[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: Hello everyone, and welcome once again to another episode of the Remarkable Coach podcast. As always, I am your host, Michael Pacheco, and today with me I have Todd Sullivan. Todd is a Christian husband, dad, athlete, coach, and retired naval officer. He’s called to make people and organizations better. He does that by working with people as individuals.
First, this is Todd’s second round on the podcast. If you like this podcast, definitely head back and check out his, his first one too. We’ll link to, you know, we’ll, we’ll link both of the episodes together on the show notes page on boxer. agency. Todd, brother, welcome to. The remarkable coach again.
[00:00:41] Todd Sullivan: Thanks, Michael. I’ve truly, um, honored and humbled to have this opportunity to, to have a great conversation with an old friend again.
[00:00:51] Michael Pacheco: Honey, we were just, we were just talking about that and Todd and I were chatting before, before I had the opportunity to hit record. And it was, it was turning into, it had turned into, it had become good conversation and, and I had to stop Todd mid sentence so that I could hit record before we wasted any of the good vibes.
But yeah, so, so Todd, I want to, let’s, let’s, let’s start out. Let’s start this out by kind of refreshing our listeners who may have heard your first episode or, you know, just letting. new listeners know a little bit about you. I want you to just talk about, let us know a little bit about yourself in your own words and what it is you do and
why
[00:01:33] Todd Sullivan: you do it.
Yeah. So, you know, I am a Christian first, a husband, a dad, I’m a pop. I have two grandkids that keep me young. I try to be an athlete and I love being a coach. I spent 30 years in the Navy, so I was really. Blessed with the opportunity to serve our nation and really get what I jokingly call my PhD in leadership because I just work for some tremendous people, a couple of not so tremendous people, but mostly tremendous people and just learn so much and really grew the desire to really help people become better.
And, you know, my best days really, truly are helping other people get to their best days.
[00:02:14] Michael Pacheco: Nice. I love it. Todd, you were just telling me that you are working on a book. I am. Do you want to tell us a little bit, a little bit more about that?
[00:02:25] Todd Sullivan: Yeah, so I’m writing a book on leadership and, and I was telling, you know, like I was telling you, Michael, I don’t have the cool factor.
I wasn’t a Navy SEAL, and I don’t have the authority factor. I am NOT a retired Admiral. Although my mom seems to think maybe I should have been, but I think I’m relatable. I joined at the lowest enlisted rank. I climbed the enlisted rank to senior enlisted and then started over again as a commissioned officer and retired out of command.
And there’s just so many stories and opportunities to tell. People leadership lessons that I learned along the way. I slow rolled myself on getting this book out because it just felt very self promoting that I was just going to tell a bunch of my stories. And then I just realized that I didn’t learn leadership.
On my own, I learned leadership from some, some great people. I was going to say some great Americans, but I worked for a couple of Canadians that were pretty awesome too. And yeah, you know, so I’ll tell you about them and, but I want to bring their stories into this book and I want to highlight all of the.
The, the things that I learned from them, you know, in these different categories of, of what I consider just absolute necessities and leadership. And so I’m reaching out to people and saying, Hey, would you mind sharing your story with me on, you know, you know, building, you know, a great team or on mentoring junior people or on.
You know, leaving a legacy and building your relief and all of a sudden it became really exciting to get my stories married up with some of theirs. And so I’m, I’m, you know, really invigorated. And as I was telling you, I have a good friend, she’s an author, she’s a coach. She told me one that she hates 80% of people’s first past their title.
