How Mauricio Velásquez Built a 30-Year Coaching Business on Visibility

In this powerful episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen Doda interviews Mauricio Velásquez, founder and CEO of Diversity Training Group (DTG), who has spent over 30 years coaching leaders across Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. Navy, law enforcement agencies, Major League Soccer, healthcare systems, and beyond.

From launching his coaching business on a houseboat to becoming one of the most in-demand experts on toxic workplace culture, Mauricio shares the unfiltered truth about building a coaching practice that lasts decades. He explains how his boldest investment



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricio-velasquez-mba-3723b8/
Website: https://www.diversitydtg.com/

Transcript

Mauricio Velasquez: 0:00

Great question. I think the best investment, it was a big risk last year, was to write this book and the ending audio book. I gambled. I spent a lot of money. I spent a lot of time. And as we turned into the new year, the business was not optim optimal. But the book came out, and I can I can your listeners, the last seven clients that I've landed, diversity training group, have all come from my book. And uh I've I can tell you without reservation that the the coaching and consulting monies I've made from the book.

Davis Nguyen : 0:34

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 Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda: 1:30

Training and consulting, helping organizations across industries from Fortune 500 companies to the US Navy build cultures rooted in trust, engagement, and high performance. Through DTG, uh he has delivered programs in 49 states in the US and more than 70 countries tackling issues ranging from unconscious bias and emotional intelligence to harassment prevention and conflict management. And it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Mauricio.

Mauricio Velasquez: 2:04

My pleasure. It's great to be with you.

Rexhen Doda: 2:05

It's a pleasure for us too. So I wanted to like get started on your journey first, where it began. It's been 30 years now. First of all, like what inspired you to do this, become a coach and start your own coaching business?

Mauricio Velasquez: 2:17

I worked for a couple of companies prior to starting my own firm diversity training group. I had several bad bosses in a row and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to start my own business. When you are self-employed, you can't complain about your boss because you are your boss. So I was, in essence, I had to leave a series of bad managers, bad employers to start my own business and create the company that I wanted to be a part of. And coaching and training is a big part of that. Um and incidentally, part of my journey, you can see the picture right here. That's my boat. I started my business, diversity training group, on a houseboat in Ean Harbor in Baltimore. So one of the tips I have for coaches and trainers is low overhead and living on a boat for five years, starting my business there was very advantageous from a cost facpective. I could start the business and I didn't need a lot of cash flow and I could reinvest every dollar back into the business.

Rexhen Doda: 3:12

Cool. And so right now, when thinking about the the people that you work with, your clients, we might have them listening. So usually in this podcast, we have two audiences. One audience is other coaches. The other audience is the audiences of the coaches we've had on the show before. So we've kind of like borrowed some of their audience as well. And for those of them that are listening that might fit your client profile, how would you describe the ideal client profile for you? Is there a certain industry, demographic, psychographic? How would you describe the ideal client profile?

Mauricio Velasquez: 3:46

I don't have an ideal client profile per se. It's a client who's proactive, they identified an individual who needs coaching. See, there's two kinds of coaching work for me. There's long-term developmental work with this person regularly. The work I often get is there was a moment, sexism, racism, hatred. There was a flashpoint, what I call a moment of truth, and I'm hired to come in and rather quickly assess whether that individual will change or that we need to cut them loose. We need to fire them. So I like the developmental proactive long-term clients. I get a little bit of that work. I mostly get emergency crisis. Somebody said something in a public venue, somebody, it was a mayor of Baltimore. My clients range from Major League Soccer to the Airports Authority to law enforcement to National Policing Institute. I'm in all sectors. A brewery is a client, car dealership. I work with all sectors because the clients that come to me have issues, diversity, inclusion issues, and they want me to help them address. And these issues are in all sectors in all companies. And so I'll help it, I'll help anyone who reaches out to me.

Rexhen Doda: 4:53

Cool. How is the engagement like for those of them working with you? Um how would you describe them working with you? Is there a certain program of a certain length? Um, or there are multiple programs, is it one-on-one coach? How would you describe it?

