“Building Leaders from Within: How Robin Landsman Brings Coaching Inside Organizations”

 In this inspiring episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Kevin welcomes Robin Landsman, a seasoned executive coach with a rich background in HR leadership at companies like PepsiCo, S&P Global, and Avon Products. Robin shares her journey from corporate talent management to independent coaching, revealing how she built leadership programs that empower internal teams and prepare future executives for the C-suite. She discusses how AI is reshaping coaching, the value of human connection in leadership development, and her mission to help organizations build coaching capabilities from within. Tune in to discover her insights on pricing, client relationships, and the future of executive coaching in a rapidly changing world.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlandsman/
Website: https://www.beaumontbailey.com/

Transcript

Robin Landsman: 0:00

I would like to have a few individuals working with me so we can go in in a more strategic manner of helping organizations, going into large organizations and making that difference. One of the things I feel very strongly about is having come from PepsiCo and the work we did at SN Global is we brought a lot of that capability internally. You know, there are times you still need external coaching, but how do you train some of those individuals internally to provide that for individuals that, you know, not necessarily the C-suite, but maybe two or three levels down, because you should always be thinking about secession within your organization and how do you prepare them?

Davis Nguyen : 0:46

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 David Swin, 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: 1:17

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Robin Landsman. She's been a coach for over nine years. Welcome to the show.

Robin Landsman: 1:26

Thank you. Good to be here.

Kevin: 1:28

Yeah, let's start at the origin story, the lore. How did you become a coach and turn into a business?

Robin Landsman: 1:35

So years ago, my background has always been human resources. And when I was at PepsiCo, there was a program where they brought in a dozen individuals or selected a dozen of us to go through a coaching process and certification. They wanted an internal process to help with their senior leaders through their development, et cetera. I was chosen, went through that process, enjoyed it, and realized there was a lot of things in the coaching process that could apply to my daily work as an HR business partner, um, and throughout my career and working with individuals, obviously. So that was started it like 15, 16 years ago. Um, but that was not my role specifically, but something I did start part of the process at PepsiCo. When I became the chief talent officer at SP Global, I decided to bring on board that same methodology and have an offer a dozen or so individuals that same type of training to get certified and apply that process to our individuals that needed coaching, as opposed to going externally and bringing external coaches into the organization. Who best knows about the organization except for but those who are in it? And you could see them on a daily basis and kind of get that full 360 view. So I thought that was a powerful way of um bringing coaching into the organization. Again, going through the process, again, being refreshed is always helpful and keeping up with it. Having left corporate America and started to follow my husband, who was having an international career, I decided to embark on that coaching process. And I've been doing so. And I partnered with a firm out of London, as well as doing my own coaching to help senior leaders, you know, with their their development, their becoming their best.

Kevin: 3:39

Now, I'm really interested. You mentioned you help senior leaders, right? And so what kind of symptoms or problems are they kind of going through and how do you help them?

Robin Landsman: 3:48

How do I help them? You know, some of the symptoms that they have is their transition from being a manager or leader to a leader of leaders and going from and having that perspective of more of a global type of role and leading a larger mass of individuals and pulling themselves out of a lot of the day-to-day. That transition's tough for many. I find that same transition very difficult for founders becoming CEOs in small businesses and trying to grow their business. Not everybody is going to be a Jeff Bezos, right? Quite honestly, only about 50% of those founders uh are are successful CEOs. So it's difficult for them to make that transition.

Kevin: 4:34

And also like for your independent work, like how do people kind of find out about you? What kind of like marketing are you doing?

Robin Landsman: 4:42

So, you know, I've been fortunate to have a strong career with in HR with some big firms, S ⁇ P Global, PepsiCo, Avon Products. And, you know, I've kept in touch with many of them, the leaders that I've worked with, and they've brought me into their teams to help them with workplace issues, development, secession planning, but mostly with individual coaching for those individuals, their their team that they're bringing up through the ranks, um, and and individuals that are getting ready for the C-suite.

Kevin: 5:18

I see. So you're pretty much prepping that, prepping these uh future leaders into the C-suite and all that and helping Yes, as best as possible.

Robin Landsman: 5:26

Yes.

Kevin: 5:27

What are some challenges for you doing that? Uh, what are challenges that you've encountered?

Robin Landsman: 5:31

The work itself, you know, we're so remote now, and a lot of people prefer that. I do prefer and insist that I meet the individual one-on-one in the same room, that present, creating that rapport and making sure we've got that quality um alignment and understanding and just that personal touch that's really critical. And then being able to have those meetings scheduled and making sure that that time is sacrosanct on both sides. Those are really important. Making sure you have that agenda prepared. My coaching process, like many or most, is probably going through some type of a psychometric personality test, understanding um their, you know, their strengths and some of their opportunities, right? Um, and bringing that insight to their awareness is so important on both sides, what their strengths are, what they're known for. You know, you do 360 feedback as well, understanding how their leaders and their team members have what that perspective is of their style, their leadership presence, et cetera.

