Ep #116: Finding the Right Coach with Jacqueline Potter

Hi friends and welcome back. So my guest today is a fellow entrepreneur and coach
herself. Her name is Jacqueline Potter, coincidentally, that's my full name too, but
I only go by Jackie. And Jacqueline and her partner, Sarah Miles, who is not going
to be on the podcast today, have a company called Collectively, which is a go -to
authority in coaching landscape. And And I'm gonna actually let her explain what they
do and why they do it because it's really interesting and it's very much dovetails
with what I do for a living as a coach. And so with that, I'm gonna welcome
Jacqueline Potter. - Oh, thank you for having me, Jackie. I love you can be the
Jackie in the room and I'll be the Jacqueline. - I love that. - This'll work out
great. - Well, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me
collectively is focused on supporting women in sort of the pursuit of career
satisfaction. And really what we do is we work with high performing women who are
dissatisfied in whatever is going on in their career. And how we do that is we
help them identify what season of their career they are in to truly understand what
are the external pressures pushing on them, internal pressures pushing on them and
help them really get to the root of what is going on in their day to day. We
also recognize that the world of coaching is highly unregulated and a lot of women
don't know how to leverage a coach. So what we do is we have a highly detailed
vetting process for the coaches that we bring into the Collectively Network. And not
only are we ensuring that they are going to say what they are going to But we
also want to be sure that we understand exactly how they help their clients and
what they focus on Because a lot of times we find that people think that they need
one piece of support But really what they're needing is something else. And so we
really are sort of in that landscape Saving everyone time and money and giving them
more peace of mind when they are looking to solve for these challenges in their day
- So give me an example of a typical client. By the way, do you only serve women?
- We do only serve women. We primarily work with, I would say, directors, VPs, and
C -level executives. However, any high -performing driven individual who understands that
they are needing support is welcome. I would say our common client today would be a
high earner who feels that they are at a moment in transition. Whether it's,
I've burnt out, I don't wanna be doing this anymore. I have no idea what I would
do. I need to be making this level of income. What do I do about that? That's a
common theme. We have some women that are looking to return to work after time
away. That's been highly effective. Also women who are looking around saying,
wow, I have been in this job for a while. I could do this better than the company
I work for. I'm gonna go start my own business. - Okay, interesting. - So we support
a lot of women in that pursuit as well. So I'd say those were like the three main
categories at this juncture.
- And do you find that there's a particular industry that gravitates to you or is
it, you're in California. So I imagine that's plentiful in terms of if you're
kidding a lot of California clients, either tech or entertainment, but you tell me,
what tends to be your biggest industry that gravitates towards you? - You're correct.
I would say tech entertainment and media. We get a lot of from the advertising and
media world. We do work with clients all over the country because we are just, Zoom
is a wonderful platform. So we do work with women all over. We have coaches from
all over the country, different time zones. We have some international coaches that
still seems to work. - And how do they find you? So are there HR people reaching
out to you? Is it individuals? Is it corporate? I'm just curious. - Yeah, no, it's
individuals. We are in discussions with some corporations to support their teams,
which is a huge benefit to them because we are a third party. So we're a more
trusted resource to the consumer. Right now, we have been primarily word of mouth.
It's interesting. We get referrals from past clients. See, I've had so many
conversations with women that have said, "Where have you been all my life?" or
"Where were you when I was experiencing this?" So we are actually looking to sort
of expand our awareness for that very reason. We think that there's a lot of women
out there we can support. And what was your background? Yours and Sarah's. Sarah's
not obviously on this call your partner, but what were your backgrounds to get you
into this line of work? Yeah. Because you're really like a coaching agent. I mean,
that's sort of a summation of it. Yeah, that's exactly what we are. We surround
ourselves with very capable coaches. Sarah and I are much more of a facilitator
between our clients and our coaches. Sarah, my backgrounds are very different, which
I think lends itself to being very effective for our clients. My background is
advertising. I was in ad sales for 20 years. Digital ad sales, it was highly
competitive. I worked for major publishers. I worked for startups. I saw what
companies and products succeeded, and I also was able to see how those executives
tied to those companies and products succeeded, and that's where I really deduced.
Understanding that there needs to be flexibility and fluidity in your career is
probably the number one piece of knowledge that I would pass along to anyone looking
to succeed in a long -term profession. I glean my experience from that world.
