Mike has proven highly effective in strategic planning, sales, process execution, and resource management within various organizations. He has demonstrated expertise and positive results in organizations such as The Coca-Cola Company (20 yrs), Mobil Chemical Company (6yrs-Now Exxon Mobil) as well as The United States Army (6yrs-Army Officer). Mike has over 26 years of marketing, sales, and business management experience within Fortune 500 companies. He is a motivated team leader, known for building capabilities within an organization to achieve superior results.
Mike is certified in The Strategic Mindset coaching process which adheres to standards, practices, and policies that the International Coaching Federation has set forth in its Code of Professional Standards and Ethics. Mike’s passion is helping businesses while being a positive influence in his community.
Mike has been married to his wife Tina for over 35 years and currently lives in Fredericksburg, VA. He has two children Aaron and Alexis Williams.
Organizations and Community Support
– President of the Business Forum of Fairfax (October 2019 to September 2020)
– Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors (January 2019 to Present)
– Local support of the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank and other food support
– Mentor support to young boys and girls within the Stafford County Middle Schools
- CEO Hack: Stepping back and looking at the whole business
- CEO Nugget: Have a passion for something? Do it and don't give up on it
- CEO Defined: Supporting my community
Website: https://www.thegrowthcoachofnorthernva.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thegrowthcoachofnova/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegrowthcoachofnova
Full Interview:
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Transcription
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00:23 – Intro
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.
00:50 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gretch from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mike Williams the growth coach of Northern Virginia. Mike, it's great to have you on the show.
01:00 – Mike Williams
Thanks for having me. I'm excited, man. How are you doing?
01:03 – Gresham Harkless
I'm doing phenomenal and happy you're here. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Mike so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. Mike has been the owner and president of the Growth Coach in Northern Virginia since June twenty 2015, over five years. Mike provides strategic planning, business development, and sales training to business owners, corporations, executives, and sales teams. Mike's diverse background and experiences have made him uniquely qualified to work with businesses of all sizes to help them achieve and exceed their goals.
Mike is proven and highly effective in strategic planning, sales, process execution, resource management, and within various organizations. He has demonstrated expertise and positive results in organizations such as Coca-Cola over twenty years, a mobile, chemical company, now ExxonMobil, as well as the United States Army. Thank you for your service. Mike has over twenty-six years of marketing, sales, and business management experience within Fortune five hundred companies. He's a motivated leader known for building capabilities within an organization to achieve superior results.
Mike has been married to his wife, Tina, for over thirty-five years, currently lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and has two children, Erin and Alexis Williams, organizational community support president of the Business Forum of Fairfax in twenty from October twenty-twenty nineteen to twenty, and many other accolades that he does to support the community. So, Mike, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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02:26 – Mike Williams
Absolutely. I'm ready to kick it off. Let's do it, man.
02:28 – Gresham Harkless
Let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more little bit more on how you guys started, what I call your CEO story.
02:36 – Mike Williams
Yeah. Well, you know, I've I've been in business now since twenty-fifteen. So really June, just in a month or so, it'll be six years in the business. I have always wanted to be a business owner, and I look back, you know, I started off. I had a paper route. I, you know, I sold sunflower seeds. I sold vegetable seeds and Christmas cards, all of those different things, but, I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I went to college, went into the military, did ROTC, and went into the military as a military officer. And, really, I've got into business for the same reason why everybody else gets in the business. It's, you know, you want some flexibility of your own time.
You want some flexibility, financially, and you want them to be your own boss. The funny thing about that, and I know you know this, is so when you become your own boss, you know, you find out you don't have as much time as you thought you might have because there's a lot to do, and there's a lot of responsibility with being in in in charge of that. The financial piece will come, but you gotta put a lot of work into it. You gotta sow the seeds and do all of that so it's a little bit more work. And then being your own boss, there's a lot of responsibility there. Because guess what? Your boss knows all of your tricks when you're the boss. So there's a lot of work into that.
So there's a little irony there, but, having the opportunity to bring something to life that's yours that you wanna do, is something special. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort, but, you know, I went into the military, and I spent six years in, and I thought, okay. I'm gonna go into business. I'm gonna learn about things. Somewhere down the road, I hope I might be able to get my own business. I had more fun than I thought I would have at Mobile Chemical and at Coca-Cola. So took a little longer, but then twenty fifteen, I decided it was time to jump out and do my own thing. And, and I'm glad I did. I'm enjoying the journey.
