From Corporate Leader to Scalable Coaching CEO with Natalie Parker

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Kevin sits down with Natalie Parker, a leadership coach with over 20 years of experience, TEDx speaker, podcast award winner, and founder of Natalie Parker Enterprises. Natalie shares her journey from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship, sparked by a life-altering near-death experience that reshaped how she views purpose, impact, and success.

They dive into what it truly takes to scale a coaching business without becoming the bottleneck. Natalie explains how she built a team of experienced coaches using a shared methodology to deliver consistent results without client dependency on her personally. The conversation covers accountable leadership, pricing beyond hourly models, building scalable systems, leveraging AI, and why authenticity and trust are becoming essential currencies in modern leadership.

This episode is a powerful look at how coaches can scale with integrity, build lasting impact, and design businesses that support both growth and well-being.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-renee-parker/
Website: https://thenatalieparker.com/

Transcript

Natalie Parker: 0:00

I have a team, a bunch of people that we pull from, some really great coaches who have been coaching longer than me. We have a methodology in our coaching approach that's clear to them and we have clear goals and what we want to accomplish. So that helps expand and scale so that it's your same experience without the personality. I'm very interested, although the company bears my name, I'm very interested in not being the bottleneck one to progress, but also that people don't get addicted to or codependent is probably a better word. Codependent on me. It's really about can I have the same experience? Can I have the same growth? If you were to go to, for example, I go to Orange Theory Fitness, right? I go to Orange Theory has several different people. You're going to get a different person, you know, depending on the time and date of your workout. And the goal for the club is to make sure that they like all the coaches equally. Now, depending on the music, the time, the kind of workout, it may change, but is the experience the same and are you going to get good results?

Davis Nguyen : 1:00

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.

Kevin: 1:31

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Natalie Renee Parker. She's been coaching for 20 plus years, TEDx speaker, founder of Natalie Parker Enterprises. And quite recently, you won an award for your podcast. So your boss sucks. Now what? Uh so excited to have you here. Welcome to the show, Natalie.

Natalie Parker: 1:53

Thanks for having me, Kevin. I'm really excited to be here.

Kevin: 1:55

I know. Pre pre-Pod, we were talking about all the accomplishments that have been happening this year. And it's so exciting, all the awards you've been um winning, the stages that you've been speaking on as well. But one of the questions I'm always very curious about is the origin story, the lore. And I'm sure you could have been, I don't know, a sushi chef. You could have been a professional pool player. But out of all the things you could have done, you chose coaching. And not only that, you turned into a business as well. So what made you want to become a coach and start this business of yours?

Natalie Parker: 2:30

So I spent more than 20 years in corporate America in several different industries and defense and transportation and finance and forestry of all places. Like I've been around like up and down the East Coast. And in May of 2022, I was at an event with my husband. We were at dinner with a couple friends of ours, and I got deathly ill. Like I got so sick. The room was spinning, my palms were sweaty, my heart was palpitating. And I thought, oh, at first, I thought, like, this will pass. And I'm like, no, this is really bad. I could barely breathe. They rushed me to the hospital. And the surgeon said, the art doctor said, We're so glad you're here. And I'm like, I don't think that's a good thing for the diagnosis to say. And you know, it took me a while because, like, usually when you go to the hospital or something, it takes them a long time to get to you and all of the things. Like, no, they took me back immediately. They took my blood pressure and all the things. And apparently, hemoglobin is something you need to live. 15 is normal. 14, 15 is normal. 10 is okay. Eight's concerning since six is bad. Mine was a six. Like it was like, this is near death. Um, and they said, like, if you not come in, you would have died. And as I sat on that gurney, getting my blood transfusion said I could live, a little oil change. Um, I sat there and I thought, like, if I died today, would I have done everything that God had planned for me? Like, would I have done, would I have achieved my potential? Would I have given the world the gift that's inside of me? And the answer was no. And I had to face that, having been a high achiever, having been top talent, having run major programs for major companies, loving the accolades and the attention. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't stellar, right? And so I really thought about it and said, okay, now this is it. Then I need to really do something different, right? I didn't want to keep living the same, not a rat race, because not everybody's meant to be an entrepreneur. Let me be very clear. Some of us need to keep our jobs. So because we need the predictability, we need the structure, we don't have the tenacity or the aggressive or the ability to deal with the ambiguity of business leadership. But the plan that I made from April to June was so very clear to me after I made the resolution of like, I have to do this. And that resolution was so strong that by the time I finished the job June 6th of 2022, I had my first client the next day and another client like two weeks later. And I've never looked back. It has been such an amazing three and a half years that it just blew my mind. Like I always fascinated, like, oh, they like me. They've liked me. Like this is great. And gain gaining more confidence in what I have to offer from a coaching perspective and both the you know, coaching and a business person perspective has been it's believable.