Sarah is a pediatric nurse practitioner. She has worked at Stanford. She's taught at
NYU. She's highly accomplished. And so her sort of background comes from the medical
world. So she can sit down and she has built out so many of our processes for our
clients because she's really good at assessing an individual and helping sort of
guide them through a process. So we sort of combine our experience to facilitate
what we do here at Collectively. What brought us to create Collectively was probably
our own experiences in our careers. For us, our what now moment for both of us was
when we became mothers. We realized that we couldn't approach our careers in the
same way that we had previously, and we really were trying to understand what our
next step was. And ironically, over the course of both of our careers,
we had had other women approach us asking us questions and asking us for guidance.
And while we understood we could only share from our own experiences, the more we
dove into the world of coaching and saw how beneficial it can be to bring someone
into your world, leverage their network, leverage their point of view, leverage their
training. We understood that these are real resources for women who we believe women
have very different pressures and moments in their life and in their career that
push on them in different ways. I do acknowledge that men have the same, but Sarah
and I can relate to women women and we felt that was necessary to create a place
for women to come to feel supported. And the choice to not be the coaches yourself,
like to just set up shop entrepreneurially like the rest of us who decided we
wanted to be coaches. I came into coaching after a 33 -year career in television
because I felt like what I needed through those three decades of really tough
industry was support in managing my mind, managing my body, and managing my work
-life balance, which I felt like I had none of. And I was raising three kids,
and I had a very high -powered job, and I was a stress machine, and it showed up
in every aspect of my body. I was also very, very successful. So I was doing
something right professionally, but I was doing something very wrong in how I got
there. Like my modus operandi was not a sustainable model because of the amount of
stress my body was going through. And that manifested in everything from headaches to
stomach aches, to chronic muscle tension, to disease of the week, I didn't have any.
But like, I think I have a lump. I think I have a this, and I think I have, you
know, and just running from doctor to doctor. And ultimately, like the common
denominator, or whether I was seeing somebody, a bone doctor, or whether I was going
to see a cardiologist, or whether I was going to see a therapist. Everybody was
kind of like, I think it's stress. And I'm like, really? All these different
symptoms are stress? Yes, they are. And so when I left television at really sort of
a pinnacle point in my career, it was very much a calculated choice to have a
different life. So some people say I retired from television very early. I did. I
retired from television and then I started a whole new career as a coach because I
wanted to help others learn how to manage their mind and body through good daily
habits. So that was my motivation for being a coach. So given that you are also a
high -powered executive in digital marketing and Sarah as a nurse practitioner, why
not the choice to just be coaches? I'm just curious. That's more of my personal
edification. No, I love that. And oh my gosh, I can, I can picture you doing that
running from doctor. I absolutely can't, I can relate. For me personally, I saw so
many wonderful resources and so many people with needs.
And I am such a connector by nature that it fills my cup so much more to say,
Oh, no, no, no, you don't need to work with me. You need to go work with that
person and you need to go work with that person. And so for me, I saw an ability
to provide service at scale and that's what lights me up is the more people I can
connect for the greater good, the better. That's my own point of view. I think
Sarah waffles every day on if she should be a coach or not. And she would be
amazing for now, For now, we really believe in this business we're building,
but there might be a moment down the road where she herself is a coach. Yeah,
I mean, I think she would be, I would hire her. She's amazing. That's awesome. But
that's what we love about this company we built, because we do spend a few hours
with our clients prior to connection, because we really need to walk them through
our process and get to know them. and Sarah thrives in those meetings. And so I
would almost say she's really flexing those muscles already. I am a little more
filled by, like I say, the actual connection and then moving on to the next person
and connecting. And so that's why Sarah and I work so well together. - That sounds
great. - Again, I'm just to get in the weeds a little bit because I think a lot
of people, I mean, the first question I always get unless somebody has had coaching
or unless somebody was referred to me, the first question I always get about
coaching is like, what is coaching? Because people may or may not have had therapy
before. People who are well versed in therapy tend to be interested in coaching
because they're like, I think it's like therapy, but different. And so they're
leaning in because they want a different experience. But for people who have never
had therapy or coaching. People are like, "I don't get it. What do you do?" For
me, because I'm a general life coach, I always say I manage anxiety, right? I help
people manage their anxiety, whether that's relationship anxiety or professional anxiety
or physical anxiety. That's what I do. That's what I have a lot of expertise in
and I get it because I was there. I lived there. What predominantly do your
clients... I know you have so many different walks of life in different businesses
and then you're also farming them out to different coaches But yeah, typically what
is sort of the common denominators or common threads of female executives who are
coming to Collectively and saying I need a coach, but they may not even be able to
identify Why because that's what I find a lot of people just kind of mean like I
just need something to be different Yeah, we have a lot of clients that come to us
that say it's not working. I have no idea what I need. I have no idea what to do
about it. And that's where I think what Sarah and I do is really beneficial because
we sit down and go, okay, and we have this intake form that we built and we
worked with a lot of coaches to build it. And I think what we are sort of doing
is what you would probably do on a discovery call with a client. And So, you know,
it's more about what is your daily life like? Are you single? Are you married? Do
you have a family? What are all the elements that your day starts with? And then
you go to this job. Does this job light you up? Does it not? How did you get
into it? You know, are you the breadwinner? Are you not? All of these different
elements that push on us. And so once we understand sort of that individual's
landscape, that's when we can sort of unpack where is the dissatisfaction and what's
happening. That's when it's really beneficial that Sarah and I have made it our job
to know all of these different coaches because to your point, what is coaching?
