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Board Governance Best Practices and Stories/Experiences Shared
Ester Pike: [00:00:01] The higher up that you get in a lot of these corporate organizations, or larger entities, the harder it is to have somebody there in your corner that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can have some form of feedback with, and somebody who can look at you from that external perspective and provide you their experience and their perspective on how you're doing. So that is the one area of business psychology where, individually, it assists.
Munir Haque: [00:00:33] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. I'm your host, Munir Haque, an executive coach and senior board strategist. I have partnered with Action Edge Executive Development to lead their governance and political acumen division. In each episode, we meet with governance leaders and step into their boardrooms where decisions shape the world around us.
Munir Haque: [00:00:53] Hello everybody, today I thought we'd do something a little bit different on the podcast. I wanted to turn the tables and talk a little bit more about Action Edge business coaching, Action Edge Executive Development. They are the sponsors of this, and I want to tell you a little bit more about my team, the people I associate with that are responsible for bringing this podcast to you. Right now I have with me the, I think your terms are, managing partners and owners of Action Edge Executive. Jarrod Stanton is with me, and Kevin Simpson. Welcome to the podcast, gents. I'm a little bit light on the history of the company, so I thought I'd have you guys on, first to talk a little bit more about that. Jarrod, you've been doing this for a long time. You're nearing the 20 year mark or so?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:01:50] Yeah, that's right. Coming into my 19th year here.
Munir Haque: [00:01:52] I want to talk a little bit about our origin story at Action Edge, so why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got into the business and how you launched Action Edge and what you've seen over the years.
Jarrod Stanton: [00:02:09] Taking it back even further than that, our parent company was founded in 1993, in Brisbane, Australia. So we're over 30 years now. My aunt was one of the pioneer business coaches in North America under that brand. She started telling me about what she did for a career. I think she knew I was somewhat entrepreneurial, had a little bit of an inkling towards teaching and coaching through school and sports growing up, but also a strong interest in business. It was 2005 we started discussing the idea and I started learning a bit more, and it was September of that year that I reached out to Action Coach to get the certification.
Munir Haque: [00:03:03] What was happening in the world at that time that made you think it was the right time to launch something like this?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:03:09] Nothing, actually. It was a bunch of worry and fear and concern and "what am I doing?" A lot of my friends at the time were starting families and buying houses. I spent all the money I had and borrowed all the money I could to try to convince my family to lend me some money to buy a piece of paper that said I was able and certified to help business owners in this community. I wouldn't say nothing was really aligning, I had a bit of a sense of adventure. I desperately wanted to get into business, and it was mainly just on account of my aunt's confidence in me and her showing me the attributes I had, the skills I had, and how it related to what she did day in and day out with her clients. She allowed me to shadow a few sessions, and I instantly was amazed at how revered and respected and admired she was, and the sentiments I was hearing from the clients on how the course of their life had been changed. It really gave me an added depth of understanding and appreciation of what she did.
Munir Haque: [00:04:28] You're talking about clients a little bit here, so in the early days, what kind of clients did you have and what were the services that you were providing?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:04:38] Not a lot different from today. We have never really targeted clients in terms of industry or specialty. I think we're pretty strong minded about the difference between a mentor and a coach. We often joke, but are also often dead serious in the sentiment that one of the biggest benefits we bring to a company is being outside of their industry. There's never been a concentration of industry or anything in terms of types of clients. In 2005, 2006, up until 2015, up until now, on the business coaching side of things, you get some companies pretty green, trying to figure out how to basically structure their company and start to earn some revenue, close to $500,000 or under revenue. Some clients have figured out their revenue, and now they're looking at more systemization organization, making sure they keep that revenue, maybe just crested a million or somewhere in between 1 million and 5 million. Back then, like now, we got the bigger-size small business. 10 to 20 million who are really interested in legacy, leadership and potentially expanding their impact.
Munir Haque: [00:06:07] Let's fast forward a little bit. In 2015, Kevin came along. What is it that got you guys together and aligned?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:06:20] One of the things was just sheer opportunity. We had one individual looking to semi-retire and on their way out, and I think Kevin and I were of the exact opposite trajectory. Where all we saw in front of us was the highway, and the way to impact more people. Then as a partnership, we seemed to hit it off right away as a good fit. We share similar life passions and hobbies, and we're interested in a lot of the same things. We became good friends probably before we even became good business partners. But on the business side, I think we have different strengths, and I just think it creates a good synergy.
