Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Mary Gaul, Founder of Success Magnified, Certified Business Coach

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

As a business coach, speaker, author and community builder, Mary Gaul gets to live in her gifts, increasing the energy, joy and well-being of those around her. She is the owner of Success Magnified, a business coaching and consulting company focused on women Solopreneur and Small Businesses that are the lifeblood of our communities. Clients hire her to get focused, create simple strategies around the right next steps, and have accountability to stay on track while implementing the systems needed to make it all work. She has helped 100’s of entrepreneurs find clarity, define goals and create systems, and ultimately grow their business while having fun along the way!www.successmagnified.commary@successmagnified.comLet’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marygaulcoach/Let’s Chat: https://calendly.com/successmagnified/30minfocusYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@marygaul_successmagnified*************************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified.Judy’s mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/https://www.youtube.com/@marygaul_successmagnifiedInvestment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-mary-gaul-founder-of-success-magnified-certified-business-coach

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. You're going to hear from an amazing business owner who helps business owners. And one thing I know about this guest is she likes to have a lot of fun and the people that she works with also have a lot of fun. I would like to welcome Mary Gall to today's podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Judy.

It's a pleasure to be here with you today. Well, we're excited to hear about your journey where you started, what inspired you to pursue the path you're on. And you are making an impact in hundreds of women's lives. and I want to learn more about that and so do our listeners. Great. Thank you. Yes. When I looked back to this question, it's like, what inspired me to pursue the path I'm on? Really, you know, coming up through the corporate world and working various jobs in corporate and marketing communications and, you know, operation side of things.

And then I ran a law firm for 10 years and did everything but practice law. And so I got to learn a lot about how a small business works. And after about 10 years of that, I had kind of grown as much as I could. But in my corporate journey and running their law firm, I always was the one who would raise your hand, right? So that's the best advice I can give women who are in their career early in their careers or thinking about choosing another career. Really, just raise your hand because we can figure things out, right? So we don't, I remember the first day at the law firm, I noticed there was a typ on their website. And this was way back in 2003.

And so they were like, well, do you know how to fix it? I was like, I don't know anything about websites. I know how to go to them, but I don't know how to fix them. And so I was like, I'll figure it out. So I took a class. I learned how to program, you know. So just raising your hand. And then, you know, by the end I'm running all of the marketing and all of the pieces, right?

But you can, we can learn so much. And so I think that's, it's great to have a career path in mind, but it's also great to just keep seeing opportunities and saying, hey, I think I can figure out a solution for that, right? And then raise your hand and make it happen. So my path has been a little bit all over the place. But after knowing it was time for me to leave the law firm job, my girls, I have two daughters, and they were both in junior high high school. So I didn't want to take on another really full-time job because I knew they were going to be on their way out. I had limited numbers of years with them.

and, you know, they were very involved in sports and band and all that kind of stuff. I wanted to be able to go and volunteer. So I had some friends encourage me to start my own business. It wasn't anything that was really on my radar at the time, but I jumped in and I said, what kind of business could I run? And so in 2013, I started my first company, a virtual assistant company. And, you know, coming from the corporate world, virtual assistants, I didn't really know what that was because we would hire temp work.

workers, right, if we needed somebody to come in and man the front desk for a couple days or whatever. But this idea of virtual assistant, but the more I found it, found out about it, was like, yeah, I've got all those skills and I can go and help other business owners get things done that maybe they don't have the knowledge to do or don't have the time to get done. So I can do that. So I launched my business. I had a client before I even left the law firm, which was great. And within about six or eight months, I got to capacity.

I was working way more than I did in my full-time job. And I was like, wait a minute, there's something wrong here. This is not how I was expecting all this free time and total freedom and money flowing and all of this great entrepreneurial dreams, right? And it wasn't that way. I was working a lot. It was great. It was easy for me to get clients, which was wonderful, because I, just happen to fall in this amazing network.

And but then a different problem comes up, right? So you're at capacity and I, even though I'd grown other people's businesses and done the marketing and done the hiring and set up, you know, internships and all that kind of stuff, for my own business. I couldn't see the forest trees, right? You're just in it. You're on the treadmill. You're just going, going, going, getting the work done every day.

And then I had this opportunity to take on a big client. I was like, I cannot do it. I have to turn away work. And then it starts to settle in like, oh, how am I going to keep growing my business if I can't take on any more clients? Right. So I knew I kind of hit this wall and needed some outside eyes on my business. So I found a great business coach.

