Barron Damon on Turning Purpose Into Legacy Through Philanthropic Coaching

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with Barron J. Damon, a certified philanthropic coach and entrepreneur who helps individuals and businesses align their values with meaningful, intentional giving.

Barron shares his powerful journey—from a life-altering moment in college to discovering purpose through nonprofit leadership and coaching. Together, Pedro and Barron unpack what philanthropy really means (and what it doesn’t), why giving should be aligned with values, and how entrepreneurs can build systems that support both impact and sustainability.

Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barron-j-damon-84a6283/
Website: https://businessoflifecc.com/

Transcript

Barron Damon 0:00

Of course, we have a small team. They provide, they're researchers and they provide the research for the clients. But for me, is just making sure we have a system in place, probably within the past six to eight months. Because as an entrepreneur, you often time trying to figure it out, figure some things out. Everybody has a product that's better than someone else's, right? And so you go down this rabbit hole trying to figure out what product should I be using. And a lot of times I spend a lot of money, Pedro, trying to figure that out. And then I came to a realization I need to take some time and develop my own system.

Davis Nguyen 0:39

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 David Swin, 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 1:10

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and today's guest is Baron J. Damon, a certified philanthropic coach and entrepreneur who helps individuals and businesses align their values with meaningful philanthropic action. He supports people who want to give back with clarity, intention, and real impact. Barron works with professionals, retirees, and business leaders to turn purpose into legacy through coaching and customized programs that integrate philanthropy into both life and work. His mission is helping people live their legacy now. Welcome to the show, Baron. Hello, Pedrill. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, man. I'm excited that you're here. And we were talking right before the podcast. Um, we were talking about your business and your origin story. So before we get into what you do now, I'm curious how this all actually started. Right? So, what was going on in your life when coaching became more than just an idea?

Barron Damon 2:20

Yeah, there's a couple of points of reflections. Well, I call it kind of defining moments in my life. One, I'll take you back without telling the entire story, but at the at the beginning, I probably was uh I was a sophomore, well, a second semester student in college, and I got mugged. And that was really a defining moment in my life because it it really changed the entire trajectory of my life. And I had a very difficult time kind of getting over that. And then it led to some other things that wasn't so pleasant for a few years. But when I started bouncing back a few years later, I ended up working for a nonprofit, which was never on my radar, right? I never wanted to work for a nonprofit. Matter of fact, I thought it was interesting. Opsymoron, why would you not want to make profit? Right. You know what I think about business. But um, this particular nonprofit I was working for, I was like, wow, you can really impact other people's lives. And if you would just kind of lay your selfishness to the side, um, you can really um impact people. And so that was the kind of first inflection. And then um years later, after I was working for a national nonprofit, we had, um I was selected for this program through the American Express Leadership Academy. And as a result of that, they provide you with coaches. And I remember at that particular moment, I had never had a coach before, wasn't really familiar with the profession of coaching, but I always knew about coaching and felt like I was kind of coaching people already unofficially, right? And these people walked in, and a couple of things that I noticed one, there was no African-American males. That was a part of that. And also, they were older. And I was like, oh, wow, then you have to be an older person to be a coach. You know, it's it seemed that way. And then of course, realizing that's not the case at all. And the coaches that I spent time with during that program, they were great, but it wasn't rocket science, right? And as a result of that, I really got interested in how how can I, you know, help people on a deeper level and not just advice, but really getting to know the person from asking, being curious and asking some great questions.

Pedro 4:43

Oh my God, yeah, I can resonate with that. I got mug too. And the feeling is so unique, right? It's like powerless feeling. So it's hopelessness. Yeah, hopelessness. All right, yeah. And then you went to non-profitable. What an interesting journey you have. So, at what point did it stop feeling like a side thing or a calling and start feeling like an actual business you were responsible for?

Barron Damon 5:07

Yeah, I you know, like a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, there's always that part-time piece, right? And you could do that part-time business for for a number of years, and I definitely did that. I'm a third-generational entrepreneur. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather and then my father were entrepreneurs. But for me, when I left my role at the national nonprofit, I was a part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters in 22, it becomes real, right? I mean, you don't have that check coming in on the 15th and 30th every month. You realize this is different. It's great to be getting paid and then that part-time, you know, side hustle kind of income is awesome. But when that stops, you gotta, you know, make some changes and adjusting accordingly.

Pedro 5:55

It doesn't feel like a hobby anymore, right? It's like, hey, hey, we gotta moving, we gotta do something about it. Yeah, 100%. I got that. And once once you were out there helping people, right, who did you naturally end up attracting? When I mean, when when did you realize, yeah, these people is the one I work best with?

