Proven Strategies for Career Advancement with Christopher Jones

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Christopher Jones, a dynamic career coach and leadership expert who has dedicated his career to helping professionals unlock their full potential. Christopher discusses the importance of clarity, strategic planning, and personal growth in creating a career that aligns with your values and long-term goals. Whether you're looking to pivot careers, advance in your current role, or improve your leadership skills, Christopher offers practical advice to help you thrive in any professional environment.

You can find him on:
https://www.authentic-leader.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamchristopherjones/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristopherrjonesAuthenticLeader/
https://www.instagram.com/christopherrjones/
Email: chris@christopherrjones.com

Transcript

Christopher Jones 0:00

If you are rightly prioritizing, and rightly prioritizing, by the way, is not necessarily the fire happening in your backyard right now, right? It may feel like that, and it actually feels good to go put that fire out. Sometimes that's that proactive activity that will help to prevent that fire from happening in the background and in the backyard later on down the road. Uh, but when you do rightly prioritize and you're working on the most appropriate thing, I use those words are very important, uh very intentionally. Sometimes the things that don't need to get done are at the bottom of your list and they fall away, and that may be okay.

Davis Nguyen 0:37

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.

Pedro Stein 1:08

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and I'm here with Christopher Jones today, who helps HR directors transform high-performing employees into high-performing managers systematically and at scale. Through cohort-based programs and structured leadership frameworks, he equips newly promoted and emerging managers with the systems, language, and accountability tools required to lead high-performing, self-sufficient teams. What makes Christopher's approach unique is that his story began with failing in his first management role, an experience that became the foundation for the frameworks he now teaches. He works primarily with mid-sized organizations and associations, helping them strengthen their leadership pipeline while reducing avoidable turnover and building bench strength for succession planning. Welcome to the show, Christopher. Oh, great to have you, man. Likewise, you know, and you know, I always like to dive in into the origin story at this point, you know, to understand uh what happened before you became a coach. Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and they're like, yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Christopher Jones 2:40

Well, it my origin story is actually quite a while ago, and I was in a corporate role. It was early in my career, and I was promoted into a management role after I led a project for that department that saved the department more than one million dollars in its first year. And of course, I assumed that, hey, if if I'm if I can succeed at running this project, I will be successful leading people as well. But what I quickly discovered was that the success as an individual contributor doesn't automatically translate into leadership. I just didn't have those frameworks, the tools, and the systems that really you need to be able to lead teams effectively. I didn't know it, but I that's what I needed. Uh, and that experience was very humbling for me. I lasted two years in that role and it really changed the direction of my career. I made a commitment to myself to learn everything that I could about leadership so that I would never lead like that again, because it doesn't feel good to lead like that. So today I teach leadership tools that I wish someone had given me when I was first a manager. Really, I believe that leadership is simple, uh, but it isn't easy unless you have those right systems.

Pedro Stein 3:55

Interesting, you know, and what I want to know is like when did it shift, especially in the coaching space, right? It's like coaches are trying to help everyone, they're in the testing water, seeing if this is really gonna happen, right? So the shift from I'm helping people to you know what, I'm building a real business around this, the a real coaching practice. So when did you felt that shift, you know?

Christopher Jones 4:19

Yeah, well, it was when I was still in the corporate world, if you will. And I would have people come and approach me and ask me questions about their career shifts and or their leadership challenges, and they would come to me without me necessarily even promoting that that's what I do, or I like to help people doing that. So I started recognizing that, hey, there's a theme here where people keep asking for for my help and assistance. Um, but even when I was in my corporate role, I had a neighbor of mine who asked if I would ever consider helping them um do some weekend programs uh for leaders, uh, actually um for volunteer rescue squads. Um, and so we would do these weekend leadership programs and do a little coaching there and realize, wow, I really enjoy that. Maybe this is something I may want to do at some point in the future, having no idea how I could possibly uh get that done. Um, but it was several years later I decided, hey, I'm gonna go out and start my own business. Uh, it took me two years to actually leave. And that same neighbor came to me and said, Hey, Chris, would you ever consider leaving your corporate job and doing this full time with us? And um, I said, I thought to myself, I've I've been planning this for two years. This is on a silver platter to me. It could I make this any easier for you, Chris? And uh, so I left. Um, and uh, that's when I started doing uh the executive coaching at uh nuclear power plants all across the east coast of the United States.

