Kevin Stafford 0:00
Hello and welcome to another episode of The now freshly renamed rebranded renamed conversations with coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin and I still love coffee. And today I have the pleasure of chatting with Steve Feld, who also loves coffee. Steve Feld is a certified business coach, author, podcast host, professional speaker, aforementioned coffee enthusiast, and award winning business management executive. Steve is passionate about business growth, efficient operations and long term success. He has owned and operated seven businesses and written seven books. I mean, Lucky number seven. Steve, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Steve Feld 0:39
Thanks for having me.
Kevin Stafford 0:41
Let’s, uh, let’s go. Let’s go back to before all these these these accolades and accomplishments, how did you get your start? As a coach? How did you kind of realize maybe that you had the attributes of a coach, or maybe were already a coach in practice, and then go from that realization into starting a coaching business?
Steve Feld 0:59
Yeah, I’ve actually worked for a division of Warner Brothers and I was traveling around the world working with musical acts. And I started doing process improvement for the Division I was in because I was wanting startups, one of the founders of the company, was the fifth employee, 10 years later, over 5000 employees. And when they brought me in, they said, Well, you and this other guy are going to create the division. So go, so it was kind of that and then years later, it was like, I did process improvement, change management, efficiency, start making more money, then all these venues that we’re going into, they’re like, Wow, you’re super efficient, can you help us? I started consulting, when I wasn’t traveling, and doing it all at the same time. And I’m like, you know, I one day, when I get off the road, maybe I should do this. So when I got off the road, I actually started doing business plans, marketing plans, and operational plans for tech startups. And they were all looking for venture capitalists money. And at the time, back then it was all the VC people were business people, not techies, techies, I had to teach coach the techies how to speak business, which are numbers. And everything was going good. But we all know what happened to the tech bubble in 2000. And it burst in so did my business. So that was my very first official business. Things are going good and things disappeared. All right, overnight.
Kevin Stafford 2:23
Yeah. So as people, I think we’ve been through a couple of, I don’t want to call them bubbles, but a few salad days, and then and then dry times, you know, post.com bubble, it feels like, I mean, it feels like as long ago as it is I mean, it’s two decades ago, but we’ve had the housing the housing bubble, quote, unquote. And we’re going through we’re going through nowadays with, it’s more than just crypto, obviously. But there’s another another. We were we all felt like everybody could make money with a bull, a bull market everywhere. And now it’s a little bit more more bearish, to put it mildly. So I love that you just basically like it was seems like a natural process of self discovery, powered by just being just being in the action, you know, where you were just like, do the thing. Realize that doing the thing there at this natural plan emerged? You were like, Oh, I see. I see how this works. I’m not just doing it. I understand how it works. And then of course, like everybody around us, like, Can I get a piece of that? Can you do it? Can you Can I see those blueprints because I’m looking to build something real similar.
Steve Feld 3:27
Exactly. And I found my passion. After all these companies. It’s like my passion is the owner operators. So I want my last company or two companies ago, I primarily work with C suite individuals and I started realizing something and they’re like, You know what, my passion isn’t there because there’s isn’t. They’re under a contract. They’re still an employee. They treat it like employment. Where as an owner, operator, listen, I’ve know what they’re going through. I know what it feels like to wake up at two in the morning in a cold sweat worrying about payroll tomorrow, and how you’re going to do it I get that a lot easier and I’ve been the C suite but C suite gets to go home at night and can leave the troubles and pass it on to someone else. Where’s the owner operator Guess what? It’s 24/7 Welcome
Kevin Stafford 4:17
it’s got all the all the perks and all of the other things that are not perks.
Steve Feld 4:23
Vacation guess what, you’re still in your business. Hopefully set up your business the right way to really enjoy that vacation.
Kevin Stafford 4:30
Yes, yes. And let’s uh, let’s natural transition. Let’s go ahead and talk a little bit about that. Obviously the who you coach, you have that passion for the owner operator. So like it we’ll talk a little bit more about the who like at what stage you tend to coach them at what stage they tend to seek someone like you out and also how you coach them whether you primarily work in one to one scenarios, group small group coaching or masterminds. Obviously, you’re a speaker, professional speaker so you talk about who you coach a little bit more and also how you coach them.
