Coaching vs Consulting: Zayd Khoury Explains the Critical Difference Most Get Wrong

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, Pedro sits down with leadership coach Zayd Khoury to explore the concept of building “Slack” into your business model. Rather than maximizing his calendar to 100%, Zayd intentionally operates at 70–80% capacity. That remaining margin creates room for creativity, strategic thinking, deeper client presence, and sustainable growth.

With nearly two decades of experience across government, investment, technology, and executive education, Zayd has built a portfolio career that balances recurring institutional engagements with bespoke private coaching. He explains how this hybrid model stabilizes revenue, reduces seasonal income pressure, and protects long-term energy.

Zayd also unpacks the difference between coaching and consulting, why pricing should stretch both coach and client, and how word-of-mouth became his primary growth engine. Instead of chasing visibility for ego, he focuses on meaningful engagement and measurable transformation.

If you’re navigating burnout, inconsistent revenue, or uncertainty about scaling, this conversation will challenge your assumptions about growth. Sometimes the smartest move isn’t adding more clients—it’s building more space.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zaydkhoury/
Website: https://www.towardcoaching.com/

Transcript

Zayd Khoury 0:00

Right now, I like to build in Slack into my business. And the reason I say Slack is because you don't know where you wanna, what you want to take on or what you want to redistribute. So I would say we are not at 100%, we're not at 100% capacity, but that's intentional because I want Slack outside of work. And I also want Slack for my work. Because if something comes on that's more exciting or compelling or there's a refocus, I would say we're about 70% capacity in terms of the work we do. How we divide it, I guess for the coaching business, if you think about it, and you know this, it's sort of it's it can be seasonal or infrequent in terms of like revenue. It's not recurring, it's not necessarily guaranteed recurring revenue. The work I do in the Harvard Business School is really focused, it's sort of typically pretty recurring. It's I know when the projects are, I know the timings, I know the hours. So that creates some level of recurring consistent revenue, and I know how much capacity I have for that. The only capacity being if I'm feeling like I'm stretched or I, you know, then I can just say no.

Davis Nguyen 0:48

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 1:19

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today's guest is Zaid Kuri, a leadership coach with nearly two decades of global experience living and working across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. His background spans government service in the US, investment work in China, and leadership roles in Southeast Asia's fast-paced tech sector, giving him a uniquely cross-cultural lens on leadership, growth, and decision making. Now balancing roles as a leadership coach, facilitator, and real estate investor, Zaid partners with individuals around the world to design more fulfilling and challenging lives. His coaching is grounded in courage, compassion, and deep introspection, helping leaders set boundaries, clarify priorities, and grow with intention while navigating complex organizational environments. Welcome to the show, Zaid. Pedro, it's great to see you. It's great to see you, and it's great to have you on an episode. And all right, you know, I like to rewind a bit. I'm a comic book nerd and I like the origin stories, you know, first edition. So every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Zayd Khoury 2:43

I would love to say it's an origin story that I I did on my own. Um, but I think it was in probably around 2019. Um I was, you know, I had been working in, as you said, multiple roles, a little bit of a global hobo and or a career unintentional design person. And so I had gotten to what I thought was a series of jobs I loved. And but but I didn't actually, at the end of it, realize this is not what I want to do. Like I'd done these things at prototype, but I was sort of stuck. And um, you know, my my life and business partner, my life first, business later, um, because that's the most important part of you know our relationship, was he asked me a question, just asked, and it hit me. Like, I would love to say I thought about my own. He asked, What do you do in your your spare time outside of work? And you know, I the answer was, you know, I hold space, I get curious about people. People come to me to sort of just hold sort of almost like a shaman. Like you sit there in your lodge and like do your thing and then hold space, and then people come and you don't give them the answers, but you give them the the environment to sort of explore. And so when, you know, and you know, it's curiosity, openness, all these characteristics came to me. And um, then that's when the magic happened, and then I sort of Googled that because you know AI wasn't so big at that point. And so uh Google told me, you know, roles that might have this, and I was like, you know, sort of therapist, you know, personal wellness coaching and just coach generally. And that's when I was like, oh, there's a there's a place that is coaching at because I'd experienced it but not really thought about it. And that's when I was like, that sort of put me on the trajectory of like the the icky guy of sorts, or at least a hypothesis of like where everything matched. Um, and then I had to go out and test it. And that's what 2019 onwards was was testing to see if what felt like it fit actually did.

Pedro 4:22

I love the fact that it's so organic. It's like, hey, I'm doing this stuff, what is it called, really? And it's like googling it and it's like, hey Google, what does what does that even mean? And you're like, okay, oh, I do this. This is so interesting, you know. I love them, and that is so organic. It's not like you're trying to reinvent the wheel. It's just like trying to label something you were already doing, you know? And so natural also. And Zaid, when did it shift from, you know, I'm helping people? Because in the early days of coaching, there's a lot of testing waters, right? To I'm building a real business around this. You know that shift? Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Zayd Khoury 4:59

I think I think there's part of the the challenge and the benefit we had when my wife and I started the practice is that we still used our existing skill sets to sort of do create some level of, I would say, stability with an income from our existing skill sets. So it took some time. We didn't sort of like drop in and sort of go into coaching, we sort of transitioned into it. And so we sort of prototyped, both of us prototyped what it would feel like to do it in in small amounts. We sort of started adding it to our portfolio, so to speak. And so 2020 was an opportunity for us. Also, COVID sort of happened around that time, and so um work also shut down by and there was a need and necessity for a necessity for remote work. And so coaching became much easier to do in some ways because it meant we could reach more people outside our net our community, which we were in Singapore at the time. And so um 2020-2021, we started like building client base, and we didn't really have a hypothesis of who our segment was. We had, which I wish in retrospect I thought about like who is who am I serving? We sort of worked with, we didn't work with a a user, an avatar end client. We worked with where can we find people that trust us? That was sort of our missed test for our community. So we ended up going to our sort of MBA networks, and that's where we sort of started reaching people that already knew of us and also recognized part of their journey in the way we talked about our story. So that's sort of how in 2020, 2020-20 was was mostly the MBA word of mouth uh contingent. And then I think in 2022, life sort of returned back to normally or started returning back to normal. I think it was the end of 2022, is when like you know, life went back to a little bit more flexibly in terms of being able to go out and see people. We started doing more social events, not with the intention of building pipeline or opportunities, but more just to be visible, and that sort of led to new opportunities. And then by 2023, I think it the coaching business became fully like it was already like reasonably like stable by 2022, but by 2023, that's when we saw sort of a lift off, and it it was done primarily through organic impact, I guess, where we just sort of reached the people and they became our evangelizers, and that built it up to a pretty uh stable and sustainable business. And then I'll give you the rest later, though, I promise. So that's so that's that's when so 2020 to answer your question succinctly, 2023.

Pedro 7:18

Interesting. I love the trial and error. You're being so upfront about it. Like I had we had a wide net spread it, and we weren't a hundred percent sure that's gonna work was that gonna work or not, and eventually you got rolling right. And I want to understand who are the people that kept showing up, you know? The ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe. I can help exactly this type of people, you know?

Zayd Khoury 7:42

It's interesting because there was even a shift. Like 2023 got us to a stable point and tended to be um we would say people that have got to a certain career stage, let's say um VP MDs, like you know, reasonably mid mid to mid-senior roles. They were finding they had all the credit, all the success markers that people said would make make you happy, and they were just miserable. Um and so they just wanted to sort of they use this as an opportunity to sort of re-in rethink the assumptions of what it meant to be satisfied inside and outside of work. And so then it became sort of life design, became the focus. Life design, life career design, because even though they're I I would say life design because career is part of life, to be honest, we just separated, but it's not really. So that became our segment of people we served. And so it was a lot more around life design, making more decision intentional decisions. And then at the end of 2024, business was together, but it's split a bit. And now we have different segments. So my wife still works with a fair amount of startup founders, I think, more started started and stopped work, stopped, and then started working again with startup founders. And then I ended up working as an executive coach at Harvard Business School on their exec ed team. And so my segment changed. Initially, it was sort of more generalized. Now it's a combination of people who have think about life design, and then a component that is executives. And the executives typically two or three problems, two or three problems to me. It's one, they're see their C-suite below minus one. So let's say CFO, CSOs, and they want to figure out, first of all, what do they need to build in terms of capabilities to get to the CEO or next level in their leadership and in and in the role? So, like what are the blind spots and opportunities for growth and where are the strengths that they should lean into to get to the next level? That's sort of one archetype. The second archetype is business owners, typically that have gotten to a certain scale in their business and by being very proactive in every size of the business, but they realize to sort of allow themselves to grow the business and scale it, there's a component of delegation. They need to find a way to step back to allow their team to step up, and then they can take a more strategic role. And so those are sort of like two or three of the archetypes that now I work with more actively with my work at Harvard Business School. And and then there's and we also do relationship work, but that's more uh side business, like in terms of like, you know, how do you have healthy relationships and work? And so we do that together in the sense that we both do that work, but we do it separately in the sense that like our clients are separate. But that's something a shared niche, I suppose.

Pedro 10:16

That's very interesting. And I want to dive in into a little bit of that because coaching at the end of the day is not much very how can I say this? It is more like a credential business, right? Uh you don't have like a therapist or some someone regulating that space, right? You can be certain you can be ICF certified and all of that, but it doesn't really it's not really required to do coaching. So I had guests in the past that they were telling me, and I'm not sure if you feel like that or you had that experience, it's like they use the background to resonate with C-suite level, for example, right? They have been there and done that. And the soft sell was I'm gonna help you manage the team better, right? We're gonna help you with the bottom line. But in reality, you're gonna stop slipping in the couch, you know, because you're gonna you're gonna coach the whole person, not just the career. Do you see like the bre the background itself? Like you had a solidified background, hardware business school, that helps you get the foot on the door so those executives actually can have a conversation instead of just, I don't know, just a life coach or a little relationship coach out there that could do, I would say not the same stuff, but some to an extent, but would never be able to talk to people like that. It's a very astute observation.

Zayd Khoury 11:30

I think I'll I'll take that question. It's a it's a question we've reflected on. I think my sense is there's how do you get people how do you attract or attract people to you or create, as I said, credibility markers so people will connect with you. So one is how do you attract them or find them? And then the next is once you get to that attraction or like get them in the room, then how do you make them feel like you understand their journey? And I think the credibility markers are helpful, and and that may come through in terms of, I mean, I'll be candid when I look for a coach, I looked for someone that had some level of shared experience to my journey because I felt like they would understand me better, not because they'll tell me what to do. That's not the role of the coach. That's you know, it's everyone's journey is very different, even though there might be similarities, but it gave me the sense that they would be, I would be able to trust that they would understand where I'm coming from and then be able to ask questions with that knowledge in a much more concise and thoughtful way. Like they're not going to tell me what's your USP for building your business, but they but like I could use that language. Or if you're working with a product marketing head, you might know what's your, you know, what's your user journey? Like you'll be able to use the language, you know, I don't use the language all the time, but if I do need to use it, I can use it. So it creates a trust that they understand where I'm coming from, and then that creates the both the the credibility gap shrinks and the trust gap in c the trust uh uh battery increases very quickly. It's 100% true in that regard. But the second question or the second insight, 100% true. I think work as a construct. It's a function of your life. It is not your life, and it's it's part of your life. Trying to and to say start braid work in life is work, when I say life, it's family, friends, growth, joy, they're all interconnected. You know, we talk about that wheel of life with different pie pieces separately, but they're not separate, they're all interlinked. So even though people come in for executive and leadership coaching, leadership is not just what you do in the boardroom or what you do with your team, it's how you show up as a person at home. How do you show up for the people that um then look to you? Like how do you, your inner leader and also your outer leader, how you project your authentic self inside and outside the home. And so, yeah, in some ways it's it starts with work, but you know, work is just one component. And if you're unhappy at work, it carries out at home. If you're unhappy at home, it carries out work. Like you can't comport mentalizing only works to a degree, but if you think about a compartment and like, you know, intention and stress like increasingly expanding, and some points it'll explode and it'll explode somewhere else in another context, and that's not good for the person or for the relationships or for the people around them.

Pedro 13:54

Interesting. Now, that's the coaching side, right? Oh, I want to talk about the part nobody escapes. And I think you kind of browse through it when you mentioned you had your own people evangelizing others, right? So marketing. So, how do people usually find you, Zaid? I think you mentioned uh referrals, right? But is there any other way or is it just referrals so I can have a sense of things?

Zayd Khoury 14:16

Excellent question. Word of mouth has been more than enough to get us to where we are, but I think our next our realization, both my partner and I, is that there we need to do more in terms of creating impact and through this being visible and making impact and adding value. And so we used to have an Instagram page, we still have it actually. We just didn't act, we stopped activating it because it wasn't we were in a place where we were shifting places and locations and we didn't prioritize it because it wasn't generating opportunities. LinkedIn, we didn't really use as much. But what's interesting is whenever we did activate something, something did come out. It just came through, it just came through multiple avenues. So to answer your question, no, maybe yes, no, no and we'll go with no and no and we're we're already thinking about what's next in terms of how to attract people. And it's not really going to be the intent isn't attraction. The intent is adding value and speaking with an authentic voice while taking the information of what resonates with people and adapting what we provide in our voice to them. So it's sort of that virtuous cycle. Put something out there, see what works, what resonates, and then see what we can speak to authentically that resonates with people where we can support them or add value. And then the ideally situation is people will find value and then want to come find that value in person. You know, it's it takes we're not very outgoing intro. I would say we're introverted, we're we're private people, but we recognize that um we're doing ourselves a disservice, but more importantly, the impact we can make. And so at some point you sort of have to go out and you don't have to scream, you just have to, you don't whisper, you just you you speak at the the volume you want that's slightly uncomfortable that reaches the people in the way they want to be spoken to and and wherever that audience goes, which is just a trickier question, is like who, who, where, and how, I suppose, the the marketing funnel.

Pedro 16:00

All right. I like that. Now, let's talk business for a second. People find you even through a referral or one of those ventures, you you you actually ended up posting people, hey Zay, let me work with you. Okay, so they resonate with your work. And eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like, right? So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently. So when someone actually becomes a client, what does that experience look like right now?

Zayd Khoury 16:29

Well, I mean, maybe I'll even I'll take that I'll take it one step back and then three steps forward. Well, a step back is once they're attracted, they they've found value, then they reach out. And probably like like, and we don't put our calendarly or our booking calendar links up online because we found the level of uh it's easier to gauge, create enough inertia where people, if they want to work with you, they have to go through the extra effort of reaching out versus like booking on calendarly, because otherwise you'll have 30 a thousand people that book on calendarly, they che they cancel it. It becomes a lot of like management and creating some level of um extra effort, which is not intuitive for purchasing, because you don't want to you don't want barriers to purchase. But it lowering increasing the barriers to purchase or to signing up, not purchasing, to signing up, creates a higher level of conversion. And so we just started like, and so people will send us an email or they'll reach out to us through a reference referral and they'll say, you know, we're interested in working with you. And we're like, great, let's jump on a call and we'll take that call. Um, normally it's complimentary because we find two things. One, by the time people come to us with the way we set it up, the conversion is already high because the willingness to pay, willingness to invest is there. The willingness to pay is to be determined once we talk details. But in that session, we all sort of do two few things. We'll talk about who we are, similar to what we're doing here, but on a micro level, because we're not the star of the story, they are. What is coaching from their understanding with surprise experience? So alignment around what expectations are in coaching, because that's important because if you don't align expectations, you're like, I want you to tell me what to do. I'm like, well, that's not coaching for me. That is typically viewed as consulting because you're asking me to be a subject matter expert. I would rather help you facilitate, you be the subject matter expert of yourself. So alignment around role, and then and then afterwards we just dive into their story and we use that as an opportunity to just unpack like the big sort of things that they've not had a moment to think about. And then that allows us to sort of partner and help them find one big goal potentially that resonates with them. And then we contract not just in words but in paper. And so we sort of create a document that we send them a contract, and then we work with them for five to ten sessions as a starting point with the caveat that um we normally ask people to pay up front for two reasons. Because they we want them to be invested in spirit and in time, and two, um, we want to be mindful of our time. And then the third thing is at the end of the day, like it's gonna get difficult. I sort of tell them it gets difficult, and that's a good thing because discomfort allows for self-reflection. Self-reflection allows for discomfort, seeing the things you don't want to see or you're pushing away, and that's that's the point of that self-awareness really kicks in. And then the question is what do you accept? What do you want to change? What do you want to test out? And so we need you we need you to push through the discomfort to a certain degree to allow yourself to you know figure out what's really important to you. And so there's that third part, and then so so then that's it. Five to ten sessions is sort of the we have them pay up front, they sign on, and then after that, there's two perspectives. One, I this is interesting. Perspective is I want to sort of train them, I want them to train themselves to be able to be self-sufficient and eventually replace me or with themselves. The other perspective I've been thinking about more is I want them to see it as per meant personal training, something where you provide some level of consistency and maintenance and I won't say accountability, but sort of consistency of thought. And the same way you might go to a personal trainer, not to just train you. Some people go there just to get the trainer to teach you how to do it and then do it on their own. Some people like the consistency of having someone on a weekly basis to keep them moving forward. And so either lens works. And some clients are the first and some are the latter. It's a function of what they what they want to get out of coaching and what's and what will serve them to the best of their needs.

