How to Make Coaching Valuable to the People Who Need It with David Scott

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is David Scott, founding partner and consultant at Rambutan, a UK-based consultancy specializing in coaching, leadership development, and organizational culture. David shares his journey from a senior corporate operations role into building a coaching business, driven by a desire for greater freedom, control of his time, and more meaningful work. In this conversation, David reveals the early mistakes he made as a coach, including assuming that being good at coaching automatically meant people would find and hire him, and explains how he eventually developed a structured business with a clear brand, clients, systems, and processes. He also shares one of his most powerful business lessons: stop talking about coaching and start talking about outcomes, focusing on the tangible transformation and results clients can achieve. David discusses leadership development, organizational culture, behavioral change, networking, AI and the future of coaching, and why coaches need to understand the business problems their clients are actually trying to solve. Whether you're a coach, consultant, entrepreneur, business owner, or leader, this episode offers valuable lessons on positioning, selling outcomes, building trust, and creating meaningful impact.

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidscottrambutan
https://www.rambutan.biz/

Transcript

David Scott 0:00

Stop talking about coaching. Start talking about outcomes. Whether they be I mean I've helped I've helped people with fear of heights climb towers, I've helped people stop smoking. They're outcomes, right? There could be personal outcomes or there could be business outcomes. I know you're a keen footballer, Pedro. I've helped a premiership team stay in the premiership. Okay, it's the outcome.

Davis Nguyen 0:22

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took RS years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:06

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by David Scott, who's a founding partner and consultant at Rembutin, a UK-based business consultancy specializing in coaching, leadership development, and organizational culture. He's an accredited business and personal coach who provides one-on-one executive coaching and designs leadership programs and workshops for organizations. Welcome to the show, David. Thanks, Pedro. Great to be here. Great to have you. Excited. I gotta add a side note for you here, real quick, in case you don't know. But I am a I'm a comic book nerd myself. Okay. So I do love the origin stories, you know, the first editions. So let's rewind a bit, David, because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right, David? So when was that for you?

David Scott 2:08

Like the trigger point for me was I had a big um operational role in a retail organization. Uh and the trigger point was having a small family and wanting to take control of my time uh and control of my destiny. Um, and that moment when you step out of the corporate world and realize that if you're gonna get a paycheck, it's gonna be down to you. That was the first okay, we're doing this then moment, I think. This is um about 20 years ago.

Pedro Stein 2:37

Wow, 20 years in the game. Okay, now interesting. I love the uh the motivation, right? Which is freedom at the end of the day. But you know, something I'm actually curious is about the leap of faith. Because like I was in corporate, I'm a coach myself, and there is that moment when you take the the bet in yourself, right? You take the leap, you move out of your your job, you're nine to five, and you you bet on in yourself, in your own business. So, can you walk us through how that felt like for you, like 20 years ago? Like, was it scary? Was it like not scary at all? Like, can you walk us through that feeling?

David Scott 3:17

Well, great question, Petro. So I can make that easy for you. Um, in that in this corporate role, I was also working away from home a lot. And that meant I sometimes got home. Um, I maybe go on a Sunday afternoon and not get home until Thursday afternoon. And one time this Thursday afternoon, it was late on, it was about 8 pm. My wife said, My eldest daughter's still up. She said, Helena's still up, do you want to read her a story? And I said, with an eye roll, do I have to? And my wife said, Have you listened to yourself? So I immediately went upstairs to read said story, sat on the bed next to a four-year-old, and said, Daddy's gonna read you a story. And before I could start the story, she said, Why does daddy work so much? And I did the thing that I'd always done up to that point, and say, This house, this car, these holidays, um, daddy goes to work to pay for these things so that mummy doesn't have to go to work. And it still makes me emotional, Pedro. She said, No way of like at that moment, so could we have less stuff and more of you? So, in terms of providing motivation, it wasn't scary. It was it was sort of easy. I had the wisdom of a four-year-old backing me up in my corner. So, yeah, it gets scarier if the further you get in and you start to try to generate sales and clients and all that. There are moments, but for me, it was never that. It was if I can't do it for my kids, who can I do it for?