Kevin Simpson: [00:07:08] When I met Jarrod, I was consulting at the time. If you break what we do down into what a company needs or an individual needs into skills and mentoring and coaching, skills being the handover of training, mentoring being the handover of experience, and coaching being performance and goal setting and accountability. I felt I had my coaching voice from working at the Man Group with 'Dan Man'. He really showed me how to have a coaching voice, but didn't know how to coach. It was more in workshop, speaking, engagement seminar format and meeting Jarrod. And as Jarrod said, us not only hitting it off as friends, but understanding just what coaching was. With Jarrod's years of experience through his aunt, through everything else, Jarrod gave me that mentoring to learn from his experience. And what it did was enable me to move really quickly, I got to move really quickly. An opportunity that almost no coach ever has coming into this business. I very quickly got my first coach, who was Dan Holstein, who's still in the action coach system. At that time in 2015, most of the world probably was still coaching face to face. Picking up a coach outside of Calgary forced everything for me to, not only be coached on a digital video platform, but also what it looks like to coach on a digital video platform. The world was really changing for us at that time, and when Jarrod and I decided to branch out on our own in 2017, we had an opportunity to not only look at having a brick and mortar based or centric company, but also then expanding into a real global company through coaching using tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and other tools like that.
Munir Haque: [00:09:26] You touched on it in terms of global, but what are the markets that you're currently servicing?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:09:33] Primarily on the business coaching side of things and Action Edge, a lot of clients in the greater Calgary area, some up in Red deer, some in central Alberta, our firm out in British Columbia. Client base, southern Okanagan, but pick up some clients around BC. Our Action Edge Executive Development side of things, we're pretty fortunate to have clients across Canada and sometimes internationally.
Munir Haque: [00:10:08] You brought it up, Action Edge Executive Development. For the listeners who may not know what the difference is between Action Edge Business Coaching and Action Edge Executive Development, talk a little bit about why you decided to launch Action Edge Executive Development.
Kevin Simpson: [00:10:29] It's a separate company, and intentionally so. Completely different business targets. Action Edge clients we work with here are generally owner-run companies. Owners are stuck in the business, zero employees up to maybe 25 employees, and as Jarrod said, half a million to maybe $5 million in revenue. Our job is to help a bunch of core areas of the business to help them work their way so the business works without them. The executive development was a goal of Jarrod and myself to work with larger companies that needed great training development. But we found, when we looked in the market, it was all very systematized, the training. You take a training course and there'd be five binders with 600 pages that the trainees had to go through. Jarrod and I have a real passion for two things, no fluff, but also that we don't have a sock shelf. Where we've got, this sock's for you, that we already have them built. I think one of the things that we really want to do is try to have more of a custom driven company that we could tailor to the needs of any company that came to us. Without saying, we did that, here's the exact thing, we're going to change the logo. So that's where it started, right there. And it grew pretty quickly to the point where we've consistently been one of the top executive coaching firms in the world out of 37 countries, in the action coach.
Munir Haque: [00:12:07] What would you say about Action Edge that is our competitive advantage or our unique selling proposition?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:12:13] There's lots of things I'm proud of. I think structurally, business coaching, executive coaching, it's very unregulated. There's certifications and credentials, but it's kind of the Wild West. Anyone can get into it, and it's extremely popular and getting more popular every day. I think everyone realizes that if you want to go fast, go alone. There's a lot of individuals getting into it with great corporate track records. Maybe they put out a book or something. I think when they get into it alone, they can go quickly and scoop some revenue quickly with low overhead, but they eventually run into a place where they're out of leverage and the only way to get more leverage is to shove more people in bigger groups with more off the shelf type products where their thinking is minimized. I can see why they're attracted to that in terms of a business model. As Kevin mentioned, it's not the clients we're looking for, but there's a lot of companies, the people who are in charge of talent development or employee resources or employee training and development, they have certain mandates to make sure every team member gets this or that, and they basically look to 'box check'. I think some of the feedback we get from our executive development clients is they just really appreciate our bench strength and our depth in terms of the people we've been fortunate enough to attract to our team and our facilitators. I think they really understand, I don't necessarily want to go fast, but I want to go far. Therefore, I'm going to go with them. To join up on our roster as a facilitating coach, we get told it's a differentiation from our clients in terms of, one coach can be assigned to work at bid manager level on a training course, but then if that organization says, we're loving the results we're getting with our mid managers, what can you guys do for our senior leadership or executive team? We don't necessarily have to put that exact same facilitator in there. We've got someone else who can work with them. Same philosophy, same culture, same values, but those people's unconditional advocate.
