Why Great Brands Refuse to Sacrifice Experience for Growth with Tracey Evans

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with Tracey Evans, founder of Dreamwinds Equine Assisted Learning Centre and leadership development expert specializing in equine-assisted learning. Tracey shares how her background as a corporate executive and self-described Type A leader shaped her obsession with brand consistency, client experience, and delivering a true “wow factor.”

Tracey opens up about the tension between growth and control, why she refuses to sacrifice experience for scale, and how protecting her brand standards has become both her biggest challenge and greatest differentiator. From using horses as honest mirrors for leadership, to building high-touch corporate programs, pricing premium experiences, and scaling beyond herself without losing quality, this conversation dives deep into what it really takes to build a values-driven coaching business.

If you’re a coach or consultant wrestling with niche, brand integrity, scalability, or how to grow without burning out or watering down your work, this episode is packed with practical insight and hard-earned wisdom.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceyevans1/
Website: https://dreamwinds.com/

Transcript

Tracey Evans 0:00

My biggest challenge because as a coach and as a type A personality, I like to control everything and the experience have at DreamWins is my brand. You know, people will always laugh because I you'll be yelling, that's off brand, that's off brand, and we'll, you know, fix it immediately. And always looking for those ways to make sure that the brand is consistently represented and the experience is second to none. So on my website, one of our corporate values is Wow Factor. And I can't I'll never let that go for the sake of growth.

Davis Nguyen 0:30

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, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro 1:01

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today's guest is Tracy Evans, a leadership development expert who helps leaders and teams go through powerful, experiential learning. With more than two decades leading high-performing teams in the corporate world, she founded DreamWinds to focus on what drives results when pressure is real. People, trust, and alignment. Her work blends business leadership with equine assisted learning, using horses as honest mirrors for communication, authenticity, and teamwork. Through hands-on programs for executives, professionals, and athletes, Tracy helps teams build self-awareness, collaboration, and confidence that translate directly into real world performance. Welcome to the show, Tracy.

Tracey Evans 1:58

Thank you so much for having me, Pedro. It's great to be here.

Pedro 2:00

Yeah, it's great to have you too. And you know, we were talking pre-podcast. This is gonna be different. I'm so curious about. And this brings up my next question, which would be the origin story. I I like to rewind a bit because every coach has a moment where they look at their life and say, you know what, this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Tracey Evans 2:20

Yeah, absolutely. As you said in my intro, I had been in the corporate world for some time. Um, and I had gotten into horses during that time. So I wasn't a lifelong horse person, but I'd loved them my whole life. And I had a horse that was a little bit challenging. And I ended up taking a horsemanship clinic to understand better what he needed from me. And it was in that clinic that I learned he needed me to be a leader. And everything he was looking for in a leader from me was the same things I wanted to be as a leader and the same things I expected from my leaders. Confidence, compassion, consistency, clear communication, have a plan, all of the things. And it just set some bells off for me. What a great way to learn leadership. Because I'll tell you, I had done my MBA, I had done all the leadership training that my companies had put me through, but I never owned it. I owned it when my horse told me, like, this doesn't work for me, you know. And what was very interesting was as I learned his language and learned what he needed, he did what I wanted. And it became a real clear message for me because how often do we work with people who don't necessarily do what we think we've asked them to do? And when we really think about it, it's just because we've asked the wrong way. We're not connecting on the right level, we're not speaking their language, if you will. And so in learning the horse language, I learned a lot about my own leadership and I learned a method of actually teaching leadership. Uh, it took me a few years after that first experience to actually leave my corporate career, obviously. That was not an easy decision. I was a vice president of marketing, I had a very big job, but it was absolutely my calling. I brought my team home for a session at uh my new farm. We had bought a whole farm and moved our horses home. And I walked into the house after that one team session and said, This is what I have to do. And that's what got the ball rolling. Within a few months, I was doing it.

