Career Coaching Secrets

The Art of "New Defaults": Insights from Executive Coach Robert Hamilton

• Davis Nguyen

Share episode

Rexhen Doda interviews Robert Hamilton, an executive coach for product managers and leaders in tech. With over a decade at Google and Meta, Robert transitioned to full-time coaching in 2020 after realizing his passion for mentoring outweighed building products.

He didn't expect to replace his tech income but prioritized fulfilling, sustainable work. Robert, who uses a flexible "see how it goes" approach rather than strict plans, focuses on one-on-one coaching, helping clients develop new "defaults" and gain different perspectives. His primary client sources are referrals and LinkedIn, where he emphasizes authentic video content. His future goal is consistent work hours, not just maximum revenue. He's still seeking a highly valuable community specifically for coaches.

Find Robert Hamilton:


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

Get Exclusive Access to Our In-Depth Analysis of 71 Successful Career Coaches, Learn exactly what worked (and what didn't) in the career coaching industry in 2024: https://joinpurplecircle.com/white-paper-replay

Robert Hamilton:

Being honest, I never expected it to replace that income. I was very well rewarded in my previous roles. And obviously, it is a business. I do want it to be sustainable and to work well, and it is sustainable. But I didn't go into it expecting it to replace the remuneration that I was getting in big tech.

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 Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. Today's guest is Robert Hamilton. Robert is an executive coach specializing in helping product managers and PM leaders thrive, whether they're scaling their impact inside high growth tech organizations or prepping for their next big opportunity. With a decade plus of experience building and leading product teams at Google, Matt and other fast-paced environments, Robert brings both strategic insight and grounded empathy to his coaching practice. Since 2016, he's supported PMs in navigating career transitions, growing into leadership, and tackling the messy middle of product work with clarity and confidence. Whether you're looking to nail your next interview or lead with more influence, Robert offers tailored coaching ground in real-world product experience. I have the pleasure to have you on the podcast. Robert, welcome to the show.

Robert Hamilton:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.

Rexhen Doda:

Robert, tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become an executive. So,

Robert Hamilton:

it's interesting you mentioned 2016. That was actually the first time when I did kind of formal coaching with a real relationship. I suppose I'd always try to help people around me and others in the organizations I was in or other people who were thinking about your product or working in tech. But in 2016, a friend actually came to me and said they had someone in their team who wanted to move from software engineering into product management. And they were in a team at a startup and they said, would you help coach them? So that was really the first sort of formal engagement where I was meeting somebody regularly. We had things scheduled on the calendar. They thought of me as their coach. I thought of them as my client. And I was actually taking a break. I had a year off in 2016 when that started but 2017 I joined Meta and I kept that relationship up so that was really the first formal thing and then gradually during my time at Meta I realized that I enjoyed that probably more than actually building and shipping products because I've been building and shipping products for a long time kind of longer than I care to remember and I realized that I wasn't really getting a lot of fulfillment and a lot of interest in shipping another thing. You know, I've worked on big products at Google and Meta and I've worked at startups. So earlier on in your career as a product manager, you learn a lot from every launch. You learn a lot from everything that you build. But for me, that was diminishing. And I found it was more interesting to be thinking about people. And I really felt that that side of helping people grow helping people thrive was more interesting to me and the switch to full-time coaching came about because actually i got some feedback at meta which is really interesting one of one of my reviews was we know that you're a really good coach and mentor we would actually prefer you to focus on execution or on shipping and that had probably the opposite effect that my manager was hoping because I said, you know what? I'm actually going to go and coach full-time. And I left Meta to set up my coaching practice. I had a bit of a break and then I started coaching back in 2020. So that was really the, you know, it started, as I say, with one client. I had a full-time role. That was happening alongside it. But then that feedback at Meta really sort of crystallized for me. And I thought, well, if I can, switch to doing the thing that I really find interesting these days, then maybe now's the time to do it. And I did think at the time, should I do one more career move. And I really asked myself, well, do I think that would make me a better coach? Would another couple of years, maybe another company, could I have joined another company and got more experience and rounded out my experience? But I actually decided that there wasn't really a lot of value that my career spans 30 more years because I actually started when I was still at school, I started writing software. So I've been kind of involved in professional product development for well over 30 years. And so I did conclude that, yeah, I could have got another job and maybe picked up a bit more experience, but it wouldn't have significantly improved my coaching practice. And actually one thing that gave me the confidence to jump and start this, I was actually working with an engineering manager at Meta. And in a real, our teams, I moved to a different team. So I wasn't working with them anymore. And they actually came to me and said, would you mind acting as my coach? Could we have a regular coaching session where I bring my challenges to you and we talk through it and you help me see things differently? Because he said, I miss having you as a partner. I have been in the tech world. Engineering managers and product managers work together. We call it, we say we're like a work spouse. It's like that. That is my spouse at work. And that was really... gave me confidence that thought oh this very talented very senior and experienced engineer thinks that i'm my feedback as a coach is helpful and they want to continue that relationship and so that was another signal if you like that yeah this is probably something that you could make work and yeah that was that was over five years ago so uh here we are today with a lot of water under the bridge since then

