[00:00:00] Kevin Stafford: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Conversations with Coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin, and today I have the pleasure of making the acquaintance, meeting for the very first time, and then introducing to you, I love my job, Michelle DiNaio. Michelle is actually a a friend, a colleague, an associate of a past guest, Robin Eidelson, who I’ll get to talk to again sometime in the near future, who is delightful.
You’ll remember her quite well. Michelle. is a seasoned business strategist known for her customized growth and scaling solutions. She dives deep into clients businesses, crafting tailored strategies, I love that word tailored in this context, that empower confident decision making. Michelle, it’s nice to meet you.
It’s nice to have you. It’s nice to get a chance to chat with you. And yeah, thanks for sharing some time today. Yes. I’m so
[00:00:43] Michelle DeNio: happy when Robin said, I was just on this podcast and I met this guy, Kevin, and I think you would really love him. And I was like, I am here for it. And I am so happy that she made the introduction and that we actually found the time on our calendars to make this work.
So thank you so much for
[00:00:57] Kevin Stafford: having me. Of course. Of course. That’s one of the reasons why I love keeping this, the podcast short is because it’s a heck of a lot easier to find 20 or 30 minutes in your calendar than it is to find 60 to 90 minutes. It’s amazing. It doesn’t seem like that much of a difference, but.
It makes a huge one. Yeah,
[00:01:11] Michelle DeNio: it does. Yes. So
[00:01:12] Kevin Stafford: let’s speak. I was going to say, speaking of keeping things small, let’s go back to the beginning, not the beginning, but like your beginning as a coach, I like to sometimes cheekily refer to it as your superhero origin story. How did you, how’d you get your powers as a coach?
How did you discover that you wanted to be a coach? Maybe figure out that you already were. Did the right mentor or the right influence come along at the right time and give you the words or give you the word coach and you’re like, oh that’s who I am already. Or that’s who I want to be.
So how did you basically get your start? I would
[00:01:42] Michelle DeNio: say it just fell on me. I never sought out to be a coach. I never. I never ever pictured myself if you had asked me 10 years ago, if I ever pictured myself in this position, my answer would have been no. So very long story short, my husband and I moved from New York to Florida on a whim.
We just decided that we were going to go live retirement and we thought we were going to get just beautiful jobs. We both had big high level corporate positions and what. Went from a very impressive resume in the state of New York was not impressive at all in the state of Florida that thrives on hospitality and snow birds and retail, which is not what my experience was.
So I just started networking. I was like, I got to meet. I got to meet people. I’ve got to do some things. I got to get out of this freaking house. We’re new and. Anyway, it started with the whole like networking. Oh, let’s meet one to one. And oh, by the way, can I meet you? And, can we meet for coffee?
Can I pick your brain again? Hey, do you mind if we just chat? Can we have coffee? And then finally, somebody said to me, I don’t understand why you’re not charging me for your time. And I was like, I don’t know, is that a thing? And they were like, you literally just gave me some of the best business coaching I’ve ever had.
And I don’t know why you’re not charging. And so that’s the origin story. Somebody finally said you should do this. And it just it just expanded from there.
[00:03:04] Kevin Stafford: I love that. It’s almost like it emerged from just I’m almost hearing like the cacophony of voices and all these people you’re networking with and meeting, and obviously you’re getting stuff from them you’re giving stuff to them and I think it’s almost, I’m sure it was just the one singular voice at first but I imagine it was almost like a chorus in your head where it’s oh.
I just, I love that sentence too. It’s like, why aren’t you charging for this? I was like, Oh, I hadn’t, I, until you said it, I hadn’t thought about it. And now it’s all I can think about because I could totally do this for a living as a business, as a passionate pursuit, that’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s
[00:03:35] Michelle DeNio: definitely how it got started.
And, I think for a lot of us, we don’t realize that the things that come very easily to us. Or the way our brains work and the way our brains function and all of the skills that we have are not skills that other people have. Which is what makes that so wonderful. And so for me, it was just I don’t know why am I not charging?
I’m not charging because you just asked me a question. I didn’t really feel but that, so making that shift and understanding that yes, indeed, I did have a lot of business development, operations, accounting, all of that experience on how to grow was not something that I just. New, right? Like I did work hard at that.