Munir Haque: [00:14:46] That's great. I'm glad you used the words 'bench strength', because that's actually what always pops into my head. I've got a team of other people that I can ask questions of if I come up against something that I don't have a solution for. We've got a circle of people here that we can go to for resources. That also goes for Action Coach as well. You've got a circle of other people who are in the same situations.
Kevin Simpson: [00:15:13] I think what attracted me most to Action Coach, the franchise, was that Brad Sugars created amazing systems. Honestly, some of the best systems for breaking down business to coach or train on in the world. But it's not like a lot of other coaching organizations where you must follow this path, go through this book, flip the page at this point. Because at that point, it doesn't really matter. It makes your coaches ubiquitous. You need more of a teacher who can follow the rules and follow the coaching curriculum guideline versus, people want real life experience. What I really liked was that I had a wealth of experience in some areas, Jarrod had experience in other areas. We brought coaches in, we have an organizational psychologist who coaches with us. The things I learned from her are profound, and we can build those into our programs. Our programs are so multifold in their scope because, as Jarrod said, the bench strength. And Munir, I think you're a great example running our corporate governance division, we couldn't have that without you. Us being able to have that door open for someone like you to come in and say, we need to bolt this on our chassis because it gives us the ability to talk to more customers, serve more customers, go different directions. That's what I love about what we are able to do here. I think for me, every coach has their own style, and 2024 is in the rear view mirror but it's pretty close to me now. My style is that I really do get close to a lot of my clients. I found out that I hold people I'm closer to more accountable than people that I'm not close to at all, because I understand the impact of them not committing this.
Kevin Simpson: [00:17:18] One of the things I learned this year was that I let my guard down about the level of honesty I was receiving in my coaching sessions. I was not receiving honest feedback as to what was going on in the workplace from them, what they were accountable and responsible for. It was a real blind spot for me. What I realized was often as the coaches, part of our identity becomes who we coach. That shouldn't happen, but we're human beings. Whether it's coaching a brewery or coaching one of the largest companies in the world, we put so much of our life into it. We struggle with it, we wake up in the morning, sometimes at two in the morning, and the client's the first thing on our mind, not our sick child down the hall. When they go away you're like, that's a part of me that I might not get back. It's not a breakup, it's an exit. I think that's the way to look at it, and it's difficult. I'm not looking for sympathy, it takes your toll on a level, but you have to remember as a coach that when you get great clients and you lose great clients, you have to remain right in the middle about it.
Munir Haque: [00:18:57] We brought Cory Dyrland into the room right now. What's interesting here is that Cory used to be a client of Action Edge, and now he's come on as a consultant. In the room as well is Kevin Simpson, who was his coach. I thought there was a unique relationship here. Cory, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what your focus is on with coaching.
Cory Dyrland: [00:19:25] Over 25 years, I've been working in corporations. A few years back, I started a company doing heavy equipment repair. At the time, I was looking for help. My ex-wife came to me and said "there's this gentleman you need to meet", because she'd come to an event, so I came to a 90 day planning session. Sat through it, and then signed on with Kevin after that to be my coach for my business. At the time, we were a startup and very in our infancy in a lot of ways of developing our standards and things like that. I have to admit, at first I probably wasn't the best coachable client. I was saying a lot of 'I know' more than 'I hear you'. I was just talking about it earlier to the group, where the 'aha' moment came for me with the coaching was when we were sitting in the boardroom at my shop and talking to our sales person. Kevin had come up with this idea that if you're talking with a client about something, and you're walking through the shop and there's that broken part of what you were talking about, to send it to the client to let them know you're thinking about them. After Kevin left that day my salesman goes, that's the worst idea I've ever heard. I looked at him and said, that's the best idea I ever heard. That was where I really opened up to the coaching side of things and started exploring it more. I have to admit, I used that. After the salesman had left, I actually used it and landed a very big client just because it was different. That was what I was looking for, was how to differentiate ourselves from others. After that, the coaching really opened up. This last year when I was looking for opportunities to do things, that's always stuck in my head. One moment in time can resonate, so that's when I reached out to Kevin and came down this road.
