Creating a Winning Team Culture with Cyndi Laurin

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Cyndi Laurin, an accomplished organizational performance expert, leadership consultant, and author known for her work in helping leaders and teams create cultures of excellence. Cyndi shares powerful insights on how trust, alignment, and communication drive high-performing teams and sustainable success. Tune in as we discuss strategies for developing strong leadership, fostering innovation, and empowering teams to operate at their best.

You can find her on:

https://www.cindylaurin.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyndilaurin 

https://guidetogreatness.com/

email: cyndi@guidetogreatness.com

Books:

https://www.amazon.com/Rudolph-Factor-Finding-Innovation-Business/dp/0470451033 

https://www.amazon.com/Catch-Fishmongers-Guide-Greatness-Crother-ebook/dp/B0027ISAE6 

https://www.amazon.com/Be-Frontline-HERO-Parable-Propel/dp/1087459265

Transcript

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Cyndi Laurin 0:00

I think a lot of them they kind of fall into two categories and I'll just kind of oversimplify this for the sake of for listeners is that they tend to drive too hard and they know they are steamrolling people and they want to not do that anymore, but they don't have the tools to sort of know when to drive and when to kind of lay off. And the flip side of it is they just they don't drive enough. They're in the mix with their team members and they haven't really elevated themselves to a position of authority or a position of maybe of trust because the team is looking to them to lead and they're like, Well, I want to get everybody's insights. And they're like, let's just make a decision already.

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 a hundred million dollars each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin Yee 1:08

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Dr. Cindy Lauren. She is the founder of Guide to Greatness. She has an upcoming book that she'll talk about later coming up. Welcome to the show, Cindy.

Cyndi Laurin 1:22

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Kevin Yee 1:24

One of the interesting things that we're talking about pre-podcast was that you've been in the coaching industry for about 20-ish years. And so I would love to hear the lore, the origin story. What made me become a coach and what made you want to make a business out of it?

Cyndi Laurin 1:39

So it's can I just say by accident I fell into it? It wasn't my intention. But I was teaching at Cal Poly in the industrial technology department. That was my first real job. I literally transitioned from student to the first female faculty member in industrial technology. And over the 10 years that I was teaching there, I, you know, I was always out in industry looking to make sure that the theories that were in the classroom actually really worked in the working world. And I came across the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, and they had a very famous book out at the time in 2001. And so I didn't really understand the concepts. It was overly simplified in my mind. But I thought my students must they need to know about this stuff. So I called the market. Long story short, ended up writing my first book called Catch about the fish market and what made it so world famous. And it was a place in Seattle where they throw the fish, and it's really a wonderful place. And I worked at the fish market for a year to really learn the business from the inside out. Yes. I joke, I got locked in the freezer, I got hit in the head with a crab, and met wonderful people from all over the globe. It was like one of the highlights of my professional career. And when catch came out, it was successful, out of the gate. I was traveling all over the globe. I had about 111-ish speaking engagements over 2005 and 2006. So, long story short, how coaching came about was demand. People wanted to know more, they wanted to experience more out of life, and they liked catch. And so the the natural result of that was, hey, do you do coaching? And sure. What does that exactly mean? So that's how I got into it. It was kind of randomly. But oddly enough, the name of my book coming out is Orchestrated Randomness, which is it's my life. It's like things show up, and then you know, you either leverage it or you don't. And that's sort of how my life is kind of gone. So I'm living what I preach.

Kevin Yee 3:42

That is so interesting that you used to work at the fish market and all that just to write that book. That is crazy. That's awesome.

Cyndi Laurin 3:50

Yeah, it was really good. It was a great time up there.

Kevin Yee 3:53

Yeah, and so it sounds like that book generated a lot of demand. You started getting speaking gigs and whatnot as well. And so let's kind of fast forward to now, right? Like with coaching, everybody talks about target audience, ICP. Who do you help and what do you kind of help them with these days?

Cyndi Laurin 4:11

Yeah, it's funny because generally I think what makes me unique in the coaching space is that I really wanted to figure this out. I'm a problem solver at heart. And so when I started first coaching, I just didn't feel like I was adding a lot of value. And so I literally sent out an email to all my contacts and said, you know, what does leadership mean to you? And it was really interesting. It was a little science experiment. And within 24 hours, I think I sent it to 500 plus people. Within 24 hours, I had a 50% response rate. And so I started really kind of codifying the language that was coming back. And mind you, this is way back 2005. So it wasn't like we had, you know, everything right here on our phone. And um, and a lot of people would send me a quote from someone else saying, This is what so-and-so says leadership is. And I'm like, I reply back, no, I want to know what you think it is. Like, tell me in your own words. And then I also added what their position was in their company, and then the most interesting thing that I learned was people who held positions of leadership defined leadership like a verb, like to guide, to inspire, to motivate. And people who didn't hold positions of leadership defined it as a noun, the person who leads, and I was like, wow, we've got a real problem here. And so as I was doing leadership development coaching, I thought, I think I've tapped into something really important. So how we define leadership became sort of the crux of my work. It's finding out, you know, how do you view it? Is it accessible to you by the way that you define leadership? And oftentimes people would define it in a way that they actually couldn't access it. So I felt I was really onto something, and then as I got to experiment more with more clients, the other thing that came up for me was I could create great coaching and I could help a leader evolve. And I have a really great story I'll share with you about one of my favorite case studies. I also realized that many coaches, and I've been told this many times, is that they don't point the leadership development or the executive coaching to the business's bottom line. So I can help a leader become a much better leader. We can solve problems, we can work on things together, but at the end of the day, if the performance of the business doesn't feel that, then that's a problem. So I think that's one of the things over the last several years that's become really important to me is understanding the health and wellness of the business or the organization as much as what the person wants to get out of a coaching relationship and making sure that there is some tie between the two. To me, it's all about impact. And if I I love impacting individuals, but a greater significance is being able to impact the businesses or the organizations that they run, they drive, so that that can make a bigger impact in the world.