Pedro 20:05

I love the fact that you explain what coaching is, you know. I think that's that's key. And I had this experience uh on my previous job. I was a high-ticket sales closer for a landscape business coach. And we I felt a lot of of my work was part of the awakening, you know. So people thought it was like, oh, is are we gonna light up some candles? Are you gonna tell me all the answers? Is this a woo-woo thing, you know? So it's very important to level the playing field so they can understand right off the bat what this is all about so that in the future doesn't, you know, bite you in the butt. So I think that's very important. It's a good great reminder also. Well, Zaid, you your work seems pretty hands-on, right? We're talking about um the business development side, we're talking about marketing, we're talking about the coaching, and also the discovery or complementary calls, however you want to call it. So, how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin. Excellent question.

Zayd Khoury 21:07

What I would say, right now, I like to build in Slack into my business. And the reason I say Slack is because you don't know where you want to, what you want to take on or what you want to redistribute. So I would say we are not at 100%, we're not at 100% capacity, but that's intentional because I want Slack outside of work. And um, and I also want Slack for my work because if something comes on that's more exciting or compelling or there's a refocus, I would say we're about 70% capacity in terms of the work we do. How we divide it um is, you know, I guess with the coaching business, if you think about it, and you know this, it's sort of it's it can be seasonal or infrequent in terms of like revenue. That's it's not recurring, it's not necessarily guaranteed recurring revenue. The work I do in the Harvard Business School is really focused, it's sort of typically pretty recurring. It's I know when the projects are, I know the timings, I know their hours. So that creates some level of recurring consistent revenue, and and I know. How much capacity I have for that. The only the capacity being if I'm feeling like I'm stretched or I, you know, then I can just say no, I don't have the capacity or something else to come up. So they give us a lot of leeway to determine how we can support the participants. So that's recurring. And then there are moments where instead of like taking on more clients, I might say I want more time for building a new credit credential that would be helpful to take on. So then I will dial down or I will not ramp up. I'll create enough Slack that I can say I want to slot that in, you know, for marketing because it's not an energy giving activity for me or for necessarily. I know that it's going to take take more to capacity, more time, and more energy. So then the Slack allows me to say, okay, this is where we're going to build our podcast. This is where we're going to focus more on creating content on LinkedIn. This is more about B2B sales. So I would say we're always, I'm always around 80% capacity because or highest. The highest is 80% capacity because I want to leave, I want to leave Slack based on what needs to reshift. Am I doing the not just doing things, am I doing the things that will serve me now versus three months versus six months versus a year? And so it gives me just enough introspection time to reassign urgency versus important tasks and projects. And so yeah, I don't have to answer your question. I feel like it is.

Pedro 23:17

It does, it does. Definitely. And I love that answer. I mean, it's a great reminder. And I want to tap into your experience a little bit because, you know, one thing every coach wrestles with at some point is pricing. And I'm not talking about hard numbers here, just to clear that. And how to package their work, you know? Because in the early days, you see that most coaches see that calendar empty and they're like undermining themselves or doing that type of math, like, oh, I could have been 10 clients today and you know, revenue X, Y, and Z, but sometimes they undervalue themselves at the end of the day. So, and it it is a self-worth path, right? We see a lot of people that, oh, should I charge this? Am I placing out myself out of the market? So, what I hear from you is how do you thinking about it today? You know, the pricing point. And were there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed where you are right now?