Munir Haque: [00:21:45] So Kevin, how long has this relationship been? What year did you say it was that you started?
Kevin Simpson: [00:21:49] 2018, 2019.
Munir Haque: [00:21:53] We just finished talking about how there's not a 'one size fits all'. Not to put him under the gun here, but what was unique about the relationship that you had with Cory?
Kevin Simpson: [00:22:05] The coaching time. I told Cory when he started as a coach here, it's going to be his ace in the sleeve. He was one of the startup business owners that said, I can't afford coaching, but I'm going to pay for it because I get the value of it and I need it, I need somebody. Cory's company grew revenue pretty quick. But still I generally say to people, coaching should be 3% of your top line revenue. If you're coaching at $2,500 a month, you need to be a $1 million company. Now, startups can get a really fast growth curve and get there pretty quick, but Cory was the kind of guy who said, take ego right out of it, I need coaching. I think when you have that as a coach, when you can look somebody in the eye and go, I've been where you've been. I've written a check every month for coaching, I've been on the other side of the table, I know what it's like. That gives you that credibility, there's no way you can fabricate that. Cory was a business owner who, typically the ones that our firm attracts, ones who care maybe too much about their team, put everything they can in, it's not a business to get rich, it's a business to deliver something that they want for the clients. I think that's really what attracted me about Cory in the first place. You could feel it when you walked into Cory's establishment. I can remember when he got his building and renovated it, walking in there and feeling the immense amount of pride he had in that place. The fact that I could share in that as the coach, it's something that he got to quickly, so I think that's it for me.
Munir Haque: [00:24:04] What excites and intrigues you the most about what you have ahead of you?
Cory Dyrland: [00:24:11] One of the things that I find in a lot of businesses is every business has its own dynamic and its own workforce. One of the things that I value through my career and my past was I worked in family businesses. That's one of the things that I look at, there's a lot of businesses out there where it's a family or it's close people that are working together. I always have a rule with family businesses, you can always say whatever you want because they'll forgive you at the end of the day. Sometimes it's a hard dynamic to work in. When you look at the blue sky side of things, I would like to work with those kinds of groups and the families. You'll have an owner that has a spouse at home that's looking at it going, why do you want to spend that $2,500 a month on coaching? It's like, if the coach can explain that from a different avenue, that totally helps them get the complete package out of their coaching value. I look at leadership roles in different companies. I've worked in toxic environments, I've worked in non toxic environments, I've worked in multinational Fortune 500 companies, I've worked in small businesses where there are three people. I just feel that to be able to bring the leadership that I've developed and the mentorship and the coaching to the table is such an awesome thing to share. I compare our coaching no different than coaching sports, hockey, baseball. It's that same feeling that I get when I'm coaching a client.
Munir Haque: [00:26:00] That's great. I think that was nice, telling us a little bit of your trajectory of getting here.
Kevin Simpson: [00:26:06] Our firm never sent an email out trying to solicit a coach. We've never put an ad up looking for a coach. We find all the great coaches come to us. That Law of Attraction is really true. And when Cory came, it was no surprise to me. Because great coaches have great energy and attract great trust. The first time you were in a 90 day plan with us, just seeing how customers that you didn't even know took you into their tables. These are things that you cannot 'suss out' from a resume, and there's no perfect resume for coaching. The perfect resume doesn't exist, but the perfect coach exists. And as Cory said, it's a recipe of many different things that come into play. To end this, my first coach ever said, great is the need to be coached, but greater is the need to be a coach.
Munir Haque: [00:27:06] Thank you, both of you. I'm glad to welcome two of our BC contingency here, I've got Ester Pike and Kris Sigmeth. Maybe I'll talk to you both a little bit separately on this one, but Ester, I'll start with you. How long have you been with, or associated with, Action Edge?
Ester Pike: [00:27:30] Action Edge, a year and a half now.