Pedro Stein 4:48

Wow. Yeah, that's purpose, right? That is like what motivates us to do the stuff we're we're aiming to do or the goals we're setting for ourselves. So I get that. I have two boys too. Okay. Now, I want to unpack something here because uh 20 years in the game as a coach, right? Nine years in uh 19 years uh in your own business, but when did it shift, uh, David, for you, right? When like coaching in the early days was like I'm helping people for most coaches, I'm giving advice here and there. To you know, I'm building a real business around coaching. Was that like from the get-go, right? Because we touched the motivation about the entrepreneur side, which is like I'm gonna build my own business, I want to be free. But when does coaching step in here?

David Scott 5:40

Well, I've got I've got two sides to that. So, you know, being being bluntly honest, despite the fact that it wasn't scary, I didn't do a particularly good job the first year or so. Um and the big mistake I made was I'd already been using coaching as a tool as a leader in without it being formally called that, uh, and I was actually getting reasonably good results with in operations. So I thought actually I'm a really good coach. So therefore, this will be great because I'm a really good coach. And I didn't really have a plan to tell anyone or reach out to anyone. I you know, reflection. I kind of sat there thinking I'm a really good coach and didn't pick the phone up or didn't send an email, or um yeah, and that didn't work so well. Then in Rambitan terms, yeah, no, from from from word one, from well from day one, it was this is going to be a proper business. This is gonna have a brand, it's gonna have clients, it's gonna have structure, it's gonna have systems. Um, I'm not messing about anymore being an independent consultant thinking I'm good and not making any money. So yeah, day one Rambitan. But if if you um if you want to cast your mind back, day one Rambitan is 2008, first of September. If you're around, you'll know that the day before that, Lehman Brothers went pop and the world went mad. So we literally started a proper business when budgets were being slashed all around the world, which was great timing.

Pedro Stein 7:05

Yeah, got it. You mentioned the name Rambutan. I am curious about that. Can you walk me through that decision? Like, what's up with that, David? Why the name?

David Scott 7:18

It's a great name, Pedro. So, in that period where I was an independent, I was working with a guy who was a marketing director. I also had another number of other coaches who we collaborated with, but were all independent. And we happened to be having dinner with this director of marketing, and he'd invited us to his house. So we said, We've been toiling with this idea of doing this properly, of making a proper business out of it. You're a marketeer. What would you call it? You know us, you've seen us operate. What would you call it? And he went into his kitchen and he came back out and he said, Close your eyes and put your hand out. And he put into my colleague's hand a rambian. At which point she squealed, said, Oh my god, what is that? Because we've never seen one before. And then we said, it's gotta be that. It's gotta be that. And actually, Apple is called Apple, but more people when we started knew what a rambutan was than knew what an apple was in terms of the fruit, because it's prolific across all um Asia. It's in every shop, in every supermarket, so and it's got this stunning colour palette, which is the flow, the rambutan flower. So all our branding reflects the colour palette of the rambutan fruit and bush and flower. Um, and it's no more sophisticated than uh a chap called Ian Hall happened to have some in his kitchen when we were there for dinner. So that's the true story. We've retrofitted it with it's pretty on the outside, it's great on the inside, it's a metaphor for change management. But the truth is Ian Hall had some in his kitchen.

Pedro Stein 8:51

I love that, man. That's so funny. Okay. Uh now let me ask you this. Okay, 19 years ago, uh, you opened shop, you started your own business, right? Around the time. And um, you know, in the early days for most coaches, the first year, first days, it's almost like testing waters. And, you know, oh, I can help everyone. I'm just trying to understand who's my ideal client profile, you know. So what I'm saying is in those 19 years, potentially what happened is that there is an evolution of who you started serving and who do you serve now. Because at the end of the day, we ended up attracting a certain kind of individuals and we learn during the reps, right? We learn who we can serve best. So my question to you is, David, uh, who you started serving and the evolution, who do you serve now? You know?