Pedro Stein 5:46

It's almost like they're validating something that you were planning for. It's like that external opinion that you're like, oh my god, this makes perfect sense, right?

Christopher Jones 5:57

They recognized it and took action, right? Sometimes people they they don't recognize it or they don't want to recognize it. You gotta recognize it, you gotta take action.

Pedro Stein 6:08

That's true. Now, after you got rolling, right, and I kind of mentioned this in the introduction that I made, I but I want to understand, you know, uh the trial and error part of it. It's like who are the people that kept showing up, you know, the ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe, you know, this is the people that can actually help the most.

Christopher Jones 6:29

You know, um or people who really want the help, right? Um, I there have been times, and I I alluded earlier how I did executive coaching at nuclear plants, and sometimes I was assigned people to work with. Those are hard to make successful, right? When you're assigned and you're you're told, hey, you're gonna be working with this coach named Chris. Um, it's those people who really wanted to seek me out, and and they know that they've got an issue, they know they need some help to overcome the obstacles that are in their way. Um, those are who I can really help the most.

Pedro Stein 7:06

Okay, so a lot of friction there, right? When you're when it feels like you're it's a situation that's been imposed upon them, right? It's not something they deliberately choose to work with a coach. Uh, did you see a lot of friction up there? And and and we're like, uh, maybe this is not really how I should be working, or people I should be working with, you know. Um, how did that play out? You know, just trying to understand.

Christopher Jones 7:30

You're gonna love this story. This is a really good story. So let's go into the nuclear power plant example, right? Because it this story is so good. Um, so this was early in my coaching, right? Uh I had coached a little bit, but didn't really have a lot of experience under my belt. I knew how to talk to people, right? I knew how to pull answers out of them. Um, but I was at this one nuclear plant and I was assigned to this senior leader. Um, and the if you gotta imagine, I mean, these nuclear plants were always trying to improve, right? Always trying to improve their leadership, um, especially those who were poor performing nuclear plants. Those are the ones we primarily worked with. And I had this one senior leader who I was who I was assigned to, right? And in one of our first meetings, he said, Chris, I think this leadership plan that we've created together is really good. It's really strong. It's something that I can implement across my team. I can get my team behind this, I'll use this as a tool. But I think this whole coaching thing is a complete waste of time. I don't want any part of it, it's a complete waste of money. I really I just have no interest in it. And I don't know where the words came from, but they came from somewhere. And I said, Well, first, number one, thank you for telling me, right? Because if you didn't tell me, I would wonder why I am not making more progress with you, right? Or why are things not working out? But I know now, right? You transparently share that with me. So that's number one. Thank you for sharing that. Number two, I have been assigned to work with you and they're paying me to be your coach. What I'd like to ask you to do is I'd like to for you to consider us continue to meet. I'm gonna share with you everything that I'm sharing with the other uh leaders I'm sharing with at this site so that you are aware of the concepts and the frameworks and the tools that I'm giving them so that when you're in a meeting and they're talking about it, you're not in the dark. I'm just gonna let you know what those things are, but I'm not gonna ask you to do anything. I'm not gonna ask you to take any action, I'm not gonna ask you to make any commitments, you're not gonna have to do anything. I'm just gonna share information with you. That's it. Any thought for a moment? Honestly, I disarmed him, right? He's like, How can I say no to that? Well, fine. They're paying you to be here. You can go ahead and show up, you can share wherever you want. I'm not doing anything. He was one of the best um leaders I have ever worked with. So much, in fact, that when I would go back to that plant um many months later, he would come seek me out so he could share with me leadership successes that he was having. I had no reason to believe this was gonna be successful. Actually, as a matter of fact, I thought it was gonna be the one of the worst relationships I've had in my professional career. And it ended up being um a great success, though.

Pedro Stein 10:10

That's a great story. Now, I I gotta ask, right? It's like, what do you attribute that? Do you feel like it's sometimes a misconception of what coaching really is, you know, or is like there is there something else, you know, because at the end of the day, sometimes people have their their mind set to something like, oh, so coaching is like we're gonna light up some candles, we're gonna dance to kumbaya, you know, and it really is not about that. Do you feel like which one was it? Like uh some some part of not knowing what it is, or maybe just friction by friction, you know?

