IAM080 – Coach & Consultant Helps Entrepreneurs Bring Their Expertise to Life

Liz Czepiel is an executive coach & learning and leadership consultant. Serving as a strategic business partner, she helps entrepreneurs bring their expertise to life through the creation of various learning initiatives including programs, workshops and masterminds and helps leaders turn exhaustion into efficiency and focus through leadership and agile coaching practices. Partners and clients include Girls With Impact, ExecOnline and MommyPoppins. In addition to her consulting practice, Liz serves on the faculty at Northeastern University and Columbia University.

• CEO Hack: Outlook & time-blocking through task function
• CEO Nugget: Switched the perspective and asked “Why not me?”
• CEO Defined: Having a vision and continuing to evolve that vision by thinking strategically. Stepping out of the day-to-day. Elevation to the strategic level.

Website: https://www.lizabethczepiel.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizabethczepiel

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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 the 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, Liz Czepiel CEO of lizabethzepiel.com. Liz, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Liz Czepiel 0:37

Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem, no problem. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Liz so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Liz Czepiel is an executive coach & learning and leadership consultant. Serving as a strategic business partner, she helps entrepreneurs bring their expertise to life through the creation of various learning initiatives including programs, workshops, and masterminds, and helps leaders turn exhaustion into efficiency and focus through leadership and agile coaching practices. Partners and clients include Girls With Impact, ExecOnline, and MommyPoppins. In addition to her consulting practice, Liz serves on the faculty at Northeastern University and Columbia University. Liz, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Liz Czepiel 1:23

I am so ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:25

All right, let's do it. So the first question I have is if you could just build a little bit more upon your background and tell us about your CEO story and what led you to start your business?

Liz Czepiel 1:33

Yeah, so way back when I actually started my career in finance had the dream, the dream was to work on Wall Street, and this was pre-2008. Dove myself in a financial role for a nuclear energy company and two years into the role knew it wasn't the dream, right? Had the cube life, was falling asleep at my desk, I was crunching numbers, I could do the work, but it was not speaking to me.

And that led me to go back to school, I knew I wanted to return to the classroom, I knew that my current line of work wasn't working, and found this amazing master's program, looking at people in organizations, and everything that included group dynamics to lead to emotional intelligence, and how one person acts within the systems of an organization and I fell in love with the work and that was really the catalyst for my movement into the people side of the business.

So for the past 10 years or so I've been in a variety of different roles for some very large and some very small organizations doing everything from leadership coaching to driving different learning programs also headed up a diversity and inclusion organization at one of my companies, and really loved the work and I realized that I wanted more freedom in the work that I was doing. So I was gaining really solid experience coaching internally and building out these kinds of programs and I realized that, at times, I felt creatively stifled, if that makes sense. I have always been an overachiever, sometimes to a fault and I found myself in some of these roles, getting bored and I was always looking for the next thing. I always wanted the next challenge and I realized that in order to find that I needed to start grafting things myself and working with my own clients. and that's what I did.

So about five years ago, I started my practice, and I know you've been asked specifically about this, but it filled such a need for me to control my time. Okay, so we all have different reasons why we go into business for ourselves. One of mine was to make sure that I was constantly expanding my skill set and working creatively. I can't even say that word today.

Gresham Harkless 4:04

No worries, I can't say it either. I was going to help you.

Liz Czepiel 4:06

Not creativity in my work and another reason for me another big why was ownership of my time to be able to work on the things that I wanted to work on with the people that really spark that energy in me and have that ownership of how I'm spending my days, right? we spend so much time at work, I needed to own that for myself, so that was the spark to go out on my own. I started my practice about five years ago, and it's evolved from primarily leadership coaching into, full-blown project management or different learning programs for clients, and also partnering with CEOs to help them scale their business I love this statement by one of my clients, He said, I'm here I am 10 years into my business highly successful in the SEO space and I'm at the point where I'm ready to become a CEO, not just a guy running a company.

