Career Coaching Secrets

Transform Clients, Not Just Your Income – Career Coaching Secrets with Pete Beskas

• Davis Nguyen

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In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, Rexhen talks with Pete Beskas – certified coach, executive leader, and host of Tools for the Modern Man – about building a coaching business rooted in purpose, not profit. Pete shares how he balances coaching with a full-time leadership role, why client transformation should be the main KPI, and how masterminds and networks have been the biggest catalysts in his growth. If you're a coach looking to scale with integrity, this one's for you!

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petebeskas/
https://www.instagram.com/beskasconsulting/
https://www.petebeskas.com/


You can also watch this podcast on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/@CareerCoachingSecrets

If you are a career coach looking to grow your business you can find out more about Purple Circle at http://joinpurplecircle.com

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Pete Beskas:

When I started coaching, everybody was going for the $100,000 a year target. It became a monetary target. And what I realized and what I wish I kind of had been able to coach myself on is that, no, it has to be on what are you growing as a purpose? Because we might want the money. And I think we all would love the money. Who doesn't want the money? But we really have to build our business based on the results we get our clients from. And that's what I wish I had instilled in my brain very early on, because when I made that switch is when I started to really create value. I'm not out there to get a thousand clients. I'm not out there to make a million dollars. I'm out there to transform my clients, to get them success. That's the goal. That's the mission. If I do that for five people, great. If I do that for 50 people, fantastic. If I do that for 5,000, amazing. But it's... Focus on your client's transformation and not on your wealth.

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. Before Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven- and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted with two career coaching businesses that are now doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or just building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. Today, my guest is Pete Beskas, a certified coach, best-selling author of the book, Cracking the Rich Code. also host of the Tools for the Modern Man podcast, and a speaker who helps ambitious professionals take control of their careers and create a future they're excited about. After hitting his own turning point at 40, he developed a results-driven, action-oriented, coaching approach that empowers his clients to overcome challenges, break old patterns, and build lives filled with purpose and passion. I'm excited to dive into his story. Welcome to the show, Pete. Thanks for having me, Rajan. I'm really excited to be here. Pleasure to have you, Pete. Tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a career coach and leadership coach.

Pete Beskas:

Well, for me, I've always been in that mindset, mentorship, leadership growing up, you know, I didn't have a lot of mentors in my early on in my career. And the few that I did really, really helped me. And I think that that's what helped to accelerate my success and accelerate my kind of growth through the corporate ranks was having really valued, you know, people who had been there before, and were willing to share and, and help me along the way. And I see that, as we've gone on, less and less of those people exist. in a corporate or business sphere. And, you know, I saw it as a need. I see leadership and the idea that, you know, to advance in your career, you have to become a leader. You have to step into your leadership qualities. So when I started my coaching, I didn't actually start off in career coaching, but I evolved to it because that's where I see the biggest need. I see it every single day in what I do as well and where we need to see people going. And that's why I've gotten into the career sphere. Did

Rexhen:

you initially start on leadership coaching and then move to career coaching and doing it both

Pete Beskas:

right now? The primary was kind of career pivots. But then as I started working with people, I realized that the real underlying issue isn't a pivot. A lot of people get to a certain point in their career and they'll be like, well, I just want to quit and go do something else. That's what I did. That's what a lot of people I know do. They just make drastic changes. Drastic choices at some point during their career that may or may not work out. But I saw the underlying issue as there's no vision as to where you're going next. So I first started coaching people on their pivots, like when they get to that point. Now I've transitioned more to sitting down with them and trying to understand where they ultimately want to go. Some people, they want to be entrepreneurs. Some people want to be CEOs. Some people want to be technical experts. And it's about how can you be successful in that area that you want to go into. And from what I'm seeing as well, as you start to progress in your career and you become a technical expert, in order to move to the next level, you have to pick up the leadership skills and that leadership component. That's what I tell people in their transition too. So it's really about once you've established and you're a technical professional and technical expert, and it could be the anything. You could be very, very good sales and a very, very poor manager. leader of people, you can be a very, very good engineer, and a very, very poor, you know, business unit manager, right? So it's really about how do you then take that next step. And that's the skill most people are missing.