Pedro 4:06

I love that. How the horse revealed to you what it takes to be a leader and you learn from it. I really like that. And you know what? When did it shift from I'm helping people to I'm building a real business around this?

Tracey Evans 4:20

It was a real interesting thing because I started the business focused solely on corporate team building and leadership. And as I started to build that business, the corporate teams began to come and I was doing exactly what I expected to do. But then what was really interesting is people started to come out of the woodwork looking for youth programs, women's leadership programs, date nights, all the and different things, you know, group events, family reunions, those types of things. And so as those requests started to build, I thought, well, why not? You know, I had various facilitators around me that could help me, and I started to branch out and expand the business. And as I started to do that, I got really passionate about what was possible. I really have never met anybody who can't benefit from this work, either personally or professionally. And that's when I reached out to my trainers and uh proposed a partnership opportunity for me to help them expand the certification. And then the business just started to flourish because I was now in the trainer expert as well as delivering all of this wide variety of programs, and it kind of took on a life of its own.

Pedro 5:22

This kind of has to do what I'm gonna ask you because uh after you got rolling, who are the people that kept showing up? You gave me a very broad audience, right? Dating, business-wise. Um, and the reason I asked this is because we see a lot of coaches, and I'm not sure about if how if it plays out with your situation, but we see a lot of coaches that are trying to help a lot of people, right? And sometimes they niche down, sometimes they don't. So who are the people that you realize, okay, these are my people. This is my ICP.

Tracey Evans 5:50

Yeah. So for me, the programs that I run and are my passion point are still the corporate team building and leadership programs and women's leadership development. That's where I really shine and try to focus my efforts, but I do have other facilitators that would run the school programs and other youth programs as well. So for my particular coaching expertise, I really love the leadership message. And it's personal development or professional, but the corporate team building is still my heart for sure. We can make a lot of changes. And the reason I love it so much, obviously, my experience has always been corporate, but when we change someone's corporate life, if you've ever worked in a bad team or an ineffective, dysfunctional team, it doesn't just affect your eight hours at work. It affects every minute of your life when you get home to your family after a lousy day and stress and you have to decompress and offload. So I don't only look at it as changing teams within an organization. I look at it as life-changing. If we can get people to have good relationships and strong working relationships and success at work, they can have success in other areas of their life because it's quite consuming when you think of how much time you spend in the office.

Pedro 7:00

Yeah, that's so true. And I like the fact that it is still the heart of your business. Brings back you to your own origin, right? And also the fact that when we're talking about coaching, sometimes we still uh hear that somewhat, not that much, but somewhat kind of new for people to understand what's coaching in in the business space. So just putting on top of that horses, this is like breaking through stuff that people are not even imagining they are capable of doing, right? In their own businesses. So I really like that.

Tracey Evans 7:30

Yeah, it's skills-based, very skills-focused. Those inner skills, leadership skills, absolutely.

Pedro 7:36

Yeah, okay. I mean, that's the coaching side. Now let's talk about the part nobody escapes, marketing, right? So, how do people usually find you?

Tracey Evans 7:44

From a corporate perspective, it's typically through my website. So, SEO is a big piece of my marketing puzzle and networking. So, I do belong to networking groups and get the message out there. The trick with my business is if I was to put an ad out and say, hey, come to this great Equine-led team building program, people would probably do what you did when you read my bio and went, I don't get it. So the best way for me to promote my business is to share my passion personally and help them understand how exactly it works, how the horses are providing that feedback. So I have to do something a little more engaging than just put a flat ad out. For me, it's it's events, it's networking and SEO. My website really needs to share the information clearly.

Pedro 8:28

Yeah, they need to be a little bit more warmed up. For sure.

Tracey Evans 8:33

And for corporate folks who have a passion for horses, it's a no-brainer. They that's the type of team building they'd all want to do and the leadership development they would all want to do. But if horses are not a natural passion for that leader, then that's a bit of a that's something we have to help them understand.