Kevin: 5:18

As you reflect on that, like near that experience that you shared, what do you feel like was missing from your corporate life that you know your business provides you today?

Natalie Parker: 5:28

There's a difference from being an internal agent versus an external agent, right? When you are paid by the entity to do a task, you are constrained by the entity's culture. You're constrained by the influence of power dynamics and political schemas and all of the things. The freedom that I have to go in and boldly declare the truth that I see in a way that's both compassionate and meaningful. I often say that, you know, I'm the people whisperer because I can come in and hear the things that aren't being said. I can hear it out of people from a space of trust and confidentiality and then be able to say it in a meaningful way to the leadership team that no survey would ever give them. Because I've been in the rooms where people do the surveys and I've been in the rooms where they've explained away like the very blatant attrition problems they have, or the leader that they know is really terrible, but they keep keep them placed because they have some technical skill. I've seen that. And so I'm able to say out loud, like, hey, you are solving for X, but you know, G through L needs to be conquered for first. You know, it's it's that. It's really around being able to say the unsaid thing, the gremlins that are really getting under the hood of the business operation is really important. And it's it's so many of us have seen where organizations live in the superficial because the internal agent doesn't have the same entree, it doesn't have the same impact because they they are the system.

Kevin: 7:00

I see. Something I'm also very, very curious, like in your story, you said that uh you started taking on clients, right? And you had this plan and it came into fruition. But I'm kind of curious, like there's so you said you're a people whisperer, right? And so there's so many different types of people that you could help. And in the coaching world, everybody talks about, yeah, ideal client profile and stuff like that. So how did you kind of decide who you want to help and the problems that you helped with?

Natalie Parker: 7:26

So the first thing I did when I decided, hey, this is what I'm gonna do was I started telling people that I really trusted. Like, hey, I'm thinking about starting this. The response I got was so surprising. It was like, we've been waiting for you for you to help us with this, which was both uh surprising and also like irritating, like, well, why didn't you tell me to start sooner? I would say my the people that I engage with are really seeking to shift their culture as a leader. They are seeking to have a higher level of self-actualization. So really understanding themselves. I feel like it's our job to be the mirror, right? And if I can hold up a mirror and say, well, you said this, and this is important to you, but that's not what you're doing. Or and my platform on every level of my life is accountability. I feel like the thing that syncs careers that topples organizations all starts with accountability, both accountability to the organization and its values and its vision and the direction and strategy, as well as accountability to oneself. I feel as if, and I've found that we don't often hold ourselves an equal account to the things that we say we're gonna do for ourselves, whether that's growth, development, change, challenge, what have you. And it's it's people and executives and senior leaders who are looking to be in the space of like, I want to, I want accountable cultures. I want to be a person of accountability, I want to have healthy cultures, right? Those are those folks that find the services that we provide most valuable.

Kevin: 9:04

And not only, like, how do these people like who want to work with you, how do they typic find you? Like what kind of I guess your marketing, what does that kind of look like?

Natalie Parker: 9:14

So it's funny because the first several years of years, it was all word of mouth. Like folks that I had been working with, you know, continue to reach out and say, hey, what are you doing now? And that has been such a blessing. Year two, middle year two, I spent an unmentionable amount of money doing marketing that wasn't successful. I have now found ways to do leads. So I do a lot of public speaking and I use several tools that gather information names and stuff like that that allow me to keep in contact with people who enjoy our um the service that we offer from a stage or a workshop. And it's those people, that people that I continue to reach back to and say, hey, listen, I heard you had something. Let's talk. I'm also leveraging AI, having talked about my service offering and what we're doing there and saying, okay, based on the services that we have and the temperature of what we do and the region and creating an agent to come up with leads and then looking at that and checking in against my LinkedIn, my LinkedIn database as well, which is pretty dope. So I found recently that in LinkedIn you can pull down your entire contact list. And so leveraging that stuff to create an intersection of where can I make the most impact. And so we're constantly scanning the environment for organizational shifts and changes. We're constantly scanning the environment for position changes of folks who are in our so-called Rolodex children. That was a little index paper that people kept on their desks before computers where they had all the numbers. Kind of like a phone book, if you know what that is. So we do that often.

Kevin: 10:51

Yeah, we're dating ourselves right here. Like I know exactly what a Rolodex is and what a phone book is. It's so crazy. Forgot about that ancient technology.

Natalie Parker: 11:01

Yeah.

Kevin: 11:02

Wait, that that's less though. So you find that intersection, and what do you do? Do you like reach out to these people, these organizations? Like what happens then?

