Maureen McKinnon

Micheal Pacheco 0:06
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. Today with me I have Maureen MacKinnon. Maureenhas been inspiring coaching, teaching and mentoring current and future leaders for over 20 years. Maureen’s mission is to help more talented women gain leadership roles to balance gender equity, and corporate leadership. She helps talented women get promoted and make more money. Maureen, welcome to the remarkable coach.

Maureen McKinnon 0:35
Thank you so much, I’m so excited to be here. And share.

Micheal Pacheco 0:39
So glad to have you here as as someone with a with a wife, who is who works a full time job. We welcome coaches like you.

Maureen McKinnon 0:53
I get that a lot.

Micheal Pacheco 0:54
doing good work. I like to typically just open the podcast by inviting our guests to tell us a little bit more about yourself, in your own words, and kind of what got you into coaching?

Maureen McKinnon 1:04
Well, mine is actually quite a long journey. So I’m a serial entrepreneur. So I started my first business when I was 26 years old. And at that point in my career, I pursued education as a way to have social proof that I was a knowledgeable professional. So I have four designations. And then professional designations. And then I topped it off with a Master’s of Science in Management, and a Masters of Science in financial services. So there was really no doubt that I knew what I was talking about, and could actually help my clients move forward. And then in 2000, I decided to pursue volunteering. So I joined the Vancouver Board of Trade. And they asked me which one of the committees they had would, I’d like to volunteer on. And I chose the leaders of tomorrow mentorship program. And it was a new program just being launched. And it was a program where they matched up business professionals with university students who are graduating in their final year, and about to embark into the work world. So I was the business manager with that program, set on the executive committee was chair for a couple of years and mentored mentees for seven years through that program. And then the next year, there was another program from a different organization called the new ventures business plan. contest. And I decided to join a volunteer as a business mentor through the Simon Fraser University that was offering the program. So I mentored both the leaders of tomorrow and the new ventures at the same time. And I stayed with leaders of tomorrow for seven years, and the business ventures for 10 years, but actually mentored formally and informally hundreds of professionals to help them achieve their professional goals. And then finally, it dawned on me, when 2009 I decided to become a certified coach.

Micheal Pacheco 3:08
Maybe this is something I’m kind of good at.

Maureen McKinnon 3:11
People kept telling me that I provided believe them. And then I started became both a business coach certified business coach, and a certified executive coach. So because of the new ventures where I had been mentoring startups and their teams, I started to coach startups and small and medium sized businesses for growth. And I did that starting in 2009. Until the day that changed my work, life and life actually. So on October 24 19. In 2014, I attended the first what we called we for Xi forum was a it was an organized it was a group organized with 25 women or organizations in the Lower Mainland, the provincial government, the federal government, and it was all about a report that they had, they wanted to put public about where Canadian women were in the business world. And so they had catalyst was an organization out of Ottawa that had done the research. And they had also worked with Kinsley McKenzie and all of the other big firms to come up with where are women in the leadership roles in business as of 2014. And so when they, when they told us what the results were, which was the fact that when we start out in our work careers, were about 5050 With men working. When we get up to the management roles, we’re at about 30 35% men and women, when we get up into senior officers are 18% women. And when we get up to CEOs back then 2014 was 5% I was absolutely horrified. I thought we had come up much further in the leadership roles. So it really bothered me, I really, really bothered me. So I spent, I decided that weekend that I would pivot my business and I was going to help women get into more leadership roles. So the way I looked at the problem was that, obviously, we didn’t have enough women in leadership. So what could I do? How can I help? And I thought, well, if I can help more women get into leadership roles, that helps balance the gender equity. So I spent about six months doing research on challenges and issues and all the rest of that. And then I came up with what I call my promotion strategy. So I actually have a system process that I can help women go through to get promotions. So part of what I’m trying to do, it seems it’s an unwritten rules, like how do we get bats? And so I’m trying to take the heat, make it not a mystery, but then actual process that people can do. So would you like to hear it?

Micheal Pacheco 6:06
Yeah, that’s my next question is, tell us more about this, this very specific process.

Maureen McKinnon 6:12
Okay, so the, its stages, of course. So the first one is, you actually have to be competent at your job, I can’t help you get a promotion, if you’re not good at what you do. Sorry. So you actually have to be competent when you come and talk to me, the next thing is, you have to be confident, you have to know that you can do the job that you’re doing, and the job the next job that you want to do. So you have to have that confidence. And I’m, I’m really surprised that the hundreds of women that I still talk to today, in 2022, how many of the women really don’t get how talented they are, it doesn’t seem to matter how long they’ve been in their career, or even what level they’re at, they really don’t get how incredibly talented, valuable they are to their organizations. Some of it, of course, is because of the imposter syndrome and, you know, second guessing yourself and all of that. But it’s they don’t see the actual value. So I take them through a process where we uncover their unique strengths, we, we, it’s interesting, we have to show them first, so they have to discover it, then they have to know that they’re good. And they have to accept that they know they’re good, then they actually have to believe it. And when they actually, they actually believe when I know, I call it the talent mindset, when you have the deep in your bones, understanding about how good you are, and that you can articulate what you do, how you do it. The results that you bring, then it’s it’s a game changer for Well, it’s actually worse for anybody, but I happen to work with women.