Pedro 8:48

Okay, cool. All right, let's talk business for a second, right? So people find you through your website, SEO, whatever. They resonate with your work, and eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like, right, Tracy? So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently. So when someone actually becomes a client, what does that experience look like right now?

Tracey Evans 9:08

So we are pretty high touch when it comes to our corporate teams as they come in. So I'll use a case study that we had, for example, with CIBC up in Canada. They were one of my largest clients. I don't have a client quite that size down south yet because we're so new. But obviously, that's what we work towards where we can work with a number of groups within that organization. And that's what we did with that particular bank is we had a relationship within the bank. They brought us one team, recognized the power of the program, and then actually found a very interesting application within their organization that allowed it to really go through all the levels. So they, in fact, used the program for launching cross-functional team projects. And for anybody who's ever worked in a corporate organization, cross-functional team projects can often be the kiss of death. They often are a great oper growth opportunity, it's a portion of your job, but they're very hard to be successful because it's everybody's piece of their job. It's not their whole job. And so what they did was they brought their cross-functional teams to DreamWinds to introduce them and launch the project. So we had people from all over the organization that didn't even know each other, had never met, which is pretty unusual for our team events. It's usually a team. And so we had this, we put together a package and a program that really took them through the team building process. And truthfully, my goal wasn't just so much, hey, get to know each other, understand the goal of the project. I needed them to be friends, if that makes sense. And it sounds a little fluffy, but in my experience in cross-functional teams, the reason they failed was because they didn't have a relationship with the other people on the team. So you can care about the goal and be motivated to achieve a goal. But if you're motivated to achieve a goal and you're doing with somebody that you also want to see successful, you're gonna help them do that. You're gonna work together and you're making sure that no one drops the ball. And if someone can't get their stuff done, someone else is there to help them pick it up and keep the project moving. And it was game-changing for that organization. We they brought one team to test it. They had a consultant firm after the second or third program we ran come in and actually participate in it. And their recommendation was that cross-functional team programs start at DreamWinds. And it was game-changing in how their programs ran. They had success with the cross-functional projects. We built a team in three hours. We went from a quiet boardroom to we had to blow whistles to do our debriefings because people were so connected and engaged and talking over us. So that's a great upper, that's a great example of how that would work. Is so they would come in for, and a lot of clients actually come in saying, I have a strategic planning session. I just want to do a fun worst thing in the afternoon. And we will flip it upside down and say, We are here for all the fun, but we want you to have your fun in the morning and have your new team in your meeting in the afternoon. So trust me when I tell you this is fun, but it's more than fun. And that allows them to really see the power of the transformation in their team and the connections that they've built and the communication flow improvement, um, which just then gets them inspired to come again.

Pedro 12:10

And when we're talking about structure, right? Are we talking about, I'm not sure. I'm trying to picture because usually when we're talking about, like, for example, coaching, we have one-on-ones, we have online component, we have a group component. How does that play out? The structure with your clients.

Tracey Evans 12:26

Sure. So our program is experiential. So they do have to come to my facility. I have a gorgeous modern boardroom that we've built down here in Tryon, North Carolina, so it has all the amenities of, you know, an office and what have you, so they feel very comfortable in a nice space. So we kick off the program there. We'll introduce the concept of EAL, we'll give them some horse information, reflect on their goals and what they're here for. And then we get them out into the arena as quickly as we can. Just to get them working with the horses and real time getting the feedback they need in order to make the changes. Some of my clients will come for a half day, and that's really it's kind of an easy, palatable program for companies because they'll come for a half day and then use my boardroom in the afternoon for their meeting. Others will do a full immersion or they'll do a leadership training session. So I have different themed days that they can come to work on specific things. But we're in the arena as much as possible. And then after each exercise, which our exercises are objective-based. So I always start, for example, with just getting people used to the horses. I get lots of people that come in who are not didn't didn't choose this day. They might be afraid, they might be uncertain, or you know, so I have to get people over that fear, get them really comfortable with the horses. And then we'll go into different exercises like building trust, building communication, and then real team collaborative exercises, all with the horses. After each exercise, we do a debriefing to get the participants to reflect on what they experienced, what they learned, what changed from the beginning of the obstacles to the end of the exercise, and really ingrain that learning and then take that forward into that next exercise to evolve through that full day or half day process. Um, of course, we're always it's a it's a day event typically or a half day event. We're always delivering premium quality food and just a really nice experience. As if they had gone to a nice hotel for their off-site, but we have this amazing experience too.