I just used it in a different way as an employee than what I was doing as an entrepreneur.
[00:04:18] Kevin Stafford: And that’s, it touches on such a, such an important topic for coaches, but also for the people who are seeking out your coaching is we have a hard time. Ourselves, especially in the context of the wider world, let alone like the specific business or industry that we’re in and value that word value.
It’s almost like it’s too big of a word or too small of a word for too big of a topic, because it’s almost like the word love has so many different meetings, like value is like how you, like what you, everything from what you charge for your services to who you offer to and how you offer it to how you set boundaries around your time.
And how you set boundaries around what you do have to offer and what you let people have access to, there’s so much that goes into that, that I feel like a good coach learns and understands and is able to impart to their clients very effectively for whatever application they might be needing it for whatever rung on the ladder they might be on or whatever business endeavor they’re trying to get off the ground or grow or scale.
[00:05:14] Michelle DeNio: Yeah, absolutely. And I always, I actually just recorded a podcast episode on my own podcast about valuing your skills, right? You don’t realize, like, when is the last time you’ve done a skills assessment to really understand, like, all of the things that you really can do and that you want to do.
Bring to the table. And to me, that’s such, you have to value that, like value, your skills, as much as you value your time. We put so much value on our time. We put so much value on our money and our worth and all of these things. And it’s let’s value your knowledge, right? Your knowledge, the skills you’ve worked hard for them.
They, some people come by certain things more naturally than others, but either way, even if it’s a natural skill, you’ve worked hard to maintain it. And you really need to be valuing that. And that’s truly. What I try to do for my clients and what I bring out is what skills are you bringing to the table that you are not valuing and that we really could be expanding on
[00:06:08] Kevin Stafford: and doing more with.
Yeah. I was having a conversation earlier today, actually, and talking about in the context of leadership, talking about identifying and developing. A lot of times people will do one. If you’re lucky, you get one if you’re out in the wild of the workforce, but really both are just I can’t say how important they are because you both have to first be willing to look.
And again, this is this is one. Both these areas are where coaches are just the exact answer. To all the questions you might have because identifying those skills through both skills assessment, like hard data, like we, I have systems, I have processes, I have frameworks. We’re going to figure this out.
This isn’t just some, I’m not going to lay you down on the couch and we’re going to talk it out. We are going to talk, but we’re also going to run through some really rigorous systems. You’re going to get actual answers to these questions. And that like a coach bringing that to the table, I feel is an often underappreciated aspect of why a coach is so frequently the right.
answer to like whatever gap you might find yourself in whatever, bridge you’re trying to get across. Cause that’s skill identification and development. And I, yeah, again, that’s we can talk about that by itself, that little like corner for hours, which is why I love this conversation.
[00:07:20] Michelle DeNio: Absolutely. Yeah. And I, again, I think for a lot of people with, we are always seeking, and for me as a coach we’re always seeking new things, right? Like a lot of my clients are always like, what do I need new? I need this new skill. I need, you’re constantly feeling like the gap is because you need to learn something new.
And it’s not sometimes it’s just identifying what you’re not utilizing inside of your own business and, or inside of yourself or anything of that sort, but you don’t, there’s not always a need to find something new. You’ve got a lot inside of you that you’re not utilizing, or we push to the side.
[00:07:53] Kevin Stafford: Yeah that seeking out of newness is such a trap sometimes. Obviously it’s so important to have that. Actually, you know what, I think the word that I like for this is curiosity. Because curiosity doesn’t rely on novelty. in order for it to be powerful. Curiosity could be the new thing.
Curiosity could be the old thing that’s been around for a while that you’re looking to see from a new angle. You’re looking to see in a different light, maybe through somebody else’s eyes. That kind of curiosity being at the heart of really anybody who, every coach I talked to is just, they have curiosity, like at the center of their being like they got, they basically got really curious about something that they could do or be in the world, a community they could serve people, they could help.
And then on that curiosity intelligently and with intention. And I feel like that’s such a core aspect, a core element of the of the wisdom that a coach can bring to really, I say anybody, really anybody like there’s a coach for just about every kind of development you might want to have.