Coaching is so many different things. Some people need a LinkedIn expert. They just
need to change industries and all they really have the skill set and all they need
is a refreshed LinkedIn profile and maybe a judged resume. Some people, one client
in particular, she was going through a moment where she was at a company and she
was the top performer and the breadwinner for her family and everything was fine,
but it was fine, you know, like she goes to work, she does the job, she goes
home. And then all of a sudden her boss left and the whole company was looking at
her team and the expectation was one of you is going to become the boss.
And she had this moment of, I don't want to do that. But if I don't go for that
position, I am now going to be looked down upon. And then am I being threatened?
And what is my future at this job? Do I even want this job? So it was this
moment in time where all of a sudden she was like, what, she was frozen. Like,
what do I do? So she's like, I guess I need a career coach. And as we sort of
unpacked things, we realized that there was more of sort of a 30 ,000 foot view
that needed to be assessed. What do you actually want to be doing? You fell into
this job, you were good at it. Here you are 15, 20 years later. But now that
you're being presented with this opportunity, maybe you don't want to do this, but
that needs to be unpacked further. And we had a few different coaches that sort of
straddle this line between life coach and career coach and they lean a little more
life if they need to or a little more career if they need to and it was that
perfect you need to meet with this woman. Coincidentally she unfortunately had a loss
in her family right at this moment and that coach really helped her A. heal and B.
really assess what she wants to be doing. She ended up taking a step back, getting
out of her sales job, actually getting into marketing for a local company that is
giving her the time and the space to sit down and assess and take a breath, I
should say. And she's very fulfilled. She knows that she's got big plans down the
road. But for now, this is what she needed to be doing for herself. And to your
point of, what does a coach do for someone? For this particular moment she was
given permission to take a beat. Yeah. And so much about what it is.
Another example is we had a client who walked into our office and she's like, "I
have no personal life. I'm single. I want to meet someone. I work 10, 11 hour
days. I don't have time on done doing this. Also, I could do this so much better
than my company does. I want to start a company." And I said, "Great. Let's talk
more." And she's like, "The only thing holding me back is I don't know what I
don't know." And ironically, I'm sitting across from her and I was like, "You have
all of the tools. She has all of the tools." But she just needed somebody to be
like, "You're not missing anything. You're going to be able to do this." And so we
got her a business coach and she started a company. She met someone. She's thriving.
She's debating, do I sell my company and go back to corporate because I want more
flexibility now? I think it's sort of the permission to live the life you dream of.
You just think it's irresponsible to pursue. Yeah. Permission is such a powerful word
and it's something that we talk about a lot in coaching because I think what
happens, way more for women than men. I'm sorry, it's just societal, you know,
men sort of don't need permission. They sort of like can walk in the room and be
bigger than life or they can have a less than impressive resume and still apply for
a really prestigious job because their conditioning is different and not throwing men
under the bus. I'm just saying women really require or need more permission because
We've been told up until a few years, a few decades ago, play it small, be humble,
be invisible, be supportive, be demure, be this, be this, be this. And really now
that women are in the C -suites and now that women own companies and now that women
are billionaires and now that women are empires, we're just starting to re -examine
and give ourselves permission. But I think a lot of times when you hire a coach,
it is about the permission to be awesome. Like it is the permission to be rich or
powerful or dream big or ask for things. - Yeah. - Of yourself, by the way,
not ask somebody else to give them to you even, like just step into what you want.
