Entrepreneur Coach Bri Seeley

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Coach the Coach Radio brought to you by the Business RadioX ambassador program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. Today we have with us Bri Seeley who is an entrepreneur coach. Welcome Bri.

Bri Seeley: [00:00:43] Hi, Lee. Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to tell us about being an entrepreneur coach. How do you serve your folks?

Bri Seeley: [00:00:52] Yeah, so I see business and entrepreneurship as kind of two separate but both necessary things. And so part of the reason I call myself an entrepreneur coach versus a business coach is that I help entrepreneurs succeed from the inside out. So things like their mindset, their habits, their the way they show up in their business is just as important as the strategies that they employ to serve their customers, grow their business, et cetera. And so the reason the whole reason I call myself an entrepreneur coach is because for me, it’s it’s not one or the other. It’s hand in hand. And you need both to be successful in business.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:30] So you’re separating kind of the mindset side of what it takes to even just call yourself an entrepreneur and to see yourself as that that has its own challenges by itself. And then running a business, no matter what that business is, is separate.

Bri Seeley: [00:01:46] Absolutely, I think that a lot of people come out of, say, corporate, and they’re like, oh, I’m going to start my own business. And what they don’t understand is even if you have all this experience in corporate, being an entrepreneur takes an entirely different skill set and then running a business takes an entirely different skill set on top of just being really good in your craft. And so for me, it’s just a more holistic approach to being successful as the leader of your business and in your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] So now what is the pain that somebody who works with you is having where you’re the solution to their challenges?

Bri Seeley: [00:02:23] So a lot of the established business owners that I work with are really good in their craft. They’re really good at their skill set, but they haven’t necessarily figured out how to scale that or how to kind of effectively serve people without directly having to trade their time for their money. And so a lot of what I do with established entrepreneurs is really help them kind of detached themselves from their business, kind of in a way, so that they can establish really powerful revenue streams that don’t require their time constantly and their ability to then scale that business past just them providing one to one service.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] So now do you find yourself working with, like you described earlier, does corporate kind of refugees? Maybe they got laid off, maybe they just retired and want to do something else and they said, hey, I can still do consulting or I can do coaching. And they didn’t know they’re having a difficult time transferring the skills that it took to navigate a corporate enterprise than you do when it’s kind of what you call entrepreneurial life.

Bri Seeley: [00:03:32] Yeah, I mean, increasingly more. I don’t know if you’re familiar at all with how many women, especially left the workforce during covid and have kind of ventured out on their own. And just so many people who crave that freedom and that autonomy, remote work life has really taken off for a lot of people. My business has been remote for six years since I started it. And so really serving those people has become more and more over the last year and a half.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:59] So what’s your back story? How did you get to this place?

Bri Seeley: [00:04:03] Yeah, I was raised by an entrepreneur and it’s so funny because I was like, I never want to do that ever. Like, I saw what my mom went through and I was like that life is not for me. And so I got a bachelor’s and master’s, both in fashion design. I’d been sewing since I was five, went to live in Italy for a few years, got my masters, came back to the States, and then kind of accidentally started a fashion company while also working as a workers compensation counselor. And little by little, over a course of seven years, my business kept growing and growing and growing and growing and growing. And the more that it grew, the more I realized that entrepreneurship really is my lifeline. It really is in my blood. So I ran my own fashion label for eight years and then at the end of eight years, I kind of had a come to Jesus moment where I realized that it just wasn’t serving me any longer and my core value was freedom. And having a fashion business was not freedom inducing. And so I was guided to shut down my fashion business and had this opening. I was working with a coach at the time. It was like, all right, what’s next for me? And so I combined my seven years of counseling experience with my eight years of entrepreneurship experience and started really coaching entrepreneurs in manifestation in mindset and business strategy. And I’ve been doing it for six years now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:25] So now, while you were kind of going through your journey, you did work with the coach. What was kind of the impetus to that? And why did you think having a coach would be beneficial?