So I partner with a lot of people in that same position, okay? You have a really solid skill set and what you're doing, how do we get you to the next level, actually operating like a CEO and building strategy and being okay, bringing a team along the journey with you, because that can be really challenging, starting to delegate and trust people with this creation that you've developed yourself. So that's a little bit about how I got into this work.

Gresham Harkless 5:33

Nice, nice, nice. And it's always interesting how the universe pushes you where you don't necessarily want to be and it leads you to where you want to be, and how those opposites attract. So you experienced that or the binaries, you experienced one side, and then you want to definitely position yourself into doing that. So I know you touched a little bit on it, but I want to hear a little bit more about, how you help the clients that you work with. And, can you take us through like exactly what you do from that standpoint?

Liz Czepiel 5:57

Yeah, so I do a variety of different things and I love that because I've realized over the years that I am multi-passionate, and that's one of the things that my work allows me to do. So in many circumstances, I'm working with startups, organizations in the tech space, and maybe solopreneurs. And they're looking to reach a broader audience, they have this level of expertise, but they're not sure how to translate that into something that's actually digestible to their clients. So in those cases, I partner with them and we have a huge brainstorming session on what they know and what they think the most valuable nuggets are, for their clients and we turn that into a learning program.

Sometimes it's online, sometimes it's a live workshop, sometimes they're bringing people together in person for a retreat experience and I partner alongside them to project manage the whole experience, build out the curriculum and the content, and really help them figure out how to leverage what they know, in a way that will help them serve more individuals. I also work with clients and help them operationalize everything they need on the HR side of the business, to continue growing and engaging their teams. So I embed myself in organizations and help them figure out everything from their talent acquisition and onboarding processes to driving employee engagement through having performance review processes in place.

So all kinds of the functional foundational HR things and then for other organizations or their clients, I'm working one on one with a CEO and more of an executive coaching aspect, and having those important conversations and helping them overcome roadblocks and being that thought partner to them to continue to build their strategy.

Gresham Harkless 7:54

Awesome. As long as it sounds like you're a Swiss army knife, so to speak, where you have these different roles, but you're trying to figure out exactly what that client that you're working with might actually need and then you're able to provide whatever services they're actually looking for.

Liz Czepiel 8:08

Yeah, it's all about curiosity. I come in, and I have a game plan and a set of templates that I like to use, and, all that good stuff, but it needs to be tailored to what the client needs and a lot of times I start working with someone in one capacity and that evolves because they realize they want to go in a new direction. And okay, I'm here, what are we going to do? How are we going to get this done? So it's all about being really curious and serving the client and where they are and where they want to be.

Gresham Harkless 8:36

Makes perfect sense. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and this might be something that you feel distinguishes you or sets you apart. So what do you think your secret sauce is?

Liz Czepiel 8:45

I love that question. I would say something that has served me tremendously and I didn't anticipate this at all, is having the diverse background that I have and being able to engage in organizations from multiple revenue ranges, size ranges, and being able to come to the table and understand the system side of things, understand the numbers and the finance.

Before I started, my own practice, I worked for a large consulting firm, so I get a client-consultant relationship. And being able to bring that all to the table in the work that I do now is extremely helpful, not only to me to understand, the stage of the organization, where they're looking to grow, but also to the client, because a lot of times I'm not partnering with other leadership or HR type organizations, the industries I work in are across the board. So to have that even language that we can use when it comes to business is an automatic relationship builder.

Gresham Harkless 9:50

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, like you say, could you have a diverse background, you can automatically come to a commonplace and probably understand exactly what that potential client is going through and things you can do to help them, reach those goals. So I think that's pretty awesome that you're able to do that. So I'm now wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have. But it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a CEO.