I tend to focus obviously on the podcast and focus on like leadership development, executive development, business strategy, all kinds of stuff. There’s just a lot more attention there, but really there’s not. Many areas of your life that couldn’t benefit from some good coaching. And that’s one thing that I love about about this, about your kind of coaching in particular is that it’s not, it’s very specific.
But the benefits radiate out into the rest of your life. And, it’s one of those things where it’s you are going to take these lessons, and this sort of momentum, and it’s, you’re going to, it’s going to start building other things. It’s going to make your relationships at home better. It’s going to make your friendships better, your familiar relationships better.
It’s going to make you, make your self talk better. When you’re not just like, why can’t I figure out what I’m supposed to be doing? And your self talk is negative, and you’re beating yourself up. You’re like here’s some tools. For you to maybe stop like beating yourself up or, radiating some negativity out in your own life.
And here’s just apply these tactics, apply these techniques.
[00:09:40] Michelle DeNio: Yeah, no, absolutely. I always tell my clients like entrepreneurship or business ownership is like the deepest journey of self exploration. You never intended to go on, but you’re on it. And it’s once you can embrace that and you’re willing to understand that.
You have to do that deep work in your business. Like you can create business strategy all day long. Like we can create a new strategy for anything, but a lot of the times there are certain points in business where yourself and some of this deeper exploration of things, you’ve got to apply those strategies in your life, not just to your business.
[00:10:15] Kevin Stafford: I often find myself thinking about, I can buy the book and put the book on my shelf and feel really proud of myself for identifying that book’s probably gonna be really good. And the spine’s really pristine because I’ve barely cracked the book, let alone put any of it into action. It’s like this, all sorts of little traps like that, where you can just do just enough to make yourself feel like you’re doing something.
But honestly, you need, sometimes you need a coach to come in and either persuade you to start taking action or maybe give you a kick in the pants. Depending on what you need, that’s
[00:10:43] Michelle DeNio: usually what my clients say. Michelle’s really good at giving you that good swift kick in the butt when you need it, but then wrapping you in a hug.
And that’s my goal, right? That’s the goal
[00:10:52] Kevin Stafford: of a good coach, I think. Oh, I love it. That’s perfect. Swift kick in the pants and a nice hug afterwards after care. I love it. Yeah, which actually brings me quite elegantly to my next question and really like the core question. I almost asked this like an interrogation sometimes like I’ve got you in like the room with the lamp or whatever.
It’s what did you know? And when did you know it? Like I’ve got you by the lapels. Who do you coach? And how do you coach them? The who being if there’s any particular, demographic or industry that you tend to focus on, whatever it might happen to be, like basically who you tend to focus your coaching practice on and the how is really a sort of an open ended question to your methodology whether you’re talking like a lot of one to one coaching, if you do small group coaching or masterminds if you create coursework or maybe even do keynote speeches or, write, write a presentation.
Write a book or all of the above. There’s always either a book already out or on the way at some point with a lot of coaches just because it seems like a natural expression for so many people. So yeah, who do you coach and how do you coach them? Yeah,
[00:11:50] Michelle DeNio: a book is definitely not in my world right now.
I can tell you that it’s funny. Everybody always says that like, why don’t you write a book? I’m like, yeah, no, let’s not. Anyways, I focus primarily with service based business owners. So whether they’re solopreneurs small businesses have a team of a couple, like I would say primarily my clientele is, has less than 10 people in their world, like in their business.
So they are more solopreneurs. I also have another side to my business that works more in that 10 to 20. Consultant space more on the strategy side, but service based for sure service based industry. Professionals, accountants, lawyers coaches, consultants, other people of that sort. So the professional services realm, and I typically coach one to one that is by far my favorite.
I am a firm believer in that customized tailored strategy. And I just don’t feel like you can get that in any sort of course or. Workshop or anything of that sort. However, one thing I do feel very strongly about is creating frameworks. So I have frameworks that I feel people can follow and then how they apply them to their business is very customized and very tailored.
So I have a 12 month like business planning program that is a strategic sales planning program. It follows the same framework, but everybody is applying it to their business differently, but the actual, steps are the same, right? Step 1 is always reflection. Step 2 is whatever. So your, everybody’s business is going to be reflecting slightly differently, but the steps are the same.