Natalie Parker: 11:11

So we're we're we end up doing some intelligence gathering on where the organization is with their shift and change. A recent client relationship that evolved was from a former coworker who is now in a different business and a different role, talking about some of the things that we're doing. And it's like, hey, listen, we're trying to do something too. And so in that has come a design of a coaching program for several leaders in the organization. And we're also helping them design it based on the organizational values, which because they scale so fast, they haven't had time to design. And so for me, that's the that's the ad is like, who do you say you're going to be when you grow up as an organization? It doesn't have to be written in stone. You know, a good jello firmness is good to start. And let's let's act to that. Thing that differentiates me though, Kevin, is that I really like the system of coaching paired with performance and succession. Having been in the HRs for so long, making sure that the themes and motifs we're talking about in the coaching environment also blend over into the goal setting that happens, also connecting it with the executive's expectations. Um, because I've also found that a lot of executives expect executive behaviors, but they don't build it. And so talent management from an executive development man uh level is often farmed out because they themselves, I don't think, have a definition of what an executive is and the way that they should operate and the level and of thinking required. And so we help with it.

Kevin: 12:43

Very interesting. Um, one more thing about like what you said earlier, too. You were just speaking, you're talking about like public speaking, right? And we just casually brushed over it. But, you know, how does one go from like a corporate life to like doing a TEDx and like doing more public? How did that happen for you? I'm so curious.

Natalie Parker: 13:03

So I want to go back to like when I was five. You know, when I was like, hey, well, little girl, where do you want to be when you grow up? You know, at first I thought I wanted to be Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show while we're still watching it. But after that, I literally said, I want to be a professional conversationalist. I want to be able to have conversations, meaningful, deep conversations with anybody. This was early on in my life. Fast forward to, you know, six different career moves, four different physical moves. And, you know, having a career that I love, but then decided to position and pivot over. Uh, I have folks in my sphere who are speakers, who are nationally known, internationally known, recognized speakers. And having done a lot of speaking before, so I got my ministry license at the top of the year. I've done a lot of speaking at churches, I've got a lot of speaking at youth groups, um, done a lot of speaking at work. So I've done a lot of public speaking in these, you know, 10,000, 100,000 companies. So it wasn't foreign to me. I just hadn't done it for myself. So I started really thinking about what do I believe, what's important to me, what's the what's the message, what's the message that's different. And that also gave us an entree into doing some public speaking and workshops, which has been amazing. I was offered the opportunity to participate in an event during a conference, the National Speakers Association. And it was just a working session, and we were supposed to share our stories. The next day, the I was like, Hey, do you want to share your story? And I thought, hey, no big deal. I was thinking it was gonna be like a I don't know, a demonstration of like, here's the story Natalie created, now here's how we're gonna judge it up. It was nothing like that. It was we're gonna help you get the story correct, or not correct, but like energized and very emotionally bearing. And um I was able to speak to a thousand professional speakers in um Scottsdale this past July, which was phenomenal and mind-blowing because I'd never been to the conference before. I had just joined the organization a couple of a year ago. That like so it's just it's just crazy. And then fast forward two months, we do the TED Talk, which is going to be released soon as an editor's pick. So we're waiting for them to release it, which is pretty awesome. But the uh National Speakers Association clip uh folks can find on my website.

Kevin: 15:21

Kind of curious because like everyone dreams like of being on these stages and whatnot. And clearly you've you've had experiences. What happened to your business? Like, how did it affect your business after doing some of these like events?

Natalie Parker: 15:36

It's it's it's it's a it's a it's definitely a an enabler, a mobilizer. It amplifies because it gives me credibility in my space in many different ways, right? So folks will hear your your CV or your profile or your, you know, whatever, and they'll like, okay, this is what she does. But then when I come out with the energy, the charisma, the relatability, I'm always seeking to make sure I understand the audience so that I can connect with them. And in doing so, it's oh, well, what does she do? I want to know more about her. And so that gives me, again, another database of people because we're collecting information from the stage, getting the information so we can stay in contact, so they can continue to know the services that we're bringing, the offering, the, the the doing on the pod. It's all of those things. And so it's widening our awareness and people's awareness of us. And that was a strategic positioning that we did for this year was year one was proof of concept, if you will. Social proof, like, hey, people do pay you for the things. And year two and three was really about how do we, you know, get the bullhorn out and get the right people to understand the things that we're doing. And because if you're the best kept secret as a business, that's not good. Unless they're like, I don't know. I don't, yeah, it's not good. Unless you want to be, unless it's like the secret society and people are paying millions of dollars. And there are those. And those, you know, that's a business model. That's just not ours.

Kevin: 16:59

Yeah. The best kept secret that no one knows, that no one knows about. Yeah, that's not a great place to be for business at least. You brought up something really interesting. Like, okay, you mentioned that this was kind of an amplifier for you. And so I'm sure people are finding out about you. They're raising their hands, they're like, oh my God, Natalie, like, I love to know, like, how do I work with you? And so if you're comfortable sharing, like, I'm kind of curious, what does a coaching engagement look like with you? What do your offerings kind of look like? Some coaches in the past, I know they've done one-on-one, they've done like organizational trainings. What have you kind of gravitated to?