Rexhen Doda:

yeah interesting and um so I wonder how the journey looks like from the point that you like moved full on to coaching five years ago when you started to where you are at today. Did you initially had any worries about like obviously you're leaving a job that is um that everybody probably wants to have or uh yeah and and and you're moving into a career that you don't know for sure like you you know it's gonna work right because you know you have the skill to do that but do you know that it's gonna be easy to replace that income um right from the start. Did you have any worries at the beginning?

Robert Hamilton:

Being honest, I never expected it to replace that income. I was very well rewarded in my previous roles. Obviously, it is a business. I do want it to be sustainable and to work well, and it is sustainable, but I didn't go into it expecting it to be you know to replace the the the remuneration that i was getting um in big tech but um i thought that it was at least worth trying that trying it if it didn't work out you know if it if it hadn't worked out and it's you know something actually that a former colleague and friend said to me at the time was you know anybody could become a coach but The question is, can you stay as a coach? Because there are lots of people who say, you know, oh, I'm a coach now and this is what I do. And then six months, a year, three years later, are they still doing it? You know, can they? Because the barrier to entry is fairly low in many, many cases, right? You could say you're a coach. Yes, there are certifications and other things, but there are lots of people who just decide, you know, as indeed I did. I'm no different from that. But no, I don't think I worried about it. just knew that I could try it. And across the course of my career and my life, I haven't been afraid to try something and fully commit to it, knowing that if it doesn't work, I can try something else. And I think that's a really important point is you know if you if you do take the leap into doing something you want to be fully committed you don't want to be like well i'm not sure this is going to work so i'll hedge my bets until you reach the point where you say you know what despite my full commitment this isn't going to turn around and i'm and so the time is right to stop and i think that it's it's quite nuanced that that idea of like fully committed up until the point where it doesn't make sense and people can be a little bit um not uncomfortable, but find that unfamiliar. They're like, well, are you really committed? If you're prepared to stop doing it, are you really committed? And I think you can be. I think it's possible. So yeah, if it hadn't worked, would I... I guess a variant of your question is, would I still be doing it if it wasn't growing as a business? Probably not. I would probably have gone back to doing something else. But no, I... I felt that it was something that I would be able to establish and would be able to make it work.

Rexhen Doda:

And right now, because it's also interesting, when you take a leap of faith like that, do you have a goal in mind? You're like... I'll try it for a year and a half, or I'll try it for two years, if it doesn't work in two years, or I'll try it for three years. Right now it's been five years, so there's a different question that I have in the end, which is like five years after, did you actually achieve, did you manage to get back to that income, or at the beginning did you have a a certain period of time in mind that you're going to do it for this much time and then move on if it doesn't work?

Robert Hamilton:

No, I'd be lying if I said I'd given myself a deadline or a goal. It was really, let's see how this goes. And that... is sort of a reflection of how I tend to plan. You know, I know lots of people, like I find them on my client base. Some people are, you know, I am taking this job for two years. It's a two-year role, and then I will move on. And other people, a little bit more like me, are kind of, I'm going to go and do that and see how it feels, see how it goes. I will keep doing it until it ceases to be interesting, and then I'll find something else to do. And that's usually been my approach. You know, I was at Google for eight years, for example. When I joined Google, I didn't think I'm going to be here for three, four years, or I didn't think I'd be there for 10 years. I was there while it was the best choice. And then when another opportunity came along that looked interesting, I decided to take that. So that is my outlook. And I know that there are a lot of people who say, I'm going to give this three years and I'm going to reach this financial target or whatever. And that works for them. And that's great. There's also a lot of people who don't talk about their plans because they had a very a very detailed plan and it didn't work. So there is a lot of survivorship bias around planners. People are like, oh, my plan worked perfectly. Like, well, great. Can we attribute that to there being a plan? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it would have worked anyway. So that's kind of my personal outlook. I'm not a great planner to say, right, if you can't make this work in two years. Because I feel that... It isn't the sole, you know, how much revenue you make, for example, well, that matters, but It doesn't, it's not the only thing that matters. You know, having fulfilling work that I enjoy, working with the kind of clients that I want to work with is important to me. So there are other considerations and isn't purely, you know, I don't judge the worth of the business purely on how much revenue it generates because could it generate more revenue? Yes. Would that be nice? Yes. But, you know, something else we'll probably have to give. And I would, you know, I still do want to grow my business. So, you know, I think most coaches are still hoping that their business can get bigger. You know, there are definitely some who are kind of fully tapped out and, you know, trying to scale in different ways. But no, I didn't ever set a date. And I'm not recommending that. You know, as a coach, one of the things we tend not to do is to offer advice. We help people by giving them different, perspectives and helping them to think through their challenges. But it's very rare for me to say, here's what I think you should do, or here's what I would do. So in that same vein, I'm not suggesting to people that you shouldn't have a plan. I'm just being very honest and saying I didn't. And I'm still here anyway. So it can work both ways. My plan was, give it your best shot. And That's not a detailed plan, I admit. It's just to see how it goes.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you are able to take that and actually make it work on the long run. you do work with product managers and product manager leaders who is there a specific industry basically you come from tech i'm wondering if it's only in tech or is there other industries that you help people that you coach