Barron Damon 6:14

Yeah. So we were that same year I left Big Brothers in August of 22, but earlier that summer we were in Portugal traveling, and this guy reached out to me. He was a financial advisor, and he reached out to me and he said, you know, Bear, I've been trying to find somebody to be on our podcast called Family Bonds, and I found your information and was wondering if you would consider being on a podcast. And at first I thought it was, I was like, you know, I don't know about this. I had never been on a podcast at that point. And I started doing some research, it was legit. And, you know, he was advisor out of New York. And as I was talking to him, I realized there were some pain points that he was experiencing as an advisor because he said, Man, I don't want to do philanthropy, but I don't know where to get started. And if I'm not doing it, it's hard for me to talk to my clients about it. And I said, hmm, that's interesting. And then we had a great podcast interview. Two weeks later, he reaches out to me and he said, My manager's retired. He's 60 years old. He has never given any money away, but he has four to seven million dollars that he wants to be philanthropic. Would you talk to him? And I was like, Absolutely, I would talk to him. And that was really, really, it was birthed from me recognizing some pain points in other people's lives. And I was like, hmm. So financial advisors are people that I can connect with. And then there's people who are maybe at that stage and age of life that they don't have a any experience of background. And for him specifically, he was he had substance abuse issues kind of through his professional career, got clean, but those are the people who he wanted to help, which we call the philanthropic why. And so a lot of times now we help people discover what that is in their lives.

Pedro 8:07

Oh my God, that sounds almost like a calling, Baron. I mean, you got mugged, you got into coaching, then you go into a podcast, expecting nothing out of it. You're like getting to know your own niche. You know, this is so crazy. This is so awesome. And at the same time, it's so organic, right? It's just life, it just happens. So okay, now let's zoom out for a second. If someone ends up working with you today, right, how do they usually find their way to you in the first place? Let's let's hope it's not getting bugged, right?

Barron Damon 8:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you you can definitely find me on LinkedIn, right? Or you can go to the businessoflifecc.com. And it really, I redesigned, revamped my website, I believe six, eight months ago, and it really kind of explains what I do on a kind of you know, micro level. And you know, you you can always find me there.

Pedro 9:02

I can vouch for that. I just visited your website because when we talked uh before, I was like puzzled, right? With the philanthropic coaching. This is not something.

Barron Damon 9:14

Most people are.

Pedro 9:15

And I went there, I thought, hey, and I talked to you. I was like, is this fundraising? Because I talk with people in the fundraising space. And no, it's not like that. So I went to the the website and it really really made the big picture more clear. So yeah, I would vouch for that website, guys. Anyhow, I want to talk about mechanics behind the scenes for a moment. So let's say Pedro visited your website, right? Or searched you on LinkedIn. Okay. So when someone decides to work with you, what does that actually look like from their perspective?

Barron Damon 9:47

Yeah. And so we have this introductory call, what I call discovery call. And it's just to see if if we're a good fit for them, if they're a good fit for us. And usually it's more about, for me, demystifying some things around philanthropy for them, because as you were just saying, trying to figure out what that actually means, right? It's not fundraising. I'm not working for a nonprofit. People say, How do you get paid for that? You know, but it's us really sitting down with them. And what we do is help them create their vision, their mission, and their strategic plan around their giving, right? And we do that on the individual and the corporate side. So that individual comes to us, we have our discovery call, and then if we work together, we take them through this process kind of that we've created to make sure they are getting the most out of um what their desires in terms of their values, and we help them align with their giving.

Pedro 10:51

Yeah, keyword, I think it's alignment, right? And that vibe check to see if it's not about right or wrong. It's about uh does this make sense? Are we gonna connect, right? Does this really make sense? And actually connecting with the goals, right? What they expect to happen. So I mean, your work seems pretty involved. We're talking about uh discovery calls and and not on top of that, managing clients, right? So, how do you think about managing your time and energy so the business don't start owning you, for example?

Barron Damon 11:19

Yeah, yeah, you you really have to of course we have a a small team that that we work with and they provide they're researchers and they provide the research for the clients. But for me, is just making sure we have a system in place. And that's one thing that that I did probably within the past six to eight months, right? Because as an entrepreneur, you often time trying to figure it out, figure some things out, and everybody has a product that's better than someone else's, right? And so you go down this rabbit hole trying to figure out what product should I be using? And a lot of times, I spent a lot of money, Pedro, trying to figure that out, right? And then I came to a realization was I need to take some time and develop my own system. And then once I develop my system and know what I need, then I can reach out to others and say, hey, I need this, instead of having this kind of blank slate and saying, oh, I need all of these different things, not really knowing if you needed or not. For example, a sales funnel. We all know about sales funnels. I had a sales funnel probably three or four years ago, but guess what? I really didn't need a sales funnel because I had all these multiple businesses that I couldn't track, right? People in that process. Now I'm starting to have a sales funnel because I'm focusing on philanthropy kind of you know, one area. So just making sure for me that you build what you want, and then from that point on, you kind of see what we mean.