Kevin Yee 7:02

Yeah, that's really interesting too, because after doing so many of these podcasts, it's really interesting to see how people connect like things like leadership development to the bottom line. And so I would love to kind of hear your perspective on how you kind of do that or your thoughts about that.

Cyndi Laurin 7:18

There's a lot, it is a little bit of a Rubik's Cube to figure out, but over the years, I develop a lot of tools and models and frameworks, like that's part of how my brain works. And so one of the tools that I've used more recently is the core value index. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one. It's um I'm not a huge personality assessment person, like I actually really hate them for the most part because I think they pigeonhole people into a place where the person's like, Well, that's all I am. I'm a D, I'm an EMTF or whatever. It's like, okay, and again, they're creating these limitations on themselves. But when I was introduced to the core value index, what was inspiring to me was that it's really your your core energy, it's not based on scenario or experiences. It's what is that primary core value that energizes you in your life and your work? And very funny, very short story. But the reason I got into it was because my daughter, who's 17, she was 15 at the time, and she and I were just budding heads. I'm a single mom, so it's just, you know, me and the kid. And I had attended a webinar with it, and I thought, I'm gonna make my daughter take that. And so I'm like, Emma, you know, I want you to take this core value. And she's like, you know what, I don't want to, and so when she actually took it, she was really mad at me, which I thought was hilarious. So she takes the core value, and I took it as well, and it was like abundantly clear, because I kind of just coach wherever I am, you know, so I'm coaching my daughter at times, and I could really see why we were butting heads so much because in her assessment, she could easily move out of the in and out of the four quadrants. Her gas tank, if you will, in any of the four was about the same. For me, I was profoundly innovator, which is the problem solver. So when I, you know, she comes home from school and I'm like, how's school? How your friends, how's this, how's that? You know, she burns out pretty quickly and doesn't want me asking any more questions, but I double down and ask more questions because that's my you know my nature, and she feels interrogated. So after I realized that about myself and learned I got certified to be a facilitator and learned how to not have that happen, I started incorporating that into my coaching. And oh my gosh, it's just accelerated my work. So I have a pretty good gut instinct and I can get a sense. It doesn't take very long, but this puts kind of some teeth to what I was observing and what I was hearing in clients. So that's been a game changer for me. But tying it back to the business health itself is really important, and one of the things I've learned along the way is that leaders who want coaching, they're inspired, right? They're inspired, they're engaged, they want to be better. That's out of the gate, we all know that. But they often have a very difficult time shifting their mindset from being absolute phenomenal taskmasters to thinking in terms of outcomes. And you know, like Stephen Covey would say, begin with the end in mind, that sounds great, looks great on paper, but for people to actually apply that thinking in their personal growth and their role as a leader and into their organization is quite challenging because of the sort of self-imposed limitations that we just put on ourselves for whatever reason. So I think as a coach, it's really fun to be able to have you know some tools in my back pocket and really understand like what does this look like? My first session with someone is, you know, what does success look like? We've just wrapped up our engagement, we've been working together for X number of months or years, what does it look like? And if they can't define that, we got to spend some time there, right? Because I want to be making baby steps towards that. And if they can't identify that or they identify it with a number of tasks, then that's not quite where I see success yet. So we spend a lot of time looking at, you know, what does success look like? What does winning look like? If we wave the magic wand and you're already there, what does it look like, feel like, sound like? And as simple as a question that is, it's not so easy to answer, you know.

Kevin Yee 11:19

What are some common answers or themes or patterns you kind of notice like between all the clients that you worked with over the years?

Cyndi Laurin 11:26

I think a lot of them they kind of fall into two categories, and I'll just kind of oversimplify this for the sake of for listeners is that they tend to drive too hard and they know they are steamrolling people and they want to not do that anymore, but they don't have the tools to sort of know when to drive and when to kind of lay off. And the flip side of it is they just they don't drive enough, they're in the mix with their team members and they haven't really elevated themselves to a position of authority or a position of maybe of trust because the team is looking to them to lead and they're like, Well, I want to get everybody's insights, and they're like, Well, just make a decision already. So that's kind of oversimplifying it. But I'll give you a story of one of my favorite clients. If he's listening or I send this to him, he'll laugh. But his email was his first name at uh, or actually it was uh freight train at the businessname.com. So I don't want to give it all away, you know, so much freight train at. Now it's like, huh, this is gonna be a fun one. And ultimately, you know, he drove the team hard, and the business was very successful, which makes it even harder to want to pull in the reins, right? But he also knew he was doing some damage, and so we started working together, and in time, what I found was because I also worked with his team members, and as he began to evolve, the team members needed coaching on seeing the new evolved version of their manager because they just wanted to still see him through the same old freight train eyes, and as he really did scale it back and become more thoughtful and intentional about his leadership and his style in working with this team, they couldn't see it. So that was a really big eye-opening experience for me because then I had to coach the team members on how to really accept, if you will, their new manager for who they wanted him to be to begin with. Like, hey, he he's it, he's there. Yeah, and they just had a hard time seeing it.