I joined a peer advisory board, which is a mastermind group of other entrepreneurs, started of taking some workshops and courses and, of course, reading every book I could and taking webinars and those kind of things. And within about six months to a year, with the power of all of those other outside eyes on my business, I was able to revamp how my business model was with the virtual assistant company and bring on contractors to continue to take on more clients. And that big client ended up becoming a client of ours.

And so really, I recognize going through the coaching process that that's what I loved. I loved the whole process of working with a coach, having a peer advisory board. And about a year in, my coach said to me, we're going to license our materials and we're going to certify people to get trained in what we do. Would you be interested? Because you're doing it naturally anyway. And I was like, yes, I love this. This is what I'm going to do.

So in 2015, I got certified as a business coach and have been doing that ever since. And that's what I love doing. I still own the gift of time as the virtual assistant company. And I have a team of VAs that help support our clients there. But that was never really my passion. That was kind of a step into finding my passion, which was coaching other small business owners. And really what I love, Judy, is being able to help. Women, and I have a handful of male clients too, but mostly women, service-based entrepreneurs.

And as entrepreneurs, you know, I've been there where you kind of get stuck and you can't see what's happening in your business because you're the only one in your business. Maybe you're making all the decisions. And so you really need that outside thought partner, that sounding board, somebody just to talk through your ideas with. And I love helping women get all those ideas that are spinning because we have. have usually no shortage of ideas of what we want to do in our business. But I love helping them get them out of their head, talk through them, and then prioritize those and say, okay, let's tie them into your goals and let's make sure we're keeping you on track.

So that's kind of how I got to where I am today. So success magnified is already nine years old, which I can't believe. And gift of time is 11 years old already. So in that period, it's just, it's, it's, it's. It's been amazing to get to work with so many different types of business, business owners. You know, they all have different goals. Some of them just want to get to $50,000 for a year. And some of my clients are pushing a million or a million plus.

So I love being able to meet my clients where they are in their business. And like you said, I love to have fun. And I love to make fun for my clients, right? Because business can be hard sometimes. It can be lonely sometimes. So I try to say, let's have fun and let's make it as easy as possible. So what's your plan when you find someone who would like to work with you? What does that look like for that person?

Yeah. All of my clients start out with a free 30-minute focus session, right? So you can find that on my website. I'm sure we put it in the show notes. But that's what, because I want to vet them just as much as they want to vet me, right? Yeah. Are they going to be somebody I want to work with? Right.

And am I going to be the right person for them? There's lots of business coaches out there, right? And we all have, we all bring different skills to the table. And so, and different personalities to the table, right? I'm not a fit for everybody. And so that's the first step I take with everyone is let's hop on a call and let's find out what's going on in your business. What are the 12 ideas that you're trying to move forward at once, right? And then let me help you kind of start to see, how can we?

we whittle some of those down or prioritize those so that you can actually make some progress with those. And then from that call, we can determine, you know, is it a good fit for us to move together or forward? Sometimes I can say, you know, peer advisory board would be great for you or we need some one-on-one coaching before you join the group or, you know, there's all kinds of ways that I can work with people once I know it's going to be a good fit for us. But really, my clients come to me for, you know, the clarity, I think is the thing that most of them would agree with, that they've got so many things in their minds or on their to-do list. And they just need somebody to be a thought partner and say,

I just want to talk this through with somebody. And it's harder to do that. Like if your spouse or significant other isn't a business owner or your girlfriends or whoever isn't, aren't business owners, they don't understand the questions you're asking or, you know, you just need to get some of that stuff off your mind. So that's where I can come in and be helpful to people, but it all starts with that initial phone call. Yeah, I mean, people close to us are emotionally connected with us, and it's so it's not as easy to step away and be logical and

structured and thoughtful about some of the things that you might be telling them, and they might just want to jump in and help rather than feedback and have challenging conversations back and forth about what you know what you could really do that would really benefit yes yes exactly so you mentioned that sometimes people do one-on-one with you and other times they go to a peer advisory board so tell me a little bit more about the peer advisory board model okay yes so it's based off of the mastermind group so we've all heard the term mastermind but that comes from think and grow rich with Napoleon Hill. He discovered that the most successful people have that mastermind, a small group of people that they can go to where they can have this trusted layer of safety to ask

questions about what's going on in the background of their business, right? And so that's what these are. They're small, my peer advisor boards are all women entrepreneurs. There's a max of seven on each board and we meet once a month. And really, you know, the three words in my book, I wrote a book called vitamin C3, which is all about connect, contribute, and celebrate. And those three words really encompass what happens each month at a peer advisory board. We start with wins and successes, so we're celebrating with each other. And then what did you learn each month?