Christopher Jones 10:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, in this case, and many of the nuclear plants, they they've had so many other organizations come in and try to quote unquote fix them. And this guy was in this role for 30 years, he was just tired of it. Like, yeah, you're just the next person that's in line to do this, you're not gonna make any change, just like no one else did. But, you know, what I recognize is that um I wasn't really there to tell him anything, right? I was there to pull out the answers that are already in him. Really, with everyone who I work with, I don't tell them to do anything. I just show them, hey, what here's what we're talking about here. Try to pull out from them the answers that are going to help them to resolve the obstacles that they already know how to solve. That they don't know it. They need to have someone on the outside, a third party to discuss it so they can have that um that light bulb moment that, oh, that's what I should do. And they're actually way more likely to actually do it if they self-discover what action they need to take.

Pedro Stein 11:45

By the sounds of it, you described exactly what coaching is, right? It's like making the right questions, basically, right? So they can't, you're gonna peel off and get into the true intention behind it. Now, it sounds like he was exposed to consulting, right? Like a plan on how to do coaching, but not necessarily true coaching. Would you say it's something like that? And that your experience was like uh so unique and so different, but at the same time, that was coaching is all about, right?

Christopher Jones 12:14

Yeah, I I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that there were these kind of prescribed templates of consultants that would come in and just like say, here's what you guys need, here's a problem, here, go fix this, but not really helping them actually through it, right? Um, so yeah, I I think the key is is questioning. And many, yeah, I'm always taking notes, right? When I'm um coaching, because I'm getting older, older I get, the less I remember. So I take notes, but at the top of my pages, lots of times, I'll just write the word curiosity. And that's my reminder that my next question I need to ask you is in the answer you just gave. And that allows the conversation to be flexible, right? And actually lets it go with the in the direction that the leader needs it to go. Because what they just said, yeah, we need to know more about that. Why do you say that? What brought you to that conclusion? You know, those are those are the best questions, the ones you come up with because they just said that.

Pedro Stein 13:13

It's like sometimes they have like that at first surface level answer, and then you peel it off and you start making the the right questions, and they're all based on assumptions, right? And sometimes they're just not true, right? So, and and then you can uncover that and get to the the root cause or what's the true intention behind it. Now, I get that. Now, okay, let me shift a little bit here, uh, Christopher. Like, let's talk a little bit about marketing, right? Because we're talking about your ideal client profile, people that actually want to work with you. Now, how do those people usually find you? You know?

Christopher Jones 13:49

Yeah. Uh well, that's that's a great question. Um, so it's typically one of three ways, uh, quite honestly. Um, the first way is through uh speaking at conferences. I I do a handful of speaking at conferences and I speak about topics that are relevant to that audience. Um, and I know you in the intro you shared how I work with like HR teams and HR directors, right? So typically those are the type of people in my audience, but it does not exclude me from working with um business owners, right? For example, or senior leaders. But speaking of conferences is one way. Um, another, of course, is referrals from satisfied clients. I get a good handful of doing a great job with one of my clients that they can't help but also share this with a friend that they have in another uh company that may need a similar help. And then the last one is managers attend this program I've got called New Leader Lab. And this is where organizations will maybe send one or two people to that program, get great benefit of it. And then they ask, Well, could you do an in-house version of that? I've done that numerous times, and uh um, so I'll do a larger in-house engagements um from my new leader lab program.

Pedro Stein 15:03

Okay, now I want to understand a little bit about structure. I think this is a very interesting topic. And like, let's pretend I'm one of those HR directors or business owners or senior leaders, right? And I went to one of your audiences and and no, that I went to one of your you know events and I'm part of that audience, right? So let's say I I watched that, I it it resonated with me, and like, okay, I want to work with that guy. I like Christopher. So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently, right? So when someone actually becomes a client, just like me, the way I framed it, what does that experience look like right now from my perspective?