04:41 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. And definitely having, you know, worked with you in the past, I am glad you took the leap as well too. And I love how, you know, I think so many times we forget that along our life journey and especially our business journey, everything adds up to where we are. And so many times we forget about, you know, whether it was the sunflower seeds or the paper route to the Coca-Cola Company in Exxon. All the great places add up to all that great work that you do now.
05:03- Mike Williams
Yeah. You know, I used to think that, boy, you can't keep a job. You're doing all these different things. I, you know, I was a medical service officer, in medical administration, but I was in all field units. But you've got that training, that leadership, the coaching piece of it. And then when I think about, you know, a mobile chemical company, you know, I was a production supervisor. So I was in charge of people running product lines, but then I became a plant training supervisor.
So I'm training and I'm writing manuals and I'm certifying people. And then I went into sales, and, from sales, all the different aspects of business, marketing and, you know, operations, all those different things. And so I can look back and say, alright. Well, all of those things, you know, I honed skills that prepared me to be the best coach that I can be.
05:55 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. It all adds up and nothing I say everything is by design at the end of the day, so it's great to kinda hear, that that has been the case. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more about how you work with your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and what that looks like?
06:09 – Mike Williams
Yeah. So I own the growth coach in Northern Virginia, and, you know, coaching is a pretty broad thing. Some people can pin it down to, you know, I'm an executive coach. I'm a sales coach. I'm a business coach. I wear a lot of different hats, but that's by design. I like doing that. So I can help businesses in a lot of different ways. And rather than try to get you to do all these different things, what I like to do is understand the business and understand what you're trying to do and then, work with you to get you to the level where you wanna be, to get you to what you want out of your business. So looking at the vision and the mission. So with that, Gresham, it could be, you know, I do sales training.
So one day I might be working with a sales team and helping them build their sales strategy, their sales plan, and their selling process, Or I might be working with a corporate leadership team, and we might be talking about overall business strategy. We might be talking about the culture of the business and really getting everybody moving in the same direction, you know, with strategy, marketing, leadership, all of those different things. Or I could be doing a retreat seminar with a business, and we may be talking about discs. We may be talking about time management. So there are a lot of ways that I could help either a solopreneur, whether a sales team or a leadership team.
You know that as a business owner, there are a lot of different components to business, and so it could be that I could be working with the overall annual plan. I could be working with the marketing strategy and marketing plan. I could be working with leadership. So there are a lot of different ways that I could help people. And so I like to listen and learn and understand and then work with the client to help them make their vision and their mission come to life. So that's what I do. There's just a lot of different ways and a lot of different hats, or balls that we're juggling that I could help you out with.
08:16 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. That's absolutely huge. And I think it's and I don't know if that's kinda part of, like, what I like to call your secret sauce, but I was envisioning somebody, like, with a toolbox. And rather than saying, this is the only tool I have. You have to use this, as somebody that's using and having more of a conversation listening and saying, oh, I have this tool. It seems like it will fit directly with what you wanna do, what will make the biggest impact rather than just saying it's the only thing I have, so you have to use this or you can't.
08:40 – Mike Williams
Absolutely. Or I've got a whole tool bag, and I just dump it out on the desk, and I'm like, hey, Gee, pick out a couple of tools you like, and we'll I'll show you how to use those. Sometimes people don't know what they need, and so you want them to articulate to you, what they wanna do and how they wanna do it. And then I can reach into my tool bag or utility belt and say, here are some things that that I think might be able to help us, and we build that that process or that program to get you where you need to be?
09:12- Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that's huge because I feel like you have that, you know, that collaboration, that teamwork to get to where you wanna be. And I think as you said so well, sometimes you don't know what you don't know. So being able to kinda just see all the tools out there, helps you to say, okay. I didn't even know that existed or they made that. So let me try to use that so I can get to where I wanna be.
09:29 – Mike Williams
I've talked with businesses where they specifically know what they want me to help them with. But after a couple of conversations, we understand that that may or may not be part of it, but we need to add some things, or we need to look at something a different way through a different lens. And, and the biggest thing is to build out that road map to get you where you wanna be. That's the most important thing. It's not important for me to take a program or activity and make it work for you.
It's better for me to understand what you need. And even if I don't have it, you know, I'll build it or I'll get the growth coach to help me build a new program or activity. So I truly do wanna make it something that's gonna be useful and work for my client, whether they're a solopreneur or whether they're a corporation.
10:16 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. That's absolutely huge, especially, you know, during this transformational time. Obviously, there's been a lot of, you know, changes and things to know that things can be, you know, malleable enough to be fit directly with, you know, the person or the individual corporation is absolutely huge. So would you consider that to be, like, your secret sauce, the thing you feel kinda sash your heart and make sure you know?