Zayd Khoury 24:09

It's an excellent question. So there's two, you know, there's two things that come with revenue, right? Price and quantity. And so if you think about it, then the question is, you know, and quantity would be determined potentially by the price, but also by your visibility, right? Like where are people finding you? So I'll go to the quantity thing first and then go to the price because I think they're both interlinked. Quantity is a function of where you're putting your time, where your audience is. And I think part of that is like, you know, you could, you know, what I've I also do mentor coaching for IC for a school that is IC of credited. And one of the questions I think about is like, are you doing a B2B? Are you going business to consumer? Are you going to go directly or business to client? Are you going to be, and that's inbound, and and you know, clients will come to you individually potentially. But that's marketing and that requires brand building. There's also B2B models. Like you can entrench with an organization like myself. You can join a coaching collective therapists have it all the time, they have clinics where like where these therapists sit on a bench and they don't have to do any of the marketing or the back office stuff. You know, they will be assigned people. So they're not worrying about the quantity because there's alternate re ways for people to be brought in. Now that obviously brings variability in pricing, but that means that you're not spending that time to bring in more quantity because you're, you know, you're offloading some of that marketing to like those communities. And so that's one thing I'd say is like, you know, B2 business to client, great. I could see also the value of creating portfolio of business to consumer, business to business to consumer, because then or client. So then you can offload the quantity constraints of that empty calendar. Um, now we'll go flip to the other side, price. I'll summarize it with uh charge more than you're comfortable with, like, which I feel like you know, that's like people are like, I'm comfortable charging, you know, $50. I'm like, what's really on what's like what is the kind of thing that you feel like you'll get petrified? I was like, $300 for you is too much. I'm like, what feels like it's a reasonably large stretch? And then maybe have them do it that way. So that's sort of like the level of stepping into this comfort, and then that's the inside looking out. And the outside looking in is obviously look at comparables of who what people are charging for what. And then so I think there's a little bit of looking inside out and inside in on how to come up with pricing. Um I guess the big takeaway is lean into this comfort of charging more than you think you can deliver and go deliver it. But like, you know, and I like if you come out of the gate and say I'm gonna charge you a thousand dollars, and that's terrifying to you to the point that you're not able to be the best coach you can, then maybe just dial it back in like what's a little bit more uncomfortable, $800, was it $500, $400? What's really comfortable? Oh, it's like $500. I'm like, okay, that's not the number you want. Let's keep let's work up. And so you sort of keep dialing until you're calibrating what's really uncomfortable, what's reasonably uncomfortable that you'll step into. So that is one thing. And then um, don't coach for free. I wish I had known that in the beginning. Like, I think when I started off, I was like, you know, coach for something. Mainly, and it doesn't have to be money that, you know, but definitely charge something of value because part of that is um you'll step into the discomfort, and part of it's like people just ghost and and like and your time is valuable. And then that ghosting is a disservice to yourself, your confidence, and your ability to like, you know, realize that it's not about coaching because it doesn't matter, they're not ghosting because you're a bad coach. They have other parameters, they have other priorities. It might be like not prior, they may not see the value right away. So it's not about your coaching, it's just about making sure that they're invested. And how do you make sure that they're invested? Part of it's a coaching, part of it is like making sure they have money, skin in the game, whatever that looks like.

Pedro 27:24

The commitment, right? I think that's key. And the skin in the game, right? I I always bring back me to my story, the old the good old days and the college days. It's like playing Texas Hodem, and everyone was like, no stakes, all in. Everyone is like super courageous, and then you got a one dollar pot and the game changed entirely. It's like, oh my god, it's not the same person playing with me on the other side of the table. Because it's commitment, it's getting the game, even it's a dollar, even something, because they are not gonna respect your time if it's free. Sometimes people unfortunately they perceive as worthless. And it's very unfortunate how the human being works. It's like, I mean, that's a rabbit hole on its own. Um, but I that's a solid look also into how you approach price. I really appreciate you sharing that and the structure. I'm curious about where you're taking all this. You know, looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Zayd Khoury 28:24

It's a good question. I'm gonna I'm gonna roll back one thing on price that I realized that I should have brought up. Call it the um, well, I mean, I don't call it Robinhood. Well, call it the the giving, the giving, giving back model. You're you can create tier pricing structure based on your audience as long as you're transparent about it. So, for example, um, if I work with an organization, they're gonna get charged more because they're an organization that has a bigger budget. Uh, if you're working with a CEO, I might charge you know, like, you know, a higher rate because the time is valuable. It's also often the work is intense. And so if someone's working through retrenchment, for example, I might give a discounted price to a certain point where they're getting a new job with the expectation that when they get a job that they will go back to normal price. And then I give a lot of, I give a fair amount of time to pro bono coachings. You know, as long I think it's all right to have variable price structures as long as you're transparent about it so that no one feels like, and then people can choose to buy and buy what you are selling or to invest in what you work. But I think as long as they don't feel like they're hoodwinked, then you're being transparent about it. I think most people will, you know, if not understand it, not accept it, at least understand it.

Pedro 29:29

Yeah. The price bracket, I I can see it like totally fair. It's just about being transparent. I agree with you. You know, because it's it's a different level of engagement. I don't I don't even see it as unfair. If you're treating like with a B2B or B2C, it's it's different. The sales cycle is different. It I mean you you eventually you they uh if the time slots they're open. Sometimes you have to do some some stuff that to only to sit down with that person to actually talk with them. It's a different level of engagement, I think, at the end of the day. Not sure if you agree with that.