Munir Haque: [00:27:33] And what has that been like for you? What were you doing before that made you think you wanted to do this, to be involved with these guys?
Ester Pike: [00:27:41] My background is in business psychology. One of the big things that I always had as a goal for myself throughout is to find some place where I could actually apply those research based practices into real life. I feel that theory is probably not helpful unless it's something that people can actually absorb and apply into their real world practices. At the time, I was the Director of Operations for the Kelowna Chamber. That was about as close as I felt I could probably get with my background and expertise in helping businesses in some way, shape or form. Action Edge Executive Coaching came up as an opportunity. I've been working freelance for about four years by that point, but it was always something off the side of my desk. This actually presented itself as an opportunity to have a much wider reach, and I would say probably a more focused one as well, with all of the businesses that I was working with. So I jumped ship, I gave it my best little "yahoo, here we go!", and it's been fantastic ever since.
Munir Haque: [00:28:43] That's interesting, business psychology, maybe we'll dig into that a little bit later. Kris, same question. What brought you to Action Edge and how long have you been with that?
Kris Sigmeth: [00:28:54] It's been six years here, this year. The background of it, I grew up as a farm kid in Saskatchewan. I learned the business of farming and learned that it's not what I wanted to do, but really enjoyed that part of it. Which put me more into the corporate aspect for a decade, learning and managing, working with franchisees, franchisors. By the time I left, I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go, and what I learned was I really loved the business side of things. So I started my own management consulting company. Then I had a gentleman who was working with Action Edge who said, I know you're looking for business, had a business partner as well. At that time, you're looking for business, but instead of you putting one key in the door, this gives you an opportunity to help a lot of people, and that's what I've been doing. I've been coaching and working with people for over 20 years in some capacity, whether it's in their wellness, whether it's in their business, whether it's in their life. So this was an easy transition into it and it was great to not have to reinvent the wheel, I guess you could say, of the support that Action Edge offered and Action Coach itself, the years of tools. That it was easy just to be able to get into what I actually liked, which is the coaching. I didn't want to have to worry about building the systems and the process at that point.
Munir Haque: [00:30:04] Are you based out of Penticton or do you just live there and work out of?
Kris Sigmeth: [00:30:09] I live in Penticton, but the beauty is being able to coach anywhere. Penticton, Kelowna, go to the office every week meeting with clients. But obviously Alberta as well, I have clients here.
Munir Haque: [00:30:22] Tell us a little bit about the types of clients that you do work with.
Kris Sigmeth: [00:30:26] A little bit of everyone. From quilt companies, I've worked with quilting stores, to pile driving companies, to drywall companies, engineering companies. That's what I love about business. Business is business is business. We get the opportunity to help people build what they want out of this. What are their dreams? Why do they even get into this? What are we helping them achieve? How are we steering the ship? So you get the chance to see people flourish, and their families, what they get out of it and grow from there. I work with everybody.
Munir Haque: [00:31:00] A lot of coaching is done virtually now, but prior to Covid was most of your stuff done local, and did Covid open that up for you?
Kris Sigmeth: [00:31:10] I think Covid did open it up. I found that I was typically meeting with clients, right now, if I have Kelowna clients, they want to meet face to face. They actually really enjoy that. But during Covid at that point, it was a great opportunity, greater reach and not having to be worried so much about the roads to BC.
Munir Haque: [00:31:32] Let's talk a little bit more about business psychology. How have you used that with your clients? Different than I would because I don't have that background. So how does that make you different?
Ester Pike: [00:31:48] The majority of the work that I do is on the executive side, which by nature just lends itself to medium and larger size organizations. One of the benefits and the beauty that I find of applying business psychology theories and practices and research into those kinds of organizations is twofold. On the one side is with the one on one piece that I offer. The air gets thin at the top, it gets pretty lonely. The higher up that you get in a lot of these corporate organizations or larger entities, the harder it is to have somebody there in your corner that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can have some form of feedback with, and somebody who can look at you from that external perspective and provide you their experience and their perspective on how you're doing. That is the one area of business psychology where individually it assists. In the group setting as well, one of my favorite aspects is what happens when you get a collective of people together. We talk about, for example, corporate culture. There's a lot of information out there on corporate culture and how to build it. It's fantastic, but one of the pieces that I find that is often missing, and one of the places that a lot of my clients do get stuck is what happens when you have different personalities and individuals that have come in. You can have a model of how to approach building your company culture, which is fantastic, but that doesn't tell you what to do when you have a specific personality type with its own preferences. With their different ways of working, how do you still make sure that you bring that collective together, working successfully towards that common goal where they still have a good level of satisfaction and enthusiasm for the work that they want to do. That's the part where I like to come in, I like to throw in the sociological aspects of the business psychology piece as well.