Christopher Jones 15:42

Oh, I I love this. Is I love this part. Um I love it because I'm really good at it. And I'm not saying that as an ego thing. Um I've gotten very good at it. First off, um, when someone says, Hey, I'd like to work with you, what does that look like? They literally ask just like that. Uh I say, well, we need to just let's have a first initial meeting and let's have a conversation about what problem it is that you're trying to solve. I'm a really good listener. And what I love about that is, of course, I'm taking really good notes, I'm understanding what their real problem is, and I let them know, hey, we're gonna discover if I'm even the right person to help you to solve this problem or not. I don't assume that I'm definitely gonna make them a client. I may not be the right person, right? Uh, but many times I am. Most of the time I am because they self-identified, wow, what Chris just talked about would really solve our problem. So I get um in that initial uh intake meeting, I understand what they're trying to solve. I say, okay, I'm a formal person. I like to do things formally. I like to have a few days to put together a formal proposal. I love doing things formally. I then I put together a very formal proposal. And in that proposal, then we then get down and we meet a second time. And in that second meeting, I review this proposal with them. I let them know ahead of time that this is a draft proposal. Any changes we need to make to this, we can talk about it. We can let you know. And in this proposal, it has three options. The three options are hey, if if you just want to do something, like here's something is better than nothing. That's the first option, right? And it addresses your problem directly. Um, option number two is it's exactly what you asked for. Like when I'm going through option number two, they're saying, Yes, Chris, you heard me. You totally understand my problem. I totally see how this totally solves our problem. And then option three, I tell them up front, uh, I don't expect you're gonna pick option three. As a matter of fact, I I don't want you to pick option three, but I put it here so we can see some other components that might make sense that we pull into maybe one of the other options. We can do that because it's a draft. So uh so we review that, and then at the decision at the end, we decide, well, which one do you think is gonna solve your problem best? Um, given the constraints that you have and what you're trying to truly solve for. And then um they make a decision, I send them an invoice, we set a date, and we're off to the races.

Pedro Stein 18:06

That's okay. Now, I feel like I I always I and I like to ask this, like, especially in the coaching space, right? Because we see a lot of coaches out there wearing all the hats, right? And capacity is always the challenge for coaches, and especially in the safest service-based industry. Like sometimes we undervalue our own time, right? So, and your work seems pretty hands-on, right? We're talking about uh events, uh, the coaching piece itself, uh, creating proposals. So, how do you think about capacity? You know, so don't stretch yourself too thin.

Christopher Jones 18:41

Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, I'm really good at prioritizing the work that I do. Um, and it's my philosophy that if you are rightly prioritizing, and rightly prioritizing, by the way, is not necessarily the fire happening in your backyard right now, right? It may feel like that, and it actually feels good to go put that fire out. Sometimes that's that proactive activity that will help to prevent that fire from happening in the background and in the backyard later on down the road. Uh, but when you do rightly prioritize and you're working on the most appropriate thing, I use those words are very important very intentionally. Sometimes the things that don't need to get done are at the bottom of your list and they fall away, and that may be okay, right? Or the things that are rightly prioritized actually end up addressing some of the other smaller things automatically, but you got to rightly prioritize it, you got to rightly define what you need to accomplish. And uh it's just I'm really good at prioritizing if that helps.

Pedro Stein 19:44

Yeah, it's all about priorities at the end of the day, right? We all we all have 24 hours in the day, same time for everyone. So that makes perfect sense. Now, I'm curious where are they taking all this, right, Christopher? Looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're really excited about?

Christopher Jones 20:03

You know, yeah. Well, um, so scaling is definitely um what I'm looking at um doing in the next year or so. As a matter of fact, I've really been doing that for the past two years. Um, my business is um last year was double the year before. So that's good. And I'm expecting this year to be double that again. Um, so yeah, scaling it um so that we are addressing um more managers um at one time. So you'll see more things like um like group coaching programs. I'll be doing more of those. Uh the new leader lab is expanding and scaling as well. Um, getting a lot of feedback from my clients as well about the format of that program so that it truly does like solve their management and leadership problem. Uh, one of the biggest things that frustrates me about training programs or workshops is that you get all super excited and you want to implement all this stuff and it's all really good stuff. And then you go back to your day job, and what do you do? You either implement one or two things or many times nothing, right? And I am I am not about that. I mean, I was in that that training and development director position, and that was my biggest frustration back then, right? So I don't allow for that. I actually have walk away committed actions that I have leaders work on after the program, which looks like a 90-day leadership plan. After you go through the new leader lab, you are developing a 90-day leadership plan. I actually walk you through to create that. Um, and then they are meeting with their manager to review their leadership plan uh so that they can ask for feedback, but also ask for their support in implementing that program. That is the continuation after the program so that it just doesn't die and nothing goes there. You you've got to make a change. You have to take action, you gotta implement something as a result of coming to one of my programs.

