Coaching Startups for Success featuring Alisa Cohn

Hey friends, welcome to the Publish promoteprofit podcast. I'm Rob Kosberg and every week I show you how to use a best selling book to grow your income and your impact. And if you're interested in having your own best selling book, I recorded a short video explaining our trademark process@bEGINMYBOOK.com hey welcome everybody. Rob here with another episode of our Publish Profit podcast. I have a super guest for you today I think you're gonna love and really enjoy learning from. Alyssa Cohn is the name the top startup coach in the world at Marshall Goldsmith's Global Coaches Award in London. She's been coaching startup founders to grow into world class CEOs for nearly 20 years. She of course is a best selling author of From Startup to Grown Up. We'll talk a little bit about Alyssa's book as well. She's a guest lecturer at Harvard, Cornell, Henley Business School, the Naval War College. She's been in Harvard Business Review, Forbes Inc. BL, Bloomberg TV, and now finally, the Publish PromoteProfit podcast. So Alyssa, super glad to have you on today. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Thank you so much Rob. It's great to be here with you.

Yeah, thanks for taking some time. You know, I'm not sure what percentage of our listeners are people that are in startups, but maybe let's start by defining what that means. And I know that you coach larger organizations as well and different kinds of organizations. So tell me what you would define as a startup and how that looks and then talk to me in general about like your expertise and how you help companies whether they be startups or not.

Well, a startup is really the kind of company which is, you know, is founded by an entrepreneur or two co founders with a big vision in mind. And they often relate to, you know, getting investment, so getting venture capital, which means that they have a certain amount of expectation around scale. So I work with companies who are either in that startup mode with like you know, 20, 50, maybe even 70 employees, as well as those in the scale up mode which are like a hundred and five hundred employees who are really creating the structure to build the product or service as they go. So I think that's kind of what also really defines a startup is that there's a lot of structure that's kind of getting built just in time. And then the way I help is exactly, because a lot of just in time you've got a first time founder very often who's never done this before, never even worked in a company before. So they don't Always have the leadership skills that they need to scale the growth of the company. And then they also hire people and they should over time who are more experienced than they are and who have more expertise than they do. So how do you manage those kinds of people? Those are some of the topics that I deal with in leadership coaching and startups.

Love it, love it. And of course your book, which certainly sounds like it's focused on this exact topic. There it is. From Startup to grown up.

Yeah.

Within your book do you lay out like a framework? Maybe you could describe that a little bit. Like what does the framework or the steps look like as you enter an organization for the first time, Looking at maybe where its weaknesses and strengths are, et cetera.

Yeah. So my book is From Startup to Grownup and for me I wanted it to be like you were getting coached by me. So to your point, it kind of lays out the way I think about something. So the way I first think about something. I said this on the Tim Ferriss show as like what's going on around here. I kind of first want to just understand like what is happening and how do I sort of make an entry point. So there are things always happening. The frameworks I lay out in the book are in three dimensions. Managing you, managing them and managing the business. Okay, so you are the first person you lead every single day. The first person you lead every day is the one who wakes up in your pajamas. Right.

I like it.

And then there's a lot to do about that, a lot to think about. Managing your own psychology as well as managing your emotions and then also having the right self awareness. You can be the right leader. So then for what? Well, you're leading them, all those people around you, the employees, your co founder. And so you've got to learn the tools of leadership and management. And that includes having difficult conversations and giving feedback and coaching, delegating, knowing when to zoom in and when to zoom out. Also my, I'm a big proponent of giving positive feedback because that's the most motivational tool there is for people. And so you start managing all those people. But in service of what? The business. Right. So what does the business require? Where are we going? How are you measuring how we're doing? How are you running meetings? So that's all of those, that's the umbrella under which I talk. Really coaching in context of starting up.

That is an enormous amount of stuff.

Yeah. Sorry if I went too much.

Well, I mean like, you know, as you were describing it, I mean any one of those categories could have its own coach. Right. I mean, you know, we're talking about self improvement stuff and managing self. You're talking about leadership skills, corporate building, corporate culture, et cetera. And then of course, all that goes into like the scaling of the company and all the elements of that, the marketing, the business, business, that, that sort of thing. So maybe like, give me some clarification around biggest mistakes and like the, the things that maybe are the biggest blind spots that you see so that somebody listening can go, oh, we got that exact problem at our place and kind of, you know, start matching up that, hey, it's not supposed to be that way.

Yeah, well, this is true for all leaders and certainly it's true for entrepreneurs. A big blind spot is that you don't always realize that your suggestions are orders, your whispers are orders.

Right.

Your brainstorm is orders. Right. So like, people are listening to you from the guise of, oh, someone told me to do that. I'll tell you a funny story. It's in my book. I worked with this CEO in Texas and they did the Christmas party, the holiday party down the street. Great. So she said to somebody offhand, oh, that was so convenient. If it were any more convenient, it would have to be in the parking lot, that, ha ha ha, ha ha ha, Life goes on. In August of the following year. Someone said, do you want a tent for the Christmas party? And she said, what are you talking about? She said, you said you wanted your Christmas party in the parking lot. And she said, no, I didn't. No. And that happens all the time inside of companies.

That's good. And obviously that can be relatable. That doesn't matter. The newness of a company, the size of the company. I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, stuff that I told a couple of employees this morning. And I'm like, yeah, I guess those were orders, weren't they?

Right, exactly, exactly.

And so that's a blind spot. But what are some of the. Like, someone may hear that and go, well, so what I want to tell them what to do. What happens within a company that becomes negative in that environment? Right. Like, yeah, what are the issues that they face?

Well, the question is, like, what do you think is your job as a leader? If your job as a leader is tell everybody what to do, then you better have all the right answers. If your job is to coordinate and conduct the orchestra, then you can rely on other people to have the right answers, because you don't have to have all the right answers. And no matter what their 10 hands, 20 hands, 100 hands and 10 brains and 20 brains and 100 brains are better and more effective. Doesn't matter how smart you are than your one brain and two hands. That's life. And so you need to recognize that you being the smartest person and issuing orders does not go very far. It goes much further for you to kind of create an environment. People can bring their best selves and their best ideas and their best discretionary effort to the cause.

Love it, love it, love it, love it. Talk to me. You know, I don't know if this is just my own brain and the way my own brain works, but when I hear startups, my brain often goes to technology. But of course it can be around anything. It could be, you know, e commerce or etc. Is there like with who you work with? Is there like one more definitive market or genre than another? And if the answer is yes, maybe explain that a little bit to me.

Well, I do work a lot with tech startups and I would say everybody, every startup is a tech startup. You have to have a technology enabled component to what you're doing, otherwise you can't really scale.

Right.

If you want to be a grocery store that you may not want, may not need technology, but you're probably not a startup in the traditional way that we sort of think about startups. There's also biotech and pharma startups and there's also these days, climate, autonomous vehicles. But all of them have some version of technology inside of them.

Clearly. Clearly. So all of those would in essence be considered tech startups. And in one way or another, right. They're, they're scaling the tech, they're using, you know, ones and zeros basically as the kind of key component of the growth of their business ultimately.

Yeah, okay, yeah, definitely.

Talk to me about like, you know, marketing and sales in that industry. You know, when you often think of founders, the best ones seem to be really good at the sales and marketing end of it, but not many of them seem to be. And so maybe I'm wrong about that. And that's just from looking, you know, from the outside in. But how do you address that? You know, what are some of the key components of fixing or looking at that?

Well, I think that, you know, founders are naturally attuned to either technology or to the product itself. They may not be so attuned to marketing, by the way. Some founders are really attuned to sales, as in being with customers, but again, not really to marketing. So I think that's where you have to Usually hire in expertise. I think the mistake founders make is to think it's not important and building a brand is not important and getting their marketing message out is not important. And of course it is very important. It's important in terms of customers finding you, but also even valuation of the company.

Yeah.

You know, buzzy companies are highly more highly valued.

Yeah. And is this an element that you help with or that you guide in?

I mean, I've seen like having coached for 20 years and been inside of a lot of a startups, I know the playbook and I know that it's important, but it's not my area of expertise. So my, you know, my expertise would be to say, I think you need to hire a marketing person.

Right, right, right, right. Let's find the right person so you as a leader can guide and direct and, and put the right seat on the bus, so to speak.

Right, okay.

Good, good, good, good. So give me like an idea of, you know, some of the things that you've seen. I love the story, by the way. So if you want to tell more horror stories, I love to listen to those. But, you know, like turnaround stories where you saw, okay, here were some, like, real issues that we faced and here were some things that we did. And this is what came out on the other end.

Well, there was a CEO I worked with who his team was near mutiny. And when I. Yeah, when I got there, that's bad. And by the way, sometimes I come into a mess, Right. They're not like, oh, I'm going to hire a coach because I'm so enlightened. They're like, I'm going to hire a coach because I got a problem. So the problem was the team was kind of near mutiny. And so what I did was I sort of asked around, I do 360 feedback to find out what's going on around here. Right back to that. What's going on around here. So what's going on is that the CEO is smart and capable and cares a lot and, you know, wants the company to be successful. And what's also going on is the CEO, when you come to ask him a question, makes you feel stupid and also wonders why you're not doing it. Right. Right. But isn't always clear on what he wants you to do. So he didn't realize that self awareness. Coming back to self awareness, he didn't realize that. So I helped him think about how did he engage with his people in order to support them in finding their, their own answers rather than just giving the answer, how did I. I supported him in asking questions that make people feel good and confident and not. And I helped him think about the clarity with which he needed to delegate tasks and set goals. And within a year and a half, the company had had massive growth, and then they ultimately sold the company for a really good outcome. So I'm very proud of that because I know that my intervention was helpful in that.