Micheal Pacheco 7:54
And can I can I? Can we pause right here for a second Marina, I’d like to I’d like to talk more about that. I don’t want to completely derail the train. But if we can maybe hop off on a tangent real real for a brief moment. What does? What does that process look like of you helping to, let’s say, rebuild this, this self esteem, this confidence in women who want to level up? Okay,

Maureen McKinnon 8:26
so first of all, we do an exercise, where we look at what is your skill set? Like what do you actually do for your job? So and then we look at it in what do you what do you know, you’re good at what other people tell you, you’re good at? What do you love? And what do you dislike? Because I tell them if we’re going to be getting a new role. Let’s not go for a role that has jobs you don’t like to do? Right? Well, that’s only good. So we have to know what things are you don’t like to do. And so the one that they have the most trouble with is what do other people tell you you’re good at. Because so many women tend to dismiss compliments. They don’t hear them, or they hear them and they briefly cross their brains and go out the other side. A teeny bit of criticism comes in your in their ear, and it rattles around their brain forever. It’s really hard to get rid of. So we have to change that up and accept the compliments and get rid of negativity, right criticism. So once we decide once we look at the work, the skill sets that they’d like, I have them take three of those skill sets because I am training them how to do this in the future. And what I want them to do is take the most relevant work skills, the skill sets that dragged drive the results and what their current role is like what’s most relevant to your boss and his bosses that you do well. And then what we do is once we identify what those skill sets are, I want them to show me An example of how they have how they have used that skill set to, to deliver, deliver a situation. So we start with, what was the situation or problem? What did you do like this? What did you actually do? What were the results? And usually I find it’s usually when I get them, I actually have to make them do it three or four times, because I want to turn it from a description that is A, B, C, and D to a story. Because when you’re articulate to people stories, they actually aren’t we’re evolutionary trained to listen to stories. So they’ll stop and listen, they’ll it’ll retain better because it’s story. So in the last draft, I have them explain the situation. And when they’re telling us what they did, I asked them put in first names. So I worked with John and I worked with Mary and I worked with whoever Kevin. And this was the result that we provided to Jack or boss, right, because it humanizes it. And it’s more memorable. So I have them have these stories ready. So before they ever go for a promotion, or a new job, they already have the stories they’re going to see in their interviews. So how confident would you be if you already have all of that ready to go? Right? And I find part of getting the skill sets and the stories is I asked them to look for social proof. So tell me, did you get an email from a client that said you did something good? What what do your performance reviews look like? Do they have good words about things that you do? Some of my clients have articles that were published? And they I have to prompt them to tell me about that, right? Because now that’s third party information. So as they are building the stories and getting the third party information, they actually get how talented they are. Right? Because it’s right in your face. Okay. All these people say you’re great. All these results say you’re great. So when how many? Sometimes I ask them. So how many people do you need to hear how good you are at your job? 25 Yeah,

Micheal Pacheco 12:11
I love it. So I couldn’t Yeah, I love this so much. This is this seems like it’s, it’s resonating with me quite a bit right now. So my wife is a director at a physical therapy clinic. And she has certifications galore. And she’s very well respected in North America in the physical therapy scene. Scene, I guess.

Maureen McKinnon 12:38
Industry

Micheal Pacheco 12:39
everybody loves her. And, and she’s, you know, just she’s doing amazing things in in that industry. And she is working with her coach as recently as yesterday on receiving, which is exactly what you’re talking about. Receiving that those compliments receiving that confidence, the positive energy, the understanding, receiving that other people like you and respect you and the work that you do. It’s, it’s I think it’s a serendipitous that we’re talking today because yeah, she was just her and I had a talk. Last night she was working with her coach on on receiving,

Maureen McKinnon 13:22
okay, one of the things I get my clients to do is start what I call a success journal. And so it’s tracking all of the achievements and your projects, and all of these awards and all the rest of that sort of stuff, because it helps them with that receiving. And I also talked to them about expectations, because quite often is women, we’re not good at asking for help, and expecting things from people. And we don’t realize that actually, we asked for expects expectations. We expect things to happen our way. And we’re actually asking for the help, but we don’t realize it. Because if you’re asking, Can you please load the dishwasher? Or can you do this? Or can you do that? And those things happen for us all the time you’re actually receiving, you’re just not aware of it. And when you realize that your receiving percentage is 80% or 90%. The fact that you’re asking no longer becomes a problem, because you’re now living in the expectation to proceed. It’s very cool.

Micheal Pacheco 14:27
That’s great. That’s great. It’s important work. Yeah, I keep I have you can’t see it because my my webcam is attached to my monitor, but I’ve got sticky notes, covering my monitor where I track my wins throughout the day. If I do if I have in the middle of the day, I’ll just grab my little notepad here and write it down, jot it down and attach it to my mind at the end of the day. I’ll pull them down and just read through them. And it’s a it’s a pretty it’s a pretty, pretty great way to end the day, the workday At least

Maureen McKinnon 15:00
Yeah, absolutely, yes. And too many people I know, wait until they have to update their resume, and then they’re scrambling to look at what the right. Whereas I try and teach mine to do it weekly or bi weekly. Because if it’s a habit, then you’ll do it. Right. And, and it’s amazing. The other thing about it is if you believe in intention or anything like that, when you put out to the universe, how serious you are about your career, and what, what you want to do, and help people and make a better impact in the world. It’s amazing the things that turn up for people and some of my clients. So yeah, so quite often, when I’m working with them, I will get a client who calls me and says, you know, I just read this job posting that could have been written for me, right? So so and so those kinds of things actually happen. And sure enough, they were written for them, we write their resume their cover letter, we apply, and they get the interview, they get the job. It’s amazing.