Pedro Stein 21:57

Okay, but I'm a rebel, right? And I Was your ICP in this example? So I want to understand like Pedro is your client, and you're not seeing like Pedro's putting in the work, right? I'm just like not kind of showing up, kind of doing stuff, but not really. Okay. So how do you navigate that conversation with a client, right? It's because it's there's an accountability piece, but there's also like you rely on them to do the work, right? Also, it's not like you're not doing everything. So how do you navigate that? I'm curious.

Christopher Jones 22:28

Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, I can't make anybody do anything, right? Um, but I do say up front, I'll let the participants in my programs know that while I still am, I'm very big on confidentiality, right? You've got to be able to share confidential information with me and trust that it's going to stay with me. But when it comes to things like engagement and participating and uh following through on commitments, that feedback will be going to the person who hired me to work with you. And I say that up front. So that I will be doing that. So I won't be talking about the specific things you talk about and your specific issues and problems, but I will be talking about your engagement. And I expect that you will be fully engaged in this program. You will be fully participating in this program. And I don't mean it as a threat, but that's part of my job. They paid for me to be working with you. Your boss deserves to know are they getting what they what they paid for? And you get out of my programs what you put into them, right? So I've had a participant say, uh, I'm gonna get the most out of this. I'm like, okay, great. If you really mean that, you're gonna do everything we talk about. If you make a commitment, I'm gonna hold you accountable to that.

Pedro Stein 23:39

And then he kind of flinched. It was like, you're like, Oh, are you really? Because there's a lot of work to do out there. And like, oh, okay. I love that. Now, of course, whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, we're talking about future, right? There's always something we're refining in the present. Like, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Christopher Jones 24:01

Yeah. Um, well, a big thing that I focused on last year specifically, and I'm continuing now, is my marketing piece. Like, everybody has to know what their weakness is. And marketing is mine. My I am not strong at marketing. Um, and I I've struggled. I've been in business now for 11 years. I'm really good at my content, I'm very good at my program delivery. I'm even very good at the sale and the proposal reviews. I'm very good about closing up, but making people aware of me, that is not my strength. So I actually did hire a consultant last year that helped me with my positioning. And just a very small example is that I always felt like if someone was asking about me, or if I even wanted to let people know about me, like if I'm doing a LinkedIn post or if I'm sending out a newsletter, I felt like I had to put everything in there. So, and even anticipate all their questions. And I was overwhelming people with too much information that I tuned them out even before they started reading. So we massively just simplified everything, right? Like this, this is what I'm doing. It's just a small group of people. I'm getting together. Do you have anybody who's a new uh new manager who was previously a high performer that might benefit from that? That's it. It used to be paragraphs long, it's like two sentences long now.

Pedro Stein 25:23

Isn't that wild? It's because I think we're sometimes we're coming up with our own point of view, right? For content and not necessarily ICP's point of view. And we're like, oh, we're trying to give all the answers in this post, and it needs to look perfect, but at the same time, it's like people don't have the time, people don't care, and they want to get hooked like like that, right? Really fast. So this is very interesting. I love that topic. Now, I want to tap into your experience for a second, right, Christopher, because people listening can really benefit from this. I mean, you've been in the game long enough, we're talking about 11 years, right? To hear all kinds of business advice, and even in business, even more. So, some some business advice are good, some really not, you know. So, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think like, ah, I think this is overrated or misunderstood, you know?