10:34- Mike Williams
I would say a cup of two things. That's one, that I truly do listen and learn and and build that program, customize whatever we need for you. So that's what's important to me. I think the other thing is there are a lot of great coaches out there, but a lot of them may come from academia where they're saying, hey. I've I've taught business. Now I'm coming out and I'm coaching, or I've been in the military. I'm coming out and I'm doing you you know, I'm gonna focus on leadership. I just feel like I've got a lot of experience in a lot of places, which is what is gonna help me help you. You know? I've you know, my undergraduate is in teacher education, so teaching is something that's a foundation.
11:19 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. Appreciate that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be something from that tool bag we talked about before, or it could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.
11:33 – Mike Williams
One would be if you're a CEO, you need to step back and look at the whole business. Sometimes we we like to do things that we like or we like to do things that we're good at. But you know that as a CEO, you know, you're looking at marketing, sales. You're looking at leadership. You're looking at, you know, operations and execution, all of those different things, planning. And all of those things we may not like, but if you say you've got a great product and service and you wanna that out there to the community, you can't do that if you didn't pay your taxes. You can't do that if you're not doing the bookkeeping and all of those different things. And so I would say, you know, one hack would be to step away from the business from time to time and give yourself a couple of hours to look at the entire business and see what you're doing.
12:23 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
12:33 – Mike Williams
First off, if you're thinking about running a business, you know, congratulations. That's fantastic. Everybody can't do that. It's probably gonna be one of the tougher things you do in life. But if you have a passion for it and if you love it, then then do it. Do it and don't give up on it. If you believe in it, don't give up on yourself. Just keep moving forward. None of us are gonna be perfect at everything. And if we really think about it, it's the places where we made mistakes are where we got most of the learning done, and that's why they call it growing pains. So it's gonna be one of the hardest things that you do. It's gonna probably take longer than you think, but it's more than worthwhile if you really have a passion for it.
13:17 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely appreciate that. And so, you might have already touched on this, but I was gonna ask you for the definition of what it means to be a CEO because we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. Is that what you touched on before, what being a CEO means to you?
13:28 – Mike Williams
A little bit. You know, I would say leadership, strategically focused, you know, being a responsible human being, supporting the community. I just think it's a lot more than just, you know, getting a business running and being successful with the product. There's a lot of responsibility. If you have people working for you, you know, their success depends on your success. And like I said, passing that on, like, being able to take a little bit of that success and pour it into the community, whether that means community service or whether that means you're, you know, you're sponsoring or supporting other things. I just love that about businesses, and most of our smaller businesses are really driving the community and really supporting the community at the level, you know, at the level where we are, you know, right at the grassroots level.
14:23 – Gresham Harkless
Mike, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about your show and all the awesome things that you're working on as well.
14:37 – Mike Williams
Yeah. For me, I'm, the growth coach of Northern Virginia. And so on LinkedIn, it's the growth coach of NOVA and OVA. I've got a Facebook page, the growth coach of NOVA as well. I've got a Facebook group called Strategic Business Owners, so you can go into Facebook, and click on that. I do a Thursday talk segment. So, you know, if businesses, it's very quick. You know you've done it. It's it's a couple of minutes. And I love talking to business owners, understanding what they're doing and why they're doing it. But I also wanna connect other business owners with other business owners.
So that's a whole, you know, another piece of the Thursday talk. And then on alternate weeks, I do tips. So if you connect with me on LinkedIn or Facebook, you'll you'll get those those videos. I love talking with businesses and learning about businesses and business owners. So if anybody's interested in having a conversation about their business and where they're going, I do free assessments as far as that goes. And, hey. I'd love to talk to some of the folks you're talking with too because I know you do some mastermind-type stuff.
So maybe we can, you know, we can we can talk to, you can have me come in. I'd love to talk with some of your CEOs and business groups about time management and high-performing teams and those kinds of things. So that's what I'm doing these days. Loving life, love business, and just plowing forward, man.
16:03 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll definitely have the links and information in the show notes as well too, and and definitely appreciate that that plowing forward because I think, you know, the impact that you're making and all of the great things that you're doing is, you know, creating that domino effect that you see, obviously, in the businesses, the people within the business, but also the community in so many parts of it. So truly appreciate you for the, you know, the work that you do. Of course, the time that you took today and all the great value that you provided. So, I appreciate you so much again, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:29 -Outro
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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