Kevin Yee 13:18

So that was that brings up a really good point, too. It's like, okay, it sounds like there's a bit of one-on-one, it sounds like there's like some organizational trainings. I guess if you're comfortable sharing, what do your coaching engagements look like? What are the different modalities that you're using?

Cyndi Laurin 13:33

They're all a little bit different, but generally speaking, I guess if I have to put a brand to it or a name to it, it's it's really looking at individual performance, team performance, and organizational performance. So those three in my mind have to be aligned so that the individual executive coaching or leadership coaching or frontline coaching, all of it is pointing to something bigger than themselves. And so I don't know if you can see it in the back, the book in the middle, the be a frontline hero, that's all about the frontline manager. And it usually it's somebody who has been very skilled at their role and they get promoted into management, but people aren't their thing. So they're given coaching. So some of them come to me and they're like, you know, okay, my boss is paying for me to be coached. Like, I don't even know what that means, I don't even know why I'm here. And honestly, what I've learned, another thing I've learned uh over time is that if a person doesn't have kind of a toolbox to work with, they default to parenting, they don't manage, they parent, and nobody wants to be parented in the workplace. So, you know, a lot of my coaching work is evolving on leaders from parenting to actually managing. And it'd be helpful. Language is really, really important to me. So, two operational definitions that are in my world in all coaching is leadership I define as a commitment to the success of people around you, which is important because as I told you about that little study I did where I sent out the definition, what I learned with positional leaders pointing at their team to lead from where you are and the team members looking to the leader to say, hey, you're the leader, lead, I realized that the definition was wildly important. And so I took all of that information and created, you know, my own definition of it, which is I share obviously with all my clients out of the gate because we have to be operating from the same place, which is that leadership is a commitment to the success of people around you. If your lens all day long is how can I help people around me be more successful, then you're going to evolve into that leader you want to be. And again, it feels simple just to talk and say, oh, just commit yourself to the success of others. That's so easy. But in practice, it becomes really hard because the intentionality that goes with it. And then the management piece to evolve a client from a parent to a manager, again, we work with what does it even mean to be a manager? And I know that there's a bazillion books and podcasts and consultants out there who do all of this. But again, I try to simplify everything so that it's digestible and consumable, which is it's three basic things. It's provide resources, remove obstacles, and get the heck out of the way. Let your team member do his or her thing and then coach them. And I think that's where the coaching piece, it's like, well, what does that's where the parenting tends to accidentally kick in. And it's like, you know, no, your team members don't want to be parented. They got this, they pay taxes, they they own a home. They really want your mentorship. They want you to help them identify the obstacles that are in their way. They need resources to do the best job that they can do, and then they just want you to back off and let them do it. And that I think that letting people do it is the hard for a lot of um inspired leaders because they want to dig in and you know, like get into the trenches. But when executives get into the trenches, it creates a void of leadership at the top, and that's problematic. That's another trend I would say I find.

Kevin Yee 16:44

Yeah, because you're spending time maybe I'm not sure if the word is micromanaging, but some people or parenting, that's the word that you use. Yeah, it does leave a gap at the top, too. That's really interesting.

Cyndi Laurin 16:55

I call it meddling, they start meddling too much. No one's driving the bus, everybody's you know, looking at their phones in the seats of the bus, no one's looking at the cliff that's coming ahead.

Kevin Yee 17:04

Kind of like if you had an airplane pilot, like, oh yeah, forget flying the airplane, let me pour your drink. You're like, no, go back to what you're doing, dude. Like spot on, yes. And it sounds like the work you do is quite a bit. And so, like, kind of curious, how do you manage your current client capacity? Like, do you have a team? Do you hire? Like, and how many clients do you kind of manage at a time or take on?

Cyndi Laurin 17:27

So there's a few different things I do. The executive coaching is part of it, and then consulting. So when I link individual team and organizational performance together, that's my consulting work. I use uh a platform that it's a I call it a growth operating system. And so oftentimes my coaching clients, hey, I also need some additional coaching here. So um, in addition to my own capacity, I have a number of colleagues that I refer to and they refer me to if they're at capacity. So I have a pretty good sense of balance. There are times where I'm like, yeah, I just I can't right now. I've got just too many consulting clients going on. But at any given time, I would say, you know, 10 to 15 clients is is comfortable, it's doable. I can do more than that. But I also I live on a little ranchette in Arizona and I've got a lot of animals and property, so I would like to have a life also.

Speaker 03 18:15

Makes sense.

Cyndi Laurin 18:16

So yeah, that balance. Actually, and the balance is important because a lot of clients are really challenging out of the gate, and it's trying to understand what the situation is and how to best serve them. Being out in the pastures and working in the garden and doing stuff is a place where I can really ground myself and think deeply about how can I be the best version of me for the client's needs.

Kevin Yee 18:36

Which leads me asked this question like, what kind of boundaries have you had to set in your business, maybe with clients, with your time, with like pricing or things that were really hard but necessary, I guess, through your experience.