David Scott 9:48

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think other coaches will, like you say, appreciate that that journey and that timescale. In the beginning, I think it's probably fair to say we served anyone who needed something without really thinking about it. So the question was, do you need help? Do you have a budget? We're the right guys for you. Uh, over time, um, I'll come back to that in a second, if I if I may, Pedro, but over time, that's evolved into a clear offering of coaching, leadership development, and culture, um, and actually specific tools that facilitate coaching, like our own 360 and things like that. Um, in terms of who we serve then and who we serve now, that goes back to that initial point. Lehman Brothers went pop, the world went mad, budgets were being slashed. We had to do something different. So, what we decided to do, myself and the other two founders, is stop talking about coaching, stop talking about leadership, stop talking about culture, and start not only talking about business performance, eBit DA, sales, revenue, profit, margin, but guaranteeing improvement. So we said, you're a chief exec, you want to improve your net margin by 0.4, that's worth £25 million for you. If I can get you that £25 million, will you pay us X? And of course they'd go, Well, of course. You don't need to be in a environment where budgets are being slashed, ours is free unless you get your benefit. And that has extended it to be into all sorts of different organizations with all sorts of different measures. So we've done that with a rail engineering firm where the measure was that their trains would break down less frequently. I'm not an engineer, I have no idea what goes into making a train move. But actually, real people repair those trains and real supervisors and coaches manage those people, and we started spotting some things in there that we could really improve. So we did a coaching program on the shop floor, and the train fleet became more reliable, and that we'd guaranteed that result, so we got paid, so that's great. But we've done in the UK a regulator score, some people get a quite strong regulated economy, we've done um transportation, uh punctuation, we've done net profit, gross profit, sales, net promoter score for holiday companies. Um so yeah, that what that means now, going back to your brilliant question, is we tend to work best with people who have accountability for those subjects. So who is it in an organization that can say, I'm gonna shake your hand and say, I'll pay you, I'm just gonna make a number up for the purpose of this story. I'm gonna pay you $25,000 and I'm gonna shake your hand to say I'm not paying you it until you give me a million dollars. That has to be a very senior person that has the authority to make that sort of deal. So as time has gone on, not exclusively, but more and more, we'd be dealing with your presidents, your chief executives, your chief operating officers, your people directors, those sorts of people. Um, but we're deadly serious. If it doesn't work, don't pay. Why would you pay? And that's my big lesson for other coaches, I think. Don't talk about coaching. We're all brilliant at it, we've all read the books, we all love it, we love the feeling of helping someone else. But a chief exec or a chief finance officer, uh, that's not their world. So get in their world. Because we can do these things, we can improve profit, we can improve sales. If we can't, we shouldn't be coaches.

Pedro Stein 13:12

I love the story. Okay, I love the fact that also you're anchoring uh in the transformation itself and not into an abstract concept, because the feeling I have is that most people they don't get it right until they get exposure. So it's almost like, yeah, uh, a better version of myself. Um, what does that even mean? You know, or even if we're talking B2B, it's like it's all about ROI. So when you're you're nailing it down into profit, bottom line, you know, revenue, that's make the conversation way easier. Also, interesting how you anchor that with a guarantee. So there's that, which uh to me tells me you have, you know, you're you're you're not afraid to add a guarantee because you know you can deliver, although they need to put in the work too. So it's not just a done for you thing, but if they do the thing, which the guarantee I probably assume is also mentioning, we will get the results. It's all good. I get it. Okay. Now, David would love for us to do a small game of pretend here, okay? Um the game of pretend entails me as your avatar, you know, the ICP. I can shake your hand. I have the power to do so. So I'm the I'm the guy, okay? Um, owner, founder, CEO, whatever that looks like. And uh, okay, first of all, how would I be able to find you marketing-wise, Rambuton?

David Scott 14:43

So we will probably have reached out to someone in your organization at some point. We have an outbound um function, which includes things like LinkedIn and email campaigns, etc. Um, one of your colleagues may have seen us talk at an event and talk about the great things that we can achieve and some of our client stories. You may have picked up that we are award-winning. So if you went to a rail industry award to go back to the example I gave about engineering, you may have found that we were a shortlisted finalist for a certain award or a winner of a certain award. Um or you may have just heard of me because people move jobs, right? And they but they keep experiences. So the number of times, the number of people we get to meet because someone experienced us, has moved organization, and goes, You really ought to give Rambi 10 a call or David a call or Gemma a call, that uh is quite prolific in the success of our business, that word of mouth. Does that answer your question, Mr. Alvarez?

Pedro Stein 15:43

It does, it does, it does. I'm still that guy, okay? We're still in the game of pretending. Okay. Let's say I got an email from you guys, the outbound, right, that you mentioned, or I was at an event, or I even heard about you. They're like, hey, you gotta talk to David, you gotta talk to those guys. They're awesome, right? So let's say I do the outreach. I'm like, hey, dude, would love to know how it looks like to work with you guys. You know, I've been hearing a lot from you. So we can speed up a little bit on the sales process or not. If you want to add a note there, totally fine. But my real question to you is like, and I understand you may have different offers, right? But if you had to pick the main one, uh, can you walk me through uh how does it look like to work with Rambuton? Okay. Uh I'm not sure if there's a one-on-one component, a one too many. I know in the intro we mentioned B2B too, right? But just a little peek behind the curtain of how does it look like to work with you guys and the outcomes I can expect.

