear about my business goals, what I need. And I go and say, Hey, what's kind of like that lean startup mentality? What's the minimal vibe of product that you can use to say, hey Aaron, are you really gonna use this? Or is it just a fly-by-night kind of fad that you're trying to get on this train, or is it something that you could really use? And do you need the the high name brand product? Is it the strategy? Is it the actual product itself? All of those questions kind of fuel my decision when I start to invest in things for the business.

Kevin Yee: 19:37

Okay, last segment that we're gonna play overrated, underrated. So one of the things that a lot of coaches get is advice, right? Some of it is solicited, some of it is unsolicited, but kind of curious what's the most overrated piece of advice you've gotten, and what's the most underrated piece of advice you've gotten?

Erin Wheeler: 19:54

Underrated piece of advice, and I think I said it before, was build your business how you want to build it. And for me, that advice blocked my ears and eyes from seeing all the ways, you know. Once you say your coach put in your profile, you see a ton of ads for coaches. Build this funnel, build this way, do this newsletter, buy these ads, use this program, use my formula. It's been so many things. And so I feel like if you understand get some clarity on your own first before you start listening to the noise of wherever the noise of the internet or the noise of any other kind of coaching resource, then you go and start to think about what you need to build your business and what you have already. And do you even need it? Most times, even when I talk to my clients, we already have what we need. It's that fear of it that keeps us searching for something that we don't need. So, do you really need it? The most overrated advice. I still feel like it goes back to marketing for me. It's like every time I look for a solution or I talk to people who are helping coaches, it's the same thing, and you don't get any kind of customization to who you are and your business. It's always the same. So I've been whether it's the funnels or again the noise part of it. So that I think that's the most overrated advice. How do you market your business?

Kevin Yee: 21:17

Last question Aaron, how do people find you and connect with you?

Erin Wheeler: 21:20

So you can find me by name on all platforms, particularly YouTube at Aaron Wheeler PhD. And you can find my company gracelyproductive.com. You can also go to LinkedIn. I have a Gracely Productive page that I am building out to dedicate specifically to this content. Aaron Wheeler PhD, all platforms.

Kevin Yee: 21:41

Well, Aaron, thank you so much for coming today and just sharing your experience. Some of the things that really stuck out to me was like you trying out Facebook ads and stuff at one point. I know a lot of coaches they think about it, but they can never never really crack the code, but they're always thinking about it, they never actually try it. And kudos to you if they do that. And then I think it's a really good reminder that what you said of like building a business that a lot of times I feel like there's this like entrepreneur, like kind of like hustle porn where it's just like people are just like, we gotta scale, we gotta scale to the moon. But is that what we really want at the end of the day? So, Aaron, I just want to thank you for the work that you do, and I just want to thank you for spending your time with me on this podcast to share all your experiences and all that too. So thank you.

Erin Wheeler: 22:28

Thank you so much. And I have a little plug. If I am starting a group called Founders Flow, that's one of the things that I re-thought about how I wanted who I wanted to serve and how. And so I want to meet founders where they are. We're often busy, but where we are, we usually have some time to have some either conversation or listening. And so between the micro podcasting lessons and group, I don't want to, it's a community, but I bring in people, everybody's gonna contribute to the community. So if you are a coach or you have a business, you could be in this community and we share our expertise. There will be accountants in the building to ask questions to an accountant. There'll be marketers in a building to ask questions, there'll be business development people, and so everybody can share in the community because we're all starting, but we are experts at something. We're a novice at starting, and so that's the commonality. And it's called Founders Fellow. And if you go to my website, you can get on that mailing list for when we get ready to launch at the top of the year.

Kevin Yee: 23:29

All right, Aaron. Thank you for plugging that in. Guys, go check that out. And thank you again for joining me on this podcast, Aaron.

Erin Wheeler: 23:36

Thank you.

Davis Nguyen: 23:38

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.