Building Confidence and Careers: Lola Alugo’s Coaching Journey

 In this inspiring episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Lola Alugo, career confidence coach and founder of LA Career Services. Lola shares how her journey began as an employability coach in Scotland and evolved into a mission-driven business empowering career starters, re-entry professionals, and BIPOC women. She opens up about building a young coaching business, working with nonprofits, navigating marketing, and learning to grow without a traditional business background. Lola also talks about the power of service, learning through failure, and building a coaching practice rooted in access, clarity, and confidence.





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Lola Alugo 0:00

Yeah, I am working toward growing some clientele. I mean some more clientele. I think um I would like to get like a brand in just a fine niche because as you know, my business is quite young in comparison to a lot of coaching businesses, right? So it's basically right now working on growing clientele and fine-tuning a bit of direction, right, in terms of what I want from for the next one to three years. I would love to work with more nonprofit organizations. That's, you know, that's where my bread and butter is. That's my heart. So I would love to work with more nonprofit organizations. But yeah, that's kind of where my mindset has been.

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 Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regin, and today's guest is Lola Alugo, a career competence coach and founder of LA Career Services, empowering black, indigenous, and women of color by walk to navigate their careers with clarity, courage, and confidence. Through her coaching practice, Lola helps professionals re-enter the workforce and thrive, often within 60 days, by addressing mindset blocks, imposter syndrome, and negotiating barriers that disproportionately impact Bywok talent. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Lola.

Lola Alugo 1:52

Thank you so much, Regin. Good to be here.

Rexhen Doda 1:55

Thank you, Lola. It's uh it's a pleasure to have you on. I wanted to go back in time just a little bit and look into the beginning of your coaching business. So I know when it comes to your coaching business, it's been around for 10 months, getting close to a year with LA Career Services.

Lola Alugo 2:15

Yes.

Rexhen Doda 2:16

But you've been a career coach potentially earlier than that, right?

Lola Alugo 2:19

Yes, I have, yes. Um I actually was in Scotland for quite for like three, four years, right? And that is like that's primarily where I started. I was something called an employability coach. And I don't know if there's a uh direct translation out of career coach from that. Um I was an employability coach in Scotland and I worked with so many different peoples, and that's where I kind of got the inkling to switch to kind of kind of transition into a career coach. But yeah, much longer for it's been like three years working in the coaching industry. But as far as pushing my my own business, it's been almost a year now. We're getting to that first year birthday, so I'm super excited for that.

Rexhen Doda 3:00

Cool, amazing. So, what inspired you to take that step and like this coaching world and like step into it and build your own business out of it?

Lola Alugo 3:07

Honestly, a multiple a multitude of things. But uh, like I said, I was in an employability coach, and in that time I got a chance to work with so many people, so many people from different countries, people from different places in life. I worked with a lot of career starters or people who are 50 plus who haven't been employed for a long time. And what I noticed was the basics that a lot of people need for careers, were a lot of them didn't understand or didn't know. So things like resume build-in or interview skills or just really basic knowledge of how to even get into the job force in the to begin with, right? And I realized how much of a privilege it was that someone like me, who, you know, I went to a four-year college and we had career readiness courses that you it was mandatory you had to take, right? Um, someone like me had the privilege of understanding and knowing right off the bat and understanding how to utilize these tools. I realized this was not made for a lot of people and a lot of people just don't know the basics. So my inspiration was I honestly wanted to get everyone, it didn't honestly didn't seem fair to me. I wanted to get everyone the basic tool, right? To start in, just to start in careers in the first place, to start into the workforce in the first place. So something that really inspired me was just that I think everyone deserves to know that knowledge and not you just just because you went to college or you're privileged or you have, you know, whatever the connections, that's not the only reason that you need to know basic career knowledge, right? So that's was my driving force of I need to do this for, I need everyone to know this information immediately. Right. Um, yeah, that's that was it. Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 4:50

That's beautiful. So uh we have two audiences in this podcast. I didn't mention this to you earlier, but there's either coaches that are listening or the audiences of the coaches that we've had on the show before. So we've borrowed some of their audience because they've been on our show and shared the podcast episode afterwards, knowing that we might be reaching out to your audience as well. How would you describe your ideal client profile? I know. I was mentioning this on the intro as well. So we're talking about empowering black, indigenous, and women of color, biwalk. Is that the only group of people or could it be wider than that?