Cyndi Laurin 18:47

Yes. So because I started this when I was really young and naive, boundaries were like bound what? So I used to take all calls at all times. It didn't matter if I could be there to serve, I was there to serve, and that was not good because it creates burnout. You know, I just was always on call, if you will. And so I did have to establish time boundaries. And then, you know, sometimes I love the work so much that it's sometimes hard. And then my daughter will remind me, like, mom, it is eight o'clock at night. Yeah, she doesn't have to do that so much anymore, but I do love the work a lot. So the boundaries piece can be tricky when it comes to my time. If I can see that it's valuable, oftentimes I'll lean in more than I don't, but it's okay, it's all good. And then price-wise, yes, I did learn early on from a number of areas, like free begets free. So I don't do anything free anymore with speaking. It's just they don't value the work unless there's some skin in the game. So that's something I had to learn over the years. It's like, what is that fine point of pricing or cost? And oftentimes it's a bundled within a consulting project. So uh, and those are usually about a year long, so I really get to know my teams and my leaders very well. That's another thing I've sort of had to figure out along the way from the time and the money perspective. And the third boundary is there is a slippery slope between coaching and therapy, and I'm not a therapist. So I will refer people to therapy or to a counselor if their personal scenario is what's the significant factor that's creating their work scenario, then I think both are fine at the same time. It's helpful to collaborate, but I'm not a therapist, I don't want to be a therapist, and that is a boundary I've had to create, which is tricky because sometimes people are like, Well, you're a coach. I'm like, Yes, I am a coach, and this is pointing to the success of your team and your business. I have a tremendous amount of empathy for, I mean, I've gone through enough things in my own life that have been painful, so I have tremendous amount of empathy, but it's not my strong suit. But I have really good colleagues who are very good at that.

Kevin Yee 20:48

Are there any signs where you're like, this is kind of entering therapy area? Like, I'm kind of curious about some of those signs that might notice.

Cyndi Laurin 20:56

There are some. I think ultimately I've learned if and it takes a little bit of time, it doesn't always show up right out of the gate, but if they're not willing to take on or implement the advice, there's usually something else going on there. If I find that the need is just to be validated, that is usually a sign of something bigger that's going on. It doesn't take that long though, after a few sessions to say, okay, well, here's a thought. Have you tried this? Have you thought about this? And what are your thoughts on this? And after the expected implementation of something, they've not done it, and they have every excuse in the book as to why not, and it's all out there, then that's a pretty good sign that I'm not gonna get through. That personal responsibility litmus is probably the first test. Are they willing to not only own it? Because people say, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me. It's totally me. All right, what are we gonna do about it? If they're not willing to take that next baby step, I can't get through. I've had, I didn't realize this. I'm in my 50s. I didn't realize it until like later in life, but there's mental illness in my own family that I really wasn't aware of. I just thought, oh yeah, you know, that person's difficult. Or I was like, wow, okay, things are all coming together here, so I could spot it more now. It was a little more difficult for me to spot in the early days when you have like I would just say a master manipulator in your immediate family. It's hard to recognize it at times. But I married somebody who was very much like one of my parents that was particular personality, so that was where my aha came. It's like, oh, but you married your mother. It's like, what? I don't believe you. And then that's like, oh, I did. I totally see. So in my earlier years, it was harder for me to see that than once you know, that really kind of like wow, okay, now I have a whole new view of how to see these things, and that was very helpful in my own journey.

Kevin Yee 22:43

That's really interesting. Like, I'm always really curious about the boundaries that people like kind of realize because no one really teaches you that stuff. And I think another thing that's really interesting too after doing this podcast so many times the pricing aspect. I would like to talk a little bit more about that because that's kind of like a very tably like topic sometimes. Yeah, obviously, you don't need to give any hard numbers, but if you're open to it, like a lot of coaches listen to this struggle with like pricing. How do I price? And so I guess like what are your thoughts about pricing strategies that you've used? Like, I know a lot of coaches they start off with hourly and then they kind of hate it, then they do project-based, some do value-based, some do like retainers or subscription. So I guess I'm kind of curious about your journey about discovering the right pricing that kind of works with you and how that evolved over time.

Cyndi Laurin 23:30

Such a great question. Yeah, I'll share as much as I can to be helpful. There are obviously a few variables. One is a one-off, is this something like a short-term thing? Is this something that is gonna be ongoing? Is this part of a bundle? I don't like charging by the hour. I just don't find that to be helpful. I do like charging by value if I can, although I do have a client right now that I'm charging by the hour, and we meet once a month and it's fine and it works great, and I've been working with them for a very long time. But when it's part of a bigger package, that breaking it all out, it's gonna be this many liters, this many, you know, once a month or bi-weekly, depending on the severity of the need. But I do a very, very extent, uh extensive, deep discovery process. I think that helps with the pricing to really get a sense of what is the outcome here that we're looking for. And kind of early in our conversation when I said wave the magic wand and what does it look like if we're done? That gives me a pretty good sense of the lift I'm gonna be making with the person andor team andor organization. So that helps. But generally speaking, too, I mean, I'll take other things into consideration. Is it a nonprofit leader? Give them a discount because Lord knows they need sometimes, not always, some are do very, very well, uh, but sometimes they just need a leg up. And because I tie it to the business performance as well, I do get a sense of how the business is performing, and I want to make sure that it's equitable for them. So for just a general ongoing or nonprofit, I'll charge $300 an hour. That's I think pretty standard. In some cases, it depends on if they want to meet bi-weekly or monthly. Sometimes it's $500 an hour, but usually when I get to the higher prices, it's part of a bigger bundle. We're looking also at KPIs of the business and tying the coaching to something more that's bigger. But the majority of my work right now is my consultancy work with coaching as a part of it. And so it just becomes built into the package.

Kevin Yee 25:29

I'm really curious. Have you ever, like, since you found a way to kind of tie your work to kind of the KPIs or the performance, have you ever experimented with adding definitely not 100% like performance-based, but an element of performance based to your offers? Have you experimented with that before? I'm very curious.