David Scott 16:47

So the first thing that's gonna happen, Pedro, is we're gonna sit down and we're gonna have a conversation about your business. And I'm gonna ask you about what's going really well, what the pain points are, what you want more of or less of, what you're noticing about why you're getting less than you need of certain things. And then I'm gonna, if I think this is a really important point, if I think we can help, then I'm gonna go to saying, what's that worth to you? So if you tell me your pain point is marketing reach or closing sales, I'm gonna go and have a conversation about that. And I'm gonna find a way to help you in a way that feels cost neutral to you and risk-free to you, and that will depend on what you've told me. Because if you say it's an individual or a couple of individuals, and that might be one-to-one coaching, if you say actually it's the senior leadership team, or as is quite common, it's the layer below that, we call it the Marzipan layer, a cake, it's kind of sticky, keeps the bits together, but it doesn't do any other, it doesn't have any other purpose. Um, you might then turn that into a group thing like a leadership development program. Um, but it starts with a conversation about you and your business and whether or not we feel we can genuinely help you. And genuine is a really easy word for us to use. Because if we don't feel we can help, and we say we can, we don't get paid.

Pedro Stein 18:11

Okay. Now I mentioned something. Let's pretend I'm in the sales call here. Uh, I want to add some friction because I I I noticed in the intro there's the word culture, right? So culture is something interesting. So let's say I'm that guy in the sales process, and I'm like, hey, David, all of what you're saying sounds great, okay, but what happens is that sometimes we hire consultants, we hire coaches, whatever they want to call it, and that lasts for a month, and then they're out, and then we get back on the cycle, right? People, it's like it's great at the first talk, and then we have this you know curve of you know, things are slipping by and people are not picking up anymore. So, how can you tell me this is not just another consultant or another coach that is gonna transform for a week our business, but down the road it just doesn't stick?

David Scott 19:10

I love that question because it defines our points of difference at Rembrandt. So I was I said to you already, I was a senior retail operations director. I too experienced those consultancies like you described. And not only sometimes we didn't even get the peak, but it certainly faded away pretty quick. And not only did we have to pay for that, it was generally our fault for not implementing it properly. And I thought that's immoral for one thing, but it's not it's not the right way to be a consultant. So how we do it is if I say to you, I can improve or we can work together, let's not be too um big headed about it, we can work together to improve your net margin, that's a 12-month two-year journey. And we are gonna be around for that 12 months or two years helping get there. This is not about, this is definitely not about delivering knowledge or skill. This is about helping behavior change so that the behaviors you get drive the outcomes you want. And that takes time. So sometimes our client has said, back to your point about culture, sometimes in that first conversation, you you realize or you find out that actually there's a broader problem here. It's not just a few people, a few directors that need to need to uh be helped. There's a cultural problem. Well, we spent 10 years researching our model on culture. We didn't want to use anyone else's or we didn't look at them all, and we've come up with something called why people do what they do. We like to call things exactly how a name that describes exactly what it is. This is why people do what they do. That is a lens where we look at an organization and we go, oh, is it is it cultural, is it not? Is it leadership? Is it rules? Is it regulation? Is it beliefs? Is it purpose? And we interrogate the organization based on that lens. Then when we come back to have that conversation, we say, actually, yeah, we can help you, we think we can do something for your middle managers, but the this thing we need to do, that's gonna be a long-term thing. So you need to tell us you're in it for the long haul, that will slightly shift the culture so that people are doing different things to what they're doing now, and that would be that would be a particularly strong example, would be so we work with Virgin Holidays here in the UK with their travel consulting team. They work in a call centre and they deliver unbelievably excellent service to their customers and they upsell holiday extras and themes and stuff like that. Their target was to improve their net promoter score. Well, that's a customer-facing measure. If you're gonna start with just the managing director, it's gonna take a while for that to filter down. So we went in at the first layer of management and said, actually, to be fair, our diagnosis was your agents and consultants are actually phenomenal. The trick here is to get rid of some of the processes that stop them being phenomenal and let management. Managers step back to allow slash encourage them to be phenomenal. So we took all the wallboards down, we took the supervisors and managers off the floor, and we said to the team of consultants, for one day, do whatever you want, make any decisions you want. If you if in doubt, come and give me a shout. And that day, the performance of the contact center was incredible, service scores were incredible, upselling was incredible, and it kind of sold the business case of leadership, it might be about letting people setting direction and letting people be. And I think that um is probably a really good example because I'd call that cultural because you're not dealing with one person, a wall ball is part of the culture. If it flashes red as soon as there's a problem and everyone starts panicking because it's flashing red, that's cultural. That's affecting why people do what they do within the within the contact center, if you like. So um, when I'm saying culture, it's not some esoteric fluffy thing, it's the reasons that drive people's behaviors towards or away from the targets you're trying to achieve.