Kevin: 6:45

So, how do you think about your client capacity? Have mu yeah, how do you manage it?

Robin Landsman: 6:51

It does ebb and flow. Sometimes I'm very, very busy, and other times it's, you know, a little bit of a lull. As we say, we're on the beach. So I'm able to help manage set setting up those appointments and that period of time with individuals. A lot of the work is upfront, you know, really digging deep and spending the hours, understanding that individual's personality through the psychometrics, as well as the 360 feedback. What is the leader expecting out of this um that person's coaching, as well as what is the expectation of the individual out of the coaching experience and making sure all are aligned. So a lot of that is really upfront. So, you know, 20 to 30 hours of that. But then it's every two to three weeks, depending upon the individual's schedule, that I'll spend a good hour to 90 minutes and of course available anytime they've got an issue. I try and make sure I am able to get a conversation with them if they're necessary.

Kevin: 7:52

I see. And one of the things I'm I'm also really interested in as well, because training people to C-suite, it doesn't have as like many um, if you take sales or marketing, right? There's always hard KPIs and people think about their ROI with that. But with like coaching, it's very different because we feel the transformation on the inside, but it's hard to sometimes put a dollar amount on it. Of course, you don't need to give any hard numbers uh for how much you charge or anything like that, but I'd love to talk pricing strategy. So over the years, how did you kind of structure your pricing in terms of like knowing what to charge? I would love to kind of hear that story.

Robin Landsman: 8:31

So having been in-house, I know how much I was being charged externally by external coaches. So you've got, you know, the big Shreks, what they charge, the Corn Fairies of the world, Spencer Stewart's for coaching engagements. So I'm fully aware of what they do and fully aware of what independent consultants charge as well. So I use that as my gauge as how to create my pricing.

Kevin: 8:58

Have you ever experimented with any pricing models before?

Robin Landsman: 9:01

Uh I haven't needed to, to be quite honest. You know, it's pretty straightforward. I do have colleagues and we're all pretty much in the same ballpark.

Kevin: 9:11

I see. Very cool.

Robin Landsman: 9:12

Beaumont Valley is an executive search firm. And they're based out of and so they'll have clients that need my services. I do I will cover leadership development for them. So their needs for their clients. So I will work with them. Um, so I'll do a lot of coaching engagements when necessary, but also assessment work. So I'll spend a lot of time looking at clients' candidates, their potential hires. We'll go through the psychometric process and I'll basically prepare that individual's assessment and alignment to the role that they are being interviewed for.

Kevin: 9:50

Yeah. So it sounds like they rely on you for your services, and then you have your own independent work. And I'm very curious for yourself like where do you see your coaching business taking you in the next few years? Do you have like desires to scale, secret big dreams no one knows about, want to hire people? Would love to kind of hear your missions.

Robin Landsman: 10:10

I would like to have a few individuals working with me so we can go in in a more strategic manner of helping organizations, going into large organizations and making that difference. One of the things I feel very strongly about is having come from PepsiCo and the work we did at SP Global, is we brought a lot of that capability internally. So, you know, there are times you still need external coaching, but how do you train some of those individuals internally to provide that for individuals that you know, not necessarily the C-suite, but maybe two or three levels down, because you should always be thinking about secession within your organization and how do you prepare them and giving them an external viewpoint. I mean, sorry, an internal viewpoint that's understands the landscape really well and building that development capability with your HR teams is really powerful. So I'd like to be able to do more of that. So, you know, still can do some C-suite coaching, but you built that capability in internally and help that organization.

Kevin: 11:28

I see.

Robin Landsman: 11:29

Even further. Now, um Which is a very different perspective. You can always want to keep your involvement with an organization, but and I think if you start building that credibility and building those strengths internally, sometimes the organization will actually know how valuable coaching can be. They'll want to keep you around.

Kevin: 11:49

As you think about your current season and your business and your career right now as a coach, what are some challenges uh that you're nursing in this season right now? Maybe some ones that like people can't see outside looking in.

Robin Landsman: 12:04

You know, the world is changing and evolving so quickly. AI is like top of mind for everyone right now. And how individuals and leaders are dealing with that because their employees, their human capital base is kind of freaking out a little bit about what's going to happen with my role, you know, you know, the uncertainty of it. They're not feeling um they're getting any direction or how that impact is going to affect them. And I think leaders need to be, and what I'm seeing is that they're needing to be much more engaged and communicative around this space, how it's going to and you know, have transparency with their employees, with their team members about the impact of AI, where that's gonna lead the organization. And and it's you know, it's a it's it's really important that leaders take a look at workforce agility, you know, and creating that type of mindset within the organization because you you know, you have to quickly adapt to all the changes that are happening.