Pedro 14:22

I have to highlight one thing you said that really caught my attention is the fact that people didn't choose this day. At the first, you make them know the horses. On parallel to that, we're talking about people that didn't choose to work beside each other, too, right? They didn't choose their co-worker, so that makes perfect sense. Yeah. But the fact that they need to first assemble them, understand them, and then we can move forward, right? That's exactly okay. That makes perfect sense. So okay.

Tracey Evans 14:51

On the whole different, so it's it's a great parallel. They're all different, the personalities are all different, and they have to understand each individual horse for sure.

Pedro 15:00

Yeah, I like that. Okay. I mean, your work seems pretty hands-on, right, Tracy. So how do you think about capacity? So don't stretch yourself too thin.

Tracey Evans 15:08

Right, yeah. For me, if I'm talking about capacity of an individual program, I can manage up to 25 people and they work in groups with the horses. In terms of overall capacity, I have to be mindful not only of my spreading myself too thin, but spreading my horses too thin. So, you know, I would do a, you know, for large programs like that, I wouldn't want to get in too much over two a week kind of thing, but I do other smaller programs in between. And then I have additional herd members that can sub in as well. So as my herd grows, my capacity grows. And I have facilitators that I work with that are also part of the company that can come and facilitate programs that I can't physically do as well. So working at 2026 down here is down, as I mentioned, we're starting, we started over a couple of years ago down here. So our focus in 2026 is really that scalability piece. And our courses will be the piece that keep us smaller. So that expansion will have to happen as we continue to scale with new facilitators leading programs where I don't have to be at every single one.

Pedro 16:09

Okay. You know, I'm curious about this because one thing every coach wrestles with at some point is pricing and how to package their work. So you have a unique way of doing things. And we all know horses are not cheap, right? So putting on top of that, putting how much you think your time is worth could, I'm not sure. I'm just wondering uh if you felt like, oh, and maybe I am putting myself out of the market with this type of price, or maybe not. So, how do you think about it today? And were there any lessons along the way? How did it shape it? How you landed where you are right now, exclusively about pricing. I'm not talking about hard numbers, okay?

Tracey Evans 16:46

Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, for sure. There was a lot of learning, and there's, you know, that learning curve is happening again down south because I established my pricing up north through trial and error. One of the things I always say, and what I coach people who are also building their businesses, and that's this thing that I had to learn, is not everyone's your client. So I had to get really comfortable with, yeah, this is first of all, it's not a cheap program to run. I have a facility, I have horses that eat whether they're working or not. I have employees, all of those things. And um, but on top of that, I also over time, as I'm building this programs and having such a great impact, I became really comfortable with there's really nothing else like it. Like it is a unique program, we customize it, and it is extremely impactful for everyone who comes into our arena. So that's not to say I price it out of the stratosphere because that's not how I like to do business. I want as many people to come as can because I can't change lives if only a small portion can afford it. But I'm also very clear that not everybody can or will afford it, and I gotta be okay with that as well. So what I've done is I have a very highly customized corporate program that my top 500s would engage in most often. And then I've also now started to develop because I have such a community of amazing small businesses down here. I want to make it accessible to them as well. So I now have more canned programs, if you will, that are not as expensive to develop and coordinate. Um, that I'm able to put a lower price point on those to allow small businesses to come in and get the same value and learning that that is available.