Pedro Stein 23:01

Great. Let's unpack culture. I have another question for you. Let's say we sat down, okay. I'm the CEO, owner, whatever, founder, and I'm like, yeah, I need help with that. And uh, okay, that's aligned. And you go uh into the company, like the team is there waiting to whatever that looks like, right? Waiting for you to show up. Uh, but here's the kicker, right? Culture, it's something that sometimes um, well, I feel, at least in my perspective, it's called, in a way, comfort zone for some reason. And you're changing something that sometimes people will give you uh uh an answer of, hey, yeah, we're doing this because it's just the way we do things, right? It's that type of mentality sometimes. So my question to you is you're showing up those people that you're facilitating, that group, uh, you're sensing some friction, right? You're sensing, hey, who's this guy, right? Um, we don't even know him. What is he gonna tell us, or even the coaches you have, you know, we what what are they going to do here? Like some resistance for the team to actually acknowledge the work you're you're set to do, right? And sometimes that is not blatantly said out loud because it's like they're pretending to do this stuff because it's their boss told them to do. But how do you navigate that? Like, I'm not saying if there's an a bad apple that you need to navigate, or you're sensing things are not really, you know, sticking with the team because you're feeling some friction there.

David Scott 24:32

I think that starts sort of where we start with that, with ownership. So I think the first thing we would do would go to those people and get their view, genuinely engage with them, say what's working well now, what do you want to improve? So by the time there is a thing, an intervention, it feels like they're the joint author of it. It feels like it's their thing. And actually, in the case of in the in the case of Virgin, which is a fabulous country, but you know the brand, obviously, um, we were releasing them. We were allowing them to be their brilliant vest. And guess what? They got a bonus if they upsold. So we were releasing them to earn more, have more fun, be more delightful with their customers. We were a breath of fresh air, but that's because we'd already asked them, what do you need? How does it need to be different for you? What will we get if we do that? What will the business get if that happens? So they were kind of on board. They have um, it's really sweet actually. In their office, all their meeting rooms are named after sort of really famous, beautiful travel destinations. And for the period of the 12 months when we're working with them, that they'd renamed one the Rambitan room. So we got we got our meet our brand in the meeting room for it for 12 months, which was really really cute.

Pedro Stein 25:40

Nice. Okay. Now, I have another question. You know, I'm full of questions. Let's say uh David, uh we sat down, I'm the CEO still, and we're like, okay, uh, you're gonna facilitate a team B2B side of things, and you go there and you start asking questions and you start realizing leadership is the problem. I'm the guy, right? I'm kind of blaming them for underperforming, but in a way, you're picking up on by talking with people, right? I'm actually the problem. So how you navigate that, because I'm the pain customer, right? I'm the client and I am clueless to the fact that I am the problem, and I'm kind of shifting the blame towards the team. But how to have that conversation, David?

David Scott 26:32

Maybe we don't. Because if I was as convinced as your question alludes to that the problem was facing me in the room, I might be saying to myself, let's give them a report back that explains our findings and let's leave. Because if that person will not lean in and jointly own this thing with us and not blame everybody but themselves, uh, back to our guarantee, it won't work. They won't get what they want, we won't get paid. That would be one option. Another option is to be a bit more sophisticated in how you find that out. So by by agreeing that everybody will be interviewed over a certain period of time and results will be played back, you then have a one-to-one audience with that person where you can play back some of that stuff. And if you wanted a data-driven version of that, you might even get them to agree to a 360, a group 360, where you've actually got data on the performance of that leader in relation to their behavior and how it's affecting business. So, not at all sensitively or using data would be my three options.