Natalie Parker: 17:37

Because there's only one of me, and we also do consulting. I don't do a lot of one-on-ones. What I prefer is to design. I personally don't do one-on-ones, a lot of one-on-ones. But what we do is we work with the organization to understand both the goals and the values. If we can, can do it. We do assessments as a baseline for where we want to go. Because one of the major things I've found in coaching is if we can't qualify and quantify our impact, then people look at the bill like, no, what do we give for this? Right. So it's important to like have a two-from statement on like, we're here now. You know, we want to go from this to that. So we get really clear about the kind of behaviors we're looking for at the end. And we design both coaching engagements as a group as well as workshops on key skills. And what happens with that is that you get the one on the the group conversation. You also get a peer group who can call on each other. You also get with the workshop some applied learning that is then challenged for the group to then go work individually and with their coaches, right? And in certain instances, we'll do 360 so we can see how the coaching, especially if it's a leader, we work with their peer group, their directs, make sure that the impact is happening. And that again, they can I talk about mutual accountability, Kevin, but it's really important if I have a goal of being a better listener, right? Yeah. To have an act of listening and being able to mobilize my team better. If that's my goal and you're my coach, it serves us well to make sure you understand for the team the product of listening that you're getting from me. I don't think we look at leadership as a product and service. When you think about it that way, it's not the executive that gets the end, they get the the benefit benefactor of the end result, but the consumer of leadership is the direct reports. And so we fail when we don't seek to get that information to inform the process and create ways where the leader themselves can create a safe space for people to answer the questions and ask the questions and hold them accountable for what they say they're going to do. So when you coach with us, we say, like, okay, no, this is your goal. I need you to tell your leader and come up with a cadence on how. You're going to inform them of your growth and in the activities. And I want you to tell your team. And it's, and as long as it's not confidential or per too personal, like we want you to figure out how you can share and start being vulnerable because they're the ones that are going to see you in the space. And they're the ones that are going to be able to say, like, hey, you know, Kev, that was great. And I felt this. Or, no, you you really know crapped the bed on that one. Like, we have to be able to create, it's, it's, it's that's necessary. And I feel like a lot of leadership is so top-down that the people that are consuming the leadership itself don't have a voice. And the absence of that creates a lot of the challenges that we have with uh employee leader relationships.

Kevin: 20:40

Something that strikes me is like, it sounds like what you're doing, uh, it's pretty intimate. There's a lot of different players that you're kind of like speaking to or coordinating with, uh, especially during the workshops. I'm kind of curious. How do you manage your current client capacity so that your cup stays full? Like, do you hire other people? Are you just solo by yourself? You said you're just one person, but yeah, I'm kind of curious on that end. Like, how do you manage everything?

Natalie Parker: 21:06

Yeah, so we have so that's why I say I don't do one-on-one coaching a lot anymore. I have a team, a bunch of people that we pull from, some really great coaches who have been coaching longer than me. And we have a methodology in our coaching approach that's clear to them and we have clear goals and what we want to accomplish. So that helps expand and scale so that it's it's your same experience without the personality. I'm very interested, although the company bears my name, I'm very interested in not being the bottleneck one to progress, but also that people don't get addicted to or codependent is probably a better word. Codependent on me. It's really about can I have the same experience? Can I have the same growth? Um, if you were to go to, for example, I go to Orange Theory Finance, right? I go to Orange Theory has several different people. You're gonna get a different person, you know, depending on the time and date of your workout. And the goal for the club is to make sure that they like all the coaches equally. Now, depending on the music, the time, the kind of workout, it may change, but is the experience the same? And are you going to get good results? And that's really the model we're we're really on.

Kevin: 22:17

Love that. The other question I have too in the back of my mind. I'm not sure if you notice this, but in the coaching world, I love talking about I think you said something pre-podcast, like, well, yeah, like what's not being said. And one of the things I love talking about on this podcast are kind of like taboo subjects, or kind of like maybe not taboo, but like things that aren't really spoken openly about. And so one of the things I've noticed is like pricing. So what I've noticed is a lot of coaches they struggle with like, hey, what do I charge? How do I come up with these initial numbers? How do I package this? And of course, Natalie, you don't have to give any hard numbers, but I'm kind of curious how do you think about pricing and structuring your pricing today and how that how it evolves over time? Like I'm very curious about that story.