Uh, I won’t share what my title is cause I haven’t secured the URL yet, but she was so excited about my title. And I’m like, well, I guess I’m in the top 20%. And she said, okay, let’s start talking deadlines. And then it got real. And so, you know, looking at by the end of 2023, having this book in print. What
[00:04:44] Michael Pacheco: what kind of head what do you mean talking about headlines like like press or
[00:04:49] Todd Sullivan: no just like about getting You know, she just really started, you know, oh, I love the idea of this title I love the idea of of how you’re gonna approach this and I don’t want to get ahead of myself In getting the title out there, but I truly believe that leadership is relational and it’s all about how we take care of people, how we serve people, not about the benefits of, you know, I told my, my sailors when I was in uniform leaderships about the.
burden of rank, not the benefit of rank. It’s about the more senior you become, you now have a lot more people that you’re responsible for and to, as opposed to, I like to thank all the little people who have helped me, you know, get to where I am today. I’d like to thank the academy. Yeah, exactly. You know, I’d like to thank the little people I stepped on to get into this prestigious office that I hold today.
[00:05:54] Michael Pacheco: You know, that’s not, that’s not the way that, that leadership works in my experience at all. No. Okay, cool. I like it, man. That’s awesome. I love the, I love the shift in frame that you’re talking about there where you were, you know, you, you felt like maybe you wanted to write a book or maybe you should write a book and it just, there was no inspiration there in, in writing a book about yourself and your stories and, and your advice.
It sounds like, you know, you were talking to your, your, your pal, who is the author and also a coach, and maybe she gave you some guidance. And then you’re like this idea to go around and talk to others and get their stories and almost make like, I mean, you’re almost kind of like making like a compilation of leadership stories.
Right. And then that kind of was what really drove it home for you. It is.
[00:06:50] Todd Sullivan: And I just thought, man, I’ve learned so much from these people, these leaders that and none of them have a book out. And I thought they deserve to have their stories told. They deserve for people to see the impact that they’ve had.
On countless people. I mean, if you think about an admiral or a general, I mean, you know, you’re talking 30 plus years of service, you’re talking very senior, so they’re leading leaders, they are leading, you know, people that are admirals and generals now, even though they’ve been retired for years, when you think of a Navy SEAL and the ability to create.
Cohesive teams that know what one another are doing. That’s, that’s some magic happening on an everyday level. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:46] Michael Pacheco: That’s very cool. Very, very cool. Awesome, man. What, what else is, what else is new in your life? I think the last time we talked, so like I said, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve mentioned to you off the air before that I’ve got a one year old daughter now.
And I know, so it’s been at least, it’s been more than a year. Yes. Maybe a year and a half or so.
[00:08:10] Todd Sullivan: Yeah. And, and, you know, I’ve, I look back and I didn’t look at the date of when we talked and I thought, I thought, you know what, that was one of my first cup, you know, like first wasn’t my first, but I think it was my second podcast that I had done.
Hopefully I can be so much better this time.
[00:08:37] Michael Pacheco: Go ahead. I was
[00:08:39] Todd Sullivan: going to say, you may remember, and we talked about the word serving and service earlier. The very first podcast I was on, when I got done, the guy titled it Built to Serve. Uh huh. And every time I think of that podcast, I think of what a compliment he gave me. By saying, I’m built to serve and, uh, you know, I, I think a lot of people don’t look at it that way, but we should, like, we should look at the opportunity to serve and help make others better.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:09:12] Michael Pacheco: Mm hmm. Yeah. And you know, you know, a thing or two about that, having, having a military background. Yeah. I love it. I love it. What’s so yeah, what’s so in the past year and a half. Tell me about, you know, tell me, tell me a little bit about your journey. Cause I remember when we were talking before, you know, I mean, what’s, what’s, what’s new.
[00:09:37] Todd Sullivan: I was pretty new at coaching then. I think I was really trying to develop my niche and it’s interesting. So. I was doing a lot of solopreneur or very close to solopreneur coaching. And I still have a couple of those clients, but what I really, I find like intrinsically rewarding to me is finding that person that, you know, has been promoted into a management role.
That’s really good at, you know, you pick a skill, it can be at accounting at. You know, it, but now they’re the manager and they’re the manager because they were a great technician and they’ve received, received exactly zero training or coaching and how to lead teams. And I love working with those people.