Interesting thing about how people come to coaching often saying, I don't know what
I want, I want something to change, which means something isn't They either don't
want to say it admit it or they haven't uncovered it yet And so I always say that
being a coach is like being a good private investigator because we're asking
hopefully the right Questions that unearth What is your truth not the truth your
truth your truth for right now, right? Because what's bothering you today didn't
bother you two years ago and might not bother you two years from now It's about
being present with what's going on. And I had a client who was sent to me a
referral entertainment industry, and she had just had a new position, prestigious
position, new boss, boss was kind of chilly, and they were working remotely because
of post COVID. So she didn't really have any FaceTime with this boss. I mean, she
had Zoom calls and all the things, but it wasn't like she could walk down the hall
and ask her a question. So she didn't have that bonding. The woman, her boss had
been there for decades, and she was new to this division. And so she came to me
with, I need coaching on how to relate to my kind of chilly, very powerful boss.
And I need coaching how to be in this post -pandemic executive role when I don't
walk down the hall and ask questions, but I have a lot of questions. And I don't
know if she really trusts me to do what I'm doing. No, thanks. And so we worked
together for a few weeks, really bright woman, really and really good work ethic,
very impressive resume. And it was kind of sort of baffling to me that she was
even nervous about any like proving herself. I'm kind of like, what's the missing
link here? 'Cause it seemed very obvious that she just needed to just do her work
and just go about her business. And if there was a problem, they would let her
know, but there was no problem. And about three sessions into, I don't know, working
together, I forget how many months. And she was a phone client, not a Zoom client.
Third session in, she goes, well, and by the way, I gained about 35 pounds during
COVID. And I'm just physically really uncomfortable. I don't sleep that well. And I'm
like, oh, well, do you want some support around that? And she's like, well, do you
do that? And I'm like, yeah, I actually have a lot of weight loss clients. And
she's like, you do? Because she thinks, having my background in television, that I'm
just a career coach. And actually, I'm much more of a life coach than I am a
career coach, but I coach people in careers because I had a long big one. So we
start working on a weight loss program and a detox program, 'cause she was kind of
over drinking too, just because of her job and socially and all the things, traveled
a lot and a lot of business dinners and, you know.
And within, I don't know, six weeks, eight weeks, maybe, she had lost 20 some
pounds, stopped drinking, started running marathons again. And she's like,
I feel amazing. So I'm like, oh, that's interesting 'cause that's not what she came
to me for. That was kind of this, and I didn't ask and wouldn't unless somebody
brought it up, but that's up to them to bring that piece of information I don't
like, I'm not comfortable in my body, right? And what was interesting was all her
work issues gone. So really what it was was the combination of having this shame
around getting so much weight and sort of overdrinking combined with I have a new
job and a chilly boss. And once she got herself confidence back within her own
body, her professional confidence just shot through the roof. And she did fine.
And she was like, Oh my God, this was unbelievable. To your point, I'm only echoing
what you just said. Absolutely. Sometimes things come out of nowhere and you're like,
Oh, that's the issue. There's actually three challenges when it comes to women and
the world of coaching, professional women, I should say, and the world of coaching.
One, a misunderstanding of that world Two, a misunderstanding of what they need.
And three, a misunderstanding of what it means to invest in yourself professionally.
- Okay, so run those through me again. So run those through so that I understand
specifically. - Not understanding what the world of coaching is under this one bullet.
What it is, how should it be used and how will it benefit them? - I see. - Is
this an unknown and undereducation of that? The second is not understanding how to
use it. Like, how would I apply that to me? And then three, what do you mean it
costs this much to do that? That's not worth it. - Oh, okay. So that's an important
segue, which is the buy -in. So, coaching, which I guess is about,
I mean, every coach is different, the prices range dramatically.
Massively. Massively. Yeah. I know coaches who charge $100 an hour, and I know
coaches who charge $1 ,000 an hour. And everything in between. And oftentimes,
people will balk because they'll be like, "Why is it so expensive?" know,
why does it cost as much, if not more, than psychotherapy? And why is it not
covered by insurance? Well, it's not covered by insurance because unfortunately, it's
still not regulated. And eventually, I think coaching will probably be covered by
insurance, but then there'll be also a lot more regulatory requirements. I do agree.