Natalie Parker: 23:03

One of the best pieces of advice I could have gotten when I started was from Dr. Willie Jolly, who's a national speaker, international speaker, just awarded all over the place. He said to me, He said, Go get this book by Alan Weiss. It's called, Oh God, it's Million Dollar Consultant. Million Dollar Consultant. And then there's the consulting Bible. But the million dollar consultant, I think around page 87, he talks about pricing. And what he talks about, it took me a long time because I was a salaried employee counting hours and clocking in and out. And I said, Well, God, I don't want to do that. And what Y says is like, listen, if by any stretch of the imagination, your engagement is going to, you know, quantifiably soft numbers save the company 10%. Let's just say make the numbers easy, $2 million. If you go to 1%, like that's it's about what's the percentage and how can you qualify it with metrics and then take a fraction of that because that's more believable. It just to me. And so we don't do hourly. Like it's I have a mom that's a government contractor. And so we service his organization. And we've talked about potentially going into GovCon space. And I'm like, I don't want to put on hours. Like I want it to be project based. Give me in, give me out. That way it's just one, it's easier on your back end, on your odds, it's easier on your time management. And you don't have to haggle over pricing. You don't have to hackle over hours. You get me when you get me. If you have, you know, break in case of an emergency moment, you can call us. Like it makes it a lot more civil in my mind than to have to report out hours on a monthly basis.

Kevin: 24:42

Yeah. I don't I haven't met a single person that just like loves hourly. I feel like from the client experience, it's a really bad experience because they're like feeling like they're nickel and diming you. They don't really want to talk. It's kind of like attorneys, right? Like no one really wants to speak to a lawyer because like it's on the it's usually right. And so yeah, I've noticed that same same thing as well.

Natalie Parker: 25:05

And the way the way to balance that, Kevin, is that I also try to add more value than they expect, right? So when we do things like coaching assignments, I may say to the leader who is extremely stoic, hard to read, the team doesn't feel like they're giving them the worm and fuzzies, go take a class in acting. Like, like we stretch hard on like how to go outside of your comfort zone. And so, and we'll come across resources. We're sharing it. So it's not just a therapy session where the doctor's in and when you leave, you don't hear from us. It's really about making sure we're aligned with what your goals are and when things come up, we share it so that they know that they're always top of mind and it's not just a transaction.

Kevin: 25:45

Yeah, that's really important too. And I'm sure that's that relationship. Like, I know a lot of people talk about like relationships and stuff, but especially for client services, what I've noticed is that it's good for business metrics too. Not only is it good for like, yes, the whole like uh I guess like client relationship that we have and it humanizes that interaction, but then also with the business metrics, I'm pretty sure it translates into like lifetime value and all that sort of stuff as well, you know, in the long term.

Natalie Parker: 26:15

For sure. And if people are you care, especially in a coaching thing, right? It's not a product or service, right? I mean, it's probably it's not a product in coaching relationship, they're more apt to do the stretch assignment. They're more apt to do the outlandish thing that you're asking them to do, like tell their team that they have this goal to, I don't know, be on time more, right? Like it's it's hard. We're asking them to do hard things because regardless of what anybody ever says, behavior is the hardest thing to change. And a lot of times people are comfortable. And so we're coming in to challenge their comfort, comfort zones because if they don't, their comfort zone becomes the coffin of their career. And so I think having that intimacy, having that awareness, having the understanding that you are trying to change the person or help them evolve to a change themselves is really important.

Kevin: 27:10

It reminds me of that book called uh Trusted Advisor. And in that book, it talks about the trust equation, right? There's like four things, right? Like, oh yes, like there's the credibility, there's the emotional intimacy that you have with someone, there's like the um so a few other factors I totally forgot. But the most important one that really stood out to me that you kind of mentioned was uh the self-orientation, knowing that, you know, we're looking in the best interests of the person that we're coaching and all that too. And so I think that's such a key element of having a great coaching relationship, people getting their results. Because, you know, how many times have we tried to work with someone that we don't trust? You know, you're not gonna be open to that acting class that you're telling you're telling your coaches about, you know?

Natalie Parker: 28:00

So my favorite business book, and let me be very clear, I we I believe readers, we have tons of books in the house. I believe most business books can be about 20, 30 pages, not 300. But the one of my favorite business books I read early in my career, and I'd still advise everyone to read it, is called The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey. That is the son of the man who created Franklin Covey. And he talks about this idea that people don't have to like each other or love each other in order to have a successful relationship, but they do have to trust each other. And that trust comes with just general credibility in terms of you have the proficiency to do your job. Right. You have the capacity to do, like, can you do your job? Javi talks about this idea of, you know, do you have the credibility? Do you have the character? Most relationships I find are one of the two. You know, do I trust that you can deliver the work from a proficiency sake? And then two, do you have the right character? Are you a person of your word? Are you gonna do what you say you're gonna do? That sort of thing. And when it comes to poor leadership, it's usually the character issues that people have the most issue with. People can deal with incompetent people. They don't love it. Yeah, especially if the incompetent person isn't aware that they're incompetent. But that's that's more about leadership. It becomes toxic when people have character issues and when it's around control, when people are deceitful, when they don't, you know, operate within their word, all of those things. Those are the biggest, biggest issues that are hard to overcome.