Micheal Pacheco 16:00
But love it. So tell us more about your ideal client, obviously, women, is there other. Are there other?

Maureen McKinnon 16:10
Yep. So I work with the sort of women in different stages. So I work with the women who want to get into their first management role. And then I work with the women who are in senior management, but wanted to get into higher roles also. So then I worked with women who’ve been in the corporate world for a long time and now want to change into something else. They don’t want to be in the corporate world. So we’re looking at nonprofits and other things. So it’s sort of the, the, the depending on where they are in their career, what they want to do changes. So then I also work with businesses, where they asked me to coach their women managers. So we got so we can do both kind of idea. So it’s mostly the women who want to be in management, like they want that leadership responsibility, they want to be able to say, with a straight face, I am a leader. And this is my leadership philosophy. This is the style I am as the leader, and these are the results that I can bring to your business, and explain the business results in business, the business language that the decision makers will understand. So your either return on investment, or reduction of cost, efficiency, making the computer system optimized, you know, all of those kinds of lessons using that language. Because most often when people tell the story or explain what they’ve done, they don’t have that last little bit about how to turn it into the language that the decision makers will resonate with, which makes you which makes them think you’re a better professional. Like, because it’s mine. It’s your like minded because you talk their talk, and you deliver their results.

Micheal Pacheco 18:01
That’s like sales, sales. 101. It’s the idea of of mirroring the person that you’re trying to sell to if you’re trying to get a promotion, you’re you’re in sales?

Maureen McKinnon 18:11
Absolutely, absolutely.

Micheal Pacheco 18:14
Where do you where do you get your clients right now? How are you? How are you marketing your services?

Maureen McKinnon 18:19
Can I just go back? I’ve got two more steps on the strength motion strategy. Of course. Yeah. So the first one is all about yourself. It’s self confidence. So I explained Self confidence is that you know, you can do the job. The next stage is credibility. And credibility is building your support network of people who you know, who know you can do the job, and the results deliver. The third piece is what most women don’t know about. And it’s called visibility. So it’s the fact that your boss’s boss and his boss need to know who you are. Right? It’s so it’s not so it’s first of all, you know, you can do the job. The next part is other people know, people you know, know you can do their job is when people you don’t know know you can do the job. That’s when you get promotions that come your way.

Micheal Pacheco 19:10
Right? Yeah.

Maureen McKinnon 19:12
And so we have so I work with them to do the discovery on themselves, build their support network, and then have visibility strategies depending on what organizations they worked in. And it can also be visibility strategies for not only your company, but the industry you’re in like for your wife that would be the industry and or the community that you work in depending on what kind of volunteer you might work you might do.

Micheal Pacheco 19:37
I love it. I love it. Yeah, that that tracks. Okay, oh,

Maureen McKinnon 19:44
most of my clients actually come by referral. Because of these stages are my clients come back? To me also, like we work on a first stage. They go away for six months or a year and then they come back for the second stage. You know, that kind of thing. I also Volland tear and have volunteered for the last 20 years since the leaders of tomorrow with about a dozen women organizations in the Lower Mainland. So I’ve either been an attendee board member, a speaker, a coach, a mentor for all these different women organizations, and I still go out and speak with them. So I get a lot of clients from my speaking through for the organizations. So, and I just hired in November of last year, my, my client who actually now has their own business, and she’s a social media strategist. So I finally finally got into marketing. For you, yes, well, I feel like I’m still a really well kept secret. And I can’t coach everybody. But by writing a blog and doing podcasts and other things I can pass along my knowledge. And I know it works, because my clients, my track record is about 90% of my clients get promotions. And not all of my all of my clients are looking for promotion, sometimes it’s figuring out what’s the next step in my career? And how do I figure that out? And then they usually average between 10 and 35% increase in compensation. And I have more than a couple who more than doubled their salaries working with me. It’s

Micheal Pacheco 21:23
pretty you good for them? Good for everybody?

Maureen McKinnon 21:26
Yes. That’s great. So

Micheal Pacheco 21:28
you mentioned that that clients will work for you, you know, for example, with the stages, so they’ll work with you work for stage one, and then maybe they’ll take a little break, and then come back for stage two, the following year, what is a typical engagement with you look like them?

