In this interview by Nishad Kinhikar at Eat My News, Executive and Leadership Coach Stan Peake shares his journey and why self-awareness is essential to being an effective entrepreneur.
Stan shared this article sharing his journey starting InSite Performance Coaching which was acquired by FSQ Consulting in 2021.
1. Tell us more about your company and your journey.
I started InSite Performance Coaching in 2015 after my business partner and I in a previous business were bought out after going through a merge. I loved my job – and then I didn’t. My responsibilities had changed, and even though the company was doing inspiring the work, I was no longer inspired in my role.
After a lot of soul searching, I came to the realization that I was geared more for entrepreneurism, even with its crazy ups & downs- than I was a more structured life inside an organization. I also realized my greatest gifts- and what I found the most joy in doing- was in coaching others to help them reach their potential.
I started out with a goal of helping 100 values-based leaders discover their potential, and now I’m over 3,000 with a new goal of helping 1 million leaders!
2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?
With all of the soul searching I was doing, I took a 360 degree peer review to assess my strengths and opportunities for improvement from the lens of friends, teammates, clients, and even past employers. Over 90% of the responses pointed to ‘motivator/ coach’ as my greatest strengths. I’d also always been passionately curious about business and strategy.
After calling 3 entrepreneurs I knew and offering to coach them for free so that I could test my business model, see if I was any good, and if I loved it- I incorporated on Dec 17, 2015 after all 3 saw results, gave me testimonials, and even a few referrals!
3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that?
Building a business from scratch is a big enough challenge on its own. While doing that, I broke my back in a mountain biking accident within the first year, ran out of money several times, saw an exponential increase in the number of competitors in my field, suffered a heart attack in early 2019, and then the pandemic in early 2020.
My biggest challenge is that there always seems to be a challenge over and above the challenge of actually building the business.
4. What do you think are the most important qualities of an Executive Coach?
Care. This has to be about the client, and not about the coach themselves.
Vulnerability. Job number one for any coach is to create a safe space so that your clients can feel more comfortable disclosing their greatest challenges, hopes, and dreams; and the best way to create that space is for the coach to be honest with their flaws. We’re not perfect, and we don’t coach from a pedestal!
Honesty. Once that vulnerability is established, it’s important that a coach keep everything said in the session sacred, and also that they choose to be of service. By that I mean a great coach doesn’t just tell a client what they want to hear- sometimes we have to care enough to tell a client what they’d rather not hear so that they can become exposed to their blind spots and different ways of thinking and leading.
Humility. Again, this is about the client. One of the greatest traps for any coach is to try and show their clients how smart they are. Great coaches focus on making the client feel great, not displaying their own greatness.
Lived experience. It’s important that we bring a high level of understanding what our clients are going through. They don’t just hire a coach for strategy, more often it’s about being able to offer a relevant perspective which you can’t do from a textbook alone.
5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business according to you. As compared with your journey at InSite Performance Coaching?
To me, self-awareness is essential to be an effective entrepreneur. A founder must be keenly aware of their purpose, core values, and envisioned future if they are to get themselves to a “burn the boats” succeed-or-die-trying level of conviction.
Furthermore, they need to be keenly aware of their strengths and gaps, so that they can hire to shore up their gaps, and bring their strengths forward in ways that add more value to their enterprise.
Flowing from above, a level of humility allows founders to prevent letting their egos get too big, or avoid having their ideas questioned.
They need a tenacious work ethic, but must temper that with patience through the process because it always takes longer than we’d like.
Finally, a combination of curiosity and the ability to learn (quickly) from their business allow founders to discover opportunities, and make necessary pivots on time as their hypotheses prove wrong, or market conditions or customer behaviours change.
6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs?
As cliché as it sounds- focus on your why. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? It’s harder than being an employee, so what are your reasons? Why this business idea instead of other potential new ventures? Make sure you find an idea that goes beyond simply “I see a way to make money” – because most of those ideas flop.
Clearly obvious plays become flooded markets quickly, and with no clear differentiation, a crowded marketplace tramples many a competitor. Also – success leaves clues. Find mentors, peers, mastermind groups, coaches, etc who have been somewhere similar to where you aspire to go. Learn from those who have been there before you.
Lastly, find ways to test your minimum viable product before you start full speed. If you know half a dozen or a dozen connections who very closely mimic your ideal envisioned customer, interview them or launch a focus group to ask questions about your idea and see how much your value proposition and service or product features resonate with the kinds of people you plan to sell to. Learn before you launch!
7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?
This seems like the most crippling of all constraints facing small business, but it’s not! An aspiring founder has many options to overcome the cash flow crunch;
- Start your business as a ‘side hustle’: build it off the side of your desk
- Get a second job and grind your way to growth, sacrificing days off now for days of ultimate freedom a few years from now
- Friends and family- ask for a loan with generous terms, or a friends and family investment round wherein they actually become early shareholders (there are pro’s and con’s to both of these options of course)
- Work contra. If you provide a service like business coaching, fitness training, legal services, or accounting, you can trade these services with other entrepreneurs whose services you need like website design, social media posting/ management, etc
- Sell belongings you don’t need on Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace