You have tried the fixes. A credentialed second read comes before the next one.
For the owner, executive or professional who has the ability, has spent on the obvious answers, and wants the market read done first with someone to call while you execute.
Who this is for
I work with people in these situations.
- The business runs and the stall is somewhere you have not looked. You have paid for the courses, the coaches, the systems and the agencies. Each helped a little. The result did not change.
- You left a large system and the plane feels heavier than it should. The skills that ran a division do not carry a business that is yours. In the system, the organization carried the fuel, the route and most of the weight. Now you do.
- You are inside an organization and your career is happening to you. You want to run it the way an owner runs a business: with a destination, a read on the market, and dated moves.
- You and a partner are building together and keep talking past each other, because the two of you read the same situation from two chairs.
- You have a plan, and savings and years about to go into it. You want a credentialed second read first.
You have the ability and the readiness. What is missing is a read on the market you are in, and a mentor who has watched markets for nearly forty years.
The market read comes first
Most people arrive with a method question: how to market, how to hire, how to fund it, how to get the next role. In my experience the answer is rarely in the method.
A pilot does not choose the aircraft and then check the weather. So I read the market first. Where the money lands in your market and who the flagship is. Which gap is open, and whether the way in is awareness, access or affordability. What the market will trade for, and what it would cost you to deliver it. Then we point the method at that, which is how the plan stops being another document.
Mentoring and coaching are two different jobs. Mentoring builds the strategic mindset around the outcome you want. Coaching develops the skills, the reps and the drills. You get both, in that order.
How it runs
The questionnaire
You answer a short set of questions at /start/. Short and true beats long and polished. I read the answers myself.
The first conversation
We talk about where you are, where you want to go, and the gap between the two. I ask the Money Question, because the silences in the answer are some of the most useful data on the page.
The proposal
I send a written proposal with the scope and the fee. The fee is quoted in the proposal and locked when you accept it.
About two weeks of reading
I read the business or the career. For a business that means the method already running, the market it actually serves from its transaction history, and the mission you state, held up against each other. For a career it means your record, your chair and the market for your judgment.
The Growth Opportunity Map
This is the first business document I build with anyone. It lays out good, better and best pathways side by side, each with its logic: the if-then, the what-if, the who, the when and the where. Each pathway gets four questions: whether it is preferred, whether it is doable, whether it is acceptable for the life you wrote down, and what would make it non-acceptable. I do not pick the pathway for you. You do.
Sixty to ninety days with a mentor behind you
You execute the plan. I stay light-touch, with a call, a text or an email when you want more clarity on something specific. A year later you can open the map and remember why each call was made.
Career alignment is Mission work
The problem: you are good at the work, the title keeps changing, and you cannot say where it is all going. Or you left the large seat and the next one is not obvious. The order is the same as for a business. Mission, then Market, then Method.
The Life Plan, priced. Every outcome you want gets priced in money, time, effort and energy. The bucket list finally meets the budget. The full plan runs thirteen to twenty hours across weeks. The owner brief is the one-sitting version, and it is often enough to carry into the market.
The movie you would produce and direct. We turn the plan into a storyboard your people can watch: genre, characters, location, pace, theme, climax, finale and sequel. Then you screen it for the people in it. Their reaction tells you whether the plan is shared or only signed.
The chair you came from. Five people looking at the same stalled company give five diagnoses, and each one is a mirror of the career behind it. Finance, law, engineering, clinical work, the trades, a large organization, marketing, sales, operations, people and culture each leave a lens. These are tendencies to watch, not verdicts. I read yours first, because it predicts what your mission will get wrong.
Opinions to facts. When you are choosing between another big seat, a business of your own, and stepping back, the people around you each have an opinion. The paralysis is often missing data about what the people closest to you want. We get it on paper, with the people in it. A runway is the time to choose well. A person who has eaten can pick a meal, and a hungry person takes the first thing found.
Then the market for your judgment. The value is your ability to figure things out, more than the list of titles. We look at the adjacent industries with a real gap that your judgment fills, and build one page that presents you as the person any organization would want.
For couples and partners. I run the order with both of you, and read each chair. Asking a person to be someone their history did not make rarely works. The ask gets readjusted to the real wiring, and you stop talking past each other.
What you leave with
- A Growth Opportunity Map you can open a year from now.
- A written position line: for these people, the gap is this, I close it this way, and it moves this part of growth for me.
- Named people and dated moves, instead of a wish list.
- For a career, a priced Life Plan and a dated decision to stay, climb or start.
- A mentor behind you for sixty to ninety days.
Some of the closing is a decision made sooner, a conversation finally held, or a pursuit set down on purpose. Those count.
Willing, Able, Ready is the screen
I read Willing first, then Able, then Ready. Coaching fits the person who has the ability and the readiness and wants the will confirmed and the direction validated.
Three situations tend not to work out.
- A lot of money and no experience. Capital without the exposure, education and experience to place it.
- A lot of experience and very little money. The plan needs more fuel than the person can put behind it in the next ninety days.
- A personal problem wearing a market problem’s clothes. The business is being asked to fix something the market has no part in.
If you are in one of these, I will say so on the first call. If you need the plan built more than read, see Close the Gap.
There is no price on this page, on purpose
What the work costs depends on what the assessment finds. I read your answers, we talk, and then I send a proposal. The fee is quoted in the proposal and locked when you accept it. You see the scope before you spend anything.
Start with the letter
Join the EEThinkers. One idea a week, five minutes, no noise. It is the easiest way to hear how I think before we talk. Connect with me on LinkedIn as well. When you are ready for the second step, take the assessment at /start/.
How is coaching different from Close the Gap?
Coaching gives you perspective, a market read, a plan and light-touch support while you execute it yourself. Close the Gap is for the owner who has run through the resources and needs the plan built with their team, against a written scope. Most people who contact me want coaching, and the assessment tells us which fits.
I am still inside an organization. Is this for me?
Yes. Career alignment is Mission work, and it starts with a Life Plan priced in money, time, effort and energy. The same order applies to a career as to a company. The market read tells you where your judgment is worth the most.
Do you work with couples and business partners?
Yes. Two people building together bring two chairs and two lenses, and each often expects the other to be someone their history did not make. I run the order with both of you, read each chair, and give you an outside view of what each of you wants and what is possible.
Will you tell me if this is not a fit?
Yes, on the first call. If your situation is one of the three I describe on this page, or the plan needs building more than reading, I will say so and point you to the letter, the book or Close the Gap.