Cyndi Laurin 25:47

Actually, I started experimenting with that, let's see, in 2023. And so one of the, and I use AI a lot to help kind of tease out and do deep research on things. And so I had put in a bunch of data of client success, like before and after scenarios into perplexity. That's my AI of choice. And it suggested experimenting with 1.7% of gross revenue and giving a 20 to 40% increase in revenue after 12 months. I was experimenting with that, and it's actually pretty spot on. I mean, it's working pretty well, and in that scenario, coaching is a part of the package itself. But yeah, I think it's always good to experiment. And I think ultimately it's really what value can you create for your client? What speed? So if when we're doing our discovery and they want X, Y, Z in three months, okay, we can do it. They're gonna have some skin in the game, and this is what it's gonna look like. Are they up for that challenge? You know, it's like, yes, challenge accepted. All right. So the price might be a little higher over a 30-day, I mean a 90-day sprint of executive coaching, and we're looking at a data dashboard as we're going as well, and oftentimes that will turn into a full-blown consulting gig because they see the value to the business overall, and I like that. I I actually prefer to, as I mentioned a couple times, I prefer to see that mapping from individual coach results to team results to organizational results. That's that's the most fun for me. I don't know if I answered that question very well.

Kevin Yee 27:22

No, no, no. It's because, like, okay, so I'm from a different industry, right? Like I'm like in the sales kind of world and stuff, and there's often and a lot of times in the pricing, like a performance like bonus and stuff like that. Too. So I'm just like really interested, like if you're able to because sales is really easy, you just like look at the revenue you generated, and it's like pretty clear cut about what you helped enable, right? But like hearing what your ability to tie to kind of their KPIs or the performance uh metrics, I was like, oh man, I wonder if you've ever played with that in your industry. So that's like where my mind was at. So you did a really yeah. Thank you for sharing that, by the way.

unknown 28:06

Yeah.

Cyndi Laurin 28:06

Well, I'll share one more too, because this is more recent. There's a client I've been working with for about four years, three years. Wait, let me see, 2025, four years. And they, when I first started working with them, we were kind of getting our legs under us. I was charging a flat, it was a year engagement broken out over 12 months. And when that contract ended, and they wanted my work to be less foundational coaching and more part of the executive team and executive coaching. It was funny because I put the the um statement of work together and sent it to them, and the owner was like, Cindy, I'm not signing this. And I was like, Oh no, like what did I do? And he's like, I will not sign this until you raise your price. And I was like, wait, what? And he's done that to me three times now, but I never want to make the assumption because I've been working with them for many years. There are times where I'm like, you guys, you've got this. You you know, I don't know that you need me anymore. They're like, no, we still need you, and here's why. And so it's been helpful in that respect. But but yeah, the performance-based coaching, there was a time where I was like, I wonder if I could literally, if I could like almost guarantee the work. Like, if we do this, then you will have that. The problem with the strictly performance-based model is that variables of them actually engaging and doing the work that's to be done is not within my control, and then outside circumstances as well that could create things outside of my control. So there's there's a fine balance there. What are your thoughts on that?

Kevin Yee 29:39

No, it's interesting because I think about this uh this famous Peter Drucker quote, and it's all profit is derived from risk, right? And sure, could you take that risk and do 100% performance based? Yes, but it's like kind of knowing that there's a lot of coaching, it's not one of those done for you type of like services and stuff like that, right? You can't do like a Lot of this work for someone can help guide them. It reminds me of like insurance companies, like uh car insurance companies. If you're a high liability, you've been in like 10 accidents in the last like seven days. No insurance company is gonna want to like that's right, because you're a liability, you know, right? So I kind of view it very similarly to what you're saying as well. So yeah, yeah.

Cyndi Laurin 30:23

I think about it like bowling. If we're gonna use analogies here, it's like in coaching, you're putting, you know, like when you bowl with little kids, they have the little bumper things that come up so the kid can't put it into the gutter. I kind of feel coaching is a lot like that. We try to put up as many guardrails as possible, but it doesn't mean that the person bowling isn't gonna chuck it into the next lane over, right? So that's where the performance-based pricing gets tricky. I think it's a little easier with the consulting work because we're literally looking at a data dashboard. I I hate going month to month. Here's another thing that's maybe a little bit unique. I hate waiting a whole month to talk to a client. It is too long. Like business moves faster than that, and people's thinking changes faster than that. So I love in a perfect world, all my clients would be would be bi-weekly. So you've got you have that pulse. You're really in the software that I use, I can see everything, I can see action items, I can see data dashboards. So everything's very visual. So I feel like I'm in it to win it. But yeah, a month, oh man, it's a long time. It's like, you know, and I don't want to spend the time going, so what happened last month? I want to spend the time going, what are we looking at moving forward? So the the software that I use, the platform that I use really does help me with my capacity, and it helps me know we can look forward at this meeting, not are things going. That's like that's the worst question. We'll never start a meeting like, so how are things? Already know. I gotta know how things are before we even hit the Zoom room together so that we can focus on forward. That's what makes it fun.

Kevin Yee 31:56

Well, there's one element of the business we haven't talked about, and that was the marketing. I'm kind of curious, like you know, it seems like you have a pretty steady pipeline of people. How do people typically find you? What kind of marketing are you kind of doing to get the word out?