Maureen McKinnon 21:44
Um, I would say one of my best clients I’ve worked with is probably four years. So we started out and she was a team lead. And she just, she just left the company because of burnout. And so she was really struggling with her value, like, what was she worth in the business world and who would want her now and you know, all of that sort of thing. So we started with the first part about your confidence level and stuff like that, right? And making her realize it had been a startup that grew really, really big. And what happened was that she ended up because she’s part of the original core team, that all of a sudden, her role went from one one job to 15 jobs like she was taking, as she was doing all including, they wanted her to do some of the computer work. And she had no no training as a coder or anything like that. They wanted her to help with the customer service delivery program, kind of idea. And it was just like, and she just said yes, like she just did it. And no wonder she burnt out. But anyway, because we tend in a startup, you’d never have just one hat. Sure, sure. And as the company grows, they put more on their senior team, right, because they don’t have the money yet for the extra bodies. And when we looked at what she’d actually delivered at that company, so it was an outdoors. The equipment like criminal clothing and stuff like that, right. And so one of the things that she brought to the table was, she started the French customer service department because she came from Quebec. And so they hadn’t, they hadn’t seen this in the Lower Mainland, really, that one of the companies had a French speaking customer service team, right? It turned out and when we looked at her results, because now it was a global company, her team in Vancouver had the best results for the whole company globally. Five years in a row, her French team had the highest retention and repeat business level in the company, right. And she had no training on customer service learning this kind of stuff that she was, you know, the team lead per customer service. So when we looked at what she’d actually delivered, we were able to help her understand how much she understood about business and how the customer experience was. So we built her a whole new resume cover letter direction on customer service, and she wanted to be a manager of customer service. So what we did was we she looked at all the different jobs and then we found one that she wanted to buy for oil, so we tailored it all and sure enough, she got hired. And then after she was the manager, she switched companies to a bigger company is once again is the manager of customer service. And then she made it a third job choice and a move and she became a director of customer customer service for a global company. The global company got sold and the the A team that was leaving the only company, the only department that the new company acquired was my my clients team. And everybody else in the whole company was let go. Except for her and her team, and all. And all of the managers, other managers recommended the new company, keep her team. So she got bumped, she got promoted from manager and director, director of customer service to Director of Vancouver operations all inside of three years. That’s great. And then she came back to me and she said, Okay, I’m the director of Vancouver operations, I want you to be my executive coach and coach with me weekly, on my job, and how I can get debt better. Because quite often in those roles, you you’re not sure who you spoke, who you can talk to about your challenges and issues. Because your your appear with the other directors. And you certainly can’t talk to your staff about you know, you’re not exactly sure how to do this or whatever. So what and then we had we we had to work on managing up like how do you manage your boss upward? And that sort of thing and stuff like that. So because I have five, six businesses under my own belt, and couple of asters, and been in business for a while, I quite often see the same problems in businesses over the years. But the the, actually, the management teams don’t see them as the same problem. But I can help give some direction, and that sort of thing. So what’s that? So she hired me to different capacity to help her do her job.

So yeah, definitely, I think that’s one of the great benefits of for anyone really, but especially an executive or a business owner to hire a coach and bring in that, bring in that third party, extra set of eyes and ears that isn’t entrenched every single day. And just gives you a little bit of perspective so that you can help to differentiate between, you know, the forest in the trees, so to speak.

Yes. And a sounding board, it’s always nice to have somebody to brainstorm with. You guess what you’re talking about? Yeah.

Micheal Pacheco 27:12
Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about your coaching style? Are you very, you know, Are you supportive, or more kind of hard nosed or?

Maureen McKinnon 27:22
No, it’s not my nature to be hard nosed?

Micheal Pacheco 27:25
I didn’t suspect it was.

Maureen McKinnon 27:28
No, I can be hard nosed without being hard nosed if I have to be. But I would have to say, No, I’m supportive. And I’m very much a cheerleader. All of my clients know that I’m in their life for for whatever, right? It doesn’t matter. We’re working together or not, we’re still I’m always interested in what you’re doing. Because they do such wonderful things they they go on, and I tell my clients to share what I’m sharing with them to whoever else is in their life because we need it. I’m also a directive coach, though, so I feel like women, the clients that I’m working with, don’t know what I don’t know. So how can I expect them to know it? So I have to share what I know, to with them. But I also have like the exercises I was talking about to help them. So I have actually tools and resources and processes and all of those sorts of things that I know work to help them. And I have a what I call a promotion readiness assessment. So we’re trying to determine whether what areas in the self confidence or the personal network are the visibility strategies you need, so that most of my client work is a minimum of six months, and we customize your your coaching to fill in those those gaps that you’re not as strong in in those areas. So it’s a little bit scientific tool to help make sure that it’s logical and it works

Micheal Pacheco 28:58
is nice. What sort of things did you What sort of things did you struggle with as a coach when you were first kind of getting started? After you had done all your mentoring? And you You finally got your your I’m not sure what you said, you say you have an ICF certification.

Maureen McKinnon 29:12
I don’t have the ICF. I have the training from ICF certified one. I didn’t go with wanting to be the ICF certification because of being a directive coach, which is a little bit not quite in their philosophy. Totally. So that’s, that’s the route I chose to go. And I think it was well obviously marketing is something I didn’t embrace until like many years later. So most of it was because for the first two or three years, I had all the referrals I could handle. And I started I started speaking and stuff like that because when I was with the leaders of tomorrow when the new ventures business plan, I also became a director at the Vancouver Board of Trade, which is Like are it’s Yeah, so it’s it’s vary by position was fairly visible. So I had a fairly large connection kind of thing with more just letting people know what I’m doing in that I’m coaching there on kinda. Yeah, so I’m currently the Vancouver co chair for the women in leadership Foundation. And I sit on the National Advisory Committee for the Women’s Economic Council of Canada. So I’m still falling doing volunteer work.