Lola Alugo 5:27

So outside of it's much wider than that, I think moving my I always say I am a woman first, right? Especially a Bywalk woman first approach in a lot of my coaching. However, I am also I I I look past that to people who have certain kinds of needs. So mainly career starters, as mentioned in in the intro there, and people re-enter in the workforce, especially people who either have been incarcerated or people who are have maybe previous addiction issues or deal with homelessness, and they're just people who really need to understand the basics, right? Those are the kind of people that I first put my information toward. And then it is women and biwalk women as well who are seeking career confidence and seeking a way to kind of, I always say kind of hack the system, right? Because a lot of the time systems are not necessarily built for everybody. That's not how systems work, right? Systems are built to work for certain people and that's it. That's right. So I want people of all circumstances, either, you know, people in minorities or people who the system weren't really made for to also succeed, also get that basic knowledge. So that tends to be a lot of my clients. And I find that a lot of people I've worked in the past are people who are just starting their careers or people who are, oh, I want to change my career. I I I don't know where to go from here. I I was doing this for 24 years and now I want to do something completely new, but it doesn't, my resume does not match that at all. It's so I give them kind of the knowledge and the confidence to say, okay, you can literally start from anywhere. And I like to say my message is more of my clientele than my clientele is. So I love to target people who really, really want the knowledge to change and the knowledge to say, I have the confidence to succeed in this part no matter where I'm from, no matter what I've been through. And that's basically kind of clients I I I work well with. Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 7:19

Cool. Thank you. Thanks so much for sharing that, Lola.

Lola Alugo 7:22

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 7:22

Um how how is the engagement you have with them? Is there a program that your clients go through? Is there a program length? How how is it like to work with you for those of them listening?

Lola Alugo 7:34

Yeah, no, because I work with such I work with a lot of vulnerable communities and I also work with um people who may either not have the financial back end to work with me, I really do leave a lot of my programs up to the my clients, right? So I give them a suggestion and I say, okay, how can we work with you to get what you want and obviously to get what I would I need from it as well, right? In terms of financial needs. A lot of the time I kind of operate on either a three-week coaching session if they are able to do something like that, or I just work on a one-off basis where they come to me and say, Hey, Lola, I really need some help working with my resume. I'm very stuck. I don't know how to translate this resume to this position I'm looking for. And I can give them like an hour and a half or two hour session right there and then say, okay, what is your goal for this specific reason? How can we guide you to that? Right. And after that, I obviously offer what I noticed from our conversation is that you might need more of, you know, more of a more direct and intimate session. We can do that as well. Right. So I really I I know a lot of coaches have program plans and a lot of them have like really structured, like, this is a nine-week program, it's amazing. And I think it works for a lot of people, but they might it some people just cannot afford a nine-week program either in finances or time, right? They can't afford a nine-week program that's you know rigorous and structured. And so I really give it, leave it up to my clients to tell me what they're comfortable with and what they feel that their means can afford. Because at the end of the day, I am I'm here to work on with people who who really not a lot of people are willing to work with. So that's that's where my priority is in in in in that. Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 9:17

Yeah. And for the coaches now that are listening, when it comes to you finding your clients, have you seen a certain marketing channel that works better for you or maybe multiple?

Lola Alugo 9:28

Yes. It's funny because I go to nonprofits a lot. And I am sure they're probably annoyed by me offering services. I do um, I was like I do regular channels. I do LinkedIn, I do, you know, things mark market my service, give my information on those on those channels. But the main getting clients, I really just kind of hone in on nonprofit organizations, or I also work with some edu tech cohorts. And a lot of them are usually people entering careers for the first time or people who may not be able to afford certain um opportunities, but are, you know, are just asking for a chance. So a lot of the time I I work with several nonprofit organizations. I think in my mom's hometown, she's a drugs and alcohol counselor for hit and nonprofit. And I basically try to connect with people from her, from her knowledge, kind of her, get some knowledge from her and say, how can I reach these groups of people? Because I do want to share this knowledge that I think everybody should have. So working, working on targeted nonprofits has been really, really useful and like for me, and especially understanding how those nonprofits work. So you can't just reach out and target, you kind of have to do the research on how those nonprofit works and what what they have what you have to offer and what they have to offer you as well. So that's been my main market in source, as well as the regular channels. I I just got a TikTok, can you imagine? I feel so I I feel cool. So I use a lot of TikTok to kind of, you know, that's kind of how you reach people these days. So using or utilizing social media is has been really helpful as well.

Rexhen Doda 11:06

So TikTok, have you seen like clients actually coming from TikTok, or is it most that kind of like gives you a presence in a way?