Mauricio Velasquez: 5:07

It's all it's all custom designed to look, the people I coach, number one question is are they coachable? So I often I'm brought in and do a 360. I interview all the people that work with this person horizontally and vertically, and then I give them feedback. And it's the individual I'm coaching who will decide, and the employer, of course, how long uh the engagement lasts. Are they seeing behavioral change? Are they seeing demonstrable change in how they treat people, how respectful, how professional, how collegial they are, or are they continuing to be a sexist or a racist or a hater, and then they're gonna get fired pretty quickly. My space is very unique. I mean, in the United States right now, my space is under siege by our president and his administration, but I'm still doing the work, the diversity, equity, and inclusion coaching, assessment, training work, because those issues aren't going away. And you said it earlier, you know, this may not be as big a profession in Europe or other parts of the world, but in the United States, employers identify high potentials who need help, and then they hire somebody like me to help them. Yeah, yeah.

Rexhen Doda: 6:14

For all the coaches who are listening, what is working for you really well marketing-wise? Controversial.

Mauricio Velasquez: 6:20

I don't believe that you can just be exclusively a coach. You need to have a portfolio of services. So I'm a coach, but I'm also a trainer and a consultant. What work and I'm a speaker, I'm an author. So what's working for me is I find this kind of a journey. I found this out after, but I wrote this book, tackling toxicity, and I just finished the audio book. It's amazing in this country. People say, Oh, you wrote a book. You must be good. And so I'm invited to speak at all these places, these conferences and trade shows and meetings. And when I speak at one of these venues, I win business because people in the audience are like, this guy's great. We have to have him come in. So train the book and the audience, the market that the book has created. I mean, tackling toxicity, it is timely in this country. We are facing some very ugly, nasty, toxic times right now in the United States. So my book is perfectly named, titled Tackling Toxicity. So I speak and present, and I have a workshop that's tied directly into my book, tackling toxicity, but I have related workshops on psychological safety, trust, employee engagement, ethics. And so that is probably the biggest marketing channel as I'm speaking regularly, weekly podcasts, workshops, conferences, trade shows. My website, I push everything through my website. On my website are articles and checklists, and I give value, white papers, um, and and and not any one channel. If I would say there's one channel, is the speaker series, speaker circuit. And that's a storyteller. So let me also say this. As a as a consultant, as a coach, I have a lot of stories that come from my coaching experiences. I coach CEOs all the time. And I've turned those stories into a book. And when I'm training and I present, I present, and people remember the story. So uh there isn't one silver bullet, but a combination. I do some writing, some articles, of course, the big book, but I do some writing as well. Articles quick hits. I I've got I don't know, million, million and a half of people I touch through social media. I've got, I don't know, a database of maybe, I don't know, fifteen thousand, and then direct emails, Facebook and all that.

Rexhen Doda: 8:36

Yeah, so uh it actually makes sense. Many coaches uh who I've interviewed as well have mentioned that the networking events, speaking networking events, has been something that has worked for them really well. And and that especially in like conversion-wise, because you can do all of the marketing with other channels as well. It's just that the conversion is much, much higher when they actually get to see you in person, hear from you, um and versus like seeing you on LinkedIn, which is different in in its own way. Uh, there's less of a connection there. So, right now, looking to the future for your business business for the next one to three years, do you have any specific business goals that you're working towards?

Mauricio Velasquez: 9:18

Well, you know, so I started my business on a houseboat, then I I ran a firm out of my basement of my home. Then my wife, we we got and she says, get everybody out of here. So I bought an office in downtown Historic Herman, Virginia, here, right next to Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C. Metro. My goal in the next three years is to work less. I'm on a four-day work week right now. I'd like to get to three. Uh I love to speak, I love to travel, I love to train, and the coaching is is is all of that. I want to I'm I'm raising rates. I'm speaking and coaching less, but getting paid more for it. So that's my strategy. Is not I mean, I'm in my 30th year, so I I'm not like I've grown the business. I don't want to grow it more. I'm actually kind of uh shrinking it back, doing what I love to do. See, as a trainer, as a coach, as a speaker, I am just looking for somebody to pay me to do what I love to do every day. And I want to do it less. I want to spend more time and I I want to spend more time at home in other not-for-profit endeavors, church, etc. So that's my goal is go to three days a week, sell this office, move to Charlottesville, probably probably be a professor at the university. I think that'd be fine.

