Reinvent, Realign, Rise: Insider Career Coaching Secrets with Marcelle Yeager

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Marcelle Yeager, a dynamic career coach and leadership strategist who shares powerful insights on navigating career transitions, building confidence, and aligning your work with your true purpose; drawing from her professional journey and thought leadership across platforms, Marcelle dives into actionable strategies for overcoming career stagnation, redefining success on your own terms, and creating a sustainable path toward growth and fulfillment, making this conversation a must-watch for professionals at any stage who are ready to take control of their future.

You can find her on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelleyeager/
https://www.careervalet.com/

Transcript

Marcelle Yeager 0:00

You know, simplify putting things into our generalized format, but then of course tweaking it and customizing it, but just saving time with some of those admin tasks that do take our writing team extra time and don't need to anymore because now you have a tool that can help you, you know, format properly. So small things like that where we can kind of shave time off of that process and then actually, you know, focus more on the content and the writing piece and making that strong. And then that means scaling, right? That means you can take on more clients.

Davis Nguyen 0:37

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 Wayne, 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 Stein 1:08

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and I'm excited to welcome Marcel Yeager, founder of Career Valley, who has cracked the code on transforming executive experience into compelling narratives that actually land interviews. With 10 years of strategic communications at Booz Allen Hamilton and the Department of State, plus credentials from Georgetown and University of Maryland, she's been featured on How I Built This and in Money Magazine for her proven approach. Her track record is impressive. 92% of clients get interviewed within three weeks. She's guided CEOs, Fortune 500 senior leaders, and former congressional members through career transitions while building career valet across four different country countries as her family moves around the world. Please welcome to the show, Marcel.

Marcelle Yeager 2:14

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Pedro Stein 2:16

Yeah, I'm excited uh that you're here. And I always do this, I always rewind a bit, you know, back to the origin story because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, you know what? I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Marcelle Yeager 2:33

For me, it was actually when we found out that we would be moving around the world for my husband's job. And so that was back in 2011. Um, and I was just finishing my MBA, working full-time, and thought, well, I need to figure out something portable to take with me to continue my career, right? So I had to do some research and figure out what could that be. I actually talked to friends and family and colleagues and said, like, what do you feel like you come to advice for me for? Where do I guide you? And I thought too to myself, like, what do I what would I do for free? And honestly, this is how Career Valet was born. Um, because I realized for years, even though I was in communications on the side, I was always advising friends, coworkers on salary negotiations, resumes, cover letters, and all of those things.

Pedro Stein 3:40

A digital nomad. Okay, I love that. That's interesting. And I I would emphasize one thing. You you mentioned your network, right? And I see a lot of people that start their own business and they're like, ah, I'm gonna reach out to people, I'm not gonna talk to the people I know. I know it's weird, but sometimes people do that, right? And now I want to understand one thing, you know. So you started contacting your friends, you start with the resumes and your own network. Well, when did you felt like, okay, I'm moving from helping people to, you know what, this is actually a real business.

Marcelle Yeager 4:14

That was very interesting uh for you to say because when we launched the business, I felt very strange. Like, how can I charge people to you know, pay me for the things I've been advising people on for years? So exactly. Um, great question. Um, and it took quite a number of clients for me to feel more comfortable about it, and I think what helped was getting positive feedback. So, like, you know, somebody would say, Wow, you know, I'm so glad I came to you, or this is great advice, or I have never heard this before. Then I began to build that confidence of like, okay, there's something here, and I do deserve to get paid for this, right? It's not just kind of a hobby or something I do on the side for free.

Pedro Stein 5:07

Okay. And after you got rolling, right, where who are the people that kept showing up? You know, the ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe. This is the people I can help the most, you know, because in the early days, especially in coaching, we see a lot of coaches that are trying to help everyone and they're trying to find their, you know, ideal client profile, testing water. Sometimes there you go into different rabbit holes. So I'm just trying to understand if you were able to, you know, niche down and uh how did that felt for you?

Marcelle Yeager 5:34

Yeah, that's a great question too. Because at first, you know, everybody says you should have your niche right and you should do that from the start. But really, we thought, well, we can help. And you know, I was thinking we can help everybody. Really, it's you know, it doesn't matter what industry they're in, what job they have. We know we have a framework, we can do it. And so I really didn't do that. And then over time, though, like you said, things started to sort of fall in place, and for some reason, we ended up with a lot of folks in tech in all different kinds of jobs, a lot of folks in healthcare, a lot of folks in like the general business, you know, marketing, finance, and so forth. I'm not quite sure why that happened. I think it's you know, an a reflection of you get certain clients, you know, through connections and referrals, and then they have their network, and then it starts kind of growing. And so the people within those industries started coming to us and we became more known. And so that's my best guess. You know, there was no kind of determined formula or strategic plan to try to reach those folks, but it kind of happened that way naturally.