Micheal Pacheco 30:29
Nice. That’s important. That’s important stuff. You so you mentioned a couple times now that you didn’t do marketing for until just recently, right with your, your social media master that you have now. Right? With that, so was that something that you struggled with, or you just didn’t feel that it was necessary, because you were getting all those referrals coming in?

Maureen McKinnon 30:56
I it was, well, I guess personally, I didn’t want to be as visible in the business world anymore. So it was more like the people who will find me will find me kind of thing. And now. And now then I sort of woke up as well, with all the other volunteering that I’m doing. And all these women saying, your message needs to get out there marketing and all of that. So I’ve decided I need to stop being a well kept secret. And the best way to do that is like podcasts. Thank you very much. And all the all of the marketing sort of thing. So I discovered from doing the podcast with Kevin, this is a natural venue for me. That’s I love it. It’s easy talking about what I do. Because I love what I do I live it I breathe it. I do it every day, right?

Micheal Pacheco 31:44
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think podcasts are. Podcasts are great. Because, I mean, let’s be realistic here. And 2022. Everybody is listening to a podcast. It’s just, it’s something that a lot of people do. So getting out there, and especially if you’re comfortable talking, you know, into the microphone or on camera or whatever. I think it’s Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You certainly, you certainly present well, and your sound well spoken. So I did a great job. Thank you. On that note, why don’t you? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some big wins that you’ve had with your coaching career?

Maureen McKinnon 32:28
Okay, well, then they the woman that I was telling you about? who worked with me for the four years? She Yeah, so she got the four promotion to Director of Vancouver operations. And she more than doubled her salary.

Micheal Pacheco 32:44
Okay, nice.

Maureen McKinnon 32:45
She went, she went from, from 60,000 to 120,000 plus. And then I’ve had another client who I was working with, and she was the Director of Marketing at a construction company. And that she what she was looking to do was go get into nonprofit and in an association, so what we did, she actually went from that role to the CEO of a 90 year old association with over 750 members. So, yes, she’s married. And she bumped up her salary about $50,000 in that move. And fees, of course, gone up since then. She stuff those are good. I had another one where I had a client that came to me and said, Maureen, I just saw this Jerry dream job posting. And she said, but the COPE the job postings closed. So I said, Okay, so I said, Tell me about the company and tell me about the role. And so she did. And then I said, Do you know anybody in that company? And she said, Well, I met this lady maybe two years ago and in a networking event, and she was a manager or some different department. And I said, Okay, so what we did was we tailored her resume to the role that they were looking for. I had her reach out to the lady and then asked to tell the lady that she’d seen it, the jump but realized it was closed. And so you know, but she’d seen it. She was very interested in it. So the lady said, we’ll send me your resume. So this was a Friday afternoon, Friday morning, that she sent the resume to this lady. She got a call on Friday afternoon from the HR department need setting up an interview for her the following week. And then she got an offer then she got to offered the job. And so she got the job at that she’d never applied for the role.

Micheal Pacheco 34:41
Good for her. Wow. Yeah, that’s great. I mean, that’s just shows that shows the importance to have of just following through and just trying right like Yeah, put yourself out there just yeah, if you if you know someone at the company reached out and even if the Got the fact that the job was close, she never applied for it, and still got the job, but she got the job that she never applied for.

Maureen McKinnon 35:09
More than one find out.

Micheal Pacheco 35:10
That’s pretty cool. Cool. So those are wins, let’s flip the coin, tell us about some times where you have run into some brick walls or failed or just otherwise, you know, had had a really important learning point where you’ve learned a lot from a situation.

Maureen McKinnon 35:34
I would say in my volunteer work, I’ve run into situations where we’re putting on an event or something like that. And then all of a sudden, all of the volunteers disappeared on you, like people were supposed to do this, that and the other thing. And that’s when you realize you need to have contingency planning in place. And you need to have a little bit more control or not control, but check ins on making sure everything is getting done. Because you’re assuming it’s all getting done, because you’re not hearing anything else. And then all of a sudden, you realize, oh, my goodness, this hasn’t happened and who do you and then then you call on your personal support network and ask for help. Fortunately, the people come forward and help. I think I have a large enough network, that when I have a problem, I know who I could go to, to get help, or who can direct me to who I need to know or who I need to get help from. Because I’ve also, I’ve always believed in giving first. So when I started with my networking, I would talk to people and say, What can I do for you? Like, how can I help you in your networking? And in my mind, it was because in those days, it was actually face to face? You know, cocktail parties and that sort of stuff. And to me it was who can I introduce you to the room in the room that you need to know. And that’s what I meant mostly when I was talking. And I come from a large family. So I’ve been around people. So it’s connecting people was no big problem for me. And having a good memories of family and faces and names helped, then helps. Yeah, yeah. And one of my visibility strategies for someone in an industry is to join your industry association, like I did the Board of Trade. I did it, I did it unknowingly. This is now a proven strategy that works is you actually go to the association. And you join it. And then you look at the committee’s and you decide which committee is doing something you’re passionate about. Then you’ll also look at who is on the committee like who are the people on the committee, because you’re going to have some influencers in your industry. Inside that association, you’ll always do. So you want to sit on a committee where one of the influencers is there. Because when you volunteer to do work for that committee, that person is going to know who you are. And if you do the work well, that influencer is now going to know that Maureen delivers, right? So if Maureen calls the influencer, he or she will pick up the phone. If your boss calls calls the influence, they have no clue who they are. They might not even know who your boss’s boss is. But they will know who your boss’s boss’s boss’s that’s very cool. And then you just then went around the office, you start dropping about, you know, you’re at the Industry Association. You’re so excited because you’re on this committee, and this is what we’re doing and works really