Pedro 12:58

Yeah, there's always a bigger fish, not to mention the noise, right? There's so much noise in sh social media. Like, well, I'm I was scrolling today, and I'm like, oh, AI will take over over, and the next post is like AI is dead. So yeah, 100%. It's right trying to find that right thing that will align with where you also mentioned there's always something out there, there's always a bigger fish, right, Baron? And there's also so much noise and picking the right tool. So when we're talking about pricing, I want to highlight one thing. I mean, offer, I mean, pricing and offer are things that every coach evolves on and struggle, right? Wrestle with. And I we don't need to talk about hard numbers, but how do you approach that now? And what did you have to learn the hard way to get there? And the reason I asked this is because it's a self-force path, right? Sometimes coaches think they're not charging enough, sometimes they think uh they think they're placing themselves out of the market. So that taboo, the pricing, how did that uh end it up for you and what were the lessons you you you ended up learning with?

Barron Damon 14:08

Yeah, you know, pricing is difficult for for a lot of coaches. And you know, when I started coaching, you know, I I don't think I was charging $50 an hour, something like that per session. And and I remember I moved up to a $100. And I was working with a client, and he told his fiance that you know he was working with me, and she said, Who do he think he is charging $100, you know, per session? And I was like, wow. And I was thinking to myself, and we were talking about going, he was going to a concert. I said, How much is your concert ticket? He said, $125. And I said, so for two hours you sing songs that you already know, and and then, but you don't want to pay an hour, you know. And it was an interesting conversation, but I realized too that I had to see a lot of clients in order to be a full-time professional coach, right? And I didn't want to do that. I was working with a coach and she was a publicity coach, and she said to me, uh, so how much you charging? And I said, I don't really have a high-ticket item, and that's what she was talking about. And she said, You need to be charging at least $20,000, $20,000, $25,000 for your program. And she says, very unique. Um, and you need to charge for it. And she said, when you go and speaking and on stages, when you come off stage, people say, How much is your services? You can't be telling them it's $100, you know, $100 a session. And so at that point, I started, you know, it the psychology around it, getting comfortable with, you know, because I went from $50 to $100, and then $200, and then $250. And now, you know, for my services, it goes from $10,000 to $50,000. Right? That's a pretty significant jump over a period of like two years. But just figuring out, and this is the kind of process that I I use. And I call it the MVP. You have to are you mastering something? The M is for mastering. Um do you have enough knowledge that you can share with somebody to help them improve and get to that place where they want to go? And that's really important. You don't have to be necessarily an expert, but you need to be in the process of trying to master the information. And then the next one is value. The V stands for value. Now, is your product valuable to others, or is it just valuable to you? I had a friend who had a lot of content, he had a business, but nobody really valued the information like he did. So when he tried to sell the business, he hasn't been able to sell it. So does it add value? And then lastly, the P is the problem solving, right? You got to be able to solve a problem for somebody. And so now when I think about my cost, I think about am I providing MVP services? Am I mastering the information? Am I adding value? Am I solving the problem for them? And if I if I meet that criteria, I can charge what I desire to charge.

Pedro 17:26

That resonates with me a lot. And I'm gonna tell you why. I'm also a career coach, right? So, but I'm in the early days and I was charging hourly rate. And I was talking with people just like you on the podcast, and something that uh I'm not sure if you agree with is like like that girl that compared you to X, Y, and Z type of work, right? Whenever we charge an hourly, it pu it frames us as a commodity. So people try to compare a service that has nothing to do with and saying, hey, but I pay X, Y, and Z for my plumber. I play X, Y, and Z for my cleaning lady or whatever, you know? And that's not really the case because we're we're trying we need to tie up not with a clock, but with the outcome, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Barron Damon 18:15

The outcome. And and that's what that's what people want to see, right? They want that transformation, right? They want to be able to see that outcome so they can know that what they have invested in, it helps them solve that problem.

Pedro 18:29

Interesting. Yeah. Okay, and looking forward a bit, Barron, what's the direction you're aiming this business towards? I mean, are you thinking more about growth, leverage, building a team, or refining what already works, you know, what feels most exciting right now?