Munir Haque: [00:33:45] Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you consider one of your success stories, whether it has to do with business psychology or not. Every time I think about psychology, I think of your execs playing on the couch while you're sitting in the chair taking notes. How do you see success, or tell us about a success story that you have with one of your clients? Without naming names.
Ester Pike: [00:34:08] Of course. I'm not going to lie, it can feel quite therapeutic in nature going through sessions with me. At least that's what I've been told. But one of the key differences between what I do in general therapy is, there is some form of action item that you take away from it. Where the individual has to actually implement something, some form of change, or test something out in their actual work environment. Through a combination of that, I'm thinking back to one of my most profound successes. When I see one of my clients recognize where they, as a human being, an individual, fit within the grand scheme of the corporation. You can get lost in some of those big entities. You have a lot of pressure on you, usually lots of deadlines. The focus that you put on your business can sometimes end up almost all-consuming. One of the challenges that they find is going, where do I fit into all of this, and how can I make sure that I'm truly being my authentic self? Because of course, 'authenticity' is a word that corporations like to throw around a lot, but it doesn't mean that they're actively being taught how to practice it. When a person feels that they can still authentically be themselves, and that the human aspect of them hasn't been lost just because they are providing this high level business function, that, I would say, is probably my biggest success. I always have a big grin on my face when I'm able to do that.
Munir Haque: [00:35:36] Kris, I'm going to ask you the same question, in terms of twofold. How do you see success and tell us about a client that you've worked with, or a success story.
Kris Sigmeth: [00:35:53] How would I define success? Because it's different for everybody. I think the big piece for me is recognizing each of those successes and actually celebrating those and making sure people are seeing those. Failure is a success in our world, "I need you to fail faster". That's something that people really struggle with. When I think of my favorite success story, it is all my clients every time that they take that leap, they get themselves out of their comfort zone. And that could be in so many different ways. Whether it's that conversation with that team member that they have been avoiding, whether it's that sale that they got out of their comfort zone and reached out to someone that they never would have been forward with those questions. When I think about those successes, that's what I see, is that change, that shift in mindset, their ability to be open to make those changes, and to see them grow as a human is pretty phenomenal. It affects everything. It impacts our community, it affects their home life, it affects everything. So that's what I liked as success.
Munir Haque: [00:37:02] That's where you find the energy to keep on coming back.
Kris Sigmeth: [00:37:07] How can I make you uncomfortable today?
Munir Haque: [00:37:10] Thanks to both of you for telling me about your experiences coming to Action Edge. It kind of reinforces why I came here, too. It's good stuff.
Kris Sigmeth: [00:37:22] Appreciate you, thank you.
Munir Haque: [00:37:25] We're playing a little bit of musical chairs here. Now we've got Bertha Taylor in with us right now, as well as Jarrod Stanton's back with us. One of the reasons, Bertha, that I wanted to bring you in is, we talked earlier about what our competitive advantage is. And I think you're part of that competitive advantage in terms of, I refer to QCQA, quality control, quality assurance. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your role here with Action Edge.
Bertha Taylor: [00:37:57] I guess I wear a lot of hats in the business, but in regards to the quality control side of things, it's more so having an oversight on all of our clients in general. Just checking in to see how they're doing and making sure that they're getting the results of coaching that they need, and also that our coaches are successful in coaching our clients. It goes both ways. Just understanding what the needs are on both parties, but also, there's more to it. It's really about determining strategically what the individual's client's needs are because they all come from different backgrounds. We've got clients that are from half a million to $5 million, and then we've got executives that are looking to step up into other roles in their careers, and how do we measure those results. One of the biggest things that we're working on as a company is to measure these results and then understand, moving forward, how we can measure progress in the new clients that we bring on, and being able to forecast that for them. So not only helping to forecast for our clients, but it also helps to share what we do for them and getting the word out there and how we can help the general public.