Rexhen Doda: 10:27

Cool. So yeah, interesting. So yeah, after 30 years, you're trying to kind of like uh take a step back from it all and uh it makes sense. Uh the whole journey, like you started from the boat, now you have the office, now you might go back to the boat.

Mauricio Velasquez: 10:42

Yeah. Oh, in a minute, I I would love I'll do it. I would love to be back on a boat again. Uh a glorious time. It was a houseful, it was a 40-foot floating Winnebago office. Uh, I loved it. It was a great time. Uh I would back. I it was a simple time. You know, all my furniture was nailed down. So when I moved off the boat and moved in with my wife, she's like, Where's all your junk? What junk? I had a folding chair, that TV VCR. That's it. Books I and clothes in bags of heavy plastic bags. So I would love, and now we have a big house full of stuff. You're right on. I would love to go back to that. My wife's like, nope, we're not doing that.

Rexhen Doda: 11:21

Well, it must have been a beautiful experience, I can imagine.

Mauricio Velasquez: 11:25

Oh, gorgeous. You know, yacht clubs are very uh you meet everybody, everybody's friendly. Um it's a good time. It it's a great, especially for an extrovert like me. Oh, I had a ball. I had a ball.

Rexhen Doda: 11:37

So, right now, throughout the 30 years of running the coaching business, or let's just say focusing on the last few years, what have been some investments that you've made in the coaching business that you either learned a lot or got a good return from? Uh, and could be investments of money or time or both. So, what have been some good investments in this case? And also I'd like to learn what have been some bad investments that you would have preferred to have, but if there's any bad investments.

Mauricio Velasquez: 12:07

Great question. I I think best investment, it was a big risk last year, was to write this book and the ending audio book. I gambled, I spent a lot of money, I spent a lot of time, and as we turned into the new year, the business was not optim optimal. But the book came out, and I can I can your listeners the last seven clients that I've landed at Diversity Training Group have all come from my book. And uh I've I can tell you without reservation that the the coaching and consulting monies I've made from the book already has paid for the book. And I was a big gamble last year, but I'm a risk taker. I think I went to a digital phone system. I should have done that sooner in terms of an investment that I should have made sooner because digital is is much less expensive. My website, always trying to improve upon it, it's got to be fast to load. Um I've I've got a good LinkedIn profile, I've got a good Facebook, I've got a good I can't think of anything where I wasted money because I I'm very smart really researching before I really make a decision. I think right now it's the marketing of the book itself. See, a lot of the people, four million books come out a year in the United States, and most of them don't sell more than 50 copies. And I never thought I'm gonna write this book and it's gonna be a New York Times bestseller. No, I thought the book would raise my coaching practice, my training, my consulting, and that's what it's done. Uh-huh. The idea that I'm gonna sell, and I've sold, I don't know, maybe a thousand copies, but and I have clients, by the way, who hire me to coach and they buy the book. They buy the bund coaching. Or I speak for a client recently, a hospital system, and uh 150 people in the room, and they all wanted a copy of the book for all the people in the room. So I automatically sold 150 copies. So the book, see, look, coaching is perishable. Training is perishable. If I'm not coaching today, if I'm not training today, I'm losing money. If you're an economist, it's we call that the opportunity cost. I'm a I'm a I'm a double major in economics. So what a book does is it bundles your intellectual property into a way of creating a channel of making money that's separate from your coaching or your training practice. So the book makes money, and I'm not I don't have to be off of it doing it, delivering it, selling it per se. So I I think all of us in the coaching field, and and and I'll tell you what is it created this this medium, this this virtual, I some coaching virtually, probably more of my coaching is virtual than in-person. I prefer in-person, but I I have clients all over the country. And we can record what we do and we can sell those recordings. I think that's how your your listeners have to think. Anytime I do a workshop, my clients record it, and then they pay me a royalty for using it over and over again. So, again, how do we generate additional sources of revenue? Because ultimately, we all love the coaches I know, the coaches you work with, we love to coach. But how do we create other revenue streams to keep the coaching practice alive? That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm constantly thinking about.