Micheal Pacheco 38:35
well. How did that that’s a great strategy. First of all, I love that how did that work in the past several years through through COVID times is that was that still a viable, viable strategy? Were you able to do that on Zoom calls? And that kind of thing?

Maureen McKinnon 38:52
Absolutely. Because the other thing about it is that people forget that in a in an industry association, you’re trying to help the rest of the professionals in the industry, right. Also, the role of the membership person is to sign up as many people as possible, but the membership person actually knows pretty much everybody in the organization. Right? Right. So when you go to an event, whether and if it was virtual, you could do it ahead of time. Because you know who the membership person is, you can actually go to the membership person and say, so who’s in the room or who’s in the meeting, and this is the person I’d like to meet. And they will make those introductions happen because that’s part of what their job is. So they’re really good people to know. Take the coffee, and take the lunch.

Micheal Pacheco 39:40
You guys, are you listening to this? This is like tactical gold.

Maureen McKinnon 39:46
really well because people appreciate the fact that you respect their jobs and what they’re trying to do, and all that sort of thing.

Micheal Pacheco 39:53
Oh, I love it. That’s that’s really really fantastic. Yeah, that’s tactical gold. If you If you’re listening in your car, something like I don’t know, write down the the time stamp or something on the podcast and go back and listen to this again when you get home. Marina, I’m gonna, I’m gonna change it up here a little bit. Tell us about your involvement with the BC Lions and the Canadian Football League.

Maureen McKinnon 40:21
I was just going to ask to do that because it’s one of my favorite topics. Okay, so when I was involved with the leaders of tomorrow program, and I was the chair, I got asked to become a director at the Vancouver Board of Trade. So I was 2004. And every year, the Vancouver Board of Trade had a, what we call a kickoff luncheon in the summertime for the BC Lions football team for the launch of the season. So, for that 2004 I was invited to the kickoff luncheon. And it was a catered lunch on the 50 yard line at BC Place. And I’m sitting at the head table. So Bob Bobby Ackles was there who was a legend in the football field in both the NFL and the CFL. And then there was Wally Blondo, our most winningest coach in BC Lions history. And there was George chakra who was the VP of operations. And then there was these business titans in Vancouver. Maury, Keith will Weidman Tom Malone, Dennis Mikulski and me. So there’s all these guys sitting talking about how they had started the BC Lions waterboy. Club the year before, because Bobby Ackles, had come from Florida, I think back to the BC Lions to be the general manager president. And so I said, Oh, is it only for men? And they said, No, we have one woman and I said, Well, I’d like to join. So I became a BC Lions water boys in 2004. And I’m still actively involved with the beast mines, water boys, and a fan. I was at Saturday’s game, actually. So one of the things we did was we reached out as the BC Lions, water boys to the business community to come and support the team again, because what Bobby apples felt is that BC Lions had disconnected from the community. And they were no longer giving back. And that sort of thing. So they started all these programs that go now and the like the football players go out to schools and talk about sports and all that sort of stuff. And so in 2005, we actually got a CFL award from the commissioner for the work that we were doing at the BC Lions. So I have my picture with the commissioner, Bobby Ackles. And all of that sort of stuff. And then in 2011 We got the Grey Cup from Vancouver got the Grey Cup game, so the Grey Cup game is the equivalent to your what’s the big one at the end of the season? Marina,

Micheal Pacheco 42:55
I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you. I follow hockey. So we’re coaching ISIS here, the Canadian all the Americans I’ve gotten no, I’ve got no fewer than four. Vancouver Canucks sweaters in my closet upstairs.

Maureen McKinnon 43:12
That’s good to know. Oh, I can’t believe I can’t remember the but it Okay, so the big game. Ours is the Grey Cup. But we don’t have just the game on the Saturday or Sunday afternoon. We have a festival. So we have four days. Okay, so Bobby Nichols son, Scott was the general manager for the Grey Cup that year 2011. It was held in Vancouver. So I asked Bob, I asked Scott, I wanted to volunteer for the breakout festival. So he introduced me to the manager. And so there was 2724 managers of the volunteers of the of the festival of all the different things that they have to do. So I was the the manager for the volunteer orientation and training. So we had to put together the the manual, which it was very strange. It was the 99th year of the Grey Cup. And we had to reinvent the wheel for the volunteers. And I discovered it was because the cities were so competitive, they never shared the information about how to do it. So the previous city never shared their volunteer manual with us, right. So we create our own. Amazing. So there was 750 volunteers, and I delivered the training for them on what their role was and all that sort of stuff, right? So I got to be in the parade, much of the game and a VIP pass all of that sort of stuff for four days.