Robert Hamilton:

pretty much all my if i think about across my client base they all work in some form of tech product development, so mostly software. There's one or two people who work in hardware, but it's mostly software development. And that, you know, that varies from big tech companies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe, to smaller startups and kind of everything in between. But, you know, I don't, and, you know, I have clients who work at retailers, but they are building software at retailers. So, you know, I'm not working with say marketing people or with partnerships teams. I'm usually working with people whose job it is to build software to support their business. So I guess you would say, you know, a retailer, like a big brand retailer, is not a tech company, but I support people within that, you know, my client base within that company. Those would be people who are building software, building the website, building other support mechanisms and algorithms for the retailer. So I pretty much, I think everyone I work with, they're trying to sort of mentally scan through my whole client list. I think everybody... produces software. I'm sure, I may recall something later, but during our conversation, nobody springs to mind who doesn't generate software. That's really been my focus. And that's where most of my career has been spent. I did work on hardware for a while at Google.

Rexhen Doda:

Nice. And where do you find your clients right now? I can imagine you also have a big network, but Yeah, what would be the main marketing channel that's working best for you in terms of you connecting with potential clients?

Robert Hamilton:

So I do get a lot comes from referrals from previous clients and from people that I've worked with in the past. LinkedIn is probably the next most successful channel. And that's something where, you know, it's obviously it is the professional social network that's typically probably that and actually for some work blind the anonymous social network has also been quite valuable that tends to be much more on the career side than on the exec side. So that's typically when people are seeking to make a change. You know, my exec coaching business, I say that's mostly people who are in a role and want to stay in that role and increase their impact. Whereas the career side is when people are, you know, definitely looking to make a change. But I was quite surprised that Blind, which, you know, is very tech focused and it sets an anonymous community. But other than that, LinkedIn is definitely my best source of business and that's where a lot of my inquiries come from.

Rexhen Doda:

And is that organically or is there some strategy that you think is working for you in LinkedIn? I

Robert Hamilton:

think it's a mix. There is quite a lot of organic people using search. I think I rank fairly well in search on LinkedIn. And some traffic comes to me from Google, from organically from Google, from search as well. I'd kind of forgotten about that. But I do try to create LinkedIn content. I'm not the most consistent content creator. I really, I've made it hard. i'm being honest it isn't my natural thing to to i i am more interested in coaching than i am in marketing and i think many coaches are in that problematic spot of well i'd rather be coaching or i don't like promoting myself um and so for me linkedin is really i i try to be very authentic I don't post about things that I'm not really interested in just for the sake of posting. I have been experimenting a little bit with video and I think that that is going to make a difference. I think video has a lot of potential for coaches because you can really get a much better idea of what it might be like to work with someone, I think, from seeing them talking on video, perhaps having a conversation like this, obviously a compressed version of that on a LinkedIn post. But I think that particularly these days when people can use LLMs to write their posts, and lots of people are, then the There was a time when you probably had to be a reasonably good communicator to appear a good communicator on LinkedIn. Now, certainly for text-based content, you could just have an LLM do that and write a good post for you. So that's definitely changed things. I think that video, that is one of the reasons why I think video is going to start to become more important. Plus, the world is becoming much more video-centric these days. And I think LinkedIn is... from everything that I see from the way that LinkedIn is developing as a product. They plan to go more video centric. So there isn't a deep strategy there. I have been working with some marketing partners and I've been working with people to help me get onto that strategy, but it is not my natural thing to be doing. And I mean, as an example, there's a thing that a lot of coaches will do, which is to say, I'm accepting new clients or I have room for two more clients. And they do that to generate the idea of scarcity. And personally, pretty much every client I work with would see through that in a second and be like, you don't have one spot that's opening up at the end of May. You know, I see coaches will say that like, oh, at the end of May, I'm going to have one spot. Let me know if you'd like to join me, if you'd like to work with me. And most of my clients, as I say, are super smart, savvy, and would just be like, that's just a marketing tactic. So I try to avoid, and I'm not saying it isn't a tactic that can work, but I do. I feel that my client base would not respond well to that. I'm sure it works for lots of people. It's not something that I would like to do. So there are lots of, I think, effective tactics, which I don't feel sit well with my perspective and my positioning. And that's just an example of one. And again, I think a lot of coaches will create programs and course content. A lot of people will do a course and have a course on Maven and so on. I prefer to do one-to-one work. I don't really want to produce canned content and generate revenue from content and again that's just a personal preference. I know it has served a lot of people well. I am not a teacher, I'm a coach. And I think there's a difference. I think when you're creating course material and here's my video program, you can sign up for it on Maven. And I know that on Maven, people do have one-to-one sessions and other things added around that, but it still comes from this kind of, there's a curriculum that you will follow. And my coaching isn't like that at all. So again, that's not an area where I want to get involved. And I actually had recently a client of mine paid for a course, product management course, and they didn't enjoy it. It was one of the big, big name courses. And they said to me, why don't you do a course? Because it would be really good. And it's like, well, I don't want to do one because courses are generic. If you're going to commit to, it is not tailored, it is not customized. And the work that I do tends to be much deeper and closer to the challenges that the individual has rather than here are five things that the best product managers do. That's true, but my clients already know those five things. My clients are all really good at what they do. And so they've already tried those five things probably, and they found that they don't work for them. So I think that that's why the the sort of pre-packaged content piece doesn't work so much for me because i again it's well there's a coach um an engineering leader at google who is doing some coaching now and he commented or he posted on linkedin uh a month or two ago now if i thought that you could write an effective book on leadership for individuals i would write it But I don't. I coach. And he had that same thing as like, you can distill down to a rule set, but those rule sets are very general by definition. If it's in a book, it's going to apply to lots of people. So LinkedIn is where I mostly hang out, I would say. But I am, again, not the most strategic in my use of it. I have a lot to learn.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, thanks for sharing so much on this. And you said there's no course, but I believe when it comes to your coaching structure, is there a program structure? Even if it's not a course, is there a structure on it?

Robert Hamilton:

we almost always have goals so in fact there's always at least one goal that the client has that they perhaps want to reach the next level or they want to be better at managing up or they want to build better relationships with their with the the people that they rely on their partners at work so there's always a goal at least one goal sometimes two or three which we are working on and one of the things that i've realize with my clients is that most of them have pretty good default let me explain what i mean by that they are good at what they do most of their decisions are valid correct they tend to get things right and every now and again they need to learn a new skill or try a different approach because Their default behavior, the thing that they reach for most commonly is not working for them in that situation. And one of the things that I do is to help people bring in new defaults. So if you have one particular working style, there will be times when it isn't effective. And at that point you think, well, I'm trying everything that I normally do. and I'm not getting the results I want. And at that point, the answer is probably, well, then you have to do something you don't normally do. And that's where I can help is to suggest approaches. So I guess if we were to distill it to a program-like thing, it would be, well, what do you want to be different? What are your goals? What are you trying to change? And what about your behavior is holding you back? So identifying the things that are holding you back and then layering in the new new defaults which aren't usually a replacement So it's not about saying, stop being like that. Because being like that has got them where they are, right? They're working in big companies or they're in fast-growing startups. They're already in a good position. So it's not saying, stop behaving the way you're behaving. Let's add in some new behaviors so that you have other options and can try different things. And then working with me to try those things out, see how it feels. Usually it's a bit uncomfortable If you're someone who is normally very collaborative and you decide actually I need to learn sometimes to be a little bit more kind of me centric if you like and collaborate a little bit less and drive things drive things myself more more directly that might feel uncomfortable that it's like oh i'm putting my opinion forward more than i normally do i'm being a little bit less consensus driven so again working through that figuring it out and adding that option so it's not about saying i'm going to stop being collaborative it's i will retain that ability and i'll add some new things and the phrase that i I use for kind of the process for that is tilting the mirror is like if you were looking at something in a mirror you get a flat reflection of you and that isn't very helpful right you can get that from the mirror as a coach my job is to tilt the mirror and give you a perspective you don't normally get to kind of like hey why do you think that person is behaving that way or why might your current approach not be effective in this situation and not to overextend the mirror analogy, but it's like, if I don't tilt it at all, there's no value. You know, it's like, well, I could just, I could look at myself and get that. And if I tilt it too far, the client can't relate to what I'm saying. So my job is to tilt it enough to give them a different perspective. So I suppose I would call that an approach, maybe rather than a program. And it is very different with every client. You know, I have clients that I've worked with probably like almost every week. for several years. They see me as a long-term career partner. They bring challenges almost every week. And then there's other clients who I engage with for a period of a month or two while they're trying to figure out their next move. They figure out that next move and then I don't hear from them for a couple of years and then they come back and say, okay, I'm ready to move again. I want to figure out what I want to do and why. And I think now, being five years in, I've got some clients who are almost on their third engagement that maybe you've worked through them in three different roles so that's the other part to it is there's that kind of long-term engagement which is not something that I think as a coach we can necessarily aim for but I think if somebody values us as a partner they will think Oh, I'll talk to Robert about that. In fact, I have a client who told me once, we were in a coaching session, and he said, oh, by the way, I don't think I've told you, but my wife is a big fan of yours.