Nice. It's interesting. You can have somebody that is really kind and does really care, but it seems like there's this huge disconnect between that and the way they're communicating with their team. Is that something that you see a lot of?

Oh, yeah.

And especially in tech, you kind of think of the people that maybe aren't as skilled socially. I know that's not always the case and that's a stereotype, but oftentimes, you know, is that something that you see and needs to be addressed?

I think it's all leaders. If you run a business, if you found that the business is kind of your baby, no one's doing it good enough for you. Also, you're working harder than anybody else. And I think also fundamentally, you're in a hurry, so you're kind of always constantly pushing people to go faster, faster, faster. And it is an intense environment. I think that a startup environment is like an intense work experience, and you have to kind of make peace with that, and it can have a difficult effect on everybody.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Love it. Let me change gears a little. I want to hear more about your business, how you grow your business. We'll get into the book and the use of the book in just a minute. You've obviously done a really good job, not just in delivering results for your clients, but also in building, you know, a really nice kind of celebrity thought leader foundation for yourself, you know, with everywhere you've spoken and all that you've done. So talk to me about, like, how you market your business, how you grow your business, and what that looks like.

Well, first of all, I really make an effort, Right? So what that looks like is it doesn't just happen to anyone. It's like, I make an effort. So obviously the most important things to me is get great results from my clients, and then they refer me to others. So that's one piece of the business itself. And then I realized that to be well known and have a bigger impact so that my platform could touch more people and have a bigger impact, I would have to, you know, do things like writing and speaking. So the first you start Just doing that, like, for free and on your blog. And then you can leverage all of that into more paid speaking. And then, you know, like from my blog to writing for Forbes and writing for Harvard Business Review and writing for Inc. And, you know, that gives me a bigger platform, a bigger stage, and then more opportunities come to me, but also I have the impact to touch more lives.

Love it. I totally agree with that. I mean, I teach regularly that there is a hierarchy of desire. And whether we like it or not, those that are looked at as celebrities in their field, thought leaders, experts in particular, are going to command the highest prices and are going to be the most attractive. If you need to have brain surgery, you don't want to go to the person that just barely got out of school and no one has ever heard of. I mean, you want to go to the gal that wrote the book or the guy that is speaking on stage for that particular thing. And that's true, not just for brain surgery, but for everything. So I love that part of it. You know, just because this is interesting to me, writing for Forbes, writing for Harvard Business Review. How did you do that? You said, you know, you start writing for your blog, and then I'm writing for Harvard Business Review and Forbes. That's a big gap right there.

Yeah. I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you exactly how I did it. First of all, I started writing and so long ago, long ago, I had one client. I had a very big client. I had client concentration in one area. And I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Until a new person came in, and suddenly I was not so happy there anymore, and things were not so good, and I'd go on long runs, and I'd be mad how come it was that way. By the time I ended my run, I had one insight, number one. Actually, two insights. Number one, you got to diversify your business. Number two, the way to do this, you get the word out and write your newsletter. Yeah. So I created my newsletter, my monthly newsletter. Monthly newsletter. I never was able to get 12 editions out of my monthly newsletter. Nonetheless, I got some of it out. Right. You want to be perfect. So I got that out. So I had kind of a background of writing, and then I was at a dinner, and I met the publisher of Worth magazine. And he. When I talked a little bit, and I sort of screwed my courage up, and I said, I'd love to write for you. Well, as it happens, they were looking for voices from women's leadership. So he said, great. And then he Sent me to his more junior person to work it out. How many times did I have to follow up? Three times I had to follow up, and then we finally had a conversation. And then because I had written my monthly newsletter, not so monthly, I had clips to show them, and so they were happy to have me do that. And now I had my monthly newsletter and my worth. And using those clips, I got my way into Forbes. And using those clips, I got my way into Ink. And then after all that, I was able to write for HBR because I was already a known quantity. So I say that to everybody because you don't have to be perfect, but you do have to put one foot in front of the other and be consistent. You just follow up with people because we're always like, oh, they don't want to talk to me, maybe they want to talk to you, maybe they don't. Or maybe they just email overwhelmed like you probably are, too.

Yeah.