Micheal Pacheco 44:31
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So the cities, the cities are so competitive because they want to have the cup in their city, and they don’t want to share it.

Maureen McKinnon 44:40
They want to throw a better festival, right?

Micheal Pacheco 44:43
That’s ridiculous. That’s the spirit of the game. Share those processes with everyone else come on. That’s where

Maureen McKinnon 44:53
the when the when the Vancouver got the Grey Cup again in 2014. They came and asked me if I would do it again. All said you So I have my pitch. I’ve got my photo with this with the Grey Cup, I don’t know, half a dozen, eight times or something like that from different events. And, you know, I know the quarterbacks and the BC Lions and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, it’s very cool.

Micheal Pacheco 45:17
So the Grey Cup is essentially like the the Stanley Cup of the CFL. Right? Okay. Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome.

Maureen McKinnon 45:29
And with the water boys, of course, we had all these events. And so at from my business perspective, I would invite businessmen to come to these events. And I would, you know, introduce them to the president of the Lions Club, head coach, and the quarterback and all that kind of stuff. So it worked out really well, both ways for me for enjoying sports. And being a woman in football, is you know, I also volunteered, I was a director at the Vancouver a sorry, at the Langley rams, which is the junior football club. So the 18 to 22 year olds, out the wannabes, the ones who want to be signed for football. I’ve been a director there for three years. And I also worked with the whole league, the bcfc, the Junior League to do that, a workshop for them. And it was called an overview of the hiring game, how to build your playbook to get hired

Micheal Pacheco 46:21
twice, which was fun. That’s great.

Maureen McKinnon 46:24
I delivered it to all the six teams around the province.

Micheal Pacheco 46:27
So are you still a waterboy? For the I have, what does that mean? Like are you on the field? And like carrying while I’m not an actress? It’s like it fan club?

Maureen McKinnon 46:42
No, no, it’s it’s a business association. So the reason it was called the water boys is because Bobby, Apple’s career started in I think 1953. And he was an actual waterboy on the field. So he would have been a young kid. And so when the he came back after being the president of several different football teams, both in the NFL and CFL, they decided to call it the water voice in respect for him. Yeah, so now we have our own seats. We do get invited to certain events and things like that. I mean, I’ve been on the field a couple of times. For different things. Yeah. Yeah, but we have. Yeah, we have events all over different venues in the Lower Mainland. One of the fun ones was we were on a Navy ship. That one how sound. And we had a catered lunch there. I’ve also been on the charter jet with the team to go to Regina for game. Ice. Yeah, that was fun.

Micheal Pacheco 47:41
Nice. I know the another Regina pats. Okay. Wh l minor league hockey, Junior a team. Okay.

Maureen McKinnon 47:56
That’s the schedule on team. They had like 27,000 fans come out all in there decked head to toe in green, everybody’s in green. And there was 42 of us from DC and orange. So it was. But boy, did they know how to throw a tailgate party. Oh my god. That’s a

Micheal Pacheco 48:16
nice, awesome Marina. I want to be respectful of your time. And then we’re coming up on the on the hour here. There’s one more thing I’ve got here in my notes. And that is what is tell us about your marketing strategy for the next 12 months.

Maureen McKinnon 48:31
Okay, so as I said, I have my social media person, Jocelyn. And so she’s helping me with my so we were concentrating on LinkedIn. So it’s post generating posts. She’s helping me, I’m writing the blogs, and then she’s making them look good, and you know, all editing them and that sort of thing. So we’re having a strategy on the content for these blog posting. We are looking at different kinds of posts, you know, so it’s testimonials, it’s stories, to share articles to share. It’s things that I’ve talked about, that sort of thing, things I’m doing. So we did one for the podcast, with coaches, with conversations with coaches, with Kevin, Kevin out on LinkedIn. Right. So then I would like to do more podcasts and I want to ramp up my speaking again. So with the COVID. Of course, we weren’t in face to face, we were still doing virtual. But I’d like to ramp that up again, because I really enjoy the the audiences. And I have so much to share, man, I think it needs to get out there. And I did write a book or wrote a chapter in a book that got published through Amazon bestseller hit bestseller. So that’s something else I want to promote. So I think I’m trying to do all the I think you have to learn that in marketing. There’s so many different strategies and things that you can implement. You need to do do what’s comfortable for you and what you can handle. So I think if I do speaking and podcasts and my LinkedIn marketing, I think I’m sort of done.

Micheal Pacheco 50:11
There’s about a million different things you can do. So yeah, if you can kind of hone in on, on what what you’re good at. Right? So for you, you’re clearly well spoken you, it’s easy for you to talk about what you do. I think your podcast is a great one. Have you considered starting your own podcast?

Maureen McKinnon 50:29
I haven’t thought about it. But I haven’t moved along. And rethinking that now. Because of my experiences with you. And Kevin? Absolutely. Yes.

Micheal Pacheco 50:39
I think I think it’s something to consider.

Maureen McKinnon 50:44
So, go ahead. I was, I think, I’d like to think of a podcast as something where I would give advice, I would answer questions. And then I would also, alternatively, have people come in and be interviewed. So it wouldn’t just I think, I don’t think I’d like to just interview other people. I think I want to share my knowledge, then I’m not sure if that’s an acceptable format for a podcast, but I think it is.

Micheal Pacheco 51:12
So the great thing about podcasts is it is your essentially self publishing, you can make it whatever you want. You can make it whatever you want. And I think yeah, I mean, if you’ve heard if you’ve been following conversations with coaches lately, what happened with us, this is Kevin’s podcast, if for those listening or watching aren’t familiar at boxer media and growth marketing, we have two podcasts. This is one of them. Remarkable coach. The other one is one that Kevin hosts, which is conversations with coaches, formally coffee with coaches, podcast. And we essentially ran out of episodes, we our goal is to publish three per week of conversations with coaches, and we kind of ran out of episodes to release. And so what Kevin started doing was was creating lessons. And so in between these interviews, he would essentially do exactly what you’re saying where he just would, you know, talk about a lesson that he’s learned on the podcast or in marketing and how it relates with coaches over you know, for five, 610 minutes, however long, and that, you know, just kind of push those in and blend those in with the regular podcasts. So yeah, I think you can totally do that.

Maureen McKinnon 52:34
Yeah, I thought I thought Kevin did a good job on the ones that I listened to. About music himself. Yeah, they’re Yes.

Micheal Pacheco 52:42
They’re great. They’re great. Absolutely. Absolutely. Fantastic. Well, actually, Maureen, one other thing is, you mentioned that you wanted to promote the chapter in the book that you wrote. Is that on Amazon? Now? Can you promote that right now?

Maureen McKinnon 52:58
Well, I actually would rather promote like promotion, my promotion readiness assessment to anyone in the audience who’d like to have that with me. They can reach out to the online website, which is McKinnon, executive coaching, and they can book an actual one hour free session for promotion strategy assessment.

Micheal Pacheco 53:17
Perfect. And we’ll we’ll include the link to that to your website, of course, in the show notes. If you would like to talk about the book, Maureen, I will let you promote. Totally up to you. You don’t have to no pressure. No.

Maureen McKinnon 53:32
It’s It’s a compilation of stories from authors. And I’m one of the 12. So my chapter is all about my mission to advance women in the workplace. And it’s called shine volume for inspirational stories

Micheal Pacheco 53:46
in volume four. I’m just going to take a little note here, and we will include a link to that in the show notes as well.

Maureen McKinnon 53:54
Well, thank you. And it’s also on my website, you can buy the book.

Micheal Pacheco 53:57
Perfect, perfect. Maureen, is there anything else that that you’d like to talk about that we didn’t have an opportunity to touch upon yet?

Maureen McKinnon 54:07
Um, I think that I am really thrilled with what I see in the world today with regard to diversity, equity inclusion, I think I also see that more women are getting opportunities, because there is a showcasing like a flashlight on the gender equity in corporate leadership, which I’m happy to see. Because we need to have the support. So we need allies from the men and we need corporate the corporate world is looking at culture in a much more in depth way than they used to talk about it. It used to be a lot of lip service about we’re doing this, the other thing, but now it’s actually becoming a reality. It with a great resignation. It’s certainly showing that the younger generations are Looking for more than just the motivation of money, there has been a shift in the world, which used to be the the goal for the business world was the bottom line. Right. And so they, there’s some interesting work going on about this shift from the shareholder, back to the employee II, and the end user. And I’m very thrilled that that’s happening in today’s world. Because the fact is that people not only want to enjoy where they’re working and feel appreciated and valued for the work that they deliver, they also want the work to be worthwhile, just the paycheck so much anymore. And the companies can no longer expect loyalty for 510 1520 years, that’s concepts like gone out the window. So I think it’s going to make the talent acquisition and the talent retaining much more interesting in the neck in the years to come. And there’s also the fact that what is it in 2030 85% of the jobs available and 2030 are not do not even exist today. So I think that I’m really excited about the younger generations. And the because when I worked with the leaders of tomorrow, and all of those people, I was really impressed with the younger generation, they’re going to take over and do great things in the world. So I’m really thrilled about all

Micheal Pacheco 56:28
of that. I love I love that love your optimism. That’s always good to hear that the world will be in good hands.

Maureen McKinnon 56:40
Makes me sleep better at night. And I know it’s true, because I would wait no way too many of them like I know hundreds of them. It’s fabulous.

Micheal Pacheco 56:47
Nice. Awesome. Maureen MacKinnon, thank you so much for taking the time and making the time to join me here on remarkable coach. I appreciate it.

Maureen McKinnon 56:57
Thank you so much, Michael, I’ve enjoyed this hour with you.

Micheal Pacheco 57:00
Thank you, Marie MacKinnon, your your website is McKinnon executive coaching.com. Be sure to check out the show notes guys for those links. And thank you to everyone who’s watching and listening. We’ll see you guys next time.