Rexhen:

Yeah, totally. And it's also not an easy switch to do to go from a regular employee and export a field right to become a leader. It's tough. pivot or it's not an easy switch. Tell me a little bit more about your journey from the point that you became a career coach, like what we are doing right now, to where you are at right now, basically from when you started coaching to where you are at right now.

Pete Beskas:

So when I started coaching, like I said, I'm still employed. I'm an executive at First State Government as well. And so when I started coaching, it was with this mindset of leaving my day job. And that was the initial motivation. Get a coaching, pivot, leave the day job. As I progressed through my coaching practice, I also realized, oh, wait, there is a real symbiosis here. There's a real synergy between what I teach on a coaching level and then what I apply as a leader in the sake of the service as well. So for me, those two things became a flywheel of success. This is what I teach, but it's also what I practice. What I see a lot of my peers in the career coaching space, they're all HR professionals and they've come from that HR stream. And I'm an engineer by trade who has worked his way through management levels to the point where I'm an executive and I lead a team of near 100 people. It's a different mindset and it's a different perspective. So what I offer my clients when I work with them is that how do you actually put all of these theories together into practice. So, you know, in my intro there, I'm an action-based coach. I'm an action and results-driven coach. So when I'm working with people, it's really about how do you make impact? How do you align with your team? How do you get noticed, right? By a hiring manager, by a manager that you're working for. And that I have that unique perspective being that manager, being that executive, right? And seeing what do I look for when what stands out to me when I'm evaluating my talent and my resources.

Rexhen:

Moving to a marketing question more now, where do you find your ideal clients? Where do you find them and what's your main way of connecting with potential clients?

Pete Beskas:

I found... I've owned brick and mortar businesses. I've been in corporate. I've been in the public sector. And I'm now a coach as well, having my own small business. What I found has always been the recipe for my success is your community and your network. It's just like what I teach with career coaching. When you're applying for a job, yeah, your resume is a 1% to 2% chance. Just like cold marketing or cold outbound strategies. Those are very low percentage hits. So you're going to put a lot of effort in for very low returns. What I've noticed, and again, this is what I teach when discussing networking and building relationships, is that's where 70 to 80% of your opportunities exist. And it's the same with clients, and it's the same with working with people. 70 to 80% of the people who will hire me will come from my network. They will come from the relationships I've built, they'll come from the edification, the trust that I've built, from showing up locally, online, in different groups, to speak, to be present and to add value. And that's where I've found the most success is through referrals and through my network.

Rexhen:

And when it comes to the referral network, if you were to give an advice on that is basically just like you said, show up, go into these speaking events on your own community. So for anyone who wants to build that network but don't have the experience or maybe are like an introvert would be able to do that, what would be some of the strategies there?

Pete Beskas:

I think for a lot of people, again, and I've seen this with introverts or extroverts, and I love to challenge that because if you meet an introvert and you're talking to them about their most passionate thing, they stop being an introvert. Right? Everybody loves to talk about themselves. And that's true of anything. So when you're networking, what I teach people when they're networking, networking isn't just going to a big event and having to freeze up shaking hands with a thousand people. Networking is having one conversation. Having a metric where you're meeting somebody every week or somebody two, three times a week and then asking them to introduce you to someone else. And it's that organic community base. As humans, we want to be of service. It's intrinsic in our nature. We want to support each other, especially if we've got value. So for that person who's brand new, that person who might feel a little introverted or a little hesitant to step out of their comfort zone, I always suggest start with the people you know. Start doing the easy reps. Have a coffee, have a conversation with somebody you know. But instead of talking about the usual, how's your day, how's your kids, what are you up to, have a few questions that are strategic. Start the conversation. Just like with these podcasts, just like when we have all these conversations, we're not just riffing. You're asking a few targeted questions to help uncover what you want to learn. So if you're starting out, and you don't know what your ideal client's needs are, start having some conversations with your ideal client and asking them, what are you struggling with? Are you looking for a promotion? Are you looking to change industries? Are you looking to quit? Or you just want to be retired? These are all great probing questions to ask people to start sourcing information. Through those conversations, then you get to start seeing where the opportunities exist. Thanks so much for sharing that,

Rexhen:

Pete. That was very helpful. I want to ask you something. What are the goals that you are working towards for the next one to three years?