Because they have such an impact on an organization, and I don’t think I don’t think we put enough credence into the impact that they have on retention on performance of teams on the bottom line on who shows up for work and who doesn’t, you know, and. So, they’re, they deserve to be developed and coached.
They deserve to become good at this new skill set that they haven’t developed. And that’s where I find myself just really gravitating towards. It reminds me of my, you know, a lot of my time in the service, you know, where you’re always trying to develop your relief. You know, you want to be able to, if you’re in a leadership role and you want to be able to take two weeks off, somebody has to fill in.
Otherwise your life sucks when you get back. And so you have to develop those people and you do it by, you know, some training, some delegations, some empowering decision making. But I. I think there’s just so much opportunity to retain good people in management roles if we, if we equip them and I think that’s where coaching comes in.
[00:11:55] Michael Pacheco: That’s great, man. That’s, I think that’s, that’s a legitimate need in In the business world, especially in the corporate world. I spent a few years working at, at bigger companies, Intel, McAfee, Network Associates. Are you familiar with the Peter principle? Yes. So it sounds like that’s your, that’s your target.
That’s kind of your target right there, right? It is. Yeah, so for those, for those listening or watching on YouTube, the, the Peter principle says that people will get promoted up to their level of incompetence. So if you’re really good at what you’re doing, you’ll get a promotion. And if you’re really good at that, you’ll get another promotion.
And if you’re really good at that, you’ll get another promotion. And eventually you’re going to get to a point, you’re going to get to a level where for whatever reason, maybe it’s a lack of training, you’re not that good at what you do. But you got promoted because you were really good at the thing before.
And that’s, it’s a pretty common thing. Yeah.
[00:12:50] Todd Sullivan: And I think we see now people get promoted and they weren’t really interested in that promotion. And they don’t get equipped or coached or trained or a combination of those things. And they leave. Interesting. And they leave because They really were good at something and then they get thrown into something that they’re not so good at and that their stock starts going down and they don’t look as good to their, those former peers and they go back to doing something they’re good at, where if we work with them, you know, and we pull out the best and what they appreciated about their former leader.
We can, we can help them develop into a leader that is significantly better than a technician, but it’s, it’s a skillset, you know, we, we send people to school for, you know, engineering and we send people to school for nursing, but we don’t send them to school for engineering supervisor. Head nurse. Mm hmm.
Mm hmm. We just hope they pick it up because they’re good at charting. Yeah
[00:14:11] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s that’s a perfectly that’s that’s totally valid, right? I mean you get it’s not that an engineer cannot be you know upper management or middle management for that matter It’s a completely different skill set.
And if you get that promotion, you know, you, like you said, I can, I can, I can imagine a situation where someone gets a promotion like that. Right. And they’re, they’re essentially, you know, tossed into this, into this new. Ocean with choppy waters, right? And they and they they’re flailing around and they don’t know what they’re doing because they haven’t had any training That’s not what they do.
They’re an engineer or they’re a technician or whatever it is, right? and and it’s not that they couldn’t do it, but they they I i’ve definitely seen in first hand experience of of of times where a company will promote someone Again, it’s the Peter principle at work because they’re good at something and they get to this leadership position and they just don’t know, they have no clue what they’re doing because they’ve never done it before.
Yep.
[00:15:22] Todd Sullivan: And that’s sad because that’s a way to take somebody who’s been dedicated to your organization and has been a top performer. And crush their spirit, them or isolate them or make them think, I just need to get through this day. I just need to get through this week. I just need to get through this quarter.
You never get the best out of somebody who just wants to get through pick up time domain
[00:15:47] Michael Pacheco: for sure. Yeah. 100%. 100%. Who are your, so you’ve mentioned you were working a lot with solopreneurs before, who were your, Who are your main clients these days?
[00:15:58] Todd Sullivan: So I’m in talks with a major manufacturer. Hopefully it comes through just to do two different types of coaching.
One is some one on one with managers who are really good technicians and haven’t led their teams well. And one is to come in and deliver some group coaching. To like frontline supervisors and to, you know, to work on how to create a good climate, how to develop cohesion, how to provide purpose. And there’s an actual sort of, you know, a lot of people don’t realize this.
There’s an actual certification on through a company called Resilience Building Leadership Professional. And I’m one of the, I’m a certified trainer. I consider myself
a coach facilitates really good discussions. And I would like to think that I facilitate good discussions instead of just deliver. You know, information, but it’s a really good outline, especially for that frontline supervisor who went from being, you know, wrench Turner to you have 10 wrench Turners, have them turn the wrenches like you did.
And so I think that’s a really good tool to put in place in a big organization or a small, I think big organizations benefit from it really well because you can do that group coaching. And so not only do you have a coach facilitating the discussion, but you get some of that peer coaching going on. And that’s where, and those are the people that they’re going to be.
You know, left working with when I’m gone. And so when you can start to develop those relationships with your peers and say, Hey, I just tried this and it didn’t work. Oh, well, I did this and it worked really well for my team. Now you’ve left. The ability for each other to help continually build each other.
Um, and then when they get promoted, you know, call me again and, uh, I’ll help, you know, coach them into their next role. But I think there’s, I think there’s benefits in both. I’ve been talking to a parts manufacturer, a plant manager, and we were talking over coffee and he’s like. I think I need you to come to my organization.
He’s like, I’m really good here. And I’m, and I’m really good here. Like, well, those two hands are pretty far apart. He’s like, yes. You know, we’ve set up for me to come in and talk to him and, and to walk through his, his plant. And, you know, I love doing that. It kind of takes me back to, you know, I kind of like that industrial, but I’ve also been talking with a small professional services firm that their, their partners are aging out.
And they need the next round of partners and I’ve worked HR in a professional services company is where I first learned about coaching. I don’t know if I told you that story, but I was holding a conversation with a senior partner and the guy that sat in the office next to me was the director of learning and development.
And we talked a little bit and he’s like, well, you were having a 1, 500 conversation. And I kind of looked at him. I’m like, what are you talking about? He’s like, I mean, we’re not paying you that. Yeah. I’m like, he’s like, you were coaching him. I was like, well, yeah, I mean, that’s what we do. We coach other people to help make them better.
He said, no, there’s a vocation for that. I admit, like I was completely, I was like, people do that for a living. And he laughed at me. He’s like, Oh, you sheltered military people. The next day he handed me a book coaching for performance by Sir, John Whitmore. I was like, wow, like people do this Uhhuh . And you know, a year or so later, I, I, I ran a, a startup after that.
But as soon as I, I knew that I, I needed to, to make another shift, I started looking into I c f coaching programs. Yeah. And interestingly enough, I called one and they said, well, we’re, we’re starting a class. I said, well, when they said, well, at 9 a. m. your time, I said, well, how far behind am I? They said, you can catch up.
And I was online like 37 minutes later in my first coaching class. Like, okay. Like I had nothing, I had done no pre reading. I’m trying to, you know, there’s, they’re mailing me, you know, my packet. I’m trying to print out the notes as I went. I jumped into coaching and I absolutely wish I would have found this right as I was retiring from the military or
[00:20:36] Michael Pacheco: before.
Yeah, I love it. That’s, that’s funny. What is, so what is it, what is a typical engagement with you look like now? Do you, do you work with people for like, you know, a three month, six month period? Or is it, I
[00:20:48] Todd Sullivan: asked them to commit to me for at least three months. Or six sessions, because I think for you to really feel the change, it takes, you know, six, six engagements for you to have have made some change for you to have seen it in place.
But, you know, I’ve had some people I’ve worked with for a year and a half. Because they’ve seen the benefit of the growth and, and so once we’re past that initial three months, I’m like, you just like, please tell me if you’re, you know, when we’re done, let’s talk about it. Let’s figure out how this is, you know, how you sustain growth, because I don’t want them to stop growing because we stopped working.