Kevin: 29:38

You know, like as you're speaking about this, I can tell that you're like really, really passionate about. Obviously, you know, you after that near death experience that you're talking about in the beginning, right? Like, I'm sure that version in Natalie would could never like probably would have never expected to have this business today, right? And so what I'm really, really curious about your future goals right now, like where since you've done so much already, where do you want this coaching business to take you in the next few years? Like, do you have desires to scale more? Do you want to hire more people? Do you have like secret dreams no one knows about? Like, we'd love to care.

Natalie Parker: 30:15

At the end of the day, what I am hoping to, what we are not say hoping, what we're planning is a multifaceted enterprise that services multiple people, right? Because I do believe that leadership coaching is important, but I also believe that individuals in the organization need the same. Again, the tension around leadership versus individual is so important that equipping individuals with understanding themselves, with understanding how to navigate politics, with understanding how to hold their leader accountable, with understanding how to operate within their values is really important. And many people suffer in silence because they don't have those skills and the organization typically doesn't teach it. And if it does teach it, it may not encourage it. And so having a both and equation to create mutual accountability so that the system works is kind of like, all right, your cholesterol is high and you also um, I don't know, have high blood pressure, um, have diabetes, right? You can't just fix the one without fixing the other. Like you need to do both. And the organization is both organized in terms of its structure, but it's also organic. And that organism needs to work together. A lot of the symptoms that we see are usually trying to address the leadership issue because it's one you can manage, it's a smaller number. But if you can create a culture where coaching is expected throughout the system and that people have access to it and that they're able to have skills that help them mitigate the fallout or misunderstandings or miscommunications, you level up the system itself. So we are working on strategies and solutions to address that in a both and perspective that's cost effective. And we're also working on and building our media arm. So our social, our podcast has been really well received over the last 12 months. This is May next year in January. And so we're gonna expand some things there as well. And we're also having started work in the faith-based space as well. One of the first businesses I started was coaching um and workshops and churches for some of these similar instances and that married to a pastor. Now I'm a also a licensed minister. It allows us to do that as well. And so we've had some really great success with that this year as well.

Kevin: 32:32

That's beautiful. Like, oh man, there's just so much going on. I love how, by the way, like I didn't mention it earlier, but I love like the faith-based aspect of your business too, because I feel like that was a huge, like unfair advantage, like in your corner too, because you're talking about ministry speaking and stuff. And I don't know, it doesn't it doesn't as a coincidence like that all this kind of precipitated. I feel like that was such a huge like chapter of your life that like really accelerated uh all the success that you're seeing today as well.

Natalie Parker: 33:06

So you're spot on. At the end of the day, the things that I've been able to accomplish, I completely give credit to God. Like um, I say all the time that God takes care of babies and fools, and sometimes I'm a little bit of both. Like is that don't know like this is happening now. Okay. I'm not I'm not a bastion for detail. So I stumble into these successes like Mr. McGoo, and I'm like, okay, thanks, God, because I wasn't planning on that at all.

Kevin: 33:31

Yeah.

Natalie Parker: 33:32

And so what's funny is my first business. So this is my second business that I started. My first business is called Five Talents Consulting. And it was, you know, my God, it's probably 20 years ago, where I wanted to start helping churches and nonprofits in the space of faith and how you bridge the business application of things like structure, strategy, mobilizing people and skilling the team with the what did the Bible say? And if anybody ever read it for real, like it's it's all kind of there, like all the conflict management and engagement and all those things. And so didn't get a lot of traction. I was very early in my career. I was very early in my craft. I had just, you know, started seminary. It was this lot of earliness. Like the idea was ripe, but I didn't have the credibility. Right. And so a good idea at a bad time, still a bad idea, but I don't regret it because it helped me learn a lot. And now we're ready to take up that mantle again and have been getting lots of calls on doing that work. So super excited about that. It's a really great intersection of my life that, again, in a corporate space, I would not have been as ready to admit. But when you think about the voices of, I don't know, like John Maxwell and TD Jakes and Max Lucato, like these are folks who still are able to make impact in both the secular and the sacred. And we're we're looking to be, there aren't many females doing the same, and there aren't many females of color doing the same. And so we're excited for the opportunity to bring a different voice, a different perspective to aid in the conversation.

Kevin: 35:06

You know what's really interesting too? I I don't know you you said you said that business like what, 20 years ago?

Natalie Parker: 35:11

Yeah, like 2005, 2006. The idea started in 2020, and I think I started in 2006. Yeah, 2006, 2007.