But why does it cost so much? In theory, I believe it's because you're paying for
somebody's decades of expertise, whether it's in business or in career or in
entrepreneurship or in making money or in health coaching or in weight loss or
you're buying somebody's hundreds, if not thousands of hours of either education and
or practical experience and then there are hundreds or thousands of hours of coaching
people just like you so they're getting this laser, tailor -made focus and expertise
and guidance. And again, not every coach is right for every person. And not every
person is coachable, which is like the big thing. But the expense of it, and again,
it's also presumably finite unless your resources are unlimited. But you usually hire
a coach for three months, six months a year, that's typical. Some people stay with
their coach for years because the benefits are great or they have the means to do
that just like people are in therapy for 25 years. Do you need therapy for 25
years? No, but if you can afford it and you enjoy it and you're getting something
out of it, yours to do. But so that is a lot of a barrier to entry, which is
cost. So there people will say, "Well, I don't have 2 ,000 or 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 or
I guess some coaches or 100 ,000. I don't have that kind of money." And there is
an accusation, which I take great offense to, but there is an accusation that
coaching is only for the elite. And I always say that actually coaching is a
privilege. I mean, it is a privilege to have it. It's a privilege also to do it.
But one of the reasons why I wrote a book and one of the reasons why I have a
free podcast is so that all the information or most of the information that I coach
on is available to the masses and it is free. The book is $16 .95, but the podcast
is free. And so, you know,
if you have the 15, my interviews are 30 minutes, but if you have the 15 minutes
to listen to a solo cast, everything I coach on is in that podcast. So that's sort
of my, you know, retort to, but it's too expensive. There's Also, not only can I
not afford it, why would I pay that? I get that a lot from many successful women
who have built their careers, but are also having coffee with me because they're
losing their minds. And, you know, well, what is a coach cost? Well, why would I
pay that? I mean, that is so expensive. That's $250 an hour. - Yeah. - Yes. - That's
what it is. - It is. Your point of hundreds of hours of experience, years of
experience, and years of working with clients. So understanding how to coach these
clients. You are not only accessing that because you could technically find that
through a mentor, through a podcast, through a book. This person is being paid,
they are on retainer to help you. It's not just about, okay, well it's six to
eight sessions for six months long, it's actually the access to them on a Tuesday
at two, when you have to write the hard email to the boss about whatever it is,
and you suddenly have someone to proofread it, to help you strategize, to look at
your macro view. What's your plan for your career? Should we send this, should we
not? How are we handling the minutiae of your day? That's where I think the money
is invaluable and where you actually will earn the money back in spades.
I was speaking to somebody earlier today and they said something about time doesn't
stop. So six months from now you can still be right here or you can be somewhere
else. Whether that's in your career, whether that's at another company, whether you've
moved past this one hurdle or you can be right where you are lots of choice people
can make so I am not here to tell somebody to spend money they don't have and I
have witnessed coaches that have been a $500 buy -in I've witnessed coaches that have
been a $20 ,000 buy -in it really depends on what you're looking for and what you're
needing and you have to make the right decision for yourself and I have found my
day I am not here to sell you on coaching, I am here to ensure that if you know
you need a coach, I'm gonna make sure you know who to go to. Because understanding
if you need a coach or not is such a personal endeavor. - Yeah, but finding the
right one. - Because it is an investment. And so you might as well make sure that
your money and your time and your peace of mind are going to the right place.
- Yeah, no, I always laugh 'cause I think, you know, how much people spend on
private trainers, right, in the gym. - Right, yeah. - And could you do that yourself
after a couple of sessions? Yeah, you could pay somebody to teach you and they have
even people who work there who will show you how the machines work and you can go
do it yourself. But there's something about having a private trainer who gauges your
progress, who talks to you, who, you know, kind of listens to what's aching and
modifies and it's kind of the same thing. It's just emotionally or professionally or
situationally. Well, Jacqueline, this has been such an awesome conversation and so
great to just delve in more to what you do and you and Sarah do. And I would
love to let people know how they can reach you who are listening to this podcast,
who maybe are thinking to themselves, "I want to find the right coach for me and I
want somebody to vet them for me." So can you tell people how to find you?
Absolutely. They can visit our website. It's thecollectivelyco .com,
so thecollectivelyco .com, which they can book a free discovery call with us and we'd
love to meet them. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn, to Sarah on LinkedIn, I'm
Jacqueline Potter. Sarah is Sarah Miles, and we are Collectively. So just search
Collectively on LinkedIn. And we are also on Instagram. It's collectively _co. Great.
Well, thank you for taking this time, it was again, a pleasure just to chat with
you and talk about all things coaching. And I hope that people find you and find
what they need if they're struggling in their business or just in their business
personal life and find the right match. You're a professional coaching matchmaker.
That's right. That's right. And Jackie, thank you so much for having me. It was
such a pleasure of all of you. It's a pleasure. Okay. Talk soon. Bye for now.
Bye.