And I’ve had some people are like, you know what, can I just keep you on retainer? Like, can I use you as a phone, a friend? Or, you know, and it’s kind of funny because I actually, and that was a question I got asked and I was like, well, I think it’s going to be situational. Uh huh. And like, okay. And so I get a phone call like two months later.
And they said, Hey, I have, you know, 300 to spend. Tell me when it’s up. I’m like, perfect. Let’s, you know, and, and I happened to be at home when I saw him, like, interesting, you know, I was sitting in my bonus room and a comfortable chair, you know, I keep a notepad in there. I didn’t have their notepad. So at some point I walked down, you know, found their notepad that I kept from all of our, but we had a 60 to 70 minute phone call that worked through a transition that they were going through in their role.
And, you know, I asked a question at the 50 minute point and there was a, no kidding, a 30 to 40 second pause. And all of a sudden I heard. That is it that is it. Mm hmm. And We wrapped up like 10 minutes later You know and and I got off that phone and I walked downstairs and I felt like 15 pounds lighter I felt so energized and my wife said I love when you have these good conversations.
Uh huh Cuz you are on cloud nine. I was like, yeah, you know, I said without going into any details I just, you know, help somebody work through a huge problem and it’s going to be a big adjustment for them and their team. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s a good hour. Yeah.
[00:23:43] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. You get to sleep well that night.
Yeah.
[00:23:46] Todd Sullivan: You know, and, and so that. Those conversations, whether it’s a phone call, whether it’s a zoom or as I like to call my knee to knee conversations in a coffee shop or something like that. Those are the things that you can, and I love, I typically love a video or, or, you know, in person because I can see change being made.
That 30 second pause. I knew like when it went past 10 or 15 seconds, I was like, Yeah, this is what this, you know, there was a lot of stuff we had to get through to get to that question. If I would have asked that question 20 minutes earlier, it wouldn’t have worked. Sure. But it just such a great feeling.
And so
[00:24:41] Michael Pacheco: grease the gears before they move before they move. So
[00:24:44] Todd Sullivan: that’s a long way of saying, I like to work with you for a minimum of three months or as long as you need to work with me.
[00:24:52] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I think that’s, that’s pretty common. That’s a pretty common timeframe for a lot of coaches that I speak with.
And frankly, that’s a pretty common timeframe, even for, for, for us as a marketing agency and for my other marketing agency colleagues, because it, you need, you need a minimum time to, to, To have the opportunity to build not even build momentum to just at least get some traction, right? You got to have an opportunity to get traction.
[00:25:24] Todd Sullivan: Yeah, you don’t see return on investment overnight, right? You know unless you were one of the very first people in bitcoin But even even so now that doesn’t look so so sexy So
[00:25:35] Michael Pacheco: that wasn’t even yeah, and that wasn’t overnight either because bitcoin for a long time and it wasn’t worth anything for a long time Yeah,
[00:25:43] Todd Sullivan: so yeah, you know Like all those overnight success stories that nobody saw the sweat equity going into.
Right.
[00:25:51] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the same
[00:25:54] Todd Sullivan: thing applies in, in, in change.
[00:25:56] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. I’m just reading a book right now called Brands and BS. By Bernard Schroeder is the guy’s name. Write it down.
[00:26:08] Todd Sullivan: I like
[00:26:08] Michael Pacheco: that title, dude. It’s a great. It’s a fantastic book This guy and his agency are responsible for amazon product reviews A number of different things on amazon.
So they started working with bezos in 1995 I didn’t even realize that Amazon was, existed in 1995. That’s when They were probably
[00:26:35] Todd Sullivan: still a bookseller.
[00:26:37] Michael Pacheco: Did, I, yeah, I don’t, I was 15. I don’t remember, I never bought anything online at that time. I mean, maybe, I think eBay, eBay was, I remember eBay, but at any rate, you know, and Amazon now it’s like, it’s so ubiquitous.