Pedro Stein 6:52

Interesting. Now, let's pretend I'm one of those, right? Your ICP, one of those people, like on the tech side, the healthcare, the finance, the marketing. And I'm like trying to find you. How do how would I be able to do that, you know, in the marketing side?

Marcelle Yeager 7:09

Yeah. So we've been on, I mean, social media for a long time. And we've also done a lot of work with, you know, we've done newsletters for a long time, which continues to be one of our strongest um points, um, with high open rates. And so, but to be totally honest, and I think like a lot of coaches, it was word of mouth, right? So that's how people were finding us. And we've honestly until now, we've never done a lot of you know, sort of planned marketing and advertising and things like that. And looking back, I wish that's something we had started earlier.

Pedro Stein 7:54

So we're in the middle of doing it, sounds like that's interesting, exciting also. Now, let's pretend I'm one of those people again, okay? And uh I was sent through a referral, I saw your newsletter and I resonated with what you posted, right? And I'm like, okay, I want to talk to Marcel, I talked to you, and I ended up closing, you know. I want to be your client. What does that experience would look like right now for me, right? As your client.

Marcelle Yeager 8:27

Yeah, so once someone signs up, if we go through a very personalized process, it's very structured. Um, but we have a develop a custom questionnaire that we give to everybody once they come in the door. Um, and it truly is customized. You know, there are some general questions we ask everybody, but there's also questions against your work history as well as your targets and where you're trying to go. And those are developed by a human. Uh, and so once we gather that information, the next stage is that we have a one-hour consultation call. And in that point, you know, we're able to dive deeper into that questionnaire. We get into things like where, you know, what's unique about your background. And that's based on, of course, our years of experience, both in the workplace as well as working with clients. And so we're then able to gather a lot of information and can decide, okay, what are we now going to put into the products that we're going to create? The resume, LinkedIn profile. Um, and then of course, if we're doing interview coaching, it's important too, because we're helping them develop those skills of talking through what is really, what is my story, you know, what makes me unique and how to talk to employers, right? And not just recite a laundry list of who they are. So again, it's very, very personalized. And as I always say to our team and the way we train everybody, is to put yourself in the shoes of this client, the person that you're helping, pretend you're the one applying for the job. That's really the attitude you need to take.

Pedro Stein 10:15

I love the fact that you said, and this is a real person in the world of AI, right? And we actually, this is the human being dealing with you. Okay. I love that. And I mean, your work seem seems pretty hands-on, right? We're talking about the coaching, we're talking about um the custom customization around this, the the questionnaire, and then we have the onboarding session, and we see a lot of coaches out there that they're wearing all the hats, right? So, how do you think about capacity so you don't stretch yourself too thin?

Marcelle Yeager 10:48

Yeah, so that was happening, and that's why I started to build a team because I realized probably 10, 11 years ago that if I was doing all the work in the you know, business, I couldn't be working on the business, right? And and I'm a creative person, I actually enjoy a lot of that, like coming up with new ideas, testing new things, all of those sorts of things. And so to me, it was kind of feeling like I was draining my energy a little bit from trying to do all of it. And so I decided, okay, if I really, if we really want to grow, I need to hire people to help with this. So now that's what happened is like the team mostly does the client work. You know, I still do a lot of the intake when it comes to sales and um speaking with people initially, but then the team really takes everything else on. Um, and I still do some coaching as well, but in terms of working on like a full package, that's typically not me. So it's opened me up to actually work on the business.

Pedro Stein 12:04

Interesting. Okay, so you saw the writing on the wall. This is not sustainable. I need to make a change. Yeah, and it's good that you didn't wait for the burnout, right? Because I see a lot of coaches out there that do. So yes, but I I wanna I want to tap into your experience a little bit because I love your origin story, right? To start helping friends and all of that. And one thing every coach wrestles with at some point is pricing, right? It's such a hot topic and how to package their work. So, my question is, you know, how do you think it about how do you think about it today? You know, and we're not talking about hard numbers, it's like it's such a self-worth path, right, in the service-based industry. You're like, oh, am I charging enough? Am I not charging enough? So, were there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed where you are right now?

