IAM082 – Business Coach Creates Strategies Helping Clients Continue to Serve Their Communities

Mandy Snell is the Managing Director of FocalPoint Business Coaching of Virginia. She is a Certified Business Coach and Project Management Professional who loves working with small business owners, particularly IT and professional service businesses.

A United States Naval Academy graduate, Mandy has led 100+ person teams, managed daily operations and maintenance of Naval ships, and spent over 13 years as an intelligence officer, overseeing the collection, analysis, and presentation of sensitive information to military and government officials. She also holds a Master's degree (from the Naval War College) in National Security and Strategic Studies, and firmly believes in small business as the heart of the community and the key to maintaining national security.

Mandy's clients draw upon her unique background to create customized strategies to master their businesses through all stages of business growth, so they can continue to serve their communities.

• CEO Hack: Audible @ 2x speed
• CEO Nugget: Go back to your core values
• CEO Defined: Person who takes responsibility for painting that meaningful vision for a better future with the organization and then clearing the path for the team to get there.  Give them the guidance and the tools to get it done.

Website: http://www.virginiabusinesscoach.com
Offer: Connect with Mandy for your free 20-minute coaching Call
FB: https://www.facebook.com/virginiabusinesscoach/
IG: http://instagram.com/virginiabusinesscoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandy-snell/

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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 Mandy Snell of FocalPoint Business Coaching of Virginia. Mandy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mandy Snell 0:38

I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem, man. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Mandy so you can hear a little bit more about her and all the awesome things that she is doing. Mandy Snell is the managing director of FocalPoint Business Coaching of Virginia. She is a certified business coach and project management professional who loves working with small business owners, particularly IT and professional service businesses, the United States Naval Academy graduate, Mandy has led 100-plus person teams to manage daily operations and maintenance of Navy ships and spent over 13 years as an intelligence officer overseeing the collection, analysis, and presentation of sensitive information to military and government officials.

She holds a master's degree from the Naval War College and National Security and Strategic studies and firmly believes in small business as the heart of the community in the key to maintaining national security. Mandy's clients draw upon her unique background to create customized strategies to master their businesses with all stages of business growth so they can continue to serve their community. Mandy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Mandy Snell 1:46

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 1:47

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, the first question I had for you is just if you can tell us a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

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Mandy Snell 1:55

Well like many business owners, I started my business to have more control over my time and my money. So after 20 years total in the Navy, I wanted to be able to, you know, get my kids off and on the bus and to take a real vacation if I wanted to. But I also wanted to continue being a value to the community. And it's kind of hard to find a combination in a traditional workplace.

So as far as business performing coaching goes, I didn't even know it was a thing. So oddly enough, in the military, there are a lot of entrepreneurial minds. And there are tons of us who have side gigs, talking about, real estate or business ideas, or going to school to learn a professional service. And so a lot of times when things are slow, we sit around and we talk about ideas on how to fit that around like a demanding career.

So it never occurred to me that those discussions were actually a service that people might actually pay for it in the civilian sector. But as it turns out, I've actually been coaching people about business and professional development for a couple of decades now. So that's my story.

Gresham Harkless 2:50

Nice, nice, nice. Well, first of all, I appreciate your commitment to serving our country. And thank you for your service, of course. And, of course, you find out a lot of people have those kinds of entrepreneurial genes, so to speak. And it's great to hear that people, especially in the military are so disciplined and able to do what is kind of like the essence of running a business is making sure that you're dedicated to something and doing it on a regular basis which you find a lot of people in the military are able to do very well.

What I usually ask for is how exactly you serve your clients. So could you tell us I guess a little bit more about your products and services and what you do for the clients that you work with?

Mandy Snell 3:26

So FocalPoint Coaching, Virginia is a company with a passion for unlocking human potential in the areas of the sales team and leadership. So we provide coaching and training on topics such as time management, goal-setting, strategy, communications, sales, and even exit strategy and transition management. And we do this either on one in one sessions or in a group setting however the client prefers.

Gresham Harkless 3:47

Awesome, awesome, do you have like a specific type of client that you guys had tried to work with?

Mandy Snell 3:53

I like to work with IT and professional service companies, because I find that they have technical expertise, but not necessarily business processes and so that kind of gets in the way of their ability to provide the best service to their customers and clients. So the Project Management Professionally, I love to set up processes, and we're to automate the things that are repeatable, maybe not as exciting and engaging so that the business owner can get back to doing the thing that they're good at, and the thing that they love to do.

Gresham Harkless 4:22

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And a lot of times a lot of people will start businesses because they're really good at something like you mentioned, like an IT professional, they might be good at working on computers or doing something like that. And then they realize that when he started a business, there were a whole different kinds of aspects of running a business that they don't really know about. So it sounds like it's kind of great that you're able to kind of, I guess, fulfill those gaps and help them to kind of understand all the aspects of business, but also the processes that go along with it.