Lola Alugo 11:12

I think I use TikTok more of as a presence. I don't see a lot of TikTok. I it'd you'd be very hard pressed to find clientele until you have a certain reach on TikTok, right? I think that's just how algorithms work in general. So I think in terms of reach, I've gotten a quite a some reach on TikTok, but I'm not looking at TikTok to source clients. That's not the main priority. A lot of my TikTok is information, so I'm looking to share some information that someone might not know, right? So that's what I use TikTok for for, but I find that people look at the TikTok, then they could go to the Instagram page and then they can go to LinkedIn and you know, it's things like that. So that's kind of how the the process works. But I'm hard pressed to find people DMing me on TikTok saying, hey, I mean, I don't think TikTok is very uh career focused at the moment. So yeah.

Rexhen Doda 12:07

Yeah, it it is true, actually. I've and I've interviewed so many coaches and it rarely comes up as a channel. And for those of them that have utilized it, it's mainly been for like getting a presence out there, but not necessarily a direct connection to your clients. So they might have seen you in there and then have other ways to reach out to you, but usually it has not produced, except for only one coach actually that I remember just now that she actually managed to get most of the clients that she had from TikTok. And believe it or not, it was usually the age of 40 and above, which is kind of rare to happen on TikTok.

Lola Alugo 12:48

That is very rare, yeah, yeah. No, I I think TikTok is more of just a nice, I think a lot of people go on TikTok to just kind of get away from certain things. And if you're constantly pulling, hey, by the way, are you looking for a job? Let me help you, right? I think it it breaks that uh escapism a little bit, right? So I am I'm curious to learn more about from that coach. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's some methods I should I should incorporate in my TikTok outreach.

Rexhen Doda 13:16

Yeah, I will share with you her name. I need to look it up. It's been a few months since I've interviewed her, but I'll I'll find her name and I'll I'll send it to you later on.

Lola Alugo 13:27

I need some advice.

Rexhen Doda 13:29

Cool. And so right now, where are you focused on next for the next one to three years? I know you just got started. However, how do you see the future? Do you have any specific business goals that you're working towards?

Lola Alugo 13:41

Yeah, I am working toward growing some clientele. I mean, some more clientele. I think um I would like to get like a brand in just a fine niche. Because as you know, my business is quite young in comparison to a lot of coaching businesses, right? So it's basically right now working on growing clientele and fine-tuning a bit of direction, right, in terms of what I want from for the next one to three years. I would love to work with more nonprofit organizations. That's, you know, that's where my bread and butter is, that's my heart. So I would love to work with more nonprofit organizations. But yeah, that's kind of where my mindset has been for the past, I think, six months now, honestly. I'm just kind of focusing and fine-tuning and making sure my message is clear when it comes to, you know, building good foundation for a business that is going to have longevity, that is going to last. And, you know, just not a pop-up shop of career coaching is essentially, I do not want that. So that's that's where my mind is right now. Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 14:45

Cool. And what would you say are kind of like the main challenges in working towards that goal?

Lola Alugo 14:51

Yeah. I think growing a business in general is so challenging. I mean, yeah, like naturally challenging, right? But as someone who is a predominantly, I'm a coach first and foremost, right? I didn't get an MBA, I don't have a business degree, I'm not out here just conducting businesses in the corner, right? I'm basically learning as I go. So I think that's been the one of the challenges, right? To say, okay, I'm going to create this business, I'm going to do this, and then to simply learn as you go, right? On what it what's involved in creating a business, what's involved in doing all these things, what's involved in making connections and marketing and all, you know. So that has been my main challenge. It's been a fun challenge because I'm learning so many things as I do it, but it's it's it definitely has been a challenge. And my coach and heart just wants to say, let's just help everyone and let's just share this knowledge, and everyone would learn and know about careers. But obviously, my business mindset is like, calm down, Lola, let's stick a step back and let's really use our business hat on this one. So yeah, it's been it's been that.

Rexhen Doda 15:58

Yeah. And in terms of investments, I know it's still early, but have you done some investments so far? And when I ask this question, usually I look for good investments and bad investments at the same time. So could be investments of money, time, or both. And are investments that you feel good about either you learned a lot or got a good return from? And are there investments that you would have preferred to just like not have done?