And there’s so many, you know, there’s all this rhetoric in certain circles online about hating on billionaires and Bezos is terrible. And Elon Musk is terrible. And these are, these are, these are entrepreneurs who worked their butts off for years
[00:27:11] Todd Sullivan: and years and are employing thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
[00:27:17] Michael Pacheco: Absolutely. Absolutely. But it was, yeah, I was, as I was reading through that, he mentioned that he was, he, they started working with Amazon with Bezos on the, the Amazon brand in 1995. And, and to, to this day, like they came up with the idea of product reviews. And the reason why is because the Amazon brand, and if you think about this with the way that you interact with Amazon, there’s a couple things.
Number one, the single click buy. Okay. Was theirs in 1995. They did that the, the login and saving of your credit card information was theirs. They did that in 1995 and then the product reviews and their, the Amazon brand was modeled after a boutique hotel concierge. And that was the idea, because nothing online, for purchasing online at the time, was built around that.
And they couldn’t compete with Borders, and they couldn’t compete with Barnes Noble, because there was no physical Amazon at the time. So they’re like, how can we create something entirely new for this bookstore? That is not borders anyway, I’m digressing here, but it was, it was, it was, it’s a fascinating conversation to think about that
[00:28:34] Todd Sullivan: in that.
I mean, that speaks so much. So I actually, like, I’m a, I’m a reader between listening and reading 3, maybe 4 books a month is my typical and. You know, Amazon gets a ton of my business, and I wanted to buy a book as a gift not too long ago without knowing what I wanted to buy. And I was like, Oh, I do have a Barnes and Nobles in town.
I bet I hadn’t walked through the door of that building in a year and a half. But I walked in and I lost myself for two hours. Like I was behind when I left there, like my calendar, I was like, Oh crap. But it was a great, like, I loved it. And I’ve actually calendared for me to go back in there in April. We have a new used bookstore in town.
I’ve calendared for me to go in there next month because if I don’t, I won’t do it. Other than I was driving by thinking I need a gift and there’s an opportunity. So yeah. So I can’t like this book’s going on my list and I kind of would feel wrong to buy it from anywhere but Amazon. I know. I know. Right.
[00:29:51] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a good one. It’s a good one. And the. He’s a good writer and clearly, you know, he’s, he’s, he was at the top of his game in the 90s. He’s worked with, he’s worked with Apple, with Amazon, just gigantic, enormous names. I digress. So for you now too, like how are you, how are you, how are you getting clients these days?
How are you marketing yourself these days? Not well. I’m glad we’re talking.
[00:30:17] Todd Sullivan: Yes. You know, it’s so funny, like, I know that I need to improve outreach. It took me a long time to get comfortable even saying I’m gonna do that because, kind of back to the idea of the book, it just seems so self promoting where I’m just talking about what I help people do.
But I realized like I was in a small business say where I’ve coached the owner of that. It’s a franchise, but I’ve coached the local franchise and That place was on point I had something to do with that like I helped that business owner create it and lead a team better right and There’s some you know They’re doing better financially because of good coaching and very first client that I ever had because I was in there talking to another friend saying I was becoming a leadership coach and the owner said, I want to hire you.
What do I do? And I thought, well, this is going to be easy. Like, right? Like every place I go talk about coaching. Only, only. People are going to say, well, when can we start? That has not replicated itself too many times. I, I don’t get it, but.
[00:31:38] Michael Pacheco: Hope is not a strategy, Todd. Hope is not a strategy. Nope.
[00:31:42] Todd Sullivan: So, one of the things that I do is I do try to provide.
Um, you know, good talking points, short, short pieces on LinkedIn and, um, and I, I love engagements. I love when I get somebody to message me and say, Hey, I loved reading that. And I’ll say, let’s jump on a call and talk about it. Let’s talk about that topic. Um, I’ve gotten one client that way, um, from saying, Hey, I am trying to get promoted.