Marcelle Yeager 12:52

Absolutely. I mean, first of all, I see this still so much, and it it really bothers me. And I understand why, but too many people devalue their services from the beginning. I mean, we definitely charge too little in the beginning, and I wish that we had done more research to really figure out not just what the competition was doing, which we did, of course, but also what is our value, right? Like, and how does that compare to what else is being offered in the market? It's not just that we're going to be customized instead of templated like a lot of companies were when we started, but what is that like extra value we have that maybe other coaches or other resume writers don't have? And actually, this is something that, as you asked about a lesson along the way, a number of years ago, I heard somebody say, or I read an article, saying, you know, it's not, don't think about your time just on an hourly basis or on a time basis, right? That's not how you need to price. Your price in the service industry also needs to reflect that expertise, that value, the years of experience that you have, right? Because I think too many coaches I've seen really do think about it on a project or an hourly basis, whereas they're not considering, okay, what is the sum value of all these years of experience, like in the workplace, working with clients, all the research I've done, that's value and that costs money, right? And I think a lot of people fall short there.

Pedro Stein 14:34

Interesting. Yeah, it's not like you're timed the outcome to a clock, right? Nothing happens in the sixth-minute mark. It's like, oh my God, now we got an hour. And and always it, well, two things, at least in my perspective, right? First, if you if you tie to a clock in an hourly base, and I did that on my own practice, uh, you're turning yourself into a commodity, right? It's like it people start comparing your your fee to others that that actually charge by the hour. So that's a weird scale, first of all. And second, it's like sometimes it's like, oh, so I'm gonna end the meeting five minutes earlier. Is that fair? Or I'm gonna end the meeting five minutes later. Should I be getting more? You know, it gets into a weird math situation. I'm not sure if you agree with that.

Marcelle Yeager 15:23

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we've seen that happen, and I feel like you know, times where we've been less busy, you know, we tend to spend more time and then go over. But is that fair to the other clients, right? So I think you do have to be careful about the pricing and you're valuing your own time, to be quite frank, right? So it's not only about even just the pricing and how you price that, but you have to protect and value your own time.

Pedro Stein 15:58

Yes, I agree with that. Now, I'm curious, where are you taking all this? You know, where where do you see the business going looking ahead? You think about, you know, scaling, hiring, you know, or that is the next step you're excited about.

Marcelle Yeager 16:12

Yeah, so I'm actually really focused right now on two things and going back to the comment about sales and marketing and wishing we had started more actively doing it sooner and not relying fully on you know word of mouth for so long, was that we are now focused really, yes, on scaling the individual customer, which has traditionally been our base, right, and our foundation and the uh majority of our customers. So that's one focus, and really like again, pushing hiring a digital marketing firm, um, doing our own internal research to figure out what else we need to do to reach the ideal customers. And at the same time, exploring more on the business-to-business side. So, you know, a lot of for years it's kind of felt like, well, you know, there's leadership coaches, there's life coaches, there's a lot of different types of coaches out there. And I'd always thought of us sort of as like more the the experts with the products, like the resumes and the LinkedIn and so forth. But then clients would say, you're really actually coaches, like that's what you're doing as part of this process. I've learned so much about XYZ, and I've realized that there's a lot we can offer to organizations as well. And so we're exploring different things among like workforce development organizations, universities, and even some companies where we're trying to help them sort of work through using our expertise, but like help them figure out, use that and help them figure out how to solve some of the challenges, right, that are happening now. Because if you think about it, there's a lot of things changing, right? With AI, in the job market, with higher education, and how can we offer our expertise to help them navigate those changes? So that's kind of those two directions are where we're really focused.

Pedro Stein 18:24

Okay. Now, can you walk me through like an ex the B2B, the B2C guy very clear to me, but a B2B, like what would you say is a good example? Like, pretend I'm I'm the owner of a company, right? And I want to hire you on a B2B side. What would it be a challenge that you guys would be able to help me with?

Marcelle Yeager 18:43

Well, nowadays, right, there's a lot of issues around HR and how hiring is happening. So, of course, everybody's probably heard on the candidate side, you've got people using AI, and then on the employer side, they're using AI for intake of candidates within their applicant tracking system software and other devices they use for hiring. And they're not talking very well and and meeting each other. Um, and so there's a lot of issues now with, you know, did the is it did a real person write this resume? Is this even a real person? Is this job posting a real posting or is it a fake posting that a company's posted? And so really like trying to help those, that side figure out how we're going to source candidates better. Um, and there's also, you know, another way to look at that too, which is inside these companies, right, you have a lot of places where employees are are disengaged. And that might start at that, you know, hiring process that's a bit broken right now. Um, and sort of helping to make sure that along this journey, as people enter the company, that they're you know coached, like well taken care of, that they understand how their contributions are valued. And so it's almost like taking them from the candidate and into the company as an engaged and and strong employee.