Rexhen Doda:

And

Robert Hamilton:

I kind of laughed. I was like, well, how? Why? And I think he could sort of see in my face that I was a little bit, you know, just curious, I suppose. I just look curious. And he said there are certain times when she and I are discussing something, And she says, you know, I think this might be something you should discuss with Robert. And I don't think that was her not wanting to discuss it. I think she just felt, oh, this is something where you are a coach. Your coach could help with this. So it's interesting as well to see the things that bring people back. There is always this thing as a professional coach. We are not trying to build a long-term dependency. That is not a good thing for a coach to be doing. It should not be, I want to retain this client for as long as possible. I want to help this client as much as I can for as long as they want the help. And so when people say, hey, I'm done, I've got my new role, that's great and I'm happy for that. And then maybe they pop up again a year or two later when they have a new challenge.

Rexhen Doda:

I really like that. I really like the impact you have. not only on the person you coach, but also in other people around them, such as the example you took. I wanted to ask, for the future, do you have any goals you're working towards in the next one to three years with your coaching business?

Robert Hamilton:

I have some time goals where I want to reliably hit a certain number of hours. I don't want to coach all day, every day. but the business can sometimes be a little bit peaky where you know it gets busy and i'm working probably more hours than i would like and then there's quieter spells so my goal would be to achieve my my target number of hours pretty much without much variance so that kind of every week i could say yeah i've got my i've got my you know across the next couple of months i'm gonna have that those hours um and That, that's kind of at the root of any other goals of like, well, how much revenue would I want my business to generate, you know, and it'd be consistent, and me knowing that the business is in, you know, is in good shape and is running consistently. So that's, that's really the goal that I have. And it, does take time to reach that, but it does get, it gets a little bit easier every year. Not least because of repeat business, as I say, I think I'm fortunate that my model, there are reasons for people to come back and work with me. And so that helps with the consistency piece. But yeah, that's my main goal is to get to a, steady model where I probably wouldn't say well these clients want to work with me in the next couple of weeks so and that's going to take me over my desired number of hours but I'll take the work because it might be quiet for a couple of weeks afterwards so that's the aim is to is to kind of normalize it and not put in extra hours just because the work is there um you know and my coach said to me um you know sometimes you're going to make hay while the sun shines it's like when the business is there you're going to take the business and and she's right that that is that is exactly true i want to control the sun uh in that to overextend that analogy and and be able to kind of be like well actually i know it's going to be sunny next next month so i can wait and that's that's what i would like to be able to do is to is to have that predictability

Rexhen Doda:

and in terms of investments have there been any coaching programs masterminds or communities you've been part of that you'd say have been valuable in growing your coaching business

Robert Hamilton:

i haven't found one there is i haven't found one that's necessarily been super helpful I tend not to, and again, this is an area where again, I could probably learn a lot. I do talk to other coaches. And, you know, occasionally someone will be like, oh, you know, should we chat? And is there any potential for collaboration? But I found it to be quite unpredictable in terms of whether it's valuable or not. And so there isn't any sort of community. I'm trying to think. I'm part of a couple of communities where there are coaches and clients in the same group. community, but there isn't something, I haven't found anything which is purely for coaches yet. I haven't engaged with Purple Circle, that could be a thing, and I'll be interested to find out more about that. But no, there isn't anything yet that I've found. I've tried lots of communities, and I think a lot of people, when A lot of communities, there's a lot of people sharing free advice. And there is often people are like, well, this person is happy to chat to me or reply to my questions and I have to pay you. And that, I think, is one of the challenges in some of the communities that I've tried. It's like, oh, this person has offered to talk me through this. Like, okay, well, you know, they... they are not a full-time coach, I am not going to do free coaching. They are probably doing another full-time role or are involved in some other project. So no, I haven't found anything that's really helped me to accelerate my business, unfortunately.

Rexhen Doda:

Apart from coaching programs, masterminds and communities, have there been any other sort of investment that you've found that has helped grow your business in the last five years that you say, oh, that was a good investment?

