Maggie Ishak With Focal Point Coaching

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Maggie Ishak and she is with Focal Point Coaching. Welcome.

Maggie Ishak: I late? It’s great to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your focal point coaching practice.

Maggie Ishak: Sure. So my coaching practice is almost a year old, so I’m really excited about that. I maybe I’ll take a step back and tell you how I got here. I started my career as an engineer, spent 28 years in the corporate world, and realized what I enjoyed doing was actually coaching my teams. When I look back on those 28 years, I don’t necessarily remember the business results. I remember the people and the careers that I was, the trajectories that I was able to change. And so that’s when I realized that that’s really where I need to be spending my time. So today I have my own solopreneur coaching practice, and with that I work with two primary groups of clients. One is female business owners. They might be solopreneurs like myself, or maybe they founded a business and they’re trying to grow it, or they’re trying to be more efficient with it. But I’ve also found that I’ve had good success working with teams very similar to the ones that I managed in my corporate life. And so I’ve been able to work with both of those groups and really enjoy that.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your career prior to coaching, were you working for a large enterprise level firms or were you working for kind of entrepreneurial organizations?

Maggie Ishak: So the majority of the time I was working with a very large enterprise company that was based out of Greenville, South Carolina. I spent my time in a supply chain and operations and basically grew into senior management roles there. Towards the end of my time there, I had the opportunity to work at a much smaller company that this larger company had purchased. So I spent time working in an environment that was much more entrepreneurial, a little more kind of let’s just figure it out as we go along. And so I’ve had experience working in both kinds of environments, the structured enterprise environment, as well as the smaller, more entrepreneurial environment.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it came time to kind of launching your own coaching career. Why did you choose Focal Point rather than just say, you know, I’m going to be Maggie Coaching Inc. and I’m just going to figure it out that way.

Maggie Ishak: Awesome. Yeah. Awesome question. So I did a lot of research and I talked to a lot of people, and I met several coaches who were already working with Focal Point. And one of the things that really stood out to me about Focal Point was the sense of community that they offered, even though I was going to be on my own and have my own business, I had a whole network of other coaches that I could lean on. As part of that, I went through a process with them to get certified and trained. I was part of a training cohort of 13, so I had 12 other colleagues that I went through training with, and I still keep up with them. And they’re almost like, you know, my little business family, um, we kind of went through that training program together, so we bonded over that. Um, another thing that focal point offered was the ability to have a mentor coach. So, you know, one thing I tell my clients is even as a coach, I have a coach. And so they provided that as part of their program. And I’ve got access to this whole suite and library of materials that I can use with my clients. I can take it off the shelf, I can use it as is. I can customize it. Um, and that’s typically what I do, is I take that content and customize it to meet, meet my clients needs.

Lee Kantor: So when you were deciding when you were at that point in your career where you’re going to, you know, change directions a little bit here, there was a was there a period where you were like, okay, I can do this on my own, but I’m going to do my due diligence and research. And then you found Focal Point, and then you really became enamored with their processes and systems and then decided to go that way. Or were you always kind of going, okay, I’m going to find somebody that has already been there and done that so I can kind of work with them.

Maggie Ishak: It was the former. Um, I spent about six months doing research, and in fact, I probably drove them crazy because I took so long. Um, but I did do quite a bit of due diligence and, and then it took me a while to even pull the trigger. Um, it almost feels. And I think anybody that starts a business feels like this. It’s like you’re standing on the side of a cliff looking down, and you think there’s a net down there and you think you’re going to jump, but then you’re like, okay, is there really a net? How is this going to work? Um, so it did take me quite a bit of time to make that decision. But once I lined up with Focalpoint and did that research, then it became clear to me that this was the way to go.

Lee Kantor: Um, I’m sorry to belabor this, but I think this is important for a lot of people that are in that same spot as you are, where you have obviously the knowledge and expertise to do the work, and you don’t really need, um, help in that area. But a sense of community was an important component of the decision, it sounds like.

Maggie Ishak: Absolutely. Having been in that corporate environment for almost 30 years, I was used to having people around me, and the thought of doing this 100% of my own really scared me. And I think a lot of solopreneurs probably get cold feet because of that. And so launching this business with Focal Point gave me the best of both worlds. It gave me an, you know, a place where I could kind of go pursue my entrepreneurial bug and go have my own business and work for myself. But yet I still had that community behind me. And, you know, one of the nice benefits of Focal Point is if you have a question about something, you literally can call up any coach and they will spend time with you. Um, I’ve talked to dozens of other focal point coaches and everybody is always willing to help. Everyone is willing to lend a hand. And and the sense of community is such that none of us are competing against each other. Um, there’s enough business out there for all of us. And so we kind of take the approach of all boats rise with the tide.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did you kind of land on your niche and or the two niches that you serve the teams and the women owned businesses? Was that something by design as you were going through the training, or was that something just in your heart that you were like, okay, these are the groups of people that I want to serve.

