IAM053 – CEO, Coach & Expert Helps People That Struggle with Sales, Marketing & Systems

Michela Quilici, CEO MQ Consulting and Business Training Inc. Michela is an International business growth + marketing expert passionate about supporting coaches, consultants and service professionals who struggle with sales, marketing and systems – to gain more exposure, magnetize qualified buyers, and double revenues with much less effort.

Over the past 17 years she has coached and consulted hundreds of entrepreneurially minded companies globally, from start-up to $20+ million to take business owners and their business to the next level of excellence. Michela has been featured in USA Weekly, Canadian Living Magazine and Profit Magazine. She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and is a contributing author in the bestselling book Conscious Business.

• CEO Hack: Going through a values exercise
• CEO Nugget: 6 main blocks/bottlenecks to business growth – (1) Mindset (2) Skills (3) Strategy (4) Positioning (5) Productivity (6) Leverage
• CEO Defined: Leadership

Website: http://www.michelaquilici.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichelaQulici/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelaquilici/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichelaQuilici

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Michela Quilici of MQ consulting and business training Incorporated.

Michela is the CEO of MQ consulting and business training Incorporated. Michela is an international business growth and marketing expert passionate about supporting coaches, consultants, and service professionals who struggle with sales, marketing, and systems- to gain exposure, magnetize qualified buyers, and double revenues with much less effort.

Over the past 17 years, she has coached and consulted hundreds of entrepreneurially minded companies globally from start-ups to 20+ million dollar companies to take their business owners and their businesses to the next level of excellence. Michela has been featured in USA Weekly, Canadian Living Magazine, and profit magazine. She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and is a contributing author in the best-selling book Conscious Business.

Michela, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Michela Quilici 1:32

I'm ready. I'm ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:34

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, the first question I have is if you can expound a little bit more on the bio that I read and tell us a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to get started in your business?

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Michela Quilici 1:43

So I started my business really out of a strong desire to stop tolerating the life that I had and to really start creating the one that I wanted. Of course, at the time, I didn't really know what I wanted, but I sure knew what I didn't want. So that's kind of where I started. In my early 20s, I was really on the fast track to climbing up the corporate ladder, I was young and eager to learn how to really have a fierce determination to be successful.

And I worked for one of Canada's fastest-growing startups, named by Profit Magazine, leading the marketing department supporting our 100-person strong sales team, we were actually the number one company in our niche in North America. And I was the youngest woman on the executive team as well, I had always had mentors and coaches. And I was really fortunate enough to have been in a 10-year-long apprenticeship with one of the most successful CEOs that I had come to know, he had previously worked for PepsiCo, and Heinz in Europe. So despite all of the success that I had created for myself, at a very young age, I had some serious obstacles along the way.

But I got to a point in my career where I had a bit of a wake-up call, as you do. And the question was, what was my real purpose in life? was this it? Was this to simply climb the corporate ladder? And was that what I was meant to do? And that question really led me on a quest to start my first business, and then eventually create the one that I have had for the past eight years. And my sole purpose has always been to step out of my shadow, my own shadow, and into my spotlight, and to really stop tolerating, and start creating.

And ultimately, for me, it was about not ever letting external circumstances define me. And my core values were a real guiding light for me, freedom, truth, purpose, growth, and leadership, I had a lot of my own emotional and psychological traumas to overcome along the way, but my persistence and insistence on the belief that I wasn't a victim of my own circumstances has always been a real driving force for me. It's about self-leadership. That's what I'm talking about here. And it's about doing it for myself and teaching others as well. And my business has evolved, as I've seen sort of gaps in the marketplace. My mission has really evolved to help empower business owners and leaders to first lead themselves and then to become more of who they really are.

Gresham Harkless 4:27

I love it, I love it. And basically how you've evolved and evolved into your business and like you said, I love that idea of, stepping out of your shadows into your spotlight. I love that. I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper into your business and get an idea of like, how do you help your clients? And what way do you actually serve your clients?

Michela Quilici 4:43

Yeah, good question. So really, my company exists to support entrepreneurs and CEOs to navigate their business growth on purpose, and as a management consultant and a business growth coach, and a marketing strategist, all rolled up into One, I work with service-based business owners, and CEOs and entrepreneurs to help them accelerate business growth to six figures plus, or take their successful six-figure business to seven figures. Sometimes I even help businesses turn around. So I've had a number of cases where business owners have been in business for 10 years, and they've got a six-figure plus business, but they're not profitable. And they're about to shut their doors.

And so I help them turn that around into a more profitable situation. So my clients call me their business navigator, I bring diagnostics, I bring strategies, tools, systems, and tactics that are done with you tactics and accountability in main areas of sales and marketing, operational systems, and people in leadership. And the result is that the business owners confidently grow their business strategically, market themselves authentically, and create better and faster results than if they were to do it alone. I really work alongside them, doing a deep dive with them into their business. And I provide a business growth roadmap and a compass, essentially, and then help them navigate from where they are to where they want to go. So they have greater clarity, purpose, and direction and take action that's going to produce unexpected results.

Gresham Harkless 6:25

Awesome. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call their secret sauce, or kind of like what you feel makes you and your organization unique or different.

Michela Quilici 6:34

I love that secret sauce, I call it my superpower. But I love secret sauce, too. So I've got three main unique features to what I do. And number one, I work with business leaders on both the personal and professional work, so the inner and the outer game, because I believe that you cannot separate the CEO from the business entity, as I have been known to say your business is your greatest spiritual teacher, whatever shows up in your business at a tactical level can typically be mapped back to the leader, and some sort of personal block, whether it's at the subconscious or the conscious level.