So I think it's really important to keep following up and have the ability to be persistent and consistent in the activities that you do.

Love it, Alyssa. That's a masterclass right there. I appreciate that. Like, you don't have to be perfect, all the things that you outline. And this didn't happen overnight. It sounds like it happened over a number of years, which is great. But, you know, it's. No, I mean, we. I write for Forbes, and so I do some. Even though that's really not. Like, my thing is to do the writing. My thing more is to help other people get PR and media. You know, for my clients, the authors, etc. I know it is no small feat to do those things. It takes a lot of work. And you get to enjoy the thought leadership, the benefit of all of that, because you've done that groundwork. So congrats on that. Very, very cool.

Thank you. Thank you.

Let's talk about the book a little bit and specifically how the book integrates with your business and what you do. As you know, we talked about briefly, you know, our audience, primarily business owners who either want to write or have written something. So talk to me about how you use your book to grow your business, how you use your book to grow your thought leadership to get clients. All of those things.

Yeah. So, first of all, I wanted to write a book I was proud of. That was goal number one. So I'm very happy that I'm proud of my book From Startup to Grownup, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback about it. So that's very validating.

Yes.

The second thing is, the way I use it is actually like this. We would not be talking unless I had a book.

Exactly.

I would not have been on the Tim Ferriss show unless I had a book. True. I would not have been featured in First Round Capital and First Round Review if I had not had a book. So it gives people a context to feature you, invite you onto podcasts, and kind of be able to write about you. Also, it gives you ideas to write about. Also, people want you to speak in speaking engagements on your book or have something to give other people. So for all those reasons, a book is a really important plank in your platform. And then once people read it, they're like, oh, you're so interesting. You're so smart. Go, Alyssa. And so then they reach out to you because they want the person to your point earlier who wrote the book. Yeah. Literally, I've had people say, I know that you wrote the book on startup leadership. And like, yes, I did. That's the book. Yeah. Yes.

I love it.

That's how I use it.

And any cool stories around something that may have happened, like you got a speaking gig because of your book and it led to a new client or anything like that that comes to mind. It's always kind of inspiring to hear that kind of stuff.

Well, I would say it starts and ends with the Tim Ferriss show.

Yeah.

I'm sure that you and your listeners are familiar with the Tim Ferriss show.

It's gigantic.

Yeah. Millions and millions of listeners. And when he was kind enough and gracious enough to have me on his show, first of all, my Amazon ranking, I mean, you don't even know, like, shot up. Right. I was sort of, like, languishing in the 85,000th of Amazon. And this journey, I was in the 2,000 of Amazon, and I was the number one bestseller for multiple days in entrepreneurship. So that was massive. And so what came out of that? Many, many people who wanted me to do off sites for them wanted me to, you know, coach them. Of course they listened and they introduced me to other people. I would just also say it gave me extra moxie to also reach out to other people. Some people who also were on the Tim Ferriss show and I connected. So that's one massive story. Right. But from the back of that, other people heard me and had me on their podcast. And I can't count the number of inroads I've had. I literally can't count the number of the amount of business and the number of just people who know more about me that came out of that experience.

Love it. And we'll continue to.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Especially now I'm on this podcast. Rob. Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Alyssa, I love it. Thank you. Thanks for your stories, you know, explaining what you've done with your book and how you've used it, explaining the whole process, bumps and all of becoming a writer for Forbes and Inc. And Harvard Business Review, et cetera. Really, really valuable. Where can we send people to learn a little bit more about you, maybe potentially work with you or have you speak, et cetera?

Well, you can definitely check out my own podcast, which is also called From Startup to Grownup Up.

Awesome.

And that's where all podcasts are found. It's also about the journey from founder to leader, but really it's a journey of all leaders. You can also come to my website, alyssacon.com a l I s a c o h n.com and I have in the back of my book Scripts for Delicate Conversations. And on my website I have five additional scripts for Delicate Conversations that you can download for free as a resource. And you can also come to Twitter and LinkedIn and say hi, I love it.

I love it. Scripts for Delicate Conversations. That is a great lead magnet. You need to go and get that at Alyssa's website right now. Absolutely. So I know I am going to. I actually have your website pulled up, but I didn't get that yet. So I'm going to do that.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Alyssa. Thanks for being on. You're a great guest. Thanks for all the wisdom that you brought. Really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. It was great to be with you.

My pleasure. Hey, thanks for listening in on the Publish Promote Profit podcast. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute and like and subscribe to the podcast because every week I bring you either great guests or great teaching to help you to grow your income and your impact with a best selling book. And if you're interested in having your own best selling book, check out my short video which explains our trademark process@bEGINMYBOOK.COM.