Maggie Ishak: So I’m going to say a little bit of both and I’ll share that. So I knew when I started this business that I wanted to focus on women. Um, just because having been a female in the corporate world, I oftentimes was the only lady in the room. Um, and it was tough. And I also realized that over that time, I may not have managed my time very well. I had periods where I was like, okay, I’m just about ready to throw in the towel. I saw many other women through the course of my career kind of give up on their professional goals. Um, or they became burned out. And as I started networking in the community, I met lots of other fantastic female business owners, and many of them were really strong and really capable, but just needed a little bit of help to kind of move things along. And so that’s that’s a real passion of mine, um, to work with and support and empower other women. The team piece, I will tell you, almost came a bit accidentally. Um, as I was out there networking, I had a couple of opportunities come my way and I realized I enjoyed that, and it kind of brought me back to when I was with my teams in the corporate world. So that’s where I’m spending the the focus of my time is between those two areas. But but it kind of came the female piece of it came very deliberately. The team piece came organically.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you kind of talk us through what it’s like to work with you? What is like, say, I am I have a woman owned business and I am what am I struggling with where it’s probably a good idea to contact Maggie. What are my frustrations? What, like how does a relationship begin?

Maggie Ishak: Fantastic question. So, um, typically I’m going to I’m going to break it up into kind of four areas time, team, money and strategy. So what somebody might say is something like, oh my gosh, I’m working 70 80 hours a week. I don’t have time to do Fill in the blank. I don’t have time to go to my kid’s soccer games or baseball games or whatever. Or I can’t take a vacation. So there might be something around where they’re spending their time. When it comes to team, it might look like I can’t seem to hire the right people. I can’t get them on board. They don’t seem to understand my vision. Money. It could be okay. I’m growing my revenue. My profits don’t seem to be growing. I can’t seem to get any growth with my business. Um. Or strategy? Uh, I set goals. Can’t seem to achieve them. My to do list is way too long. I can’t prioritize effectively. Um, so those are the kinds of things somebody might say that would then trigger, hey, you might want to call Maggie. She could help you. So then once I have an initial contact with somebody, my first meeting with them is typically 20 minutes. It’s typically just a discovery conversation. Tell me about your business. Um, and I like to ask the question, Lee, to open the conversation of if you could change one thing about your business, what would that be? So if you had a magic wand, what would you. What would you fix change, solve? And that typically gets the conversation going where I can understand like what is the most painful challenge that they have.

Maggie Ishak: And then I’ll ask a few more questions and try to basically confirm that what I bring to the table can help solve their their challenge. But I’m also looking to them to see do they have a willingness to change? They have a willingness to listen, um, and to maybe take somebody else’s perspective into consideration as they approach their business. If that’s all positive, what I will then do is schedule something called a strategic business review with them. I have a document that I send them to ask them to think strategically about their business, asking them questions like what are their strengths? What do they struggle? Um, what are their top three business priorities? It’s a couple of pages and it may take them, you know, 15, 20 minutes to fill that out. And then I use that for the next conversation, which is typically about an hour, um, hour, an hour and 15 where I really dig deep into their business. And it’s in that conversation that I try to bring some value to them, and I try to provide some insight into what it’s like to work with me. I do ask a lot of questions. I’m going to ask you to be introspective about your business, but I’m also going to challenge you to think through some things. And so typically in that first conversation, that second conversation, the PSBR, um, most clients will start to get a sense of the value they can get in working with me.

Maggie Ishak: Then at that point, we will then decide what program is best for them. So could it be one on one coaching? So this is very individualized, very personal and tailored to them. And we typically with clients like that, I meet with them once a week for about an hour. Or is a group coaching program more aligned with their needs? I have a couple of flavors of group coaching programs. One of them is kind of like a boot camp type program, where it’s eight sessions over about 12 to 14 weeks, where we go soup to nuts from the beginning and end up coming out of it with a strategic plan, a dashboard to be able to measure progress on their business sales plan and a marketing plan. Um, or if something like an assessment may solve their needs. So I use things like Disc assessments which assess communication styles and behavioral strengths. And in some cases, if it’s a team or maybe an organization that’s got a number of people working there, sometimes starting off with the Disc assessment works really, really well. They can understand their team strengths and behavioral styles and use that to drive an action plan. So typically those are the entry points in terms of how I start working with clients. But I do tailor and customize the program based on what the client needs.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re in coaching, you know, obviously aligning your superpowers with their needs creates that ideal client fit. Is there anything that’s kind of a red flag where you’re like, you know what, this isn’t the type of, uh, client for me. I’m going to have to pass, and I recommend you go somewhere else, because it’s important to be able to be clear on your yeses, but also be clear on your nose.

Maggie Ishak: Absolutely. That is, uh, very, very important. So, um, I’ll maybe use a couple of examples. So in in one kind of scenario, the person may not be open to change, and they may not be open to being introspective about their business. I had somebody tell me once, um, I’ve tried goal setting. It doesn’t work. So I’m not going to do that again. I said, okay, uh, so that that likely would not be a client. That’s a good fit. Um, the other thing that may come up is if clients are bringing things to me that are really outside of my lane, and in those cases, I will refer them to another coach that I know. So for example, if somebody is really struggling with things that are, um, like all mindset based, I do do some mindset work, but I’ve got some great partners that that’s all they do. And if I think the business itself is sound, but but it’s a mindset question that I’ll refer them to one of my partners, that that’s all they focus on. So those first two conversations that I mentioned, the 20 minute and then the one hour strategic business review, that’s where we get to the bottom of that, and that’s where I can assess. Are they even a fit for coaching to begin with and or does it align with my strengths in terms of, um, really focusing on, on the operations of their business, the leadership of their business, the team aspect of their business?

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates how you work with somebody, maybe their problem they came to you with and how you were able to get them to a new level. Now, obviously don’t name the name of the client. Yeah, but just the problem in the solution.

Maggie Ishak: Sure, sure. I can give you a couple of examples. And these are both relatively recent. Um, I was working with a client, and one of the exercises that I do with them is to understand who is their target client. Who are they really serving? Some people know that really well, and some people really struggle and need to, you know, we spend a lot of time kind of talking through who is your target client. And one of the exercises that I do with that is something called the good, the bad and the ugly. Um, and don’t worry, doesn’t have anything to do with the movie. Uh, it’s just a little moniker that we use. Um, and the idea is to understand who’s your best client, best client or clients? What are the attributes about them that make them a good client for you? And then who would you call a client? You know, somebody that maybe you prefer not to work with at all? Um, maybe they’re not as profitable for you. Maybe they just take a lot of energy from you. And then the ugly ones, the ugly ones likely make you money, but maybe there are a lot more time consuming. And so I was going through this with a client, um, not too long ago, and she was actually pretty specific about describing her good client.

Maggie Ishak: And we went through and described all the attributes of her good client, and then she talked about her, her bad ones. And then in that same conversation, we were talking about where their marketing funds were going and what kind of activities they were spending their marketing money on. And, and I asked her just a very simple question, what kind of client are you getting from this particular marketing activity? And she literally just froze. She looked at me and she said, oh my gosh, that’s going to get us more of our bad clients. And so it was in that conversation made her realize that their marketing activities need to be aligned with attracting more of their good clients, which tend to be profitable, easier to work with than their bad clients. So that’s one example. Um, another example, and this is also pretty recent. Um, when I start working with clients, one of the first things that I do is conduct a risk assessment, which, um, disc is around understanding communication style and behavioral strengths. And there are four primary disc styles. Generally each person is strongest in one, maybe two. And what most people tend to do is address the rest of the world as if they were just like them, which is obviously not the case.

Maggie Ishak: And so this one particular client was very proud of telling me he’s like, oh, I fire clients. And I tell people, you know, as I’m having a discovery call with them, we’re not we’re not the place for you. And as I dug into this conversation with him, what became really apparent was he was discounting clients that just weren’t like him from a disc perspective. So his disc approach was to be very fast paced and make quick decisions. And not everybody’s like that. And so he also had one of these aha moments of, oh my gosh, I probably just need to be a little more patient with some of these other clients, as opposed to automatically thinking they’re not going to be good clients because they don’t make decisions as quickly as he does. And so those are kind of just maybe two examples of, of, of recent interactions where those clients came away with some, some pretty strong value in terms of understanding what they’re doing and, and how just very small tweaks, they can either drive more revenue, spend their marketing funds more effectively, or be able to work with a broader range of clients and perhaps grow their business even more quickly.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we wrap up, is there any advice you can share right now? Maybe a person’s not ready for coaching right now, but there’s some things that they can do that are actionable. Um, you know, some low hanging fruit that anybody could kind of at least explore a little bit right now.

Maggie Ishak: Yeah. That’s a that’s a great, uh, that’s a great question. Um, for me, for anybody that’s open to coaching, they are open to learning. And there’s a lot of places that we can gain education from. It could be a podcast, it could be a book. Um, it could be doing one of these assessments and then just reading the report and reflecting on that. Um, so I do have clients like that. I may recommend some podcasts or some books to them just to get their brain going. And then at the end of that, you know, maybe a couple of months later that they come back and say, okay, now I get that, now I understand this, and now I’m ready to to dive into a little more detail.

Lee Kantor: And now, is there a place for someone to go if they want to learn more and connect with you? Um, have a more substantive conversation. Do you have a website or is it social media or LinkedIn? What’s the best way to connect?

Maggie Ishak: A little bit of both. So I am on LinkedIn pretty easy to find. So Maggie Isaac is h a k. And so I’ve got um, some things on LinkedIn where somebody can see what it’s like to work with me. I do have a website as well. It’s Maggie Isaac, Dot Focalpoint Coaching.com. That link is also found on my LinkedIn profile. Um, also on both of those places is a link to book a discovery call. So if somebody is just curious about coaching, wanting to have just a very introductory no obligation phone call, you can find links on both my LinkedIn profile and on my website to book a discovery call.

Lee Kantor: And that’s Maggie e I s h a k correct. Well, Maggie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Maggie Ishak: Lee, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.