Steve Feld 4:57
Yeah, biggest thing is like I for you As I just did one on one, and I was happy as a clam doing that, then I started realizing I have, you know, being the coach and I love business, I realized I can’t scale because I had the same problem when I had a consulting company and can’t scale that way. So I sought out the right help. And I started bringing on coaches underneath me. So that kind of ease dot that up and then I started bringing in group coaching programs because I have all this material and all this knowledge. So now I even have it automated and live. So it’s a little bit of a mixture of both, I want to give it a little bit more than just your everyday group coaching. So group coaching is probably the biggest thing right now. And I also have I’ve been a facilitator of mastermind groups for years. And when I look at, it’s like, okay, great, let’s get at least six people in and up to 12. And let’s go and I the magic is unbelievable in a mastermind, because it’s so hyper focused, there’s no turnover in the group, people are in it to win it in the sharing and caring is just off the charts. And I learned something new all the time.
Kevin Stafford 6:05
Isn’t that always the case, like when you really are focused on like, organizing and facilitating sort of giving generous circumstance, you tend to benefit so great that you’re almost feel embarrassed by how much you learn and how much you get from the process of just putting the right people together and helping them to, you know, basically helping them to help each other and help themselves. It’s really, it’s quite lovely.
Steve Feld 6:25
Because it’s amazing what people really know, and what their experiences are without them telling it to get in networking or something. It goes deep. And all of a sudden, someone will say ask that one question about to someone else, and all sudden you see everyone’s light bulbs going on in the room. Oh my gosh. That’s brilliant,
Kevin Stafford 6:45
you know, I love that. And also, I really I appreciate the size that you cited the six to 12, there is really that sweet spot where it’s like you get a little bit too big. And you know, there’s a tendency to kind of break off into like splinter groups and like the power gets a little bit more diffused at that sort of in between size. But that six to 12 is really, and if you have committed people like just by being in the group, they’re like, we’re here, like, I like that phrase in it to win it. Because yeah, it’s one of those things where if you have if you have one or two people who are not taking the process seriously, they can kind of throw off the balance of the mastermind. But if you get that that commitment upfront and be like, Look, this is what this is about. If this isn’t for you, that’s fine. You know, other ways I can help. Yeah,
Steve Feld 7:31
that’s fine. Yeah, we vet them and get them in a contract, we make it official, it’s like, Listen, this is I’ve seen the magic, I can produce the magic, it’s like, but you got to be here, be present and be willing to give and receive.
Kevin Stafford 7:47
Important the nice distinction right there to give and to receive as well as it’s sometimes a little bit, you’ll focus on one to the exclusion of the other where you’ll be. And I find this to be true of some coaches as well, very service oriented, like just looking for ways to help. But there’s a big part of being helpful and being of service is also just being ready to receive what’s gonna come your way.
Steve Feld 8:07
You don’t know. And then there’s times like someone’s in a hot seat and getting some feedback, constructive, positive feedback. And they’re like denying it or say I’ve done it before. And it’s like you, you’re missing the point. Because your your wall is up so hard. And what they’re saying is a different angle of what you’ve ever done it but you’re rejecting it, so you can’t receive it.
Kevin Stafford 8:33
It’s funny how reflexive that rejection can be how self protective we think we’re being or may I say thing, we don’t even necessarily think about it consciously. We’ve done that thinking years ago, we just haven’t updated it for a while.
Steve Feld 8:48
I know I’ve always done it like this. I went in three companies. And first thing I heard was, well, we’ve always done it this way. So I said the whole staffs 700 People said we have a jar in the office. Every time you say we’ve always done it this way you have to go there and put $1 in that jar and I’ll throw one hell of a party at the end of the year. Within six weeks not one person ever said that again. And we through one hell of a party for that was 1000s and 1000s of dollars
Kevin Stafford 9:21
that say I’m sure that’s a hard habit to break because that is really there’s that it’s it’s funny because it’s like almost a negative consequence of positive momentum. You get things going you start things things are working for where you were, and they get you up to where you are right now. And it’s like okay, so why are we still doing things the way we’re doing them? Oh, because we always have there are there might be other reasons that are valid, but that’s not one of them. dollar in the jar.