Pete Beskas:

You know, it's funny because I used to be the person who would plan out five years, 10 years at a time. And I realized in business, you have to be a lot more... Yes, it's nice to have a strategic vision of where you're going in the future, but things change so quickly. And I like to keep my options a little open. Again, as a person who uses my coaching practice to... create success for the state of California. I also use the lessons learned there to improve my coaching and improve the results of my clients. So for me, the next three to five years is a continuation of what I'm doing now. It's really about validating the work that I do with the people that I work with and just getting more results. I think the biggest challenge when you're in a position like I'm in And I think a lot of coaches who have to juggle a nine to five and a developing coaching practice is how much are you going to take on? And I think that's the biggest challenge. So it's really about working with the right clients. It's also about charging the right price so that you can make that time worthwhile and making sure you get the results.

Rexhen:

Yeah. And you just sparked my interest there when you said, how much work are you willing to take on based on the capacity that you have? And I wanted to ask you, how do you handle the balance basically between delivering great client results and managing a business growth on the other side, in your case, plus the full-time job?

Pete Beskas:

That's really the biggest challenge. And I think that when you're juggling the priorities, you really have to be mindful of your schedule, your time, and what you say yes to. And I think, at least for my experience, would I jump out, you know, everyone uses that million dollars kind of as a watermark. Would you leave your job today if you could make a million dollars tomorrow in coaching? It's a very attractive statement to make, but it's a very difficult one to answer, in my opinion, because Do you have the capacity to serve that million dollars worth of clients? And there is a lot of moving parts that go into that. So for me, when I look at how do you balance it, well, it's the same thing. You got to learn to balance your time, your energy, your meetings, and your expectations. If you can do those things, then you can build practices along and transition mindfully from point A to point B.

Rexhen:

Yeah, definitely. In terms of investments, since you're doing this part-time, do you have any resources or support that's been valuable for you in growing your coaching business from the business perspective mainly? Yeah,

Pete Beskas:

the most valuable thing I've ever invested in in my coaching business are my masterminds and my networks, bar none. Courses, everything else for me has never yielded the ROI of a really high level network of people. So people, and specifically groups of other people who are striving to achieve the same success as you, right? And I love to be, I'm actually in three different masterminds right now for three different reasons. I'm in a mastermind for men so that we can support each other and we have that ability to create a community. which I think is critically important for anybody, whether it's men, women, anybody. A business mastermind, which is just a business coach and a bunch of other people who are building their practices. And then I'm also in a peer coaching mastermind, which allows for us to leverage on each other. Oh, wait, I'm in a fourth. This is my Cratching the Rich Code group, which is our book series that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, coaches together. And it's just a great place to expand my network. So because my philosophy and my passion is my values and my network, I'm constantly growing my network. And that's where I invest my time and my money.

Rexhen:

And how do you find currently the masterminds that you're in? Is it like a platform like school.com? Or is there somewhere else that you found them? Or was it again, through your network that you get to know them?

Pete Beskas:

Combination of both, like, for example, the book, series that I collaborated and hosted the podcast for Cracking the Rich Code. I was approached by Jim Britt. He's a thought leader. He's been in the industry for over 50 years. He used to work with Jim Rohn, affiliate with Tony Robbins. So being part of that author's network was somebody coming to me. The men's group was a Facebook group that evolved. My coaching group was from my certification group. So other coaches who graduated with me from the same school So it's about just maintaining those relationships and moving that forward. And then in turn, I've just actually created a mini mastermind of my own for just a very select few group of peer coaches who are building their businesses so that we can support and grow each other through our struggles.

Rexhen:

All right, cool. Yeah, that was very helpful. Another question is, and I like to ask this always to every coach because there's always something on this. What is something that you wish you had known when you first started scaling your coaching business? What is like an unexpected lesson learned for you?