Munir Haque: [00:39:19] I asked some of the other coaches how they measure success. Obviously yours is by having those conversations with our clients. Have you come up against a situation where you're doing your follow up and you're not hearing what you want, or the relationship is not great with the client?
Bertha Taylor: [00:39:43] Generally when that happens, it's when somebody doesn't have a plan moving forward. I think the biggest challenge is when a client comes to you and says, "I don't really have anything else that we can work on." I think that, to a certain extent, there could be two different reasons for that. It could be because, maybe they are leaving and maybe they're transitioning, they're selling out of their company, they're exiting. I guess that would potentially be more so success for us. But also, when a client is saying "I'm too busy" or "I'm too slow, I can't afford it.", those are the questions I really do not like to hear. Because I feel that shows that we potentially have not done our due diligence and done our work. Bringing that feedback back to our coaches, it's not an easy task. I guess the biggest hurdle here is, at that point, how do we modify our coaching programs and utilize all the people on our team? Because not everybody has the same work sets and focuses. We might have one of our partners who focuses on smaller businesses and building things from the ground up and scaling. Whereas we might have another coach who is more about how everybody gets along with each other and how we can coordinate with each other. I think that's something that I can bring to the table, because I would have an insight as to, "just to let you know, maybe coaching might end with one individual or maybe you're kind of at a standpoint, but I feel that you would work really well with somebody else on our team that could really take you to the next level and what goals you're trying to achieve."
Munir Haque: [00:41:44] So that's in terms of talking about Action Edge's competitive advantage. I think we're pushing up against time here. Jarrod, I wanted to have one of the owners back in here again just to tie things up. Is there anything you didn't get out that you want to get out before we call it a day?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:42:06] I guess I just say, to catapult off that last conversation you're having with Bertha, besides the obvious depth to which we're considering that position, and all the idiosyncrasies of the strategies, even if that were nothing, and just the fact that the position exists is a depth of accountability that's just not out there. Just that level of, it goes farther than your personal interpretation of how it's going is something that I feel offers extreme competitive advantage and something I'm proud to offer to the clients. I don't know if it'll be in ten years from now, five years from now, three years from now or this coming year, but I think as an industry as far as business coaching goes, we're about to move out of the pioneer phase. We had Action Edge through the early adopter phase, and it was hard going, I don't know why we owned a phone. But the day's coming soon when Canadian business owners aren't going to ask themselves, do we get a business coach? They're going to ask themselves, which business coach do I go with? I just think that everything we're doing and building and planning at Action Edge is to be prepared for when that day comes, because it's coming. Some of our colleagues from Australia and New Zealand would say it's almost there. Where a business owner would use a coach like a bookkeeper accountant, not as a luxury but as a necessity. We're just trying to be as equipped as possible for when that demand's upon us.
Munir Haque: [00:44:18] That's a good place to end there, I think. Jarrod, where can people find out more about Action Edge Business Coaching and Action Edge Executive Development?
Jarrod Stanton: [00:44:28] actionedgebusinesscoaching.com and aeednow.com are the two easiest places to get to know about us at their convenience. From those main sites, there's jump off points to our events, our blogs, education pieces we point out, so clients can engage in a variety of different avenues.
Munir Haque: [00:44:53] Great. Thanks, Jarrod. And thanks, Bertha, for getting everybody together. This is a great opportunity, I quite enjoyed it. An opportunity for me to learn more about all the other coaches. And for our listeners out there, I think there's an opportunity. If there was a conversation today that intrigues them, they will know where to go to find any one of those coaches. Thank you very much.
Munir Haque: [00:45:19] Thanks everyone for listening to The Boardroom 180 Podcast. You can learn more about me and Action Executive Development on our website at aeednow.com. Fill out the form if you want me to reach out to you, or if you have any thoughts for future subjects or guests on the podcast. We also have a free board self-evaluation that will be linked on our website. You and your board can fill this out either individually or together, and it gives you a bit of a quick temperature check on how your board health is. As always, don't forget to hit like and subscribe to The Boardroom 180 Podcast, it helps us grow and bring more governance insights. We've come full circle to conclude this episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. Goodbye, and good governance.