Kevin: 35:18

I think the culture has changed a lot too, because like I feel like today, like end of 2025, I've been seeing a lot more faith-based uh business owners, faith-based uh-based uh entrepreneur groups and stuff like that. I feel like it's changed quite a bit too. So might be like divine timing right now that you're diving back into this. Maybe during that 2005 time just wasn't the right time in the culture or whatever too, you know.

Natalie Parker: 35:45

Yeah, I agree. I think it's it's that. I had one pastor when I pitched the idea to and I love him dearly. I told him, you know, back in 2005, and he was like, Why wouldn't anybody listen to you? And I was so offended. Like I was like, you know, coming from a an uh all black college where I call myself a womanist, right? Like I'm like, oh, the patriarchy is killing me, right? And it was really to your point, like I think the the evolution of times, the culture, more women voices, all of those things, it it's it makes sense now.

Kevin: 36:16

Yeah, yeah. Something I'm really really curious about too is like, I don't want to say nothing is for free, but like one of the things I think about is like there's certain challenges in our life that really help mold us into the person that we need to be, right? And so what I'm also very curious about in this current season of business right now, not necessarily challenges, but what are some growing pains that you're kind of going through or experiencing right now that you're noticing?

Natalie Parker: 36:42

I went to a conference in October and the host basically said, like, if your revenue is down, don't feel bad because this is this year crazy for everybody. And my team and I have effective affectionately called this year the upside down. So for anybody who's watched Stranger Things, like it's literally, you know, the demagorgon and all of the things, like it's just been Lions and Tigre because of bears. It's like, what is happening? And it's a very interesting Dickens kind of time for us as a company. It's like the best of times and the worst of times. Right. So we have received so much credibility and and platform and exposure and our revenue is not like it was the last three years. And so we are, we have the opportunity. I'm looking at it like this. It's two things. One, I have told a lot of my coaching friends, like, accept the plateau, the business that we have, any business has ebbs and flows. Any business has ebbs and flows. And so if you, if you don't, you know, act like every day's milk and honey, then you can store up and plan for when things get tight. And having, I'm now having learned that discipline without having a W-2, right? In any other case, I'm on the HR side doing the analysis, figuring out who's getting laid off, figuring out who's being consolidated. I've always been on that side. And now this is the year that I get to say, it's my company. And I've got to reconfigure priorities and I've got to spend less in areas of like, you know, that are important, but have to be a next year problem or next quarter. And really, and I think helps you with the priorities, right? So I can't have 17 different kinds of AI. I can only have like three. Or I can't take that trip right now. And so we, or we can't do that conference because it's not in alignment with our strategy, even though it might make us a lot of money. And so you, you, you take the opportunity of the challenge, because this is a challenging year. And I don't know that 2026 is going to be exponentially better. I think there will be a lift. That said, it's important to learn the discipline in the down year.

Kevin: 38:53

You know, something that you mentioned was like that discipline of prioritizing type of things, right? Like you gave that great example about the AI tools and stuff like that and all that. And something I noticed, like every business owner, right? Like, we invest into things like or our own coaching or own training, marketing. You mentioned that you you you spent money on marketing in the past, you have team members, you have a lot of different things, right? And so I'm kind of curious, like, what has been some of the most like what has whatever comes to mind? What's been the most overrated business investment that you've made so far? And what's the most underrated? Like, kind of like, ooh, more people need to know about this. I wish I knew about this sooner. What comes to mind?

Natalie Parker: 39:40

What's the most overrated thing that a lot of people are doing now and it's saturating the atmosphere is followership. Nobody cares. If you can't turn that into revenue, no one cares. And my first partnering set of marketing team was like, Oh, yeah, we're gonna build your followers. I'm like, is that gonna make me Money though. And it was also, you know, this cold call LinkedIn inboxing stuff that frankly I wasn't ready for. I said I wasn't ready for. And they were like, well, if you don't have any other options, let's do this anyway. It was expensive. I didn't have the right strategy. I didn't have the right voice. I didn't know who I was talking to. I didn't like the concept of being salesy. Right. Like I just didn't have a good framework for it. And so I understand it now and I still am using it in a different way. I think you've got to, before you go into like things like marketing, you really have to know yourself. Cause you, if you don't know what you're selling, most people won't know either. Right. So I think that's really important. I would say the most underrated thing right now is how to leverage all the AI tools from a work stream perspective. So I am I didn't apparently I'm more I'm an average utilizer of AI tools, right? And so we do a lot of workflow management and things like that to help, you know, feed the engine of the organization so that it frees us up to do thought work. If you're spending a lot of time editing, if you're spending a lot of time doing like all of those things, like if you set up the system right, like this is the year of system building in the organization that will build good systems to enable them to do the heavy lift of thought work and impact, those are the organizations that are really going to excel.