Zayd Khoury 30:02

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. It's um and it's um and it's also I think on a macro level, it's um how can you you're gonna you're gonna give to everyone, but people can share more based on their circumstances. And it's and it's not like you're charging more because they they have more, but it's like they can they can pay more. And and um, and that's and then and as long as you're like honest about it, but like I I typically for CEOs, I tend to charge as much, but with middle managers, you know, then they know their salaries. They know the salaries are like they know the salaries are like a right. And so like then the question is do they value it? And if someone says no, that's all right. Like, I mean, you know, I I don't want to, you know, this is sort of the way I look at it. If their lens is different, that's all right. They'll find the person that supports them in the way they want to be supported. And and that's there's more than enough people out there that are doing great work.

Pedro 30:46

Okay, now talking about future, right? Where where are you taking all this say you're scaling, right? Hiring. Next step you're excited about. I want to hear about future.

Zayd Khoury 30:57

Yeah, oddly enough, so this is I think we're an odd, we're an odd couple in terms of how we're thinking our business. We've had interest in uh from venture capital confirms about scaling and creating, but we don't want to do that. But at the same time, we recognize that our time is what we're renting. And so we have to be mindful of where they give it and then how are there alternate ways to create opportunities. And so for us, future three years, one to three years, I'd say a few things. One client acquisition. We're gonna start thinking about how to reach more people in a more thoughtful and time economic way. But like where it used to be word of mouth as we spoke about, I think there's more creating content and adding value, um, which will be about visibility and um reaching a larger audience and then potentially creating more opportunities. So then that's gonna be the one to three year thing is being more visible. That means more finding out where our audience is, how to engage with them, what is their messaging. So that's sort of one for the future. Uh two, programmatic coaching. We do a fair amount of bespoke coaching, and I do programmatic coaching at the business school, but we don't have when we used to do programmatic coaching, so maybe structured program coaching, which could take on the flavor of self-directed coaching programs with a touch of coaching on top, which is how you can economize your time but still serve your client that has different needs. And you see a lot of like ed tech startups doing the sort of programmatic education. Three products. You know, we have a book that our company we made a while ago for our clients that went through a program that's fantastic that took the best learnings from a lot of scientific frameworks and learnings we had from some of the programs we have, and we put it into a book and we gave it to our clients, but we haven't done anything with it. So I think there's something around creating content that we can either monetize, offer, but also monetize in some ways. And then, and then all of this, the foundation of this is content. We just have to I think it's a focus on content. There's no more, no more hiding behind we have something valuable to say and we want to find ways to reach more people. I think that's sort of the strategy for the next one to three years. Oddly enough, not a lot of revenue goals. I think we're not optimizing revenue, we're optimizing process. And one of the metrics will be revenue, but I think it's more about engagement with our audience initially, because that makes us test very effectively that and we don't need the revenue immediately. We'd like to what's engaging, what delights our customers, what delights the people that and once we optimize for that, then I think the revenue component will sort of become more clear. I don't know what that that money, I would love to give you a number, but I think I don't know if we have one. I think it's more about uh if we maximize impact through adding value through different channels, revenue numbers will come. And we are also in a place where where the business is in a good place, we're happy, we're we're reasonable about our expectations about the kind of life we want to live. So if there's more money that comes in, we probably won't spend more as much, but we'll find ways to contribute that contribute in a way um and and put it towards maybe growing our business. I don't know. I wish I had a more that's as far as I thought about it in in the standard standard practice of my I can help people with other people's strategies, but my own strategy still feels a little fuzzy, but I have some ideas.

Pedro 33:54

Well, yeah, you're in the middle of the noise, right? So it's not never always easy to have that um perception of the business where you're inside the hamster wheel as much as you well, you you kind of have some slack time blocked out, so that's not much of a hamster wheel, but um, yeah, it's not that easy. It's like when I'm talking with my wife and I'm having this super uh complex problem, at least in my head, and she's like, just do this. And I'm like, I haven't thought of like that. You know, it's not just telling me, but also sometimes asking me, have you tried to do X, Y, and Z? So yeah, definitely. Um and of course, whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, there's always something we're refining in the present, and you kind of browse through it, like the content. But what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Zayd Khoury 34:41

Two things come to mind. One, we do a fair amount of like bespoke coaching for CEOs and some level and some, and we're gonna start doing more programmatic coaching. But we I think one thing we'd like to do is create more um organizational uh and team coaching uh framework or programs that we run with organizations. So I think we'd like to sort of refine those programs and really take it to market because I think there's a demand for it. We just want to take that offering based on the information we've gotten that so we can go into teams and bed in organizations and coach them and both individuals but also teams in the moment. So there's a little bit more of organizational coaching that comes to mind that we'd be organizational team coaching. Um that's one. And two, honestly, we I think I told you this. Um we have a podcast, it's fantastic. We love it. Wow. We think it's fantastic. We need to put it out there that determines the market. I think it's fantastic. And so I think it's a lot about, you know, you know, we've taken some of the content we have and like cons being accountable and consistent and putting it out there, testing the market, getting data, figuring what what resonates, what creates impact, what creates a feedback loop that's useful. So I think there's the organizational component for the team coaching programs plus the uh the marketing. And we have a very specific thing. We want to do podcasts as a starting point, which also includes activation on social media channels, which means videos. So we're gonna use that as our lens to sort of really prototype being visible on social media and in a way that feels slightly uncomfortable, but feels authentic at the same time. Like we don't wanna, we're not gonna put up a front, we wanna be our ourselves, but we also want to be adaptive in service of the people based on the feedback that comes back from us about what we're doing well or what we're doing badly, and what could we do better?