Rexhen Doda: 15:17

Especially for coaches who are looking to, like in your case, minimize the coaching time uh and potentially looking for an exit opportunity as well. So that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing that. And now, while you think about minimizing your time, what is the biggest challenge you're facing in doing that? In trying to do less coaching, but actually raising the prices, that is the strategy you mentioned. Where is the main challenge in doing that?

Mauricio Velasquez: 15:46

The main challenge for me at this moment is getting my book in the bookstore. I mean, look at this cover. I mean, I'm a marketing guy. All right, so you've got tackling toxicity, you've got this fabulous cover. Anyone in a store in line, what we call an impulse pie, would see this book and go, I deal with difficult toxic people at work, at school, at home. I need to buy it, but it's not in the bookstore. That is the toughest challenge for me is the business of consumer Barnes and Noble push. I'm on iTunes, I'm on, you know, Amazon, whatever, Audible, all that stuff. Um, and what like I spoke last week, 40 people bought my books in the back of the room. And whenever I speak, I sell the book. And the book, as you know, people take it back and then they refer. And I'm gonna give this to my aunt who's a nightmare, my mother-in-law. So the book is a marketing uh shit out there, piece out there. So 4 million books a year coming out in the United States every year. They're not getting shelf space, they're not getting, they're not in the shelves of bookstores like Barnes Noble. That's my next big goal is to get into the actual bookstores. Cool. Interesting. Yeah, and with that, it'll push, it'll the tide will rise and my coaching practice go up. You know, I I really need PR. I really need I want to be on TV, and I've been on TV before. I want to be that person that people go, I like this guy. I need his book. And then when they read the book, oh, he's a great coach. We need to have him come in and coach. That's the cycle. I need to get more press. I'm I'm doing podcasts constantly. Uh, I need to get more exposure, more press for me, for my coaching, my training business, for the book, and then that it feeds on itself.

Rexhen Doda: 17:25

Well, that is so interesting. The reason why I say interesting is because I have actually um I've had a coach in the podcast, um, and you can also see the podcast episode as well. Her name is Amisha Green, and she is a book coach that helps people get the book onto the bookshelves. So it's a specific coach, which I feel like we valuable. I could just like uh you could either look at the episode within our podcast, Amisha Green. She's from Birm Birmingham, England, UK, but she has clients all all over the world, so she helps them in US as well. And you can find her LinkedIn. I actually could send it to you as well. But yeah, I feel like great connection there.

Mauricio Velasquez: 18:08

Oh yeah.

Rexhen Doda: 18:09

Uh especially for your channel.

Mauricio Velasquez: 18:10

A coach to help publishers get their book in the store. Brilliant. Because coaches for everything. That's brilliant. Thank you for sharing that.

Rexhen Doda: 18:17

Yeah. I mean, she she helps you throughout the whole process, but obviously it helps also through getting into the shelf. She helps with the cover and everything. She she gets you from point zero to like uh a hundred, and but she could help you with the getting to the shelves.

Mauricio Velasquez: 18:34

Fascinating.

Rexhen Doda: 18:35

So yeah. Uh uh, it was amazing that you had that challenge. I wanted to share that. And for everyone who's listening as well, Amisha Green, feel free to check out the podcast episode we did with her because I asked her quite a few interesting questions of like how people get the bookshelves in an airport in Singapore or something like that. How do you do that? That is that is an interesting let's talk about this for a second, though.