Pedro 18:19

Yeah. I mean, that's a solid look, especially on pricing and structure, especially when we're talking about how open you were about the trial and error, right? Because we see a lot of coaches struggling, imagining putting overhead on top of horses and trying to figure out a price. So yeah, I simply love the way you presented it. Now, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, right, Tracy? Looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? I know you mentioned you recently moved from Canada to North Carolina, right? So are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Tracey Evans 18:54

Yeah, absolutely. I'm super excited because today is the first day for my new program and equine coordinator. So I have my first full-time employee down here, which I'm super excited about. She's going to be helping me do it do exactly that, figure out how we scale this effectively and sustainably. With a seasonal program as well. I mean, we have people who do not want to work, don't want to come out here in February and January. And even though to me as a Canadian, it's so lovely, wouldn't you? So, you know, we're working through that seasonality. But my ultimate goal here in the South is to be able to create something that doesn't require me to be there all the time. Like I really do want to create it bigger than myself and now um enable other facilitators to come in and and me grow those programs. So that's kind of where we need to start leaning towards because I'm only one person. I run the certifications, I do the training, um, I have the corporate programming and all the marketing and all the things. So some of it has to be, I need to get a solid team underneath me to enable that scalability and then look at a reasonable way to scale my herd. Because adding more horses while a horse horse person is always the answer. It's really not always the answer. So looking at different ways that I can do more with what I have, but then also really make DreamWinds a center of excellence for equine guided programming. So there's a huge opportunity in youth programming. It is not something that I want to particularly do. But I have a lot of really skilled peop people around me who are facilitators who love children and have a real heart for that. You know, how do I make sure that my facility is being leveraged to its capacity and building a name in the industry, not just the corporate training side of things, but as a more holistic approach to our expertise in equine learning.

Pedro 20:42

Okay.

Tracey Evans 20:42

It's bigger than a bread bar.

Pedro 20:44

Right, right. Yeah, I I agree with that. I think a business should serve you and not the other way around. Right. So it makes complete sense that it's not required for you to be there, but it has your fingerprint. It has the quality.

Tracey Evans 20:59

And that's my biggest challenge because as a coach and as a type A personality, I like to control everything. And the experience I have at DreamWinds is my brand. You know, people always laugh because I you'll be yelling, that's off brand, that's off brand, and we'll, you know, fix it immediately. And always looking for those ways to make sure that the brand is consistently represented and the experience is second to none. So on my website, one of our corporate values is wow factor. And I can I never let that go for the sake of growth.

Pedro 21:30

Okay. Yeah. You know, and of course, whenever we're aiming toward the next chapter, there's always something we're refining in the present, right? So what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business?

Tracey Evans 21:41

I am just in the process of changing CRM programs. And oh my goodness, that is um it's not a fun process. I have been with the same software for since 2018. So I'm pretty married to it, but it's not pulling the weight that I need it to do. So that's one of those things, you know, as we go into this year, my processes in order to do that scaling, I have to have the right processes in place. And, you know, the once purchases a program, whether it's a one-hour ladies' night type of thing that we're doing or a full custom program, what they receive afterwards, the forms, the information, the follow-ups, all of those things have to work. So my systems have to be tight, and that's what we're shoring up now before we start to expand into other areas.

Pedro 22:29

Okay. Interesting. Not the well, business is not just all about fun, right? Sometimes our means to an end, the impact will be fun. But we need to process this. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, I want to switch gears for a second and do something a bit more fun. No, this is not fun. Okay. If you're down for it, I've got a quick game for you.

Tracey Evans 22:50

All right.

Pedro 22:50

Okay. Well, we'll look at this at through the lens of business investments, okay? Things like coaching, training, marketing, team, masterminds, you name it. It's simple. I'll give you four prompts and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind. If there's a story behind it, even better. Okay? Okay. For what's the first business investment you remember making?

Tracey Evans 23:11

Horses. Couldn't stand without the horses. Yeah.