Mandy Snell 4:48

Yeah, that's it exactly.

Gresham Harkless 4:50

Awesome. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and essentially like, what do you feel kind of differentiates you or your organization and makes you unique?

Mandy Snell 4:58

Well, I have a little bit of a different background than your typical business coach in that most business coaches come out of the private sector, and a lot of them don't have experience leading really large teams with very stressful environments under stressful conditions. And by the age of 25, I'd already been in charge of multiple teams of over 100 people. So when you have that many people, you'll learn to be organized and to put systems in place to ensure that everything gets done. But on the other hand, I was kind of a creative thinker.

So it was a little tough to me, for me to stick to somebody else's system. So I would always have to invent my own way. And it's something that made sense to me for the situation. I think that with coaching as opposed to consulting, I get to work with businesses to develop effective solutions to their situation. So I get to facilitate the performance, but the client retains control, and I don't have to force my solution on the client, because I'm a coach and not a consultant.

Gresham Harkless 5:51

Absolutely. That makes sense, I guess. So coaching for coaches, you do a lot more like leading people towards the direction rather than a consultant that would usually like I guess, tells the person what to do. Exactly.

Mandy Snell 6:01

Yeah, that's right. So a coach actually helps you to develop your own thought process or your own process and system, whereas the consultant will tell you what they did step by step, in their particular situation or their expertise in order to solve that problem.

Gresham Harkless 6:14

Okay, okay, that makes perfect sense. And now I want to just switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack that could be an app or a book, or it might even be like a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as an entrepreneur business owner.

Mandy Snell 6:29

So my favorite app is actually audible. And it's because I love to learn and I love to read. And I also hate sitting in traffic I feel like I'm wasting my time. So my favorite way to pass the time is to listen to audiobooks while I'm driving. And if you can train yourself to listen at a faster rate, you can actually get through more books. So if you listen at double speed, you get to twice as many books.

Gresham Harkless 6:49

Yeah, that makes for everything that's like a hack within a hack. Because if you can listen to it at two XP, then you can definitely get through the book two times faster than you would normally, and now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And the CEO nugget could be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice or something that you might tell your younger business self.

Mandy Snell 7:07

I think the thing that comes up the most often when I'm talking to other business owners is to go back to their core values. So anytime you're stuck, or you're not sure what to do, you go back to whatever your core values are, take a step back and go back to basics. What motivated, you to take that first step, and go back to that? And that usually leads you down the path that makes more sense to you. Sometimes we get kind of tied up in trying to accomplish things and cross things off our list. But you lose sight of you know, what the beginning was or what your purpose was, or what your why is and it. Sometimes it gets confusing how you prioritize what you're working on.

Gresham Harkless 7:41

Yeah, and anybody that's usually started busy usually has a big reason exactly why they wanted to start their business. So make sure that you stay true to that and make sure that rang true. And like all your actions and everything that you do as much as possible, is very, very important.

So I love that CEO nugget. And now I wanted to ask you, which is my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different CEOs on this podcast and look at entrepreneurship in a different way. So I wanted to ask you specifically what being a CEO means to you.

Mandy Snell 8:11

So no matter the size of your organization, I believe that people accomplish more when they are inspired by a purpose that's bigger than themselves. So the CEO is the person who takes responsibility for painting that meaningful vision for a better future with their organization and then for clearing the past, to let the team get there. Given the guidance, the tools, and the training, they need to succeed, and then give him the space to get it done.

Gresham Harkless 8:32

I love that. It's kind of like creating that vision and then having people and leading the charge for people to go and execute that vision. And I think that's an awesome definition. So Mandy, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule to speak with us what I wanted to do was passionate about that mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and our listeners know about, you know, focal point or also about any pieces of advice that you might have, and then how best people can get a hold of you.

Mandy Snell 8:58

I think if there's one takeaway, I would love for more business owners to have the opportunity to enjoy and love their businesses. If you don't love it, then maybe there are some tweaks that could be made to make that a little bit better for you. As far as reaching me, I can be reached via email at msnell@focalpointcoaching.com or you can go to my website, which is www.virginiabusinesscoach.com. And then lastly, I'll just throw out there that if anybody wants to have a 20-minute coaching call, they're totally free. Shoot me an email and I'll send a link where we can schedule the call.

Gresham Harkless 9:30

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I will make sure to have those links in the show notes just so that you can reach out to Mandy and take advantage of that coaching call. So Mandy, I truly appreciate you for all again you've done for the country and even for taking some time out today to kind of impart some words of wisdom to us and I truly hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Mandy Snell 9:49

Thanks, you too.

Outro 9:50

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

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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