So each person's bringing something that they've learned, whether it's a new tool or a book they read or something about themselves and how they work with their clients. And then every person gets to bring a topic that we get to brainstorm around, right? And we also have an education topic. So this month we're reviewing mission statements, mission versus vision statements and what does that look like in their business? So each month we have some kind of education topic. And then we go to our peer advisory time, which is the brainstorming time. So we go back through each person. person's topic and and just get time to ask questions, give feedback, give resources, give our experience about that. And I find that the most impactful thing sometimes is people just asking

us questions, right? Clarifying questions that we don't think about ourselves, but when somebody else, when you're trying to explain something about it, your business to somebody else, and they ask you a clarifying question, you're like, oh, that's why people don't understand why I do, or that's the piece I'm missing. I'm not explaining this correctly or something like that. Right. So it's really, really powerful. And then we go to, we have a workbook and then we go back to our workbook and fill in our 30 day goals, action items, revenue goals. And then we get assigned an accountability partner from within the group that rotates each month. So then they are responsible for checking in at least once a month during our off time with each other to keep us on our track for our goals. And then we

come back the next month, then we celebrate wins and successes, and what are we working on this month? So they are so amazing. I was on a peer advisor board for five years as a business owner myself. Even when I was running them, I was still on them. And then now I've been running them for almost nine years. We started, I started pretty quickly after I got certified. Just love that safe community where women can come together and ask those questions behind the scenes that you wouldn't say necessarily at a networking group. Like, I just lost a client. I'm freaking out or, you know, I'm clearly not working, right?

So, yeah, so have that safe space to come and really talk about what's happening with your business is really powerful. And then that group accountability, right? So getting back and having to report, how did you do on your goals for the last month and what's been going on? And, you know, what are we celebrating? What did you learn? All of those kind of things.

It's just they're really amazing groups. So if you're a new person to your business model, do you like accumulate women until you have enough to start a new board or are you limited in the number of boards you can manage? Or how does that work for someone who might be interested in learning more? Yeah, I do have a few spots open between my three boards. I think I've got two spots open between the three boards. So if somebody's interested in, you know, please reach out. You can schedule a 30-minute focus session with me. And if that's one of the ways that you want to work with me, if that sounds appealing to you, then, yeah, we'll see what's open.

If not, I'll put you on a wait list. And when I get enough people on the wait list, then I would consider starting another board, right? So I've had four boards at one time in the past. And then people have kind of done some attrition, right? and so now I'm back down to three. Okay. So it just depends on what the space is and what the need is. But yes, if there's enough people waiting,

then I would open up another one. Ah. So when I was asking you about sharing about a specific moment or experience when you realized you were making a difference in someone's life, you mentioned this most recent retreat. I'd love to learn more about what you experienced, what the women experienced, and how they came away from it.

Yes. So I just did a weekend retreat. We rented an Airbnb down with them parked in Colorado. And it was lovely. And these both, the women that came are clients of mine. So they weren't new to me. And I kind of knew what was happening in their businesses. But they just had the time and space.

They both said this in their kind of video testimonial at the end of the weekend. Having the time and space to have. have these deeper level conversations and then having me there to help push them, you know, and prod them like they're making these goals and they're putting them out to 2027. And I was like, well, that's a little far out. Let's bring that back in, right? Why do you think you need that much time to reach that goal?

And just having those questions and I really was able to see them accept that they can own their goals, right? and go after their goals with a clear action plan and get really excited about it, right? That was just the biggest thing that I saw. I saw both of these women who are very successful already get really clear on two big goals that they want for their lives in their businesses and how that's going to impact them and the people they serve and now they are just on fire. And I saw them a few days after the retreat.

They're on a peer advisory board. And just they showed up in just different confidence. You could just see it on their face and how they presented their goals. And they just know that they're going to achieve these, right? And so having that clarity and the confidence in these big things that they're going after. And the other members of the board were just like, oh, my gosh. Yes, yes, yes. We see that for you, right?