Cyndi Laurin 32:12

Such a great question. See, where's my knife to getting marketing? I hate marketing, so and I've been super, super blessed with referrals for 20 years, right? This is like it's amazing. But I also know a lot of the referral work that I get, some of those people are retiring. Like some of my standbys are not staying in the workforce much longer. So I did start to look at digital marketing and I don't even like social media. I'm horrible. I really probably shouldn't even say this, but like it is not have this thing and just you know set it down and leave for the day. That that's fine. I don't have any like hate towards it, but just not where I want to spend my time. So I did hire, I hired a marketing company two years ago. It was $2,500 a month. I didn't know what I didn't know, and I wasted about $10,000 and then stopped because my KPIs for marketing are qualified leads that I can actually close. And if I get in front of the right client, it my close rate's incredibly high. But if it's not the right person, like I don't need the massive net, I need spear phishing for my marketing. And so I let that one go and then I hired another one, and I learned something along the way, which is leave a marketing agency delicately because they can place your business in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Who knew? That was a thing. First one did what happened? He literally on my Google profile literally pinned my business in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is that's not an analogy.

Kevin Yee 33:41

That's like literally, he literally did that.

Cyndi Laurin 33:44

Literally, I didn't even know it until the second marketing company I hired said, Hey, where are you located? And I said, My business is in Queen Creek, Arizona. And they said, Well, funny thing, it looks like it's in the Pacific Ocean. And I was like, What are you talking about? So that's how I found out that I was in the Pacific Ocean, which could have absolutely destroyed any Google ranking ever, right? So that was a problem. But the second one, obviously, they were much better. And the issue with my work, and I know a lot of coaches and consultants face this challenge, is there are things about us that make us different from everyone else. And it's very hard for marketing companies to understand that. They want, hey, we're gonna get you, we can send out 300,000 emails in a month, and we're gonna get you a thousand leads. It's like I need one a quarter, I need one really qualified lead a quarter. So the strategy has to be very different. And unfortunately, I say unfortunately, I've had to learn a lot and waste a lot of money along the way trying to figure out the marketing piece. Now, I have another one third time's a charm, and they are very helpful. And so I've got my Guide to Greatness website for the business. I have my personal brand, which is CindyLauren.com, and that's my work, my books, my speaking, my thinking. Because the other thing I learned about marketing is that the way that I speak and think about things is different, and it doesn't really work well with SEO. And the words that Google wants to see are right here in mainstream. And oh, guess what? Cindy's on the fringe. It makes it hard for my website to reflect my thinking when the marketing agency was like, well, we need to dumb it down, we need to change it to this language. And I'm like, Well, that's not me, that's not who I am. So I literally created CindyLauren.com on my own because I needed a place where I could dump my thinking. It's contrarian. I'm challenging conventions all the time. And then with the next book coming out, Orchestrated Randomness, it's gonna be another website. So I found with my publisher, just I signed last week, I'm gonna have all three of my websites are gonna be managed by a company called AdWater.io. So shout out to AdWater and it's in Go High Level, and so which is fantastic because my websites are there, my campaigns will be there, my newsletter will be there, all my contacts are there. It's like everything, my calendar's in there. So I highly recommend them.

Kevin Yee 36:03

I did a huge review for them, and their Go High Level actually reached out to me to do sponsor brand content too. So it's a really great app.

Cyndi Laurin 36:11

It is phenomenal, yeah. And it's encroaching on Salesforce. And one of my clients, my Australian client, just met the CEO last week, and so he was all excited about sharing that. And then the founder of AdWater.io, he was one of the first Go High Level clients, agency clients. So I feel like between you know, having all three websites in the same house, managed by the same team, that can really link, sort of like my individual team organization, I can kind of have that marketing place now. So I feel like I'm learning. Marketing is not my strong suit. I really, like I said, it's just I love the work. I just want it to show up in front of me like it has, but when it doesn't, it can be a little stressful. So um learning, and I'm trying to figure that piece out a little bit more as we go.

Kevin Yee 36:57

What do you feel like the hardest part about marketing is like I know you hired all these companies, but like for you personally, what's the hardest part?

Cyndi Laurin 37:04

Just the noise. There's so much noise out there. It's like, how do you cut through the noise? In the olden days, like I would post something on LinkedIn and it would take me two or three days to respond to people in my network who would want to chat. And now I post something on LinkedIn and it's just lost, you know, and it could be really great or it could really suck, but it's just there's so much out there, and there's so much video now. And the other thing I think that I don't like, and and I don't know, maybe people won't like this, but there's so much narcissism in the world when you're into value creation that does not mix well with narcissism. So there's a kind of a fine balance between, you know, I'm not great at tooting my own horn. I just I love the work, I want to keep doing the work. It's a necessary evil in my mind. I'm kidding. Because you could have the best book on the planet, but if it's not well marketed, no one's gonna it won't end up in anybody's hands.

Kevin Yee 37:55

As you're thinking uh as you're going through these marketing struggles of moving back your business from the Pacific Ocean to Arizona, I guess like I'm curious about your future goals. Like, where do you kind of want this coaching business to take you in the next few years? Do you have any like secret dreams, ambitions that no one knows about, desires to scale? Kind of cares about this season.