Pedro Stein 27:37

It's almost like an intervention. I love it. Okay. Now, would love for us to shift yours for a second, okay? Because I'm curious where you're taking Rambutan, you know, future ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling? Hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about, David?

David Scott 27:56

So, yeah, I'm very excited about a number of steps. The first thing is that we said to you before, we kind of refined from a starting point, which was whatever you want, we can do it. And then we kind of boiled it down into an offer. So last three or four years, four years now, because I'm just timing it with COVID, um, we have put finalized our model, why people, what they do. Um we started to describe ourselves as behaviouralists. So what I'm excited about is our vision is to be seen as the world's leading behavioralists. So am I gonna we're gonna bang that drum, we're gonna go to places talking about that, we're gonna go, we've got a huge um organization in the UK, National Health Service, doing a lot of work in there, and we're banging that drum. That actually, if you really want, if you really want to understand behavior and its impact on not just bottom line, but its impact on any organizational goal or culture, you really should be speaking to us. Why would you not be speaking to us? Because we're we're the world renowned one. So I'm very excited about that vision, and we're so excited about it when we developed our model. We had the option to copyright it and trademark it, and we said, no, I'm gonna give it to the world. It's on our website if anybody wants it, it's free. There's a podcast series about it. Take it, nick it, use it. We just want the world to start thinking behaviourally about some of these things rather than purely process-driven change or that of the like sort of thing. Um I think the other thing I'm excited about at a personal level, but it's less well-formed, Pedro, is it occurs to me that the people who can least afford coaching are the people that will benefit the most from it. And there's got to be something we can do with that. Because when you're in the corporate world, it's very easy to put day rates with lots of numbers on. But actually, I look around a local uh housing estate here and thinking, how can we bring some form of helping people understand that they do have some form of agency, that they do have some control over their lives, that they can make it a little bit better without charging them the rates that corporate coaches charge. And I don't know, I don't know exactly how, but I think AI might be part of that answer as well, because there's a certain extent that AI can do some of that, and then there's an extent that we coaches do the bits that AI can't reach as well. And I'm just um we're toying with that at the moment, but my ideal would be um certainly here in the UK to do that and then to think of it as an early intervention. So maybe you'd have it in what we call um secondary school, so it'd be like the college years of 13 to 16, something on the curriculum where people start to realize that they're in charge of their own thoughts, they're in charge of their own thinking, they're in charge cliched, I wouldn't use this, they're in charge of their own destiny, if you like. And that destiny might be to go and work on an apprentice as a carpenter or a plumber or a driver, it might be to come and go and be a lawyer, it might be to join the forces. It's not what they do, it's the feeling of you are in control of you. Um, and as coaches, can you imagine if we all club together around the world and we all put something in and we all did I don't know, we all did five hours a month where we're in an education establishment doing something of that like, I just think that that would be phenomenal. It's unformed, yeah. When we do form it, if you're interested, I'll I'll come back to you. But um yeah, they there's so much opportunity to use our skill set in ways that more profoundly affect society in a positive way.

Pedro Stein 31:11

Yeah, that brings me back to, you know, when you were talking about I think 2008, the subprime crisis, right? When everyone was like cutting budgets and all of that, and that's when people need the most, right? I was also uh laid off. I went in Brazil and someone is selling houses to dogs in the US, and I get hit, basically. That's what happened to me, right? Um, but uh but that's the thing, it's like the people that cannot afford or they're not aware, or they're they don't even know what it is, are the people who actually need it the most, right? So I under I I see where you're coming from. Now, uh, of course, whenever we're aiming towards a new chapter, right? There's always something we're building in the present and refining. So, what are you currently trying to improve or even tighten up in your business right now, David?