Pedro 23:14

That's a lot of sense. I was like thinking, what would it be? No, yeah, the horses. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Tracey Evans 23:21

This is any facility, obviously, but we had the horses first.

Pedro 23:25

And that's a big leap of faith. You know, we have people's second, you know, second thing. You know, that they're having second thoughts about buying a laptop. We're talking about investing in a horse, right?

Tracey Evans 23:37

Well, the beauty of it is my passion is horses, so it's like, oh, he doesn't work in the program. Oh well, we'll get another one.

Pedro 23:44

I love that. Yeah, that it exactly. Yeah, you're like Yeah, I got it. Okay. What's the most recent one you made? B uh business investment?

Tracey Evans 23:52

That's the new CRM program and uh hiring hirings to help implement it.

Pedro 23:57

Okay. Now the next one. What's the best financial business investment you have made and why?

Tracey Evans 24:03

Our property for the facility. Because even outside of the business, that is an asset that grows and we are continuously improving it. And what we built in Canada enabled us to move and create the life we've always dreamed of down here. The the real estate piece of it, while daunting and difficult and expensive, the payoff on that type of investment is not as risky as the business we put in it.

Pedro 24:29

Okay.

Tracey Evans 24:30

And we need we need land. You know, that's the thing. We can't operate this without the land and and we chose to purchase versus lease, and that was probably the best decision we made.

Pedro 24:39

Okay. What's the last one? What's one investment you wish you could get your money back on?

Tracey Evans 24:45

Oh, some of the marketing support I've paid for in the past. Yeah. Some of the agencies I've invested in, truly.

Pedro 24:51

Okay. I want to drop an extra question here because you have a unique business, right? And we see this happening with a lot of coaches. They tend to invest on themselves, like with masterminds or even uh other coaches. I'm not sure if that happened to you or you didn't invest or you did, or what happened there, because you do have a unique business. I was just trying to understand your point of view on that.

Tracey Evans 25:17

Yeah, so I have invested in coaching for sure. As a coach, I'm a big believer in it, and I'm not a person to sit here and say, I know it all. So um, for me, especially when I first started the business up north, I was not an entrepreneur. I was a corporate desk jockey, I was a marketer, I knew what I needed to do to sell, you know, get people to use their credit card, but I didn't know how to run a business necessarily and spent the first year thinking I did. And then I invested in coaching. And I had some really good coaches to help me just think about my business differently, recognize and put some systems in place that would allow that growth, allow me to find market. And that was hugely helpful. And again, as a marketer, it was humbling because I'm like, I've been marketing for 20 years, I know how to market, but I never had to market anything that needed the rear the end that mine did. So I Mibes does. So I had a whole education component that needed to happen before people could buy. And that was a piece that I really needed that coaching on and was grateful for it. And I'll still reach out to experts all the time. It's why I love my networking groups. Um, any of my graduates that get into this business, I say that you know, the first thing you need to do is join networking groups. There's so much knowledge and passion and just support available just by working with other small business or large business owners that have done it before you, you know, people who who have their niche and also have a have a have a different perspective. So my horses make my business unique, but at the roots of it, I'm still running a business. It's a business.

Pedro 26:46

Nice. Yeah. Nice that you see that way, especially because the way you see it since you had a background on marketing, but this is a a whole different beast. So I really think that's really cool that you're in a way it's so humble, right? And the experience humbles us ourselves, right? Oh yeah.

Tracey Evans 27:05

I moved to the US thinking, oh, it's not that different than Canada, but it's quite different. And how I speak to my programs, and I moved to an area that's very horse savvy, which um means that everyone around me already has their own ideas on what horses are good for, and very few recognize it as a teaching partner. So that I'm I'm back to educating my market, and uh, it's just very interesting. And I love like a problem solver. So I'm like, oh, why isn't that yeah?

Pedro 27:32

And looking at those, you know, how has your approach to investing in the business changed over the years? If it has.