Cyndi Laurin 38:15

Yes, I do. The reason the purpose behind book four, the orchestrated randomness. I have found my work to be excessively simple, and I never wanted anyone to know how easy it actually is, but I created a framework. It's called the Growth Alignment Framework. I think it might be the only predictive business growth model. I don't know any others that are actually predictive like mine is. It's been field tested for 30 years. There's an absolute predictable path that every business moves along that I've discovered over the last three decades. And so the coaching and the consulting is just, it's my secret sauce, and I'm gonna finally share my secret sauce with the world, which is a little scary because maybe people will be like, what? This is not good though. Just kidding. It works, the work works, I know that. But my secret dreams are that it can be, it is so easy that it can be more DIY, that people can actually create their own value in their own business, and I'm happy to help them along their way, but I really want to see businesses make the impact that they're intended to make, which another operational definition is really important. We talk a lot about creating value, value, value, value. And for me, it's very simple. It's solving problems and fulfilling needs. So if your business solves a problem and fulfills a need, you're gonna make money, right? And it's that's a fun one to ask at a conference. It's like, okay, why are we in business? And everyone screams out to make money. And I'm like, okay, that's number three. What's one and two? And then it's like, yeah, solve a problem, fulfill a need equals making money. So I really want to see businesses create value, do what they are intended to do, and start to look through the lens of organizational maturity instead of the usual suspects, which are revenue headcount and years in business, all of which are very important. But there is this overlay of maturity that causes success to be sustainable at an individual level, at a team level, and at an organizational level. So that's really my secret desire for the world is to do better. We have it in us, we can do better. And so providing tools to help. If they can do it DIY, great. If they need help, I'm here at an individual team or organizational level. That's really it. If I could do anything, I could pick, wave my own magic wand, and I'm there, I'm actually doing it right now. I just want to do more of it. It's fun, it's fun stuff.

Kevin Yee 40:35

I sort of think about scaling your impact like through this DIY method methodology, I guess. What are some challenges you're noticing in this season of business right now for you?

Cyndi Laurin 40:46

You know, it's funny. It's been, I think people have been holding their futures a little close to the vest right now, like unsure politically and otherwise. I think there's there's just so much going on in the world right now that businesses tend to put the brakes on a bit. And then once they realize like we this is a years-long thing that's happening. And I'm not saying politically one way or the other way that this isn't a right, left, center thing. It's really just the change, the level of change. And and now with AI as well, it feels like there's a lot more threat and challenge to business than there really is. I feel like it's just changing now. I'm getting a lot more sense. I just picked up a really big client in Texas. I have two more that I'm gonna be talking to in the next week that are ready. It's like, okay, yes, all of this stuff is going on in the periphery. We still have to create value in the business. We still have to solve a problem and fulfill a need. We need help to get there. So I am seeing things loosen up a bit, but it was pretty tight for a while. There was a lot of project work and not the longer-term work, which I like the longer-term work preferably because I get to see that over time and I learned a lot along the way, but it tended to be more short-term project stuff for a while.

Kevin Yee 41:59

We're coming near the end of the podcast, but lucky you, you have me as a podcast host. I would love to play some games if you're open to it. Sure. This first game, it's through the lens of business investments, right? Because you know a lot of coaching businesses they invest in coaching, training, marketing, team members, a lot of different things, right? And so, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna ask you four questions, short prompts, and you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind for you. Okay, okay. First business investment you remember making.

Cyndi Laurin 42:26

First business investment? It's probably into my own business. Is that what you mean? Or outside business, internally or externally?

Kevin Yee 42:34

Yes. Internally, yes.

Cyndi Laurin 42:35

Okay. So yes, yep. My first investment was taking a year unpaid leave from Cal Poly and moving to Seattle to work alongside the fishmongers and just pray that that thing worked. Pray that the book worked. That was it.

Kevin Yee 42:49

That's a crazy story, by the way. But probably a lot of those. Yeah. Last business investment you made.

Cyndi Laurin 42:55

The marketing wasted a lot of money because I didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't want to know what I didn't know. Now I know what I didn't know, and I know what I know. So that's the next investment is really in figuring that out, figuring out the digital marketing space so that I don't have to be reliant on referrals moving forward. I mean, they'll still come in, but I'd like to find a way to get in front of folks that haven't heard of me before and be able to create value for them.

Kevin Yee 43:20

Best business investment you made.

Cyndi Laurin 43:22

Definitely the first. Taking the year leave, unpaid leave, and moving to Seattle. That was definitely orchestrated randomness. It was a huge risk. And when I came back from Seattle to go back to teaching at Cal Poly, I resigned. In the midst of all this, I had a dean trying to fire me for three years. And there was a lot of I love the students and I loved being in the classroom, but the administrative side of higher education is painful. With the internal strife that I was getting from the College of Business, like, oh, this isn't real work, it's not peer review journal. You know, it's like, no, it's a best-selling business book, but okay. And then the world was saying, wow, this is really great stuff, Cindy. It's like, okay, that was a really good investment to take that risk and see what happened. Because that led to my second book with the Boeing Company. I spent four years with the C17 program, phenomenal aircraft, learned a ton along the way. So, you know, there's always these moments in time. This is actually my book. It's like observe, be curious, and take action. So if you're not doing the first, you're not observing, it's difficult to become curious of things, and you definitely can't take action. So that would be it. Long-winded answer. Sorry.

Kevin Yee 44:33

I love it. I love it. Last one. Worse is this investment you made that you kind of wish you got your money back from?

Cyndi Laurin 44:39

There's two. One would be the first marketing company that, you know, when I said I'm not doing this anymore, drop me in the Pacific Ocean. And then the second was I was under the impression that I really needed to focus on my personal brand and PR. And I did, I paid a lot of money to a company and just didn't get results. So I've learned and I can do it myself. I mean, that's the thing. I just didn't want to. Lesson learned.

Kevin Yee 45:06

As you're reflecting on all these business investments, right? I'm sure stories are popping up in your head. And I'm kind of curious, like, how has your decision-making process and what to invest in and what not to invest in kind of changed over time?