We hope that space for you. So it was just really, really powerful to see, because I'm, helping them think a little bit deeper and a little bit bigger and then questioning like let's put a plan together and I don't think you need two years to get that done. I think we can go in 18 months, right? And let's see what the plan looks like, right? And so just having that experience and that impact is just really fun and I get to do that all the time. I have a client who wrote a poem for me for my birthday a couple years ago called God bless Mary Gall and it's so amazing. It's this full-length page poem. But she says that all the time. She said, God bless Mary Gall. I wouldn't be here

without you. God bless Mary Gall. Right. So I get those fun, fun ways that I'm impacting my clients' lives in ways that I'm not even aware of, right? But in fact, this week at the peer advisor board, they talked about having a little image of me sitting on their shoulder and they hear my voice in their head when they're making decisions and those kind of things. So I just love that I could be a positive influence on people. I wrote down. two words, freedom and unleash. And I feel like those summarize a lot of what these women experience when they work with you. What a blessing.

Yes, those are great words. I'm writing them down as we speak as well. So have you had any challenges in either your corporate world or your entrepreneurship because you're a female professional? Yes. And no. I mean, I've had experiences obviously where, you know, oh, you're just the secretary or you're the friend of person and you don't know any better, right? So that's, again, part of that raising my hand that I've always done is because I might have been, you know, the assumption was, oh, you're just a blank, right? And part of that was a female. They would never say that, but all my bosses, right? So, so in, that was the. the implication, right? Oh, you're just this little woman that can answer the or whatever, right? So I think that raising your hand, take on more challenges and prove yourself, it really, it has served me well. And I know that that's, you know, not always the case.

And in the case of my daughters who are in their mid-20s, right, working their way through their first, you know, real jobs. And so sometimes raising your hand all the time is not a good thing, right? you can be taken advantage of for that. And so then all of a sudden you're taking on every project and you're not getting any more rewards or recognition for that. And I certainly went through that as well, right, trying to overproof myself. And I think that happens a lot with women is we take on all this extra stuff in the hopes that somebody will recognize the hard work we're doing.

And I learned that lesson over and over again. I had to learn that lesson, right? And it's not just because I was a female, but it's because I felt like I had to approve myself to my mail bosses, right? And so I took on sometimes too much and then was assuming they were going to recognize this great job I was doing and that I took on all these extra projects or whatever, but they don't. They just say, oh, the job's getting done. I don't care how it's getting done, right?

So there is a, you know, raise your hand, try on these things. But at the same time, we have to learn to brag about what we're raising our hand about. That's the thing that I'm trying to teach my girls. I have to work on it as an entrepreneur, right, to be able to say, this is how I help my clients. This is what I do and why it's worth working with me, right? You know, that same kind of thing in the corporate world. If you are, you know, raising your hand, you're taking on more projects, you're doing, you know, above and beyond the job description, we have to learn how to brag about that so that we do get the raises.

is we do get the acknowledgement. We do get the, you know, promotions. We do get the salary or the title that we're going after, right? So it's really an important lesson. And I think it happens, I'll say it doesn't happen to men, but I think it happens to women more frequently, women and minorities, right? We feel like we have to do times more, five times more, 10% better than everybody else just to get the same kind of recognition.

And so I think that's an important thing. the sooner you can learn to brag about yourself, yes, take on challenging projects, but then brag about them. And let people know what you're doing, let people share your accomplishments because if we wait for them to show us some recognition, it just always doesn't happen, you know?

Right. It really happens in the level that it should. Right. No, what you just shared really struck a chord in my heart and caused me to pause for sure. I think many of them, us have felt exactly what you're describing and it's very powerful and I love your raise your hand and then make sure people respect what it is you've done and honor you and you get the recognition

that you deserve that is really powerful so thank you for sharing that and I'm excited that we kind of came back full circle because you started out the very beginning by talking about in your corporate world at the front desk and not knowing how to change the website, you just figure it out. And I think, you know, at its core, that's what a lot of us have to do. But if we have a peer advisory group or a board or someone that can walk alongside us and maybe shorten our learning curve a little, what nice to offer people. So thank you, Mary. I'd love for you to share with our listeners how they can get in touch with you. And we'll wrap things up here. Okay. That sounds great. Yeah, the best way is to go to my website, which is

Success Magnified.com. And I know you're going to put that in the show notes as well. And I'm on LinkedIn. That's really the only social media that I play on. My team posts for me on other platforms, but I'm really only on LinkedIn as far as being connection in there. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn, reach out. And if you go to my website, you'll see a button to book a call with me. And that's how we can, you know, have a conversation about where you're, where you are in your business. And if I'm a fit to help you move forward. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time.

This has been fabulous. So grateful to have you as a guest, Mary. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much, Judy. And congratulations on launching the podcast. I'm excited to listen to these episodes. Thanks.

Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com