Lola Alugo 16:23

Um, investments. I think I think a lot of my I think very early on I hemorrhaged some money in in just like getting the glitz and glamour of a business, right? Like, let's just get the the website, let's do this, let's buy the, you know, buy the books, buy the courses, you know, just hemorrhaging a lot of money and just like, I want to know the information, I want to just get my yeah. So I think that would be marked on as a bad investment because I I realized that in order to get started, I don't need to know all everything to be to have a success. I just don't need to, right? It's not important right now. So, in terms of bad investment, I think that's in both time and money. I think I spent a lot of time kind of just thinking about a business as opposed to actually doing a business. Right. And I think, and I find that a lot of people have the same, you know, issue where we we want to do something, but we just think about doing it and we have all this money and put all this money into thinking about doing it and never actually start it. So I I think that's probably one of my bad investments. In terms of good investments, I think it's funny, the less, the, the lesser, which is maybe it's not funny, the less I've spent actually spending money, the better my investment was. I think actually putting in the work and making good financial decisions on if something is worth it and something isn't was the difference for me. And that could have been in, you know, different communities that I wanted to like support, or that could have been even me saying, okay, I'm going to do this work for maybe free and see if I can gain something for it, right? And choosing to do things like that actually helped more than I realized. Because I think when we first start, we want to say, let's do profit, profit, profit, profit, profit. I need to know how much of this is gonna pay me. I need to know how much this is gonna do, right? A lot of the time, I think deciding to do things for free or deciding to say, okay, I'm gonna do this venture and I know it's not gonna give me any profits, but it's going to at least help with, you know, with the knowledge I need to continue this business. That is literally the difference. I mean, I think that's been the best investments I've I've done. And will I continue to do things for free? Absolutely not. But it it has taught me so many things. And I think that in early on, as especially early starting a career, that always that's always a difference. That's all it makes, I mean, it makes such a big difference, you know.

Rexhen Doda 18:49

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially early on, like you mentioned, you don't have that much revenue going on because you have to make the profit in the business, you cannot just run it out of your money all the time. And so it makes sense that initially it's gonna be mostly investments of time that you're putting in by yourself, and then later on, investments in money as well.

Lola Alugo 19:14

Absolutely.

Rexhen Doda 19:16

My final question to you today is uh for the coaches who are listening that want to scale their coaching business, their focus on impact, so scaling their impact as well. In a similar way, you're trying to do the same. What advice would you give to these coaches that are trying to scale their impact?

Lola Alugo 19:32

That's a good question. Let's see. I think the one thing I would, the couple things I would say is first, learn how to fail publicly and positively. And I think a lot of the time we get so scared of failing, like so scared of I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna fail, and everyone's gonna laugh at me. We need to learn how to fail publicly and positively. And this is not just the coaches or potential coaches, this is for everybody, right? And I think that is the first thing I want to say. The second thing is to just do it, just start. A lot of the time we, like I said, we spend so much time thinking about all the things we want to do and thinking about okay, if I don't use this right tools or I don't do this, I'm definitely gonna make it, not gonna make it. But if you just literally start reaching out to people, start showing up. I mean, using social media. I mean, if you don't know how to use social media, get the right people who do. I mean, I have a wonderful person who um does a lot of my marketing stuff. She's amazing. Um, her name is Daniela, and she's wonderful. She does a lot of things for me. And I, when I knew what she was doing, I said, okay, I need, I need her, right? So outsource your outsource work. Ask for help. Ask people, hey, I actually don't know how to do this. I don't know how to use TikTok. I don't know how to do a TikTok dance. Ask people for help and don't be afraid to ask for help and fail. It's okay to fail. Honestly, genuinely is fail correctly, fail publicly, fail confidently, and I swear nothing can stop you once you understand how to utilize failure to your advantage. Yeah, that's kind of the advice.

Rexhen Doda 21:02

Beautifully said, Lola.

Lola Alugo 21:04

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda 21:05

We all need to learn how to fail, and it's it's all good to fail. You always learn from it. So thank you so much for coming to our podcast today. For anyone who wants to find you or connect with you, they can go into LinkedIn and look up Lola Alugo. They'll be able to find your profile. Is there any other way they could connect with you?

Lola Alugo 21:23

Yes, absolutely. You can also go into my link on my Instagram. Sorry, it's L A underscore career services. I just go ahead and check and I post videos, I post information on there all the time. And you can just kind of connect with me from there to my TikTok if you want to see me do horrible TikTok videos. But yes, that's that's the main ways to find me. Thank you so much, Regin, for having me.

Rexhen Doda 21:44

Thank you for coming, Lola. Thanks so much.

Lola Alugo 21:46

Yes, it was lovely meeting you.