Barron Damon 18:43

Yeah. I'm excited. I mean, the work that I get to do, you mentioned earlier, Pedro, about a calling. You know, every day I wake up, I'm excited, you know, because I've created a business that's a win-win situation, right? Even if people don't work with me and I can educate them and they could still help their community, I still win. Right. So what excites me is, and I'm a builder, so building, continue to build my process out. We can serve the more clients we serve, the more community impact that we have. And so I use what I call the three eyes, right? I want to have impact. And I think you and I talked about this in our first call. I want to have impact in people's lives, and I want to be able to influence them as well. People that I can't impact directly, I want to have a product that still influences them. And then I want to make income. Over these next, you know, three to five years, one three years, continue to um to strengthen my my system and what I've been putting in place because it's still relatively young. I'm still, you know, answering questions, doing deep analysis on it. But over the next few years, I want to I want it to be where I have the the funnel in place. I have all the necessary things in place for me, not based on what somebody else's business is and what they're doing, but for me that's working. And of course, you know, with that comes growth. And I'm fine with that. I think you and I was talking about, you know, I had a business where I had, you know, 10 employees and it was very stressful. Right. So um, that's not what I'm really looking for. Because I probably the sweet spot for me is probably three to four good team members that we can grow to a point that it's good for for all of us.

Pedro 20:42

Interesting. Yeah, the three eyes. Okay. And even when things are going well, you know, Baron, there's always something under construction. So what what's the main thing you're you're actively working on or trying to improve in the business right now?

Barron Damon 20:56

Yeah, so part of our model is creating what I call the WW, well, the MM making money while sleep, right? The MMWS, right? We want to be able to make money while sleep. Because as a coach, a lot of times you're in front of your client, you know, is a transaction in terms of time for money. And so we have a couple of products that we have that we're working on over a fact, one is coming out in the next month or so that we're really excited about because while we're in front of clients, we're still making money from the program that that we put together.

Pedro 21:38

Okay, that's interesting. Exciting also. And yeah, very, very exciting. Yeah, sounds like it. I mean, you've been a l around long enough to see trends come and go, right, Baron? So people give business advice nonstop, especially online. So what's something you hear repeated a lot that you think people misunderstand or overvalue?

Barron Damon 22:00

Yeah. You hear lead generation a lot, right? I I mean, I have people reach out to me all the time about, oh, we can get you five to ten clients per week. And I think because lead generation is really important, right? And you have to have a consistent flow of leads. However, you have to know people's industry. And I tell, and now I respond to people and say, what do I do? Right? What kind of coach am I? Because you can't just blanket leads and not really understand people's businesses. So I think that's the part that people don't really know because there's a lot of different kinds of coaches. And just because somebody does lead generation doesn't mean they're going to find good clients for you based on your business that you have.

Pedro 22:51

Yeah, that makes perfect sense because leads are easy to find. I can just come up with a list from Google and one, 2K type of lead, but are they worthwhile talking to? You know, you need to really filter the right people because I bet it's not easy to find someone who's willingly want to donate five to seven million and doesn't know how to do it. That's not an easy and super accessible market, right?

Barron Damon 23:18

Right. It's a s it's a it's a and and I don't just w work with wealthy people, but that's a part of it, right? Those are some what we call a high net worth individuals who may have that kind of disposable income um as well. But yeah, it's you have to know the industry that you're in. That's where that is from the mastery and really understanding who your client is and how to approach that client.

Pedro 23:45

I I got curious for a moment here, and I want your expertise on it. Have you ever talked with a potential client that you felt the philanthropy was kind of too much transactional and not really aligned with philanthropy actually means?

Barron Damon 24:02

Yeah, yeah. That's you know, people check boxes in everything that they do, right? And philanthropy is no, is no different. A lot of people in philanthropy, they have money and they want to get tax breaks, right? That's what a lot of people, that's what they do it for. They don't necessarily have a connection or heart to give, they just really want to save money. I mean, it is almost like, hey, the more money I give, and that's what we talk about donor advice funds, right? If you can put your money in a donor advice fund and kind of leave it there, and that money will grow over time. Now that person cannot get that money out of the donor advice fund, but if it just sits there, it defeats the purpose of it being in there. It's a vehicle to actually give away. And when we find that people are not giving the money away that they set aside to give, that lets you know where they are.

Pedro 24:58

Interesting. Okay. Now back to the advice. On the flip side, what's something boring or not as hyped that you wish more people actually paid attention to?