So when we can create frameworks, but so 1 to 1 and or in a mastermind format would be the 2 areas that I. I have some smaller workshops master classes. I love to teach. I love to teach in the master class format workshop style, but I typically do 1 to 1. that’s still my favorite. Every time I try to get away from it, because people are like, oh, you should scale.
You get that little itch that you got to scale and you got to do 1 to many or something. I just. I always come back to the one to one. I love it. I love building that deep connection and diving in and understanding not only somebody’s business, but their goals, what they value, what sets them on fire and what sends them over the edge.
I have a client right now. I’m even chatting with prior to this wanting to do something. I’m like, you hate that. You ask me this question all the time. And every time we try to put a strategy around it. You hate it. And I just feel like you can’t create that level of relationship and knowing and understanding somebody.
And if you don’t do one to one, so that’s really where I focus.
[00:14:27] Kevin Stafford: It’s funny, pretty much without exception, every coach I talked to, regardless of how they’ve scaled, whether they’re just like, massive booked out keynote speeches, or they’ve written literally, I just, I can think of one person who’s written like two dozen books she’s wild.
She’s one of the most productive people I know, everybody. Without exception, there’s but the one to one is where the real magic is. They did. And you never get away from that as a coach, because that’s really there’s nothing like that moment when you see the light dawn on someone’s face, when something just, or you can like almost audibly hear the click where it’s just like something just locked in for someone where like the work that you’ve done, the frameworks, the one to one stuff, just the time going back and forth, the low moments, the high moments, and all of a sudden, there’s just like a.
Pop or like just the dawn breaking over the horizon and you could see it on their face and you could just feel it in the room with them. There is nothing like that in my opinion. And there’s no, no coach who loves coaching and those people would ever want to get too far away from that because that’s just, that is the magic.
[00:15:26] Michelle DeNio: It is. And you really, you can’t replace it. I always say they’re every strategy works. There’s a guru out there that can prove every single strategy works, but they don’t all work for everyone. And so without having that one to one piece, you don’t know what that strategy looks like. You don’t know, we all have different personalities.
We all, our brains function differently. Our goals are different. Our vision of success is different. And so without working one to one, it’s very hard to. Really dive in and understand that about somebody. And I just love when the strategy that you’re putting in play for me, life is always number one, like the goal with life and what do we want to succeed?
What does success look like from your life’s perspective, not business perspective, and then how do we create the strategy in the business that supports the vision for the life? And you can’t do that without working one to one in my
[00:16:17] Kevin Stafford: opinion. I couldn’t agree more as there’s one, one small little aspect, almost like a throwaway line, the way you were talking about how you approach your coaching that my brain stuck on it because I was like, that’s a really good example of what we’re talking about.
And it’s how you differentiated the way you approach businesses sized seven to 10 people. And then even 10 to 20, not a lot of people would understand how profoundly different a business of six people is from a business of 15. It’s it can be like night and day and I just love that you like, and I feel like that exemplifies why your coaching would be so valuable, if I may say so.
Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Is that not a lot of people would understand that difference and be able to approach it with actual intention and skill and be like no, we need to handle this differently. ’cause this is different. It might feel like the same business it did back when it was six. It ain’t.
Or you might think it and you might be projecting that it’ll be the same no matter how big you grow. It will not be. And if you’re not prepared for that, if you’re not working on that now, you’re not going to be ready for, all the different things that are coming around those blind corners and all those blind alleys that I, I don’t know exactly, I can’t tell the future, but I can give you a roadmap.
Yeah.
[00:17:26] Michelle DeNio: No, absolutely. I have a client in that situation now she’s skating that line and we’ve had that conversation. It’s a deep conversation. I was like, you’ve got to really decide from a growth perspective. What you want what is your vision for this? Because there is nothing wrong with staying in that under 6 to 10, like 6 people, things are going to change and it just changes dramatically.
There’s just a different level of personality. The operations change everything. Things just look different with that. And it’s not for everybody. And I think. A good coach. Part of being a good coach is saying to somebody, that’s okay. If it’s not for you, it’s okay. We can scale this with where you’re at.
You don’t have to add more people. And very being able to look at that and see does that, is this really what you want? Are you ready for this? Do you want this? Because if so, then let’s do it. But. It’s okay to say, I don’t know, I don’t know,
[00:18:22] Kevin Stafford: I just, I can’t help but love how you exemplify that value in your own coaching business.