Christopher Jones 26:14

I don't know. Here's my belief people think that you have to spend a lot of money to lift up your business, right? To start your business. Uh, and I've seen people take out like big loans. I a person I just had lunch with earlier today just talked about the small business loan that they have, and then they ended up shifting and like there was this this thing. I don't know if you heard about this pandemic that happened. It was a pandemic that happened worldwide um the last couple of years. Well, it massively affected their business, and but they got the small business loan, and like that business just can't exist like that anymore. As a matter of fact, they're actually folding that part of their business. Well, they're still on the hook for this small business loan. I've never had debt in my business. It is slow, right? It is it is not a sprint, uh, it is a marathon. And you know, if if you try to get it the quick way, um, it can also go away very quickly. So I think that my business is more sustainable because I've never gone into debt, I've never taken any loans, I've done it the the hard way, but now here I am 11 years later, and I don't have those obstacles that are weighing me down. Does that answer your question?

Pedro Stein 27:23

It does. I mean, it's from personal and life experience, right? You you were like not pushing hard on the loans. I think that's interesting. I I really like that. Okay. And um on the other side, what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously, you know?

Christopher Jones 27:42

Yeah, patience. Like you've got to be really patient. Uh, when I started my business, I remember meeting with this woman. Um, actually, she was a woman. Uh, I started going to chamber events, right? Just trying to grow my network. Um, and I hated it at first because I'm an introvert. You might be surprised. I mean, when people talk to me, I'm I'm pretty good at talking, but like when we're done with this interview today, I'm gonna have to decompress. Uh, but anyway, I remember meeting with this woman, she was my mentor basically by joining the chamber. And one thing she said to me, she's like, Chris, I love what you do, I love your business, I love the model, love the framework and how you're helping leaders. She said, It's gonna be nine months before you get your first client. And I thought, whoa, first off, I don't like that answer. But number two, I thought about it, I thought, you're probably right. Nobody knew who Chris Jones was. Nobody knows who who authentic leader is, nobody knows what I do. It's gonna take a while to earn that trust and to earn that awareness. Guess how long it was before I got my first client? It was nine months.

Pedro Stein 28:51

It was nine months. And you called her, yeah.

Christopher Jones 28:53

And you called her. I did, I told her. I said, you deserve the credit. You were right. But you know what I did over those nine months? I didn't focus on getting clients. What I did is I focused on expanding my network and creating more awareness. So I had 150 coffee meetings in that first year of my business, just one-on-one, just learning about people, asking questions. I make sure they do 80% of the talking in these coffee meetings. But when I finally had my first client, you're gonna love this story too. My I had a meeting with my first client um this before he hired me, and I reviewed the whole proposal. Here's what we're gonna do, here's how we're gonna do it, all this stuff. And he's like, Chris, I'm ready to make a decision. I'm sitting here, literally in his office, face to face, and he says, Chris, I love what you do. I think you'd really help me. I think this is exactly what I need. I had just one concern. I'm afraid that you're gonna be distracted from your other clients and you're not gonna be able to give me the full attention that I need uh for this program. Of course, I had no clients, but I had these words that came to me, I don't know where they came from. And I said, I I want you to know that you will feel like my only client, and I will give you full attention. If you ever feel like I'm not giving you the attention that you you know you deserve, you let me know. I'm gonna fix that, but you're not gonna feel like that. You will feel like you're you're my full focus. And he said, Great, you're hired. You're gonna have my first client.

Pedro Stein 30:28

Nice. Okay, now I feel like I gotta ask you something like because the business started 11 years ago, right? And then last year you had like exponential growth and you're aiming for even more. So looking back, right, and talking to our audience, uh, what do would you attribute that? Like the the difference between the other years, and I know there are several, you know, uh reasons for it, but if you had a pinpoint one that made a real shift, like for the the the our listeners, the other coaches out there, what would you say that was?