Robert Hamilton:

Let me think for a moment. I have tried to encourage... You can scratch this, obviously. So thinking about investment or methods that I've found to generate business, one of the most effective ones has been to, in the bigger businesses where my clients are, where there's a lot of other potential clients, in encouraging those people to promote me internally. So if there's a list of coaches, please add me. How did they find me? And how do other people in their organization find coaches? So trying to connect to those people, sometimes connecting to the learning and development teams within my target companies, because again, they tend to be the people who manage the roster of coaches. There are platforms I know that know lots of big companies these days use the coaching platforms where the company will pay uh for the coaching and there's the coaches now those coaches tend not to have very much experience and some of my clients have tried those so they're like oh my company has a relationship with this you know coaching platform and they try that and they're like yeah this person is probably quite a good coach but they've never worked at a big tech company they haven't been a product manager so they're what i've found with those and this goes hand in hand with working with the l d people that's why i'm talking about it under this investment piece those when clients of mine have engaged with those platform coaches, they're like, it was good for a few sessions. They had some useful insights, but then they're kind of like, that's all they had. They couldn't, they didn't have the depth of, you know, whereas I have been in, you know, in that seat. I've done that job. And so I have a perspective that most, well, none of those coaches have because they're not experienced in what I've done. So that's why sort of going to the L&D people who often will say to me, well, everybody's covered because they just go on the platform and they get matched with a coach and And a lot of the L&D people are happy with that because they're like, yeah, I've made it super easy. They don't have to pay. It's all straightforward. It's all easy. But the value that people get from the coaching isn't necessarily there. So that's been one thing is trying to get people internally to refer me and to kind of promote me internally. And there's... There's one piece. Well, actually, let's pause for a second. You were going to ask me about something that didn't work or something that surprised me.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, I was just going to ask you about that next.

Robert Hamilton:

Okay. Yeah. So let's do it because I was going to go into something which is an answer to that. So we can do that next.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that was good to know. Is there like something that you wish you had known when you first started scaling your coaching business, like an unexpected lesson learned?

Robert Hamilton:

Yes. Sorry if there's pain on my face as I think about this. One thing that surprised me is that managers are not very good referrers. Let me explain what I mean by that. So I know lots of product management leaders across the industry. And almost always when I approach someone like that, because I think, oh, you have 20 PMs in your org or 100 PMs in your org. Maybe there are some of them I could work with. Almost all product leaders and managers say, no one in my team needs a coach. They're all amazing. Or they have a bit of a perspective which is, oh, coaching is for people who are struggling, not for my top performers. And I'm always trying to encourage people, well, you know, it can be for both. know there's if you're if you've got rising stars keep them rising and you know just just because someone is doing well doesn't mean they couldn't benefit from having a coach and that's something where for a while i would would routinely approach managers hoping that they'd be oh yeah i have a person in my team who i think might benefit from working with you and it And maybe my approach is wrong, but I've stopped doing that now because it was a waste of time. I don't think I've ever converted someone through their manager. And as I think it through, I'm not sure how I would feel if my manager said to me, oh, maybe you could work with a coach. If they were thoughtful about it and they said, I think you could benefit from a coach. I want you to do well. You know, if they came from a place of care and support, not, oh, you're struggling, you need extra help, right? That's a very different message, which is also true sometimes and is important. But yeah, it took me a while to learn that. And I... Well, there might be coaches watching this who say, oh, well, it does work. You were doing it wrong. So I'm prepared to have my eyes open there. But it was a surprising lesson for me. I think the other surprising thing, which is a nice surprise, is that coaching has a built-in jerk filter. And because almost everyone who wants a coach has a growth perspective, they... they recognize that they have areas to grow and that they could use help and so there's a self-awareness and an openness to being vulnerable and to asking for help there and i think um you know i use the word jerk for for whatever reason whatever whatever word people want to use but like that that person that you probably wouldn't enjoy working with or that person who doesn't create a good environment they think they're they're they don't need a coach, right? They've got it nailed. So there is that nice factor. And I've worked in great organizations where there weren't a lot of jerks, but every organization, there's some folks like that. It's unfortunately a universal thing, but it turns out they don't come to coaches. And that's a really nice thing is that I know when someone pings me and says, hey, Can we have a conversation about working together? They're probably going to be thoughtful, humble and want to grow. And that's a really nice thing to get because I only get to work with people who want to get better. As I say, they don't have an opinion of themselves, which suggests they can't learn anything.

Rexhen Doda:

So I was thinking, as you mentioned, that it hasn't been very, uh, let's say successful when it comes to, uh, managers, uh, recommending it. Um, usually I've had sometimes coaches in the podcast and, um, while I was also doing the research is that, uh, oftentimes there'll be the companies hiring the coach, uh, to work with, uh, um, someone in their team, maybe someone in the C-level, executive level, or in your case, I'm wondering if companies would also be hiring you to work with their product managers. Has that been the case or generally the product manager would approach to you directly?