Bri Seeley: [00:05:37] Yeah, I’ve worked with a few different coaches. I had one well, I had my fashion label as well. But this one in particular, I had met her. We were both speaking at an event and I had met her. She invited me to a workshop she was leading. And I just saw so many opportunities during that workshop, that three day workshop that I just kind of knew in my gut that it was the next step for me. Like I mentioned, I was I was frustrated with my business. I didn’t know what the next step was. And so I just felt like I needed help. And that’s oftentimes one why I continue to hire coaches and to why I encourage other people to hire coaches as well as because it’s really hard to see your way out of situations a lot of times. And having won another perspective is incredibly helpful. And to the perspective of someone who has been where you want to go and can guide you there and save you the time and money lost from trying to do it yourself is absolutely invaluable

Lee Kantor: [00:06:37] Now in your clients or your clients, people who have never worked with a coach before and are trying coaching for the first time, or are they kind of. Have bounced around with a coach or two before working with you,

Bri Seeley: [00:06:50] You know, it kind of depends. I end up getting a lot of people. So one of the things that’s really important to me, especially when dealing with business strategy, is I do not believe that there is a one size fits all model. There’s a lot of coaches out there that say, oh, if you just do this one thing, you’ll have a successful business. And I’m like, well, but you need to factor in who you are and what your vision is and what your values are and what your zone of geniuses like. There’s so much more that goes into it than just telling someone that there’s a silver bullet approach. And so a lot of the clients, honestly, that I get come to me because they’ve had, unfortunately, a bad experience with coaches in the past who have told them that they either do it their way or they’re going to fail, or they’re told that there’s only one way to do it. And they get into it and it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel line for them. And then they force themselves to try and take these steps that they don’t want to take simply because they think that’s the only way to reach success. And I’m a little more malleable and that I’m like, we need to find your way. Even when I was in fashion, I hated standardized sizing because every single body is different. And I think the same applies to business. You can’t just blindly apply a business strategy and assume it’s going to work for every single person in the market.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:03] Now, when you’re curating your clients, are you only working with folks who have a business that is going and they’re struggling personally or can work the other way where maybe their heads in the right place, but their business is struggling?

Bri Seeley: [00:08:18] Yeah, I mean, I work with kind of whatever, you know, people come to me for all sorts of different reasons, whether it’s a personal reasons. They’re burnt out, they’re overwhelmed. They just don’t know how to follow their intuition to take the next steps in their business or they’re feeling really good within themselves. And they just need I happen to have like a very puzzle oriented brain. And so, like, developing up strategies is super easy for me. And so, yeah, it’s it’s people come to me for all different things. And really the reason people usually start working with me is that they found my website or my socials or some of my free trainings, my YouTube channel, something like that. And they just really vibe with me. I have kind of a no nonsense straight to the point New Yorker style vibe. And like, I’m not going to B.S. you I’m not going to beat around the bush. And so people that generally vibe with that click with me and think like, oh, I need to work with this woman. And so it’s a combination of different pain points that they come to me with. And then I just I use that holistic approach. Even if they think their mindset is on point. I’m always looking at is there any way we can improve your mindset? Do you need to implement different or better habits to help you show up better in your business every day? It’s always a holistic approach for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:36] And then the way the folks work with you could be done in a variety of ways, like one on one coaching or group coaching or online courses you mentioned. So there’s a variety of ways to benefit from your services.

Bri Seeley: [00:09:49] Yeah, mostly. So I have if you’re an established entrepreneur, I have a 90 day program that’s a group program that I lead people through, or I do do one on one coaching, but I only work with two private clients a year. And you if you want to be a private client, you need to already be around the three to five hundred thousand dollar mark and you need to be aiming over the seven figure mark. So I work with I also work with people that are brand new entrepreneurs that have like a really great business idea and they have no idea how to get started. And so, again, I help them with the foundational mindset, habit, practice stuff and also the how do you register and then how do you get your business established? How do you open a business banking account? How do you develop a website, those kinds of things?

Lee Kantor: [00:10:38] And any advice for coaches out there that want to kind of think bigger on their own in terms of their business? I guess like you were saying earlier, that a lot of folks come into this with maybe a too small thinking in what their their business could be. And to have an outsider kind of come in and challenge them is worthwhile. So any advice for the coaches out there?