Barron Damon 25:08

Page attention to, you know, I was thinking about this earlier, and I'll tell you a show, a quick little story, maybe what kind of highlight. We purchased a house, my wife and I, our first house when we were in South Carolina. And, you know, because the house was built, there was no grass, it was just dirt, right? And so this guy came by, he said, Oh, we sell sprigs. And he said, You just put the sprigs out, and then you have to just water them. And I'm thinking, I didn't know anything about sprigs. You know, I know that people come and have those carpets, the carpet grass that they lay out in different squares, right? And if you can have a whole yard in a couple of hours. Sprigs works very differently. I thought, Pedro, the sprigs were all connected together, but they were separate. It was sprig here, sprig here, sprig here. And what happens is you have to boil it like all the time, a couple of times a day. And it takes a while for them to actually connect, right? And so what I think people kind of overlook is the amount of time and effort that you have to put into something, right? You gotta go out and water that thing like a lot. And it's, you know, we live in this microwave society where you know you you look on Instagram and Facebook and all these different platforms, TikTok, and be like, wow, I can do that. I can just, you know, make five hundred thousand dollars, a million dollars, and I'll have to really water it. Right. And I think that's one of the misconceptions that's out there that's really kind of hurting people.

Pedro 26:48

You reminded me of a quote from Warren Buffett, his like, the get-rich slow schemes are not that popular. You know, you need to water it, you need to, you know, really build that so it pays off eventually. But and social media, we have this almost instant dopamine influx, right? An eight-second video, and we're like always into the the next noise. So yeah.

Barron Damon 27:15

The viral the viral moment, you know, that and I on the video David was talking about, you know, sometimes you guys intentionally do these viral moments so people can see that it doesn't always translate to more customers, right? You can have it go viral, but it may not, you know, get you all these customers that you think you're gonna get. You still have to spend some time investing into those clients and making sure they're the right ones and the right fit for you all and all of that.

Pedro 27:45

Yeah, you you have to attract the right people at the end of the day. It doesn't matter if you got like we were talking about lead quality, lead influx. It doesn't matter if we have people that actually are not your potential buyers. That that makes perfect sense. Yeah, 100%. I love that. Man, before we close this out, if someone resonated with what you shared and wants to follow your work, and I know you kind of browse through it at the start of the podcast, but where should they go?

Barron Damon 28:11

Yeah, go to the businessoflifecc.com. I think that gives you a great starting place. And then just set up an appointment with us sometime, a discovery call, so we can hear your heart and what you desire to do. This is not about, I don't want people to listen to this and say, oh, you gotta have millions of dollars to be a philanthropist. One of the things that we talk about, philanthropy, is is the love of mankind, right? That's what the definition is. And we want people to use their time, their talent, and their treasure, right? And the treasure doesn't have to be a lot, it just has to be allocated the right way where you can make the greatest impact. So if you go to LinkedIn, people go to LinkedIn all the time and connect with me. That's a great way. And I normally always respond to that. Um, but if you go on our website, you can reach us. And if you want to give me a call, call me 919-710-1835. I would love to talk to you. And just let us know that you heard this on the podcast.

Pedro 29:18

Awesome. You know, there were a few moments from this combo that really stood out to me, Baron. You know, getting mugged and really finding your own trajectory, that reminds me also of like Mike Tyson. And and the reason I it reminds me, because I also got mugged, like I said, and everyone has a plan until they got punched in the face, right? It's like people get mugged, and then it happens to you, and then you really experience, right? And you're like, okay, this is what it feels like. So yeah, and I love how that that was sort of a calling and tied up with the podcast that you were invited to, you know, and how you were able to find your own niche doing that. Because if you get mugged, and people that are hearing us, they got mugged, they will probably resonate with it's like, man, the world sucks, right? You're like, I'm not gonna be open to more opportunities. This is what I'm getting out of neutral stance. Imagine if I open myself, you were able to overcome that hardship. You you saw the opportunity and you you took it. So I need to commend you on that for being so open to be on that podcast and being open to being in our podcast as well. Yeah, yeah. You know, I want to emphasize also uh the MVP, the master value, and problem that you mentioned, and how cool that is because it at the end of the day, we're tied to the outcome, you know. You need to know how to do your stuff, master. It needs to have value, so you need they need to have uh, you know, an outcome, and you're trying to solve a problem. You're not just throwing out there for someone potentially to pick it up and say, oh, this might have something for me. You know, it's intentional and it's aligned with who you are and what you believe in. So I I really commend you on that as well. I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time and being so open with this. It was great having you on, Baron.

Davis Nguyen 31:07

Well, thank you so much for having us, but 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.