Robert Hamilton:

Usually it's a direct approach, yeah. And I think the... The big companies that I work with kind of already have a list of coaches. There isn't really a strong incentive for them to make that list any longer. And so it tends to be organic, as I would describe it. It would be nice to have that. And there are some companies where I've been able to establish that, but I found it generally quite challenging to get that. And I would... because I've been able to get organic business. And clearly that would be, it's not self-generating leads, but it is kind of, once you're in that bracket, you're in there. But I've found it sometimes challenging to get, as I say, I haven't been able to crack the code that encourages those companies to say, you have something that we can't get anywhere else. That I've not been able to come up with something sufficiently unique that works there. Maybe I will in the future, but I haven't been able to do that yet.

Rexhen Doda:

And if the product managers come to you directly, are in this case mostly them paying for the coaching or they get the company to pay for it?

Robert Hamilton:

yeah often the companies do reimburse um so so i do have you know probably a good proportion of my client base um there is some of the self-paid but a lot their company is paying um and sometimes it moves from one to the other. So, you know, it can be in either direction. It can either be the, it starts with the company paying and then the company, you know, there may be an annual budget and the company says, well, you've had all your, you've used your budget and maybe the client starts paying after that. Or similarly, the client starts organically paying me direct and then actually goes to their manager or goes to whoever they need to get approval and says, hey, I've been working with this coach. It's really helping me. know do you see that uh and if so would you you know would the company be up for supporting it so that's definitely something that that happens and you know i do sometimes as many coaches do work with with clients on that initial proposal to kind of say well let's make a case together for for working together yeah so so it's definitely both yeah

Rexhen Doda:

what would you say are some of the biggest challenges and I think you've covered some of them. When it comes to you scaling your coaching business that you're either facing today or you faced also in the past.

Robert Hamilton:

I think really finding finding ways to communicate how I work. And that's where I think the video piece, I'm hoping that maybe switching to using video more will help because I think it's very hard to stand out. And I also don't, I am not comfortable telling people, I will get you that next promotion. You will land your dream job. I saw a coach who said they had a 93% success rate of people getting their dream job. And as a product manager, I'm like, how can you actually quantify that? You know, even the attribution, like, would they not have got the dream job had they not worked with you? That's impossible to calculate. And it just seemed to me like a very, like, I would never claim something like that because I would look at it and think, well, you can't really claim that. You can say that you help a lot of people. You can say that you do this. So for me, making that, you know, helping people understand what I do, without resorting to what I call over claims. I'm not comfortable doing that. I can't guarantee that people will, well, I won't put a specific guarantee on something. And that perhaps is a challenge and kind of holds me back because there are lots of people who are comfortable saying, hey, if you do my course, 80% of my students get their dream job. Well, that again is like, that's not what I do. So there are lots of people advertising these very sort of concrete, you know, do this, you'll get that. I think maybe they are aiming at people more junior in their career than I work with. But I think for all coaches distilling the value, like every one of my clients can tell you what they find valuable about working with me. it's harder for me to synthesize that. Maybe I should just, you know, spend three months with a marketing person working on that. That's not, like, I'm not a marketing person. That's kind of, maybe that's actually what I should answer this question with. And if you want to edit one that just says, the biggest challenge is that I'm not a marketing person and I, you know, this is a marketing problem. That's a better, shorter answer.

Rexhen Doda:

So it's, yeah, it's kind of like at the top, like a lead generation, you would say, issue. It doesn't matter how they come in. Like, obviously, guaranteeing results is probably not important. I know some coaches will do that usually. And you said it's hard to quantify that because let's say, how would you know that they wouldn't have been successful had they not worked with you? Generally, I think some coaches will answer that saying that they would have not worked with the client if they didn't see the potential that they could help the client from the start, meaning that they didn't see the potential that the client has some potential that they could unlock or something like that. would have been from my understanding because I'm not a coach but yeah I totally understand that and right now at this point in your business how do you currently handle the balance between delivering great client results and also being able to kind of work on the business growth in the other side and kind of like find time to even like do podcasts like this with me or even do like a post or a video on LinkedIn?