Tracey Evans 27:38

Well, I'm not buying horses as ramply as I used to because they are expensive and they do eat everything in sight and they try to, you know, die and do all dumb things. So I'm very on my herd. But I'm also investing differently in how I manage my marketing. So because I've had some challenging experiences with some agencies, I've taken a little bit more of that on, and I'm now just educating myself on the pieces that I can manage and then looking for more specific experts to fill in some of those gaps and help me get it further. So I don't do huge outlays on, you know, just handle this for me. I'm I've can back a little bit more control back down here because I really think I need to understand it before I can let it go. Market is quite different.

Pedro 28:21

Okay. I want to tap into your experience for a second. You know, people listening can can benefit from this. You've you've been in the game long enough, you know, to hear all kinds of business advice. Some that sticks, some that doesn't. So, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think, you know what, this is overrated or possibly misunderstood?

Tracey Evans 28:43

That's a good question.

Pedro 28:44

Tap on the back myself.

Tracey Evans 28:45

Yeah, seriously, you're gonna stump me on that one. Um I think I think a lot of people talk about doing something you love. Like I have it kind of from the other perspective. Like people often say, Oh, you know, you know, I I'm always amazed at people who who businesses that they don't passionate about. I don't know how you do that. But I think one of the things that a lot of people will say is is is hire your experts. And I agree with that. Like I agree, like focus on your core, focus on your your and hire out what you don't want to do. I do agree with that. But I think as a small business person, I think I got that advice really early on. And as I just mentioned, I feel like I can't just farm stuff out, I supp, especially because most people don't understand my business model and don't understand what we do. But I feel like as a business owner, as hard as it is in the beginning, you need to retain ownership of all those things to start with, because you need to know them better than anybody. So when you pass them out and when you do start to get that support and farm out that those non-core areas, and we have to do that. That'd have to happen. But I would say it shouldn't happen too soon because if you don't have a full pull finger on your pulse of every aspect of your business, your financials, your marketing, all of it, your operations, to just pass it to someone else, you're going to fail. You're gonna fall down, you're not gonna know when it's falling down, and you're gonna suffer longer than you need to. Know exactly how it should go. You can guide your people better, your agencies and whoever else you're working with, but you can also catch it when it's not going the way it should. And I really feel that was a strong message that I've always received is you know, focus on your core strength and farm everything else. Like, I don't know. I think that's that can be tricky.

Pedro 30:28

I think it's if you sure agree with me, I think it's a fine balance.

Tracey Evans 30:31

Absolutely.

Pedro 30:32

It's like, don't outsource the decision making. It's my outsource the tools that the you don't know, but you need to figure out where you want to go. Because if you outsource, I'm gonna outsource my entire marketing. I I'd even and they're gonna start asking, right? What's your ICP? Where do you think they are, and all of that? And you're like, yeah, you know what? Can you help me with that? And and somewhat it's like, yeah, ramp it down a little bit. Try to figure out some stuff so you know what doesn't work. And you're like, you know what? I got into a bottleneck and I really need an expert, right? Something like this.

Tracey Evans 31:05

I've never built my own website, for example. Like I 100% outsource that from day one. I'm like, I know your weaknesses as well. And uh that that I agree with, but I mean, to outsource all your marketing or all your operations or even bookkeeping, you know, like it I am bookkeeping, and I badly tried to get rid of that very early on. And ultimately, if you don't know your books, you can't manage your business. So there's certain sometimes you can't get rid of all the crappy little jobs that you don't want to do. You have to sort of suffer through a few of them just so you have a good understanding of what's required for the rest of your business growth.

Pedro 31:40

Okay.

Tracey Evans 31:41

And on the other side, onto stuff you're really bad at.

Pedro 31:44

Right. Yeah. And on the other side, Tracy, what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously?