And I think for me to get promoted, I need to be more comfortable in leading a team vice being a member of, you know, and not having any direct reports. And so that’s been very rewarding working with somebody who said, I need to level up. And, you know, they’re a person who is not from the South. And so their, their approach, their demeanor is.
Very different than a lot of people, you know, in middle Tennessee, and we’ve, we’ve really worked to, to make that person not only feel like a leader, but in a leadership role, acting as a leader, being a leader, creating a team, creating other leaders, people who have promoted off of that person’s team on into leadership roles.
And I think that’s when, you know, that you’re leaders when you’re developing other leaders. I love it.
[00:33:09] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I’m gonna ask you a question, Todd. Can I, can I help, can I try to maybe help you reframe the way that you think about outreach? Absolutely. So you, you mentioned with pride and, and a glowing smile on your face, how you felt when you walked into your, your client’s franchise and how they had improved because you had helped them lead a better team.
If you. Don’t do outreach. If you don’t market yourself well, you’re denying opportunities to other businesses to benefit from your guidance, from your coaching. And so, I would argue that it is your ethical obligation, as, as, as, as someone who serves, to market yourself better, to do outreach, to, to, to make a point of doing that, not to avoid it.
Because… If it’s, you believe in what you do, I can see it in your face and the way that you talk about it. And, and you can help more people. So don’t deny that opportunity to other businesses. Yeah.
[00:34:26] Todd Sullivan: And I, and I do, and I do feel like everybody I work with that I am serving them. And because if I’m not, then I shouldn’t be taking anything in exchange for our interactions.
Sure. You know, and that’s another ethical piece. Like if, uh, you know, I had to fire a client not too long ago. Um, and I used this quote with them. If you show me a person who doesn’t value your time, I’ll show you a person who doesn’t respect you. Yeah. My client completely agreed. And I said, you’re that person.
And I said, but here’s, here’s the deal. Like we’re, you know, we’re beyond three months. We were halfway through a month. And I said, I don’t think that we should, like, I don’t think that we are, our relationship is not getting where we should be. I said, so. Do you want me to return half a month or the whole month?
You tell me whatever you say, you’ll have it shortly because I am serving them by, but I also don’t ever want a person to think that I didn’t provide more value to them than they expected. Right. And so. I was ceasing the coaching relationship and it wasn’t just, you know, the, the, the time respect. There are some other things that were starting to be pretty evident, but I’d much rather give you some money back.
And have you feel good about our interactions than to take your money and have you feel bad about it. Mm hmm. Yeah.
[00:36:09] Michael Pacheco: No, I respect that. I respect that. I think that’s, I mean, we’ve honestly, we’ve, I would do the same thing. Yeah.
[00:36:18] Todd Sullivan: I, you know, by posing it and allowing them to say, no, this is what I think slipped really well.
And I told him, like, if life changes. And you change your outlook on how you want to approach this. Let’s, let’s talk again, potentially, and see, or let me tell you who I think would align really well with you.
[00:36:42] Michael Pacheco: Oh, there you go. Yeah. Always. Yeah. And then you’re still serving, right? Because you’re giving them a referral to someone who you think can help more than you can.
And
[00:36:49] Todd Sullivan: I’d rather help you find the right coach than me be the wrong coach for
[00:36:54] Michael Pacheco: you. Yeah, that’s great. No, that’s great. We do that all the time. We’ve got at Boxer, we’ve got referral partners. So a lot of time, for example, digital advertising, it’s just not something that we do. It’s not in our wheelhouse. So we don’t offer those services.
But I’ve got, you know, two or three other agencies where I’m friends with the people that own it and I trust them and I have seen their results and I know they do a great job and I would not do that. You feel good about it. Yeah.
[00:37:23] Todd Sullivan: You feel good about it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s, you know, that’s serving.
That’s leading with integrity. That is putting their interest before your wallet. And that’s what we should all be doing. Yeah.
[00:37:41] Michael Pacheco: Absolutely, man. I want to be respectful. I want to be respectful of your time.