Robert Hamilton:

I think that's relatively easy for me. Well, it's easy for me to find the time, whether or not I am executing effectively on that. And again, there's a reason I'm not a marketing coach. I can do execution in product development. I can do that and support folks with those goals all the time. But because I'm not aiming to coach as many hours of the week as I possibly can, there is time for me to be reflective and to think and to read and to, you know, there's also, to your point, there is, as a coach, Most coaches also want to be working on their coaching, not just on their skills, not just on working with clients, right? So there's, there's, there's two areas of development. There's growing the business and there's growing my ability as a coach. So I think you need to have time for both. And because I'm not aiming to absolutely fill my schedule with client facing time, it's not, lack of time that prevents me doing the other things you know it's it might be as i say lack of awareness um but certainly in terms of you know me studying reading reflecting on things that i come across and and i have plenty of time to do that um because i'm not trying to as i say i'm not trying to coach you know like a a 40-hour week there's no there's no that's that's not a goal for me is to is to fill every hour with coaching so i think some coaches may may find that harder for me it isn't it isn't so difficult to carve out that time

Rexhen Doda:

great and um we're almost getting to the close question so it's like uh actually the final question is what advice would you give to um other coaches whether they are executive or career coaches that are looking to scale their impact from your perspective

Robert Hamilton:

oh that is a great question about uh scaling a coaching business. I think this is advice that many people get early on in their coaching journey. And I think the sooner that you take it on board as a coach, the better life is, which is to find your niche, find the thing that you can do, because it's counterintuitive, but if your clients can't kind of self-identify into working with you. They're like, these are the people I help. If you kind of like, oh, I could help anyone. Well, you think, oh, that increases my TAM, my total addressable market, right? It's like, well, actually, it kind of, it does theoretically, but, you know, I think, I mean, an example that I was given early on, which I think made me, really made me think was, there was a coach who said they, they, They had seen someone who said, I work with female pharmaceutical execs in their mid-30s looking to get to the next level. So think of how many qualifiers there are, female pharmaceutical execs in their 30s, right? That's like, if you stood up in front of 1,000 people at a conference and said, who's in that group? Everyone who is in that group knows they're in that group, right? It's very clear that like, oh, that's not me. I'm in my 20s. Oh, I don't work in pharma. That's not me. Having that clarity of like, this is who I can help. I think the sooner that you get to that, then the people are like, oh, maybe that's the coach for me. You put yourself into that option pool because there are so many coaches out there that the ones that are like, maybe I can help you, let's talk. That offering is so vanilla that I think it's hard for people to commit. So that's something that I've seen is that the more quickly you can get to that, you know, these are the folks that I help, where others can identify into that group. So the more clarity you can get around that, the better. And certainly, if I think about my first website that I built back in 2020 to support my business, it was kind of like, yeah, let's talk. You know, I'm a coach, right? That's like, come and we'll figure it out together. And When I redid my site, it became much more focused on this is who I help. These are the challenges I help them with. And that felt much more concrete. And so I think that the sooner that you can, and there is, for most folks, there's a fear there of like, what if I miss out on an important, a potentially valuable client? Because they're like, oh, I could, they'll probably call you anyway. If they were thinking, oh, I was, you know, I was hoping to work with you. Like, for example, I worked with an engineering lead at Google, and I mostly work with product people. But this engineering lead said, a few of the product people I've talked to who worked with you think you're a great coach. Can we work together? So that person isn't in my target audience, but they pinged me anyway. So it is a little bit counterintuitive. And if I had studied marketing, you can probably There's probably a term for that process of, you know, identifying who you're, you know, helping people to understand that they are your target market. And it's something that I think the sooner you learn that, the faster you will start to be effective from a marketing perspective.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, absolutely. Niching down is one of the things that gives a lot of people confidence in working with you. So they feel like, oh, if they're working only with a woman in pharmaceuticals in their 30s, then they have experience with probably potentially the same issues that I'm going to face, they have probably found a solution to those. It gives you just confidence to those people versus I coach everyone and you can find a solution for everyone. It's kind of hard to get confidence out of that. Yeah, I really appreciate that. It's great advice. So for anyone who wants to connect with you or reach out to you in the future, after looking at this podcast, maybe they are an executive coach, a career coach, or a coach that's maybe developing their product. I know you mentioned that you generally have not worked with people that are like building a digital product for say, like a digital marketing product. But if they say that there's a coach that is building that product and wants to reach out to you or even just connect with you for a coffee chat, they would find you on LinkedIn at Robert Hamilton. They could also find you at your website, accelerationcoach.com, right?

Robert Hamilton:

Yeah, those are both good ways to find me. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. And yeah, Yeah, there is an Instagram account lurking somewhere that I haven't invested in very much. But yeah, LinkedIn and my website are great ways to get in touch. And I'm always, you know, one of the reasons that I wanted to join today and to answer your questions was to share experiences and share mistakes I've made. And if there's ways for me to help other coaches along their journey, then, you know, I'll always do my best to do that. People have helped me and it's, you know, it's It's good to offer that too. So sure, if people reach out, then I'll be happy to help if I can.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Robert. It's been a pleasure having you on the show.

Davis Nguyen:

That's it

Rexhen Doda:

for this episode

Davis Nguyen:

of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 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 joinpurplesircle.com.