And most of the time, the root causes some sort of either limiting belief or emotional wounding that resides in their mind body spirit, that's fueling their habits, their beliefs, causing self-sabotage, they're causing or triggering emotions. And this impacts the words and how they show up in their actions. And so these blocks negatively influence the business owner's ability to execute strategies and tactics in a really effective way.

So this is one of the main differentiators is the inner and outer game work. The second one is that I work at both an intuitive and a strategic level. So I use my own personal awareness and sensitivities and knowledge of many different modalities that I pull in like metaphysics, brain science, psychology, and human behavior, alongside my real-world experience of supporting my clients to build profitable and sustainable multi-seven-figure businesses. And the third one is that working with me is apprentice style. So it's done with your approach, which I have found the most effective approach for creating real change.

So it's a hybrid, it's part coaching, part consulting, and part hands-on tactical, I really immerse myself into my client's business and support the CEO directly, almost like their COO for hire, if you will, it's a holistic approach that I take to the business model. So we look at how we can improve each area of the business, resulting in an overall increase in revenue, profit, productivity, and harmony, to be honest.

Gresham Harkless 9:08

That's awesome. I love the way like a Swiss Army Knife where you're able to fill whatever gap that's needed at that time. And I think especially with business owners, sometimes they might need coaching, but then they might need a consultant. Then they might need somebody to get their hands dirty, so to speak. So the fact that you're able to execute on your superpower, so to speak, where you're able to help business owners out and those many different ways definitely probably result in a lot of success.

Michela Quilici 9:30

I love it. Actually, when I initially started, this was not the model. It was, straight-up consulting. And what I found was that I could teach strategies and business strategy, marketing strategy, and tactics all day long. But what I found was that the business owner was to some degree getting in their own way. And so that's when I started layering in and the coach approach into the work and I then layered in more of the apprenticeships style where we then take a look at the whole business, because just taking a look at sales and marketing also wasn't working as effectively as it could because once we generate more leads and exposure than if you don't have the right systems in place to deliver your service and the right leverage, then it creates another bottleneck.

So it's been a layered approach, just really trying to support my clients and really finding out like, what does the market need? What do they need now? where am I seeing the struggle? And so I prefer to work with people, one-on-one for longer periods of time because then we can create lasting change. And they really feel like they have a partner in their business, because a lot of the time, they're either alone, they're the only ones in the business, or they're the only executive. And so they can't necessarily talk to their team, about business strategy and about what's going on for them as a leader, it's been an evolution.

Gresham Harkless 11:02

As we all are evolving. I love that and love how you're able to fill those gaps and help out the clients at the end of the day, they reach their goals, and whatever it is that they want to accomplish. What I wanted to do was kind of switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app or book or just a habit or something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Michela Quilici 11:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. So one of the hacks if you will really turn things around for me personally, and that I see really makes a difference with my clients as well is going through a values exercise. So this is about getting crystal clear about who you are, basically, and what's important to you on a personal level, and then further to that what is important at an organizational level.

Gresham Harkless 11:56

Now I wanted to ask you for a CEO nugget. A CEO nugget might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that you might have for an entrepreneur or business owner.

Michela Quilici 12:03

Mm-hmm. I've got a nugget. Okay, so it's more than a nugget, but I'll share it. So there are six main blocks to business growth, being aware of what these bottlenecks are, will give the CEO a bit of a roadmap for growth so that you can plan for and navigate them. And so that they're not surprised when they might come up in the business. And I work with my clients in these areas. So I'll just run through them. So there are six of them.

The first one is a mindset, your beliefs are driving the bus so change your beliefs, and you'll change your results.

The second bottleneck is skills. As you're growing your business, you've got to uplevel your skills as well, so that you're growing from a technician who's the Chief of everything in your business to a leader and the CEO.

The third block is strategy, strategic planning, and building a business growth roadmap based on values, goals, and objectives, which will really help you go from inconsistent results to predictable and successful outcomes.

A fourth block is positioning. This is about developing your business into a brand going from a business to a brand that really connects with the hearts and minds of your clients and your consumers. This is about really understanding what you're actually selling in your business and positioning your value. This is instrumental. The fifth one is productivity. So this is going from being busy and chasing shiny objects to having a single-minded focus and following through and setting up really good systems. And the final one is leverage. And leverage is about building and empowering teams, and leveraging your time, money, and your resources.

Gresham Harkless 14:00

I love that. I think it probably reflects upon who the person actually is, and maybe what their background and their skills are like you mentioned. Now I wanted to ask you, which is what my favorite question is, is kind of like the definition of being a CEO.

We're hoping to have different types of CEOs on the podcast. So I wanted to ask you specifically what being a CEO means to you?

Michela Quilici 14:19

If I had to pick one thing, being a CEO, to me means leadership, whether it's being the CEO of your life, or the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company when you can lead yourself with self-responsibility, courage, integrity, truth, compassion, authenticity, purpose, you're truly leading yourself and you can then inspire and motivate others to follow you. And you can support them to become leaders on their own. Right? So it's leaders creating more leaders So that's what being a CEO means to me.

Gresham Harkless 15:02

I love it, I love it. Michela, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule to kind of speak with s. I wanted to pass you the mic so to speak, just so you can tell us anything additional. You want to let our readers and our listeners know and then also how best people can get a hold of you.

Michela Quilici 15:15

Sure. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you today. For more business growth and leadership tips and resources. I encouraged the readers and listeners to visit my website. They can do that at michelaquilici.com.

Gresham Harkless 15:37

Awesome. And what I'll do is you'll have those links in the show notes. And Michela, thank you so much again for all the awesome wisdom you provided to us and definitely for taking some time out of your schedule.

Michela Quilici 15:48

Oh, thank you so much for the invitation. I look forward to reading and listening to more of your articles and your podcasts.

Outro 15:58

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co.

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless.

Thank you for listening

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