Liz Czepiel 10:15

Yes, time management is critical, especially with so many different clients, projects, initiatives, and timelines for all the different pieces that I'm working with. And for me, I keep it really simple. I have enough apps and tools and systems that I use for project management and building courses and all of that. I use Outlook, I went through this week, and I probably have nine different email accounts that I'm managing right now. So for me to mentally prepare myself and know what I'm doing for the week, I need to have it all in one place.

So I've all my accounts in Outlook and I actually start each morning, by time blocking that day or that week, I use the task function to make sure I know what's coming up, a few weeks out, I use some recurring meetings in there. So I know every Friday this is due and then on my calendar, it is just filled with different colors for different projects and priorities and that's the only way I can mentally make sure that I'm on task, I feel organized, it helps get all that mental conversation out of my head around what's due and have it in one place where I can actually see it and I know how allotting every hour to the day, that saves me.

Gresham Harkless 11:34

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I can't say how powerful it is just to be able to take something that's in your head and be able to place it someplace else and gives you space to not worry about it. Even though we think we're not holding on to it, even if it's a little small thing or to do this, If we don't put it someplace a lot of times it can block us from doing other things worried about.

Liz Czepiel 11:52

Yeah, forget the headspace.

Gresham Harkless 11:54

Exactly, exactly. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is basically a word of wisdom or piece of advice you might have for entrepreneurs and business owners or something you might tell your younger business self.

Liz Czepiel 12:05

I got to a point in my business where I was doing a lot of comparisons, I was looking at a lot of competitors and I dove into their offerings and their background and I found myself saying, they're just really lucky, they're doing a lot of this work with clients I would love to work with, and I'm not sure how they got there. I feel like I have, pretty credible experience and a pretty solid background. But for some reason, these other people have made their businesses work and I found myself going through this comparison and internal dialogue one day, and I switched the perspective. I said, “well, why not me?” If they're doing it with their background?

Why not me, that's become a monster for me. It's because it's so easy, especially starting out, you have the shiny object syndrome, and you're constantly looking at how you can improve yourself by, maybe following in the footsteps of someone you admire and seeing how you stack up against them. But why not me? Why not me with what I have to bring to the table?

Gresham Harkless 12:06

Exactly, exactly. I love that. Why not me, it's a very powerful question to ask. And a lot of the time, we underestimate what we're able to accomplish and able to do. But that's just a constant reminder that not only can that person do it, but I can do it too. So I love that CEO nugget that you provided. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is a definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different CEOs on the podcast, but want to ask you specifically what being a CEO means to you.

Liz Czepiel 13:44

You know, I answered this question not too long ago, and I'm gonna stick with that answer. It means having a vision, and continuing to evolve that vision by thinking strategically, I think there's a difference between, someone who is running a business and actually being a CEO and I think you step into that role as you are able to step out of the day to day, that's not a component of your role.

But when you're at the point where, you're not responsible for filing the papers or managing the calendar, though, those are really super important when you're at the point where you can actually elevate yourself to that strategic level and have a plan for your business for the next three, five years. I think that when you're at that level of CEO, you are overseeing and really bringing your vision to life in that way.

Gresham Harkless 14:49

I love that and it's the idea of leveling up like you're going through a building or something when you're on a higher level, you're able to see more out, it would have made more strategic decisions like you mentioned that three or five years in advance I think that's a phenomenal definition. And I'm glad you shared that with us. And Liz, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. What I wanted to do was kind of pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional. You want to let our readers and our listeners know how best people can get a hold of you.

Liz Czepiel 15:14

Yeah, definitely find me on my website. Hopefully, we'll post that with the link to this recording is there anything I want to leave the listeners with, I'm always looking to connect with new people. So if you're curious about anything we talked about today, find my website happy to hop on a call and get to know me.

Gresham Harkless 15:37

Absolutely. I appreciate that. And what we'll do, is we'll definitely have that link in the show notes, so just anybody can follow up with your list. But again, I truly appreciate you taking time out and all the awesome things that you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Liz Czepiel 15:48

Thank you too.

Outro 15:50

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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