[00:37:49] Todd Sullivan: And that’s not why I told that story.
[00:37:52] Michael Pacheco: Hint, hint. Um, Todd, this has been great, man. Is there anything that you want to chat about that we haven’t had an opportunity to touch upon yet?
[00:38:02] Todd Sullivan: I don’t think so. I truly, again, I love… the opportunity to do this. I’m always, you know, very humbled by somebody saying, I want to, I want to, you know, broadcast our
[00:38:14] Michael Pacheco: conversation.
We haven’t had enough. Come back for more.
[00:38:18] Todd Sullivan: So honestly, I truly appreciate. The fact that you take the time to do this. I imagine it’s a lot more work than most people think it is. So I, you know, especially with a one year old, like you’ve kept a mate, you’ve maintained a quiet office. That’s work, brother.
[00:38:39] Michael Pacheco: Don’t speak that into existence, Todd. Be careful. Be careful the things that you say out loud. So,
[00:38:45] Todd Sullivan: you know, and, and I want to, you know, honestly, thank you for the service that you provide, you know, to, to coaches.
[00:38:52] Michael Pacheco: Absolutely. No, thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate you making the time, you know, this transparently, you know, I don’t, I don’t try to hide this, this serves, this serves us as well.
And the idea for this entire podcast and. Kevin’s podcast, right? You’ve been on that one three times. Conversations with coaches, you know, it is, it is supposed to be a win, win, win, right? Us at Boxer, we get authority and build trust in the coaching category as a marketing agency. You get a chance to talk about your message and build trust and authority with what you’re doing and the listeners.
and the viewers on YouTube get a chance to learn cool stuff. All right. And to learn different strategies and different tactics and, and so on and so forth. So it’s, it’s, it’s our pleasure, honestly. And I appreciate, you know, every coach that we’ve had an interview, one interview with, I appreciate them taking the time, the coaches that have done.
This is your fifth interview with Boxer on a podcast, so thank you for that. Yeah, eventually
[00:39:54] Todd Sullivan: I’m going to ask you guys for a t shirt or
[00:39:55] Michael Pacheco: something. There you go. Yeah, I know, right? You know,
[00:39:58] Todd Sullivan: for marketing
[00:39:59] Michael Pacheco: purposes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think we’ve got, we’ve got hats. We’ve got, we’ve got hats. Um, I think it’s a, it’s a picture of our, our little boxer dog logo.
And then it says, make that dolla holla.
[00:40:12] Todd Sullivan: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. No. And you know, you and Kevin are such great conversationalist and like Kevin and I have said, like, it’s always like picking up with that person that you haven’t seen. But. Automatically just starts, you know, from where you left off and that’s, so I want to tell other coaches that are listening, like Seek out Michael and Kevin because they’re the best podcast hosts that you guys are going to find.
[00:40:43] Michael Pacheco: Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. I appreciate that, Todd. Where can our listeners and viewers connect with you online? So,
[00:40:50] Todd Sullivan: peoplealwaysmindset. com is my website. I’m on LinkedIn both as Todd Sullivan coach and I have peoplealwaysmindset on LinkedIn. I do have Instagram and Facebook for… People always mindset as well.
I do try to share content across the three platforms and so And I try to post a couple of of what I hope are thought provoking Or good conversation starters a couple times a
[00:41:17] Michael Pacheco: week. Awesome, brother. That’s fantastic. I appreciate that We’ll have all those links on the show notes page We need to update your linkedin url because that has changed I think since the old one
[00:41:31] Todd Sullivan: I made it a little bit less lengthy
[00:41:33] Michael Pacheco: Good man.
Good man. Good marketing. I learned something. There you go. There you go. All right, Todd. Thank you so much, Todd Sullivan, for, for joining us on the remarkable coach. And thank you as always to our listeners and viewers. We appreciate this. Doesn’t none of this means anything without you guys. So thank you so much.
And we’ll see you guys next time.