David Scott 32:04

So, yeah, good question. We we've got um a 360 tool 360 tool for leadership that we've developed ourselves. So we're currently digitizing that. Um and we will launch it, might be within the next four to six weeks, actually, a free online version on our website where people can click on and do a self-score and get like a profile of them as a leader. Um, as a as a way to sort of whet the appetite of now you've seen the light version, you really ought to be doing the full version where you get a full debrief with a qualified coach and stuff. So that's called Evolve. That's uh in progress right now. Um, and then we're looking. I've done a call this morning with a chap in India. We're looking at the AI question. Everyone's talking about AI, and it's either um we're all doomed or it's a massive opportunity, or somewhere in between. And I think as coaches, we need to be cognizant of it, work out where it helps us, work out where it could replace us, and do something about that. So we've got that big on our agenda. But that again, um, who hasn't? Who isn't thinking about that? Um and it's very good. It's very good. I've I just tried it last week and just said, Will you please coach me on being a coach? Let's let's let's give it, let's do the rounds, make it um work for its money. And then it gave me lots of advice. I said I don't want advice, I want coaching. And then it then it gave me six questions. I said, actually, I want you to do one question at a time, and I only want you to respond based on what I put in my answer so that it becomes an organic conversation between you and I. And the next question pops up, and it was something like, So, the next three years, what do you want to be fundamentally different in your business? And why? I was like, now it's now it's on the money, yeah. So again, maybe the thing about um going out to homeless people's schools or whatever, it's about giving them access. Because actually, that that AI tool is already good enough if you know what to put in as your prompts, it will already start to ask you some really good questions. And guess what? It's an even better list than the new Predro, because it just stays silent and it'll stay silent for a week until you go back with your next response. It's a brilliant listener, and as coaches, we know that's a fundamental skill of um of what we do, isn't it? So, yeah, that's uh exploration at the moment, but it's it's not going away, so we have to respond. We as a as a fraternity and as a business of Remutel have to have to be smart in how we respond to what's going on with AI AI at the moment, I think.

Pedro Stein 34:23

Yeah, my wife would agree with you. I think it's a better listener than me, okay. Um I don't I don't think she would dispute that. No. It is what it is. I'll I'll accept the jet. No, I'm just kidding. Um, you know, I I would love for us to step into sci-fi territory for a second because we're looking at what 20 years in the game as a coach, 19 years in Rambuton, right? Um so let's pretend, David, we have a time machine in front of us. Okay. And uh I'm gonna give you the opportunity to go back in time 19 years ago when you opened shop. Okay, and you can give past David one piece of business advice you wish you knew back then that you know now. Okay? Why would that be?

David Scott 35:20

Two. Network, network, network. That's the first one. And two, I've already said it, stop talking about coaching. Start talking about outcomes. Whether they become I mean, I've helped I've helped people with fear of heights climb towers, I've helped people stop smoking. They're outcomes, right? There could be personal outcomes or there could be business outcomes. Um I know you're a keen footballer, Pedro. I've helped a premiership team stay in the premiership. Okay, it's the outcome. They don't say what you're gonna do with us, I'm gonna help you stay in the premiership. So the quicker you can move your coaching um what do they call it, elevator pitch on materials to outcomes, David, the easier this rumbi ten journey is gonna be. That's what I'll be saying to myself.

Pedro Stein 36:06

Stop talking about I love that. Okay. Second stop we're gonna have, David. You can go back in time. You can select a point in time in those 19 years. Okay. Uh it's a moment, and I I understand you may have several, but it's one moment, top of your head, top of mine, that kind of clicked for you in a way that you felt so fulfilled, right? That you're like, oh, this is why I started this. You know what I mean? Do you have one of those? It's a lovely question.

David Scott 36:40

Um top of mind.

Pedro Stein 36:46

Yeah.

David Scott 36:47

I wasn't expecting the question, but top of mind, it's when you coach someone in a commercial sense in a business, and they thank you and they give you a LinkedIn recommendation, and that's all lovely. And then they call you and say, Would you be able to do a couple of sessions with my son or daughter that really value better? So when a person is so trusting, not just with their organization, but with their actual family member, um I mean I'm a sucker for that. I go, absolutely a hundred percent, it'd be my honour and privilege, and they say how much? And I go, free of charge, I wouldn't charge you anything. It's absolutely my pleasure to do that. Um that is when you go, that's what that's that's that's the big kick that um and it happens it maybe happens a couple of times a year now, and it's like wow, that's such a privilege.

Pedro Stein 37:31

Wow. Awesome, awesome story. Okay. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with your follow your work, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, okay, David. But where can people find Ruan Bouton Best and connect with you even?

