IAM2108 – Coach and Consultant Helps Entrepreneurs Bring Their Expertise to Life

In this episode, we have, 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 emphasizes the importance of time management and using Outlook to stay organized. She also shares her mantra “Why not me?” as a reminder to not underestimate their abilities.

Website: Lead Wright

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Transcription:

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Liz Czepiel Teaser 00:00

I'm working with startups, organizations in the tech space, maybe solopreneurs, and they're looking to reach a broader audience. They have this level of expertise. 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, what they think the most valuable nuggets are for their clients. And we turn that into a learning program.

Intro 00:33

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 00:58

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

Liz Czepiel 01:08

Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:10

No problem, no problem. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Liz so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Liz Czepiel is an executive coach and 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 including Girls with Impact, Exec Online, and Mommy Poppins. In addition to her consulting practice, Liz serves on the faculty at Northeastern University in Columbia University. Liz, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Liz Czepiel 01:54

I am so ready.

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Gresham Harkless 01:56

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

Liz Czepiel 02:05

Yeah. So I, way back when I actually started my career in finance had the dream. The dream was to work on Wall Street. Okay. And this was pre 2008. So that was still looking really good. I found myself in a financial role for a nuclear energy company and 2 years into the role, knew it wasn't the dream. 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 from group dynamics to leadership to emotional intelligence and how 1 person acts within the different 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 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 1 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 5 years ago, I started my practice and it, I know you can ask 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 1 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 04:32

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

Liz Czepiel 04:34

I was using that 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 sparked that energy in me and have that ownership of how I'm spending my days. 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 5 years ago, and it's evolved from primarily leadership coaching into full-loan project management for different learning programs for clients, and also partnering with CEOs to help them scale their business. And I love this statement by 1 of my clients. He said, I'm looking, 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 in 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 06:00

Nice, nice, nice. And it is 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 kind of opposites attract. So you experienced that or the binaries you experienced 1 side and then you want to definitely position yourself into doing that. So I know you touched a little bit on it, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about like how you help the clients that you work with and kind of like, can you take us through like exactly what you do from that standpoint?

Liz Czepiel 06:23

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 1 of the things that my work allows me to do. So in many circumstances I'm working with startups, organizations in the tech space, maybe solopreneurs and they're looking to reach a broader audience. They have this level of expertise. 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, 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 business to continue growing and engaging their team.

So I embed myself in organizations and help them figure out everything from their talent acquisition, onboarding processes, to driving employee engagement through having performance review processes in place. So all of kind of the functional foundational HR things. And then for other organizations, other clients, I'm working one-on-one with the 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 08:19

Awesome. It sounds like you're like 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 08:32

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 1 capacity and that evolves because they realize they want to go in a new direction and okay I'm here. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna 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 09:00

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 like distinguishes you or sets you apart. So what do you think your secret sauce is?

Liz Czepiel 09:08

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 that client consultant relationship.

And being able to bring that all to the table in the work that I do now is so 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 10:13

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

Liz Czepiel 10:37

Yes. Time management is critical especially with so many different clients, projects, initiatives, 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, I probably have 9 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 1 place. So I have 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, what's 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 kind of mental conversation out of my head around what's due and to have it in 1 place where I can actually see it and I know how allotting every hour to the day, that saves me.

Gresham Harkless 11:55

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 it gives you kind of space to not worry about it. Even though we think we're not holding onto it, even if it's a little small thing or it's a do list, if we don't put it someplace, a lot of times it can block us from doing other things or worried about other things.

Liz Czepiel 12:13

Yeah. Free up the head space.

Gresham Harkless 12:15

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 12:27

I got to a point in my business where I was doing a lot of comparison. 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 1 day and I switched the perspective.

I said why not me? If they're doing it with their background, why not me? And that's become a mantra for myself. It's because it's so easy, especially starting out, you have the shiny object syndrome, 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 13:36

Exactly, exactly. I love that. Why not me? That's a very powerful question to ask. And a lot of the times 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 kind of CEO nugget that you provided. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition for what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different CEOs on the podcast, but I wanted to ask you specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Liz Czepiel 14:02

I answered this question not too long ago, and I'm going to 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. Not 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 3, 5 years. I think that's when you're at that level of CEO. You are overseeing and really bringing your vision to life through that way.

Gresham Harkless 15:06

I love that. And it's this 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, you're able to make more strategic decisions like you mentioned, in 3 or 5 years in advance. So I think that's a phenomenal definition and I'm glad you share that with us. And Liz, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. What I wanted to do was cash you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there is anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get a hold of you.

Liz Czepiel 15:30

Oh gosh, yeah, definitely find me on my website. Hopefully we'll post that with the link to this recording. And 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 everybody.

Gresham Harkless 15:50

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

Liz Czepiel 16:02

Thank you too.

Outro 16:03

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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