You’re like, anything that would take me too far away from the one to one work is just, it’s the cost is too high and I’m not going to do it. Obviously you can grow in certain different ways and what growth looks can be as different as what success looks like for different individuals. But you identify it’s if it’s, if it takes me too far away from this one to one, I don’t want to do it.
The one to one is where it’s at for me. And knowing that about yourself, how you want to operate in this business and in the world really gives you a lot of power, like more power than you might think, just from watching at a distance. And I feel like that’s a good thing for people to learn is just like, when you know those things about what you really want.
What success is going to look like for you and your business and in your life? Oh man, do you have some serious wells of power to draw on when you’re making some harder decisions down the road or tomorrow? Yeah.
[00:19:14] Michelle DeNio: Yeah. And it’s all personal, right? There’s no right or wrong. You get to that’s the beautiful thing about being a business owner is you get to make those choices and it doesn’t matter.
And there’s so many ways that you can create wealth and it’s not always about wealth. And so looking at. All of that, and just knowing that this is who I am, and this is where I excel, and I’m not willing to compromise my integrity to get to a place that doesn’t feel aligned. And that’s very important for me.
And it’s very important for me with my clients
[00:19:44] Kevin Stafford: as well. I just did the quote unquote responsible host thing and looked at the zoom clock and realized that we’ve already been talking for over half an hour. I could keep you for hours, I swear. But before I do let you go, first of all, thank you.
I really I’m really picking up what you’re putting down. I’m like, I’m loving I’d love coaches, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this podcast. But I really like your journey and how you arrived at where you’re at. And how you’re executing it and how you’re translating it and transmuting it to people in order for it to be very like impactful and like genuinely like tactile useful.
It’s I’m not just going to encourage you. I’m going to kick you in the pants and I’m going to, I’m, going to tell you the 17 step process. I’m going to give you the roadmap. I’m going to give you the framework. I love it all. So I’ll say that right there. And then. Before I let you go, because I know other people are going to be just as, passionate and curious about what you do and how you do it as I am.
Where can people find out more about you? Just learn who you are, what you do, why you do it, et cetera, et cetera. And if they want to connect, start a conversation, maybe start a relationship, where can they best do that? Do you have a preferred social media? Do you want to just send everybody to a website?
Are you just, are you active on TikTok? I don’t know.
[00:20:49] Michelle DeNio: I tried the TikTok thing. No I’m actually. Really focused on Instagram right now. So Instagram would be the place that I’m going to go Instagram and or LinkedIn, my name. If you just Google my name, it’s that’s really how you can connect with me.
My website is just my name. All of my social platforms are my name. Or if you really want to dive deeper into. Really hearing me and more of what I do would be the podcast. That is definitely where I put out my best content. So if it’s something like you want to just learn more, get a better sense of my personality and the way I coach, it’s the real truth about business.
It’s just diving in to give you the real straight, honest truth about business. So that’s the name of the podcast. That’s where I show up the most. That’s where I put my best foot forward. I would
[00:21:32] Kevin Stafford: say. Very cool. Yeah. I’m sure. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. I’m sure there’s information about the podcast on Instagram and on LinkedIn and on your website.
That’s one of the beautiful things is just Hey, I’m everywhere. Look for my name.
[00:21:43] Michelle DeNio: Search my name. You’ll find me. You’ll find me. Yep. Absolutely. And I’m pretty much open to connection. Any, in any of
[00:21:49] Kevin Stafford: those ways. Michelle, this has been a delight. Like I’m like I was talking about, like I’m feeling pretty energized at this point.
Like I almost feel like I need to go for a run or something like that. Maybe take a cold plunge before I record and yeah, thank you so much for being, for sharing a little bit of time with me. Sorry. I kept you a little bit later than I would have liked, but like I was worried slash hopeful of the conversation was just too good.
I may have to talk to you again. Next year and see how things are developing and to the audience out there, you know what to do next. There’ll be links to all the stuff we talked about, every place to find Michelle in the show notes and you can just Google her name. It’ll be spelled in the podcast title.
So don’t worry about that as well. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sharing your time with us today and we’ll talk to you again very soon. Bye. Thank you guys.
[00:22:33] Michelle DeNio: Appreciate you.