Pedro 36:20

Interesting. Yeah, I had a guest uh this week, and this was Kyle, and we were talking about that, and he was mentioning he all his Legion strategy was basically uh the podcast, and that's not a huge, a huge audience. It's like sometimes we we see a lot of people that are like 60, 50k uh listeners or followers, but in reality it it's not their ICP. So it's just it it's being uh it's being uh it's about being intentional, but at the same time, it's like reaching the right people with the right message. It doesn't have to be a huge following, it just needs the right people listening. So yeah, definitely I can see that as a as a path uh for both of you guys. Now, I want to tap into your experience for a second, if you allow me, because people listening can really benefit from this. I mean, you've been in a game long enough, so you do hear all kinds of business advice. Some are good, some are bad. So, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think that's overrated or misunderstood?

Zayd Khoury 37:13

In service of building a coaching business, right? Is that that that that's the or or just because industry it's harder, but like is it business in service of my clients or um advice in service of coaches that are trying to build their practice just to make sure the audience I wanna I want to talk about the one that resonates the most with you.

Pedro 37:29

It it usually towards more coaching, but if you feel like it serves also the coaching industry, you can go. I got it.

Zayd Khoury 37:38

No, I I got I got this. Um two things, two things come to mind. One, um, and I wish I could practice what I preach, so it but but it's easier to so take this with a grain of salt. That's it's hindsight's 2020. One is that like I think uh what I've been noticing with you know, maybe people who are coming into coaching newly, especially, is is that they pay attention to what feels right for them, but they don't pay attention from feedback on the their audience. So they're like, I'm being authentic. Like, why aren't people connecting with what I'm doing? They're like, because you're not listening to your audience. You can be uh you can authentically pivot what you share with people because it's what's valuable to them. And I feel like a lot of people, like a lot of coaches, but not not all, but many coaches, put content out there and expect their audience to like engage with it. And then when no one engages with it, they're like, oh, I'm a terrible coach. Like, it's because they don't go back and say, reach their audience, they don't know who their user persona is. They don't know what problems they're solving, really, concretely. Because I'm everyone I hear all the time, I want to spa it's inspire quite clarity and confidence. I'm like, that's what everyone says. Everyone says that. So everyone's saying the same thing. What makes you different? Like what like what speaks viscerally to what the person that your audience is experiencing? So I think it's a little bit more refinement in terms of who your user persona, what their problem is. And then if it falls flat on its face, you know, don't assume that that's uh there's no data. The lack of data is data. So like go back and ask your audience, like, I s you saw this post, and I noticed you'd engage with it. Maybe a person that you you care about that's in like, would you be all right if I take five minutes of your time? And I'd like to hear about like what you what what like resonated, why did this, what, what didn't resonate. It's the falling in your face gives you as much data as when stuff pops if you know who your audience is and and how and you have a cachet of people that you can reach out to and get some anecdotal data points from. So I think that's one. Two, I love aka guy. So I think from an AK guy of coaching, I feel like my biggest mistake when I started off was I left organizations and I'm like, I'm not going back. I don't want to do that work. I'm done. Like I'm checked out. I did the mic drop. I'm like, I did what I wanted to do. Um I'm done. I don't I don't want to do this anymore. It's not, you know, and and I sort of checked out the opportunity to get involved with organizational executive coaching. And I said, I want to, and I prototyped. I did. I mean, I this is the part I left out, I suppose. I did life transition coach, I did relationship coaching, I did the Gottman's amazing modality, I did life purpose coaching, I did, and I'm sort of focused on life transition and life intentionality coaching. So I did a few prototypes, but I kept my wife, who's far smarter and more, far more forward-looking than I did, three years ago said, Jim, you know, have you ever thought about doing executive coaching? And the stubborn mule that I was, I'm like, no, I don't want to do it. Um, I refuse. I'm like, I had this bias in my head that like I left that behind. Maybe you know I can't do that again. And I ended up getting pulled into the HPS thing. I would love to tell you I intentionally went there, but I was given a blessing, a the opportunity to step into a role because of really kind people within the executive education coaching department at HPS, and they gave me a chance to sort of bring my experiences to the coaching. And um, it was a little uncomfortable because I hadn't done that strain of coaching, because it's slightly different. And so I was, I didn't know I was good at it. I got I got good at it fast because I had to do it. There's no choice, and I also wanted to serve my clients. I was like, I learned quickly how to do it. Eventually, the more I got good with it, the more I realized I actually like this. And it's what the world wants and it's what pays me. And then my icky guy came up unintentionally, despite the biases I had. So I guess, you know, to bottom line that, um, have a hypothesis, I feel like I felt like I wish I'd had the hypothesis with without with the clarity of mind to try something that what I didn't expect I might like, rather than like buy into my past biases. I wish I had prototyped it for some time, really invested in it long enough to know that I know with clarity that this isn't what I want. And then it would have gotten me much faster than the equity guy, the equy guy of my coaching. So, and that's also true in life generally. You can you can generalize that to life. Like discomfort in gut reaction is not necessarily a function of your gut reaction saying this isn't right. It might also be just this is scary. I don't want to do this because it's uncomfortable. And so I think lean into lean into some level of your body saying no to a degree to test if what your what your body is saying is what you're and is what you're is really true. It's it's the objective truth by trying it. So I guess that's the two takeaways I I wish I'd I would offer in retrospect in practice in preaching, but not practice. But I got there eventually.