Cyndi Laurin 45:18

I look at all businesses, including my own, as and this is something I talk about a lot. It's a horse race. You have a growth horse, you have the infrastructure horse. These horses are always neck and neck. If growth gets way too far ahead of infrastructure, you can't deliver. You gotta build the capacity to grow, focus time on infrastructure. So I've learned over the years, and this is part of the framework that I developed as well, is knowing when to pivot time, attention, and resources from the growth horse to the capacity to grow, or vice versa. Like, okay, the structure's in place. Now I just need, I gotta get some money coming in. So it's just always managing this horse race internally with my own business. And then, you know, I that's what I do with clients, is help them, that becomes their superpower, is having those triggers in place to say, uh-oh, some of the data is starting to shift. We might want to switch to the growth horse for a while, or the window of opportunity isn't gonna close, but we're growing so fast we haven't delivered in 10 years. That's a true story from one of my clients. They were so thrilled about their operations, but they hadn't delivered on time. I think that's the knowledge piece that's super critical for all businesses is knowing everything's not of equal importance. One of the two, there's a lot of categories of work that's that support growth. There's a lot of categories of work that support infrastructure and the capacity to grow. So knowing when to shift between them is critical.

Kevin Yee 46:35

You mentioned earlier you're a bit of a contrarian. So we gotta go into the second game. As a business owner, you probably get a lot of different advice throughout the years. Good advice, bad advice. And so I'm kind of curious, what's the most overrated piece of advice that you've gotten? And what's the most underrated piece of advice that you got?

Cyndi Laurin 46:52

Let's see. I think overrated advice comes in the form, and this will sound ironic, but comes in the form of people saying, Oh, you have to read this book, you have to read this book, without really, you know, and then I go out and read the book because oh I need the, and then it's like, oh, I really didn't need that one, or that one didn't really, it didn't solve my problem or fulfill a need for me. So I think being more, you know, asking more questions, like, why do you think I need to read this book? Like, what am I gonna get out of this so that I can spend my time effectively? That's probably I'd say not worst advice, but advice I had to learn about. I had to put some boundaries around that one. Best advice that I've gotten, I would say, is the contrarian root is a struggle, but the reward is immense. Like, don't conform. Don't conform. There's a lot of people who do it like everybody else, and and I will say, yes, at times I call it being a Rudolph. You kind of look like everybody else, but there's something a little bit different about you. You think a little differently. There's not a lot of glory in being a contrarian thinker, it can be pretty painful at times, but stick to it, stick to it because you're on to something and explore it all the way through. I mean, that's the best advice that that I've been given. Because there are times where I'm like, this is just too hard. I don't want to be the person who thinks differently about this.

Kevin Yee 48:04

This is like probably one of the more fun podcasts I've done, like in the last like while, by the way. And so something really like magnetizing about your energy too. I'm sure your clients kind of feel as well. Quick question. This is the hardest question of the night, depending how well you did your marketing. How can people find you and connect with you?

Cyndi Laurin 48:23

They can go to cindyloren.com and I've got I have a ton of free resources on there, and they can contact me through the website directly, or they can just email me directly at Cindy at guide to greatness.com. So and connect with me on LinkedIn. It's just Cindy Lauren. There's a lot of ways to find me. I have a thought leader page in Google now. I didn't know that I had it, but I it's been around, I guess, for a while, so I finally claimed it. So it's if you just look up Cindy Lauren, you'll see all kinds of ways to get in touch with me.

Kevin Yee 48:51

And you also have some books that you wrote too. Is that right? In the upcoming book as well.

Cyndi Laurin 48:55

Yes, I can grab them. I have The Rudolph Factor is my second book, and this is about being a Rudolph, someone who is the contrarian thinker. They're entrepreneurs, change agents, mavericks, whatever you want to call them. That's what this one's about. Catch is my first book with the Pike Place Fish Market, and these are the guys on the front. And it has sold over a hundred thousand copies, it's in 14 languages, and I literally just got a royalty email yesterday. So after 20 years, that one's still going strong. And then um, the third one, this one I self-published, um, Be a Frontline Hero. It's five tools in five days, about a gal named Emily who gets promoted from a server at a pizzeria to the manager, and she wants to quit immediately.

Kevin Yee 49:36

Why is pizzeria, by the way? That's oddly specific.

Cyndi Laurin 49:40

Because so I was a professor for altogether at three different institutions for 23 years, and I've seen people get promoted like right out of college into management, and then they're like, Oh, you know what, expletive, what do I do now? Or I've worked with tons of engineers, very highly technical people. They're really good at their work, they get promoted, then they're like, Again, oh, expletive, what do I do now? So this book is for them. What do I do now? Five tools in five days, so you don't parent your employees. I love it.

Kevin Yee 50:08

Oh man, thank you so much, Cindy. Like I said, your energy is just like really restorative, and you know, you shared so much tactical stuff too. Like, I mean, we we talked about all sorts of things like your marketing lesson, pricing, we talked about like how you actually do your coaching. There's just so much value from this podcast. So I think more than that, too, especially in this time of like kind of uncertainty. Like, I think we touched about upon it just a little bit with AI and the political stuff. People are just wondering what like the state of their business is. I think I just want to thank you for doing the work that you do because people really need that support in this like particular time as well. So again, thank you, Cindy, for just like coming on to the podcast and doing the work that you do.

Cyndi Laurin 50:54

Thank you so much. I appreciate any opportunity to create value out there. So I thank you. Thank you.

Davis Nguyen 51:00

Thank you, Cindy. 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.