Tracey Evans 31:51

I really wish more people would focus on what they love. Um, I like as I mentioned, I see a lot of business owners who are running businesses and they're not that passionate about it. And I don't I mean, running a business is really hard. If you don't love what you're doing, I don't know how you get through the hard times and overcome those obstacles and dig into your grit. I mean, and I think we have one life. Like, wh why would we not craft a life that we love every day? So, you know, I spent years in a corporate world and I loved my job, but I didn't love my job. And eventually I burned out and I didn't love it at all. And I hear that from a lot of people. When I left my role, I thought people would think I was crazy. And because I had a great job. I really did. I loved the great company, great job, great people fulfilling my own passion and doing something that was from my heart, I guess. And I wasn't having the impact I wanted to have either. And when I actually assumed people would think I was crazy and that maybe didn't even want to hear from me again. And when I finally reached out to colleagues and stuff, I heard very similar stories. You know, wow, I'm so envious of you. Like I, I, you know, I wish I could do that. And I just feel like I would never want to live life wishing I could do something. Like we have one life. And this is why I teach the certification for people who are passionate about what I do. I love to help people do what I do. If that's what they're wanting to be passionate about, and I want to help them find a path to have horses and not go bankrupt because they just it's a lot of money. But I think having something that you're really passionate about as a business owner is so important. And I know it's, you know, we can buy, I don't know, I can even think of an example, but like for me, I wouldn't buy a laundromat because I'm not I hate laundry, I'm not passionate about laundry, but there are people who own laundromats. And I'm like, are they passionate about laundromats? I don't know, maybe they are, but I could never do that. I'd have to be running a business that I'm passionate about. And even if you're in a job, you know, find something that you're because it's it's a long road to retirement. And and I was getting tired of thinking, you know, oh, only so many more years to retirement. I'm never gonna retire. I have no plans to retire. I mean, until my body says you can't do this anymore or my mind, I love what I do. Whether I'm standing in the arena with my horses, running a program, or bringing people in through the business development side of it. I just love what I do.

Pedro 34:07

I wish that for Yeah, I love that. You know, sometimes I think cliches, cliches exist for a reason, right? I love what you do. At the end of the day, it is what it is. And I get it. Sometimes people are late to go through some stuff that are not easy and they need to take a job and they need to, you know, a paycheck to paycheck. But you have to have a plan, right? You have to have a plan. Maybe if that's not you right now, but possibly in the future.

Tracey Evans 34:30

So find a way to put it in somehow, you know, like you know, find that outlet because you never know where it will lead. I I just wanted to take a writing lesson one day so that I had something for myself because I was working 18-hour days in telecom. And uh boom, here I am. So, you know, if we don't try new things and explore our passions, how will we ever know where it could have led?

Pedro 34:54

Right. Okay. And if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you, Tracy?

Tracey Evans 35:02

Uh they can check us out on dreamwins.com. Uh, we have all our contact information on there. We also are on Facebook and Instagram pretty consistently, which is our DreamWins EAL tag on there. Um so those are probably the best places to find me.

Pedro 35:17

Okay. You know, yeah. Okay. There were a few things you shared today that really stuck with me. Okay. And the fact that the horse reveals you, what it, you know, you needed to lead it and and how it, you know, taught you how to lead. I love that I experienced all the programs you have, right? From dating to, you know, business development leaders and how that's still your core, because that was resonated most with you because you went through partner, you went through it all, right? 20 years plus working in corporates. Uh, on the top of it, I understand that you have different programs, but at the same time, I love the fact that what you're really in the heart of what really resonates with you. And I really like that. And also, uh, you know, horses as your first investment, yeah, because you know, worst case scenario, I'm a horse girl, I'm gonna have horses. This is fun, right? So uh and I I need to highlight also the fact that you had a background in marketing, but you're handling a totally different scenario beast. It's like, okay, I need to humble up and need to learn a little bit more about this and the ins and outs. And yeah, I simply love that. So I appreciate what you do, Tracy, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on.

Tracey Evans 36:34

I appreciate it. Thanks so much for the opportunity. It was great to meet you.

Davis Nguyen 36:37

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, and