David Scott 37:46

So, best is probably the simplest www.rambi10.biz. Um, on there you'll see links to us all and contact details for us all. You'll also see the model that's free that you can plagiarize as you've as you see fit see fit, and you'll also see uh some of the stories I've talked about written out as full client stories with the data and everything else. Um particularly if you would if someone wants to take a look, go have a look at the NHS one, which we're really proud of, because first of all, it's the biggest employer in Europe. Second of all, despite it being massively under pressure, it managed to inoculate 60 million people over a period of three weeks to save thousands of lives during COVID, even though it didn't have a sight of it coming and it didn't have a solution for it when it arrived. Um but also because we are working with them on a piece of their research that says if people behave better together, it affects patient outcomes positively. This is called in the UK, it's actually it's broader than the UK, so you may have come across it in Brazil. It's called Civility Saves Lives. So they have proven, not our research, that if we're more civil, we get better outcomes. So we're working with the NHS looking at how do we improve measure and improve civility, which is about culture, which is about how we talk to one another, it's about how leadership addresses people. If we can improve civility, there's a direct link to patient outcomes. And there's at least two NHS trusts now that are saying to us, we now can see that your work with us is affecting patient outcomes positively. So you go, Wow. Wow. You don't sell coaching, you make sick people get better. Wow. It's not quite I'm I'm I'm overplaying that last line, but uh yeah.

Pedro Stein 39:30

Oh, I I understand. Okay. You know, there were a few moments from this chat today that I I feel almost like the urge to highlight. Okay, so allow me to do a quick rundown for you. Um, you know, when we were talking about the origin story and what motivated you to launch your own business, it started with uh taking control of your own time and destiny, right? Which uh eventually we're talking about freedom. And I think a lot of uh business owners, founders, they sometimes they forget about that, they're so uh into the weeds and thinking about the next uh revenue goal or whatever that looks like. But sometimes you you need to find that balance so you don't sacrifice why you started this, okay? That's one thing. Uh the other thing is like, well, when your kid was like uh asking you to tell her, uh share her with a bad story, right? And you were like, Do I have to? And uh that's a pivotal moment, right? And and the fact that you were aware of that situation. Well, your wife helped you, by the way. But um just being aware of it and taking action because one thing it's being aware, another is like, okay, let's solve this. And you had that purpose, you had that drive in you to make that change, and you did it. So kudos to you. That's pretty cool to watch. Um, then moving forward. Um, you know, when you were saying, like, do you need, and we were talking about the evolution of the ICP, the ideal client profile, right? And and in the early days, you're like, hey, do you need help? Do you have the budget? Uh, we're the right guys for you, right? And and that's a a hard balance to have. I see it in my own coaching business, which is like in the early days, you're trying to make it, right? You you're you have bills knocking on the door, you're trying to replace an income, a salary, whatever that looks like. And the scarcity mindset plays it against you because you want to close people when you're when you're you're giving second thought, you're almost thinking about discounts. And uh it's a hard balance. I don't judge people that do that in the early days, but it's a lesson at the end of the day, right? What eventually happens is that you realize those people sometimes are not the best clients at all. You're giving you extra work and all that. But is it it is an evolution, not just for the clients, but for yourself as an owner, too. So that's too, that's also uh something to highlight. And I would say also, um, when I was giving you some hard time there, David, about the leadership problem, and you opened up with uh maybe we don't, right? Maybe we don't have to navigate that leader that is a problem. Because at the end of the day, they need to be coachable, right? They they cannot use distant language, or we're gonna have a problem. If the team is the problem, wait a minute, are you not part of the team, right? And usually you pick up on that, you pick up on that on the discovery call, right? The first initial point of contact, which is like distancing from blame and all that. So really cool to watch. Um, and last but not least is the stop talking about coach, coaching, right? Um, because that's a thing. I I feel like most coaches, uh, they're thinking about themselves when they're talking about coaching, but they forget the ICP doesn't really get it. And it's all about positioning and if they feel they belong in the room, not if they can do the work, the coaching itself. You can't, they can do the work. I I have no doubts of it. But it's like when you were giving me uh the last example, the piece of example of when you felt really fulfilled, that's when the true coach really shines. You know, it's like I will do that for free, the personal affair for your you know, former client and talk with his kid or his family. You're like, I'll do that for free. Because at the end of the day, you are a coach, David. It's just a marketing thing to, you know, deliver the the outcome, whatever that looks like, you know, the bottom line, the profit, the revenue go. It's not about you, it's about them. So I get that a hundred percent. Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, David, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on.

David Scott 43:55

Yeah, my pleasure, Pedro.

Davis Nguyen 43:56

Thank you for having me. That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you end your business.