Pete Beskas:

I think I wish I had had as a mindset when I started out. When I started coaching, everybody was going for the $100,000 a year target. It became a monetary target. And what I realized and what I wish I kind of had been able to coach myself on is that, no, it has to be on what are you growing as a purpose? Because we might want the money. And I think we all would love the money. Who doesn't want the money? But we really have to build our business based on the results we get our clients. And that's what I wish I had instilled in my brain very early on. Because when I made that switch... is when I started to really create value. I'm not out there to get a thousand clients. I'm not out there to make a million dollars. I'm out there to transform my clients, to get them success. That's the goal. That's the mission. If I do that for five people, great. If I do that for 50 people, fantastic. If I do that for 5,000, amazing. But it's focus on your client's transformation and not on your wealth.

Rexhen:

Yeah, so basically focusing on their results and their impact you can have on them versus the monetary or the revenue side of it because they are connected together. If you are able to make a great impact, your revenue is going to follow that effect.

Pete Beskas:

Yeah, and I have one for a tactical. I have a tactical one as well. When you're starting out and you have zero cash flow, don't spend on big programs. There are so many resources out there that are a low-cost option for people who are just starting out. Because in the beginning, you don't know your message, you're not good at delivering it, and you don't know what your client wants yet. So unless you're kind of leaning into your superpower, but you have zero cash flow, don't go spend a bunch of money and put yourself in a lot of debt that you're then having to backfill. Look for creative solutions.

Rexhen:

Yeah. Well, thanks so much for that tactical approach and the strategy approach as well. Is there any aspect of running your coaching business right now and figuratively would keep you up at night. In your case, it might not be the case because you also have a full-time job, so you're not reliant on the coaching. But maybe, do you see that? And this is like a follow-up question. Do you see that in the future changing, like you going full-time in coaching as

Pete Beskas:

well? Well, it's interesting you say that because one of the things I really focused on this year is something I teach to my clients is focusing on your strengths, right? I think as a single business owner, You have to wear all those different hats, marketing, sales, everything else. There are a lot of great resources that are out there to get you leads. But it's the sales, it's the conversion of those leads that really matters for the business. And I think that one of the things, again, I look at my success or my limitations, and it's in that marketing and sales component. Because what's the superpower of most coaches? It's doing the coaching. It's doing the work. And 50% of the business isn't the coaching. 50% of the business is bringing people to your door and having them sign up. And I think a lot of struggle, especially if that's not your strength, especially if that isn't your superpower, you're, you know, that's where people struggles in the marketing. and sales. And I always put those two together. So for myself, I always look at strategic partnerships and strategic ways to bring people in, whether it's affiliate marketing or whether it's a partnership with somebody who you have a deal with, a contract with, to go out there and actually close for you and set your schedule up. I think those are things that, when I talk about creative solutions, having someone who's invested with you, I think is the next stage for real growth. And no business I've ever been in that's successful and can sustain long-term has one person doing everything.

Rexhen:

And your approach also kind of removes the weight from the sales part of it because it's happening in a creative way. They're not just meeting you for the first time and you're convincing them. So thanks so much for sharing that. And is there any advice you would give to other career coaches who are going to be watching this that are looking to scale their impact? You've already shared, by the way, Quite a few tips so far, but if there's any other thing that you want to share as an advice for other career coaches that are watching this, feel free to do so.

Pete Beskas:

Well, I think it just goes back to my message across the board, which is get support. Get people around you where you're adding value to them. They're adding value to you. Don't say no to a phone call. Don't say no to getting on a call with somebody and adding value and create that brand of yourself, who you are, who you serve, and get out there and do it. nothing is going to replace the repetitions of actually doing it. So if you're going to commit to LinkedIn, go 100%. If you're going to commit to network, go 100%. Don't kind of half-ass it. If this is what you want and this is your passion, you have to go 100% into it. Thank

Rexhen:

you so much, Pete. And for anyone who wants to connect with you directly, they can find you at Pete Vasquez on LinkedIn. Also, PeteBeskas.com on your website. Is there any other way that if they wanted to connect to be part of your network as well, they could reach out?

Pete Beskas:

Those are the two best places to reach me and I'm the only Pete Beskas in the world, so I'm easy to find. Well, thank you so much for coming to the show, Pete. Thank you for having me.

Davis Nguyen:

that's it for this episode of career coaching secrets if you enjoyed this conversation you can subscribe to youtube spotify apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes this conversation was brought to you by purple circle where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out to learn more about purple circle our community and how we can help you grow your business visit join purple circle.com