Kevin: 13:17

I've I've been hearing talks about people talking about AI and some coaches that are very, very concerned that it's going to, if not replace them, like serve as a co-pilot, but pretty much reduce the need for a lot of coaches. Do you have any concerns about that for yourself, like personally?

Robin Landsman: 13:34

You know, I don't. I use AI. It's really helpful. You know, when I go through in a psychometric assessment, I'm now able to use AI to help me maneuver through some of the data and information quickly, but it also obvious for many, it really helps, you know, solidify or make things succinct and in the best way to engage individuals and build that awareness for them. Now, and the AI, you know, people are thinking it's going to replace that coaching. People still need that one-on-one interaction, they still need to have that sounding board. And, you know, individuals, AI isn't going to place the human um comfort at all. It's just gonna enhance the amount of information and ability for us to provide that much more insight to an individual.

Kevin: 14:33

And it's like are there places that you feel like AI might like um like areas in your business where it might reduce kind of the friction or be like completely gone? For example, like I know a lot of people are using AI to eliminate all the admin work in their business, right? Freeing them up more time with coaching. But do you feel like there's areas of coaching that will be kind of like, you know, be eliminated or replaced or like it won't be a thing anymore?

Robin Landsman: 15:00

So it's it's an interesting um question because uh when I think about it, you know, ten years ago, we were bringing another form of AI. We were bringing into um uh the workplace, the online recruiting and bringing through individuals' CVs and sorting through all the resumes to make sure that, you know, you had hundreds of them to sort through um and would use, you know, intellectual property, you know, and all of that to understand what was the essence of that individual. And did they have the the skill set, the credibility and such the schooling, et cetera, credentials for a role, right? And we were all, oh, this is gonna replace recruiting. Well, that hasn't happened. It's only helped make us more efficient. And that's the same thing that we're gonna deal with, especially in coaching as well. It's just gonna make us more efficient and effective.

Kevin: 16:02

Okay. We are now headed into our segment uh where I would like to play game with you if you're open to it. Um first question before we jump into the game. Have you made a lot of business investments in the past?

Robin Landsman: 16:15

I made business investments in the past. Um, yes.

Kevin: 16:18

Okay, cool. So this is very common with a lot of coaches. They invest into things like coaching, training, marketing, team members, a lot of different things, right? And so it's like every type of entrepreneur. But what I'm gonna do is I'll prompt a phrase and you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Kind of like a psychologist, you know, when you're sitting on the couch and you're just they show you picture and stuff. And just try to be as specific as possible. If there's a story that comes up, feel free to share it, but no need to as well. All right. All right. First business investment you remember making.

Robin Landsman: 16:50

Um my sister's husband was starting his own business. I believed he was going to be very successful, and he was. Um, so I loaned him some money. Ooh. What kind of business was it? It's actually with a heating and air conditioning organ.

Kevin: 17:07

It's very interesting. Those uh those like um those kind of a long time ago as well. Yeah. That's funny. Okay. Last business investment you mean.

Robin Landsman: 17:18

Last business investment I made. Well, I'm still my my husband's business. We're constantly feeding the money back into the organization.

Kevin: 17:28

I see. What's your husband?

Robin Landsman: 17:30

It's always been personal, right?

Kevin: 17:32

I see. How about um best business investment you mean?

Robin Landsman: 17:36

My my husband's business, yes.

Kevin: 17:39

Where's business investment that you kind of wish you got your m money back from?

Robin Landsman: 17:43

I invested in a software company that was an ex-colleague of mine was investing or buying, building for human capital sourcing. Didn't work quite work out.

Kevin: 17:56

What's something you would have told yourself back then?

Robin Landsman: 17:58

You know, leave personal and professional investment type thing separate. In that case, um, you know, it was personal with, I guess, my brother-in-law and my husband, right? So that was positive. But um, with this case, it was more I was um trying to be helpful, you know, was lured into the situation.

Kevin: 18:21

Final advice. So as a business owner, as a coach, you've probably been given a lot of good advice, a lot of bad advice, some of it solicited, probably a lot of it unsolicited. So this section is called overrated, underrated. And so I want to ask, what's the most overrated piece of business advice that you've gotten, and what's the most underrated piece of business advice you've gotten so far?

Robin Landsman: 18:42

Overrated, definitely using LinkedIn and going that route. Underrated is is ensuring you've um or I've I've communicated with the individuals that I've worked with to share their experience with others. The downside of that is I usually have signed NDAs and I um and have to keep a lot of my clients confidential, but asking them to share their experience, which is I'm glad to say mostly positive or very positive.

Kevin: 19:14

Last question for you. How can people find you and connect with you, Robin?

Robin Landsman: 19:18

I am on LinkedIn, or you can go onto the website or Google and you can find me there and link through.

Davis Nguyen : 19:24

So thank you.

Robin Landsman: 19:25

Thank you for having me.

Davis Nguyen : 19:27

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 scout our business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making an impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.