Kevin: 41:28

As you think about like utilizing AI, right? Like I like that term of thought work. Because I've been thinking about, I'm not sure if you know about this, uh, Natalie, but one of the things I do is I review AI apps and stuff. So I'm always looking for new AI apps to free up my time so I can do more of this thought work. As you're freeing up your time, like where are you what are you doing with that time? Are you just like just oh for the bigger ideas? Are you like, yeah, I'm kind of curious, like, what has that opened up in your life?

Natalie Parker: 41:57

So for any creative, you know that you have like 75 ideas all at the same time that compete for your attention. So a couple things we're doing. So the one of the big chunks that we want to finish very quickly is um our book, right? Um, we're also looking at how to do some product, right? So if you can't afford coaching, what are the tools that we can give you as resources that can be either self-paced or you know, video based or what have you? And we're also, I think that just like every business uses the internet, like every business will be an AI business. And so what does that mean for a business? What kind of things can we offer? And how can we get to market quickly so that we have the credibility of longevity and success that allows us to scale it?

Kevin: 42:45

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

Natalie Parker: 42:49

Sure. So my website is denatalieparker.com, because apparently there's only one true story, by the way, something that's overrated, domain names. Like in the near future, no one will care. So it was the choice between trying to buy my own name for like, I don't know, $5,000 and just like putting the in front of it and being done with it. So the Natalie Parker.com, also on all of the channels, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. So your boss sucks. That's our handle for all of those. And so you can check up our websites. And I'm also on LinkedIn, Natalie Renee Parker. Would love to connect with anyone who um is like-minded or you know, wants to know more.

Kevin: 43:32

There's a few things that really stick out to me, right? One of the things that sticks out to me is that, you know, how fast your fast your business can just change in a relatively short amount of time. You're just speaking about like those speaking engagements and all that. Like that just happened within the last few months, which was insane. So I thought that was really, really interesting. I thought too, I just appreciated how like vulnerable you were, how some things are really great and how some things aren't. And sometimes, like, you know, especially on social media, especially in I would say, especially on Instagram, it's easy to see the highlight reels of everything's going super, super well, right? But it was really interesting seeing, like, hey, the common struggles that you're kind of going through too. And then also the reminder of the accountability aspect. I found that so interesting because no one wants to be led by like a hypocrite. I've never heard anyone say that, but like I always think about that in my mind. And the worst bosses, they were just like, they just were totally not self-aware about that too. So it made me think about like, ooh, what areas am I like not being held accountable on the self to? So I thought that was really interesting.

Natalie Parker: 44:45

I love anyways. I love that you caught that. And I would just challenge your listeners, right? So all of the folks watching and listening. In what areas of your life do you want to change or improve? And how are you inviting the people around you to be a part of that, to help you help yourself really around, you know the things that you don't say out loud? Like, hey, listen, I'm I kind of want to lose 10 pounds. How can you help me keep accountable? So I'm not eating a, you know, a box of roundings over the holiday. Like it's that. Like it's we have to the aim of AI, authenticity is going to be the currency. And so it's really important for us to share vulnerable moments that we can bring along people into our lives and share those moments because people are going to be hungry for it. They're hungry for it now. They want to be seen. And so if you share with me, like, hey, as a leader, I realize I cut people off. Can you help me stop that? I give you permission to say, hey, Natalie, or maybe have a safe word, like, I don't know, chocolate cover donuts. I don't know. Whatever it is, like watermelon, right? Like whatever it is, whatever it is. Like, like, okay, when you hear me cut somebody off, tap the table three times, right? Something, but invite people to your journey. You're not perfect. They know you're not perfect, and they're probably talking about you behind the scenes. So invite them to have an open conversation about what they see as your deficiencies because you're telling them what they're deficient in, just make the playing to feel more level.

Kevin: 46:06

Yeah. And it's also like, yeah, that last aspect too of just like humanizing things too. I think some so many times business or like top-down leadership, which is like my like when people are just like yelling orders at you or just telling you what to do. It's like some of the worst leadership I've seen. But that humanization just builds a deeper relationship with the people that you're working with as well. And I don't know. Natalie, that's just my really long way of saying like, hey, I appreciate your work. Your work matters. And thank you just so much for sharing your time, your stories, your experience, your wisdom on this podcast today. I really appreciate you.

Natalie Parker: 46:46

Thank you so much, Kevin. And thank you to the Purple Circle for the opportunity. I think continuing throughout the years, coaching is going to be even more relevant and even more important as we grow as humans in a in a technical world.

Kevin: 46:58

Especially with AI, because everybody's like switching careers right now and just like, oh my God, I don't know what to do.

Natalie Parker: 47:05

And sidebar, an AI coach isn't the same as like a real person. Just say that out loud.

Kevin: 47:08

What my chat GBT is not the Chat GBT therapist. Oh, so glad to have you on. It's been a blast. Thank you so much.

Natalie Parker: 47:19

Thanks so much. Take care.

Davis Nguyen : 47:20

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.