Bri Seeley: [00:11:04] Yeah, one thing for coaches especially that I see is that they get into coaching because they want to coach, which I totally, totally understand. You also have to remember that you are running a business. And so when you look at your day, the amount of time you spend coaching isn’t necessarily going to be the majority of your time because you’re also running a business. So I see a lot of coaches just start their businesses thinking I’m just going to coach all day, every day, and they forget about the marketing that is required, the client development that’s required, the sales process that’s required. There’s so much more that goes into business than just the skill set. And so that’s why I love taking people out of that one to one model. Because it really helps them be more effective with their time and not burn out with having to physically be present to serve someone in their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:55] Now, when you when you’re moving from coaching one to one, one on one and you’re moving to one to many, can you talk a little bit about what that transition looks like? Is it do you have a kind of a curriculum that you use or some suggestions on how to serve a group at all at one time rather than kind of the way that maybe a lot of coaches have been doing it before? One on one intimate conversations because you want to create that same kind of intimacy, right? You want to create the vulnerability and you want to get to the heart of the problem. You just want to be more efficient with your time.

Bri Seeley: [00:12:31] Yeah, I mean, I think it is that you have to really sit down and say, OK, you know, of all the clients I’ve served, what’s kind of the common thread and what is the kind of the common journey that I lead them through. And so I sat down and did that four years ago and developed up my current program. And that really helped me just kind of see, OK, what what do I need to hit on month after month after month after month to help guide these people through the process? Because even though every single person is different, there’s generally some themes that most people go through on their journey. And so just kind of identifying those and then sitting down and saying, OK, well, you know, if someone’s coming to me at this point in their journey and I want them to leave me at this point in their journey, then what what needs to happen in between those two points? What needs to happen right immediately when they sign up with me, and then what needs to happen right before they graduate with me? And then what’s the step after the first immediate step and what’s the step before the last step and just kind of filling in that gap to identify the the process that you’re going to take people through.

Bri Seeley: [00:13:41] And then I always recommend I’m not a huge, quote unquote, online course person. I do. My programs are a combination of coursework and coaching. And I think it’s the coaching element that really, truly does help, because if someone is at a point where they they don’t know what they don’t know and they can’t see themselves out of their situation, knowledge and information isn’t what’s going to get them that big breakthrough. It’s going to be conversation. It’s going to be gifting them new perspectives. It’s going to be communicating with them and talking them through things. And so I’m always a huge proponent of, yes, teach people things and give them your knowledge, give them your time and do it in a group setting. And and what I found is generally, if there’s one person in a group struggling with someone, other people in the group are struggling with something similar and can learn from you directly coaching someone else.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] And then that skill, though, as a coach, is a little different in the sense that when you’re one on one, it’s it’s them coming to you and you’re kind of probing and asking questions of that individual. But when you have a group, it’s now trying to have the group come up with some of the answers and ask some of the questions to really create that network effect of that community effect. They can really expand. Everybody’s thinking,

Bri Seeley: [00:14:57] Yeah, I again, I kind of do a hybrid model. So I do like the that what you just mentioned is kind of like the online component. So I have like an online community for all my trainings and that’s where that stuff happens. And then on the live coaching calls. So I do two life coaching calls a month for my groups. And on those calls, people get to raise their hands and then they do get to come at me with a specific question. And I do get to coach them intimately in front in community with the group there as well. So, yeah, again, for me, it’s really important to have both

Lee Kantor: [00:15:36] And then said that way they’re kind of getting the best of both worlds.

Bri Seeley: [00:15:39] Yeah, yeah. And again, it’s holistic. Like, that’s kind of my whole business model, is that I’m I’m firmly against that either or kind of thinking. And I definitely lean more into the both and kind of kind of approach to everything. So it’s it’s always how can one what’s going to be best for my customer and then how can I accommodate that with what I need to run my business successfully as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:06] So what do you need more of now? How can we help?

Bri Seeley: [00:16:10] I’m actually so I’m getting ready to launch this 90 day quantum immersion for established entrepreneurs, so if anyone’s interested in it, you can visit my website, Brisley Dotcom or shoot me a D.M. on Instagram. The sales page is actually going up later on tonight. So it’s not quite up yet, but it will be. So I’m welcoming in 20 entrepreneurs starting in September to go through a 90 day program to take the next kind of quantum step in their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:42] And that’s Brinsden Laowai dotcom.

Bri Seeley: [00:16:47] Yep. And same breezily on Instagram as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:50] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success, Bri. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Bri Seeley: [00:16:56] Thank you. I appreciate you. I appreciate the time today.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:59] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.