Mauricio Velasquez: 18:58

You know, my book, tackling toxicity, why is it popular? Why is it a topic? Oh, we want him to come and speak. Because think about it, most people on the planet are conflict avoiders. Oh, I don't want to deal with this. So they're being bullied by a toxic person, and they don't want to engage, but they suffer in silence. So my book is about skilling them up to go from what I call bystander to upstander. Now, the flip side, my coaching practice is I'm dealing with a toxic person, and I have to tell them you've got to stop being so toxic and it's behavioral. And they'll say, Oh, I didn't mean it. It doesn't matter what you meant. What matters is what you say or do. I had no idea I said it. Doesn't matter you had no idea, you should know better. So it's an interesting space I'm in. The book, and by the way, I tell people all the time buy my book and give it to that jerk, that toxic person you're like, and give it to them anonymously, slip it under their door and dog ear some of the pages with posts that say, This is you, because people read my book and go, Oh my gosh, that's my boss, or that's my my my mother-in-law, or or whatever. This is this is a book for the person.

Rexhen Doda: 20:05

Yeah.

Mauricio Velasquez: 20:05

It's it's an interesting symbiotic relationship.

Rexhen Doda: 20:08

Yeah, it's it's also I don't think there's a lot of books that are covering toxicity in workplaces. So yeah.

Mauricio Velasquez: 20:15

Yeah, and nothing like mine. Mine's storytelling-based, re-reality-based. Uh, because I'm a storyteller. And when I'm coaching, I use storytelling to connect with the person, to build rapport, to build trust with the person I'm coaching. Stories are the center of my work.

Rexhen Doda: 20:30

Thank you. Thank you, Mauricio. And so my final view is for all the coaches who are listening that sorry, they are looking to do the opposite. They're looking to scale further. Is there any advice you'd like to give to these coaches that want to scale, not just in revenue or like their business, but basically make a bigger impact, scale their impact?

Mauricio Velasquez: 20:49

Well, I still gonna do that. I'm scaling up for greater impact. I just want to work less. But what I would say to all those people listening is don't wait for the phone to ring. You gotta get out the join Sherm, join ATD, go to the local chapters, go to the state conferences, go to the national conferences, apply, uh, you know, get the RFPs, fill out the requests for proposals to speak. And if you're not speaking weekly, don't expect that phone to ring. I if I'm not on a podcast last week, I spoke in three venues, one private client and then two public. This week, I'm on the podcast with you. I have another webinar coming up. You've got to be out there in front of people as much as you can. I'm on YouTube. Use what you have, but hopefully you have a story to tell. Hopefully, you have the gravitas of a speaker, and they go, This guy's a good speaker. He must be a great coach. That's always an interesting jump. And don't be afraid to do things for free. I give stuff away. You know, there are a lot of people that go, well, if you want to pay for it, you got if you want to see it, you gotta pay. I send my content out constantly. Uh, here's our curricula, here's the whole workshop. They can't do it without me. See, I'm I'm a believer in abundance, but that they're that are are scarcity-centric, like, oh, there's not enough to go around. I think there's plenty to go around. You just gotta get out there and beat the bushes. Marketing one-on-one. Can't be afraid of the phone, can't be afraid of standing up in front of people, can't be afraid of constantly pushing, pushing your message.

Rexhen Doda: 22:23

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mauricio, and thank you so much for coming to our podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. For anyone who's listening to us that wants to connect with Mauricio, they can find you on LinkedIn. Maurizio, the last guest, they will be able to find your profile. They can also go into the website diversitydg.com, which we'll put into the description for people to find easily, which is the website they can go to if I'm not. Correct.

Mauricio Velasquez: 22:50

And on there is a bookstore. Let me make this point real fast. Don't just sell your book on Amazon. You make very little money. On my bookstore, it's tied to books.buy. My royalty is triple of what Amazon is. So if you're thinking, write the book, but be sure you put your book on all platforms. And my book, Tackling Toxicity, is on diversitydg.com's website. I have my own bookstore.

Davis Nguyen : 23:14

Cool. Thank you. Thank you so much for going to.

Mauricio Velasquez: 23:16

Thank you, Regin.

Davis Nguyen : 23:17

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.