Steve Feld 9:49
Am I old thing was like, Well, if you’ve always done it that way and it works today, I wouldn’t be here. They brought me in because it doesn’t work. Ha,
Kevin Stafford 10:01
that’s a nice a very succinct turn of phrase that I’ve, I’ve loved for quite some time, what got you here won’t get you there. That’s it. Just a real, it’s a real quick like something that the brain can really quickly understand. Like, that’s great. I’m glad. I’m glad that I’m glad that what worked in the past has gotten you to this point right now we could be talking together and figuring out what the next thing looks like and what you need to do next and how you need to start thinking. And that’s just that’s that’s like you said, that’s where the magic is? Yeah.
Steve Feld 10:31
If we’ve always done it that way, how many how many businesses would still be using ledger paper for their accounting? A great example. I did run into a company that was doing 20 million a year, still doing it ledger paper, not one computer in the place. 20 million a year. How profitable but 20?
Kevin Stafford 10:59
Oh, for some reason, in my head, there’s the sound of like a dot matrix printer grinding in the background. And also one of those, one of those
Steve Feld 11:09
that was for the sales team.
Kevin Stafford 11:12
They really splurged for the sales team I see.
Steve Feld 11:17
Compact, the kind that when computers first came out, that’s what they had.
Kevin Stafford 11:23
Oh, okay, I will I will step away from the waves of nostalgia. Were kind of a two part question. Where can people find out more about you, your coaching business, how they can like how they can basically learn more about you maybe like, get into some of the one on one some of the group learn more about the coaches that work with you and for you. And also simultaneous to that, where can people connect and engage with you? I know there’s a lot of times there’s the check out the website and learn more through you know, all this different information we have. And also there’s that desire, especially on LinkedIn, I find just like, connect with people and start conversations that are maybe a little a little more informal, and then move quickly into into formality. So yeah, where can people find out more about you and also connect and engage with you?
Steve Feld 12:06
Well, obviously the website I’m on all social media platforms under biz coach, Steve, though, LinkedIn, I’m a big fan of LinkedIn. That’s where I hang out the most. I even have a private Facebook group and a public group and Facebook as well, and have my own podcasts and even my own branded coffee. So but yeah, I always offer to people it’s like, hey, let’s just jump on a quick 15 minute non sales call, learn a little bit more about each other, see if I can even help or provide you resources or give you the direction you need to help your business. Because I’m my whole goal is I’m tired of seeing small business failure rate stay the way it has been since 1932. It has not changed a bit. And my goal was to help these small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, like come on. Let’s get this going. Stop making it so difficult. I’ve been there. I know it, stop it. Once I got help, my life changed. I’m even talking to my coach today. I’m so excited. Yeah, how can I tell someone to have a coach if I don’t have a coach.
Kevin Stafford 13:18
And that’s an important thing. I feel like it’s it’s sort of implied I love every, every single coach, I talk to just everybody who’s listening out there. Every single coach I talked to has a coach. They do, they might have I mean, and they’re happy to talk about it. It’s not like private, it just doesn’t always come up. Because when you’re in the coaching you use, like, of course I’m getting coached. But like just realize that like you don’t necessarily grow out of coaching. It’s actually something that you grow into, and grow with. I think if that sounds a little bit too poetic and cute, then Excuse me, but I
Steve Feld 13:48
find it to be right. And you know, coaches will get you to the certain level, they’ll work on certain things with you. And then guess what, you will go to another coach, that takes you to a different place. I mean, I have two coaches going on. They’re working in two different parts of my life, my business, and guess what? They don’t cross over.
Kevin Stafford 14:08
There is many ways to be coached as there are coaches, and there are as many coaches as there are people like that. That’s where we’re moving. That’s where we’re moving. And I love. I love being a part of it. And I love what you’re doing. So, Steve, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about what you do. And I feel like we could Well, I know that we could easily chat for hours and hours and hours. But thank you for for slicing off a short period of time with me today. This has been great. Great. Well thank you for having me. And to the audience. We will talk to you again soon find Steve reach out, learn more about him. Ask him about his coffee, ask him about his favorite hockey team, and you will definitely have yourself a fine conversation.