Pedro 42:02

Yeah, I mean that's beautiful. And if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you?

Zayd Khoury 42:10

Yeah, I mean, I I think uh one is uh you know through our our um my email, podcast soon, email for now. Podcast will drop at the end of April, and that's when you know we'll also love to have people engaged there. Um and a working title will be Conversations with the Queries, which is me and my wife, but that's a working title. We'll see where it goes after we sort of prototype some or stress test it. Um and the other way to do it is just my email, my Z-A-Y-D at toward, like a moving toward, towardcoaching.com. And I'm I'm happy to respond and connect in in any other way. And then obviously LinkedIn, if you want to reach out to me, LinkedIn, like I'm always there. Instagram, I'm a little, I'm a little out of practice, so it makes me feel old saying that. TikTok, I'm I'm literally way out of practice. So and you can reach me at Zayd Couri, Z-A-Y-D-K-H-O-U-RY on LinkedIn, and I'm happy to connect with anyone and and you know, learn and and share.

Pedro 43:01

You know, there were a few things you shared today that really stay with me. Okay. I'm gonna open up with the 2019 global hobo, you know. I think that's hilarious. I've never heard that term. Oh, I've heard like, oh, they're like uh how they call it, like they're oh, they're traveling all the world. No, it's just a global hobo, you know, and I I think that's that's super funny. And you're being so open, you know, being so vulnerable about the early days and the struggles, like, oh, we cast a wider net, that didn't stick, that wasn't good for the business. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I think it's about being vulnerable to, you know, not just asking from people, your coaches, to be vulnerable because you're putting them out of the comfort zone, right? So you're it's generally fair that you're you do the same. That's my perspective, you know, about coaching. Now, also one thing that caught my attention is that you're adding value as a moral compass first, even in sales calls, you know, it's like Like, how can I best serve you? And I think I worked in sales, and people forget about this. It's all about tactics, it's all about KPIs. Oh, I lost the Saleo. I have a say, you never lost a SEO, didn't have a Sale. It's about serving people. How best can you serve them? You know, I love the slightly jab, like small jab you gave to consultants. I love that because they have all the answers, and coaches have all the questions, right? So I I love that.

Zayd Khoury 44:27

That's it. I love that. That's very succinctly said. And I respect consultants for their expertise. Don't get me wrong. My wife is a former consultant, so I would never throw shade on her, but I think it's it's just a different hat. It's just a different hat. And like knowing that what hat you're wearing lets you know how you're gonna show up for the client, right?

Pedro 44:45

Yeah, and I I had a lot of former consultants in the show, you know, and it sounds like they always find themselves fighting the big boss, you know, the major boss, which is people, right? So how do they solve the people problem if they're trying to apply a system or trying to implement something? Well, they're gonna have to use something called coaching, right? At the end of the day, which it's transformational and uh and really is about making the right questions. Now, I also like the fact that you were so intentional about having that you call it it slack. I wouldn't call it it slack, you know, that time blocking. And I'm not challenging you here. It's like I saw businesses, Fortune 100, and an even bigger business, like they were they were having like let's call it Slack that slack time, block time just to think about stuff, you know, come up with ideas. Because if you're always in the hamster wheel, man, when will you have time to, you know, do business development or implement an idea that you were about to sleep and it just popped in your head? So you need that time. I mean, I think that's crucial for business. I would that's a great reminder. I think there's also one thing that I need to highlight, which is charging more than you're comfortable, you know. When you were talking about pricing, and I think this aligns perfectly with getting out of the comfort zone all across the board, because that's about what about coaching is, and you mentioned that before you're telling me about pricing, so you're getting full circle. It's not just my client getting out of the comfort zone, it's about me getting out of the comfort zone too. And if it's just a topic like pricing, so be it, right? So there's also uh I would say a personal side to things here. When you left corporate, you were like, I'm not doing that again, right? So when I was 21, I was hit by the subprime crisis. My dad was a VP of a bank, not related, but I had in the family. So I was working with uh uh working on a business, uh, a banking business, and I was laid off because subprime crisis hit and they start cutting off people. I it was specifically derivatives, you know. I was specific in that scenario in Brazil, so I had the same feeling, man. I was like, I'm not good enough, or I don't want to take I I don't want to deal with this stuff anymore, and I put that in the back burner for a while, and I just pretended didn't exist, you know. So it was good that you yet your own wife was able to, you know, bring that to your attention and you were able to listen to her three years later, you know, husbands are stubborn.

Zayd Khoury 47:21

I'm getting better. I'm getting better. It's the time between like her telling me what's probably the best option and me listening is getting shorter and shorter, but it's it's a it's a work in progress.

Pedro 47:31

Yeah, also the last advice be authentic, but consider the audience opinion. And that's so funny because you're like, hey, I'm doing this amazing podcast, and you're like, correction, I think it's amazing, right? You didn't have tested it yet, you're just like in the foundation of it. So I think that's a great reminder. And you're doing yourself a favor, you're reminding yourself of your own, you know, potential missteps. I don't know. So, Zay, I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on, man.

Zayd Khoury 48:02

Pedro, it was really a pleasure. Thank you for giving me the time and the opportunity to share. And and I and I hope we we stay in touch. And I and if anyone else wants to reach out, um I'm I'm happy to chat. I think connection creates opportunity, growth, and learning, and if nothing, a great conversation.

Davis Nguyen 48:18

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.