Christopher Jones 31:05

You know, this is one of the hardest things I think that you can do in business. And and people have heard this before, and people who don't already know it are not gonna believe it, but this is true. It's to niche down, you've got to really niche down in your uh target audience, and what I mean by that, and this is why it's so hard, is that it feels like the more you narrow your focus in your business, you're excluding all these other people who you could be working with. That that sounds counterproductive, doesn't it? It does. But over the last couple of years, even before I started doubling my business, um, the last couple of years, I started getting better at it. But the more I niche, the faster that exponential growth increases. So I used to say I work with business owners or I work with senior leaders or I work with anybody who has leadership challenges, right? That is hugely broad. And then I went to, you know what? Hey, I work with new managers. I worked with those people who were just promoted to a new manager role. Actually, that even was not enough. Um and I think I even have further to go. What I specifically work on now are HR teams, specifically HR directors who are responsible for management development. Now, that does not keep me from working with business owners, doesn't keep me from working for with senior leaders. I still work with them. But here's what happens when you niche down like that, my messaging gets very, very clear and gets very, very easy. I know exactly who I'm speaking to every time I post something on LinkedIn, every time I send an email newsletter, every time I do any kind of follow-up, I know exactly who I'm talking. I'm talking to specifically to that HR director who's struggling with managers who are just not effectively leading their teams. They're new in their role and they don't have any awareness of these foundational frameworks and systems and tools.

Pedro Stein 33:07

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I really like that. Now, if someone listening, Christopher, wants to connect with your follow your work, right? Where can people find you and connect with you?

Christopher Jones 33:17

The best place is LinkedIn. I love connecting on LinkedIn. Uh, you know, obviously from there you can see I do post, I regularly post on LinkedIn so you can see some of the ideas and concepts that I share. Um, but we can also message on there as well easily. Um, or you can connect with me uh through my email, Chris at Christopher Rjones.com. There's an additional R in there because there's a lot of Chris Joneses in the world. So I'm Chris at Christopher Rjones.com, or my website is authentic-leader.com.

Pedro Stein 33:48

You know what, Chris? Just by thinking out loud here, I feel like I need to highlight some parts of this chat, you know, that we had today. I would say, first of all, uh the origin story piece when you mentioned that you're serving the past self you, you know, your past self, Christopher, and providing him tools to avoid the pitfalls that you eventually, you know, ended up uh hitting, you know, and thinking, have having that mindset, you know, puts you in uh, I would say, like skin in the game, you know, I've been there, done that. It's really cool, like looking back and thinking about how could I help past me, you know. I think that's a very important piece of coaching too, you know, so people can connect with you in a level that is so easy to, you know, just by hearing you, I can immediately connect with that experience. And uh when I asked you about the structure in the business, and you're like, oh, I love that, yeah. And that is so funny. And the reason it's so funny because it aligns perfectly with what you told me, right? You're like in the top of the note, you're like curiosity writing that down, you know, and and when you're thinking about it, that's the part that really moves you. It's like I want to know them, I want to understand what they're struggling with. It's not just about uh I'm gonna close them and they're gonna be a client. No, you're really curious, you really want to know what's going on there, right? And and that aligns perfectly with what you told me. And the advice about patience, the nine months to get your first client. Oh my God, that's so cool, you know. And uh because you have to build the the network, you have to build uh that, you know, that the the the foundation for the business, the relationships. And it takes a while, yeah. It's not overnight. Uh, I I don't know what you're reading out there on social media, but it sounds like it's overnight situation. It's like always a a magic bullet, uh, a wand that's gonna pop up, and everything's gonna, hey, Legion, and all that, and all that, and blah blah blah. And we know that's not really what happens, right? And the niching down piece, I think that is so important, such a great reminder. And the reason for it's like you mentioned it already, right? It helps with positioning the messaging, but I would say it prevents you from labeling yourself as a commodity, right? So if you're like everyone, it's so easy to get lost in the noise because everyone is trying to serve everyone, most people are, right? And that's not really the case. So you you become the go-to guy, and when they're searching you, they're like, Oh, who can I compare him to? Turns to be not that easy, right? He's like specific for these guys, and I'm one of them, and he speaks my language, so it makes it so easy.

Christopher Jones 36:41

I am the best in the world working with HR directors with new managers. I am, I am absolutely the best in the world for for that target audience.

Pedro Stein 36:54

This I think this is my long-winded way of saying that. Appreciate you you you here today. You know, I appreciate you you you sharing so openly, and it was great having you on, Christopher.

Christopher Jones 37:06

Well, thank you, Pedro. You are a fantastic interviewer. I loved your questions. Um, you you set me up for success today. So thank you for your part as well.

Davis Nguyen 37:14

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.