Pedro Stein 20:29

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

Marcelle Yeager 20:42

Yes, we're doing that at the same time. It's all this external work. So, speaking of AI, right? There are, I'm not, I'm sounding already like I'm anti-AI, which is not the case. I do think there are really great ways to use it, right? For distilling information, for brainstorming, and all of these great things. So we're actually looking at it as a tool to streamline some of the client workflow. And so, what are the ways we can, you know, simplify putting things into our generalized format, but then of course tweaking it and customizing it, but just saving time with some of those admin tasks that do take our writing team extra time and don't need to anymore because now you have a tool that can help you, you know, format properly. So small things like that where we can kind of shave time off of that process and then actually, you know, focus more on the content and the writing piece and making that strong. And then that means scaling, right? That means you can take on more clients because if team members spending less time on one project, they can take on more clients at one time. So that will allow these marketing efforts. Things we're doing to help us scale to actually work, right? As you talked about earlier, capacity is something you have to be aware of as you grow.

Pedro Stein 22:10

So it's about buying back time, getting more efficient, but not necessarily replacing the human component. Exactly. I got that right. Interesting. Okay. You know, I want to tap into your experience for a second because people listening can really benefit from this. Because you've been in a game long enough, right? To hear all kinds of business advice. Some are good, some are bad. So, you know, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think is I think that's overrated or misunderstood.

Marcelle Yeager 22:43

Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is social media. And I shouldn't be saying this because of course we're trying to enhance. Exactly. That's why I'm laughing. Right? Yeah. So we can laugh about it. I think that what I'm saying is the it's like the angle of advice, right? So I don't know, for years it's been like, okay, you have to post X number of times a week to get seen on this platform, and you need to use this format, and has to be this, this, this. Well, just like with AI, these platforms are changing. I mean, daily, sometimes weekly, monthly. You're not gonna keep up, you're not gonna beat the algorithm every time. To me, what's worked best is being consistent. And I say that because I've had people comment and tell me, like, that I haven't seen for years, or I'll get an email and be someone saying, Hey, your newsletter was great. I had no idea this person was even on my mailing list, right? Or in reaction to a post on social media, maybe someone reacts and you think, oh, I didn't know this person followed me. But it's the consistency of sending the newsletter, of posting every week. I think it's more about that than the numbers. Like, you know, I'm not, I haven't disappeared, I guess would be my best advice is don't disappear. And even if you go through something hard, you can automate these things, right? Speaking of saving time, you can batch them ahead of time. Uh, you can make it work. So to me, it's like, you know, you can't always be on your game or like a hundred percent, but showing up, not going away and being consistent, I think is the best advice around email newsletters, social media, and and all that.

Pedro Stein 24:40

I've gotta add something to that, okay, if you don't mind me. Um please you mentioned the newsletter and you mentioned consistency, but at the end of the day, you gave me an example of someone who complimented your newsletter. So the content. So if you have good content, you're gonna be uh you're gonna have a bulletproof pro uh bulletproof plan against the noise, right? So if you have such a good newsletter like that potential client told you, I mean, of course, there is at the end of the day, there is consistency, but also there is like quality of content. I think that is so important because that beats sometimes the algorithm, if that makes any sense.

Marcelle Yeager 25:20

Yes, yes. And you know, everyone's always saying, like, you know, emails going away are not important, but I feel like that that has been for us the most stable and best return on investment has been the content of that newsletter, as you said. So I a hundred percent agree. You can't just put fluff out there, but the thoughtful content really is what matters.

Pedro Stein 25:47

Yeah, and there's so much, so much content out there that weeks AI, right? You're like, oh, it's not X, it's not Y, it's just Z or the hard truth. Dot dot dot. So I mean, sometimes I'm like it in or on the early days, it was the dash, right? But now it's like the the tax that can't you can tell it's AI. Do you agree with me on that?

Marcelle Yeager 26:12

Oh, yeah, yeah. And this is something where we even get, you know, clients coming and sending us something, and we say, This doesn't even sound like a person. How you know who wrote this? So to me, like I and I love writing, so it's easy for me to say, and I know a lot of people don't. So it's easy for me to do the writing. But for those who don't, that's where again, like AI can be great, like it can give you ideas, it can even review what you've written and suggest improvements, but it's still your content's gonna be way better and less robotic if you actually draft it first, right? Or if you take the ideas and then draft something. I do not think it should it should replace you. I mean, yeah, there might be a couple sentences here and there where you might use almost every single word, and that's fine. But generally, you know, it's just like the work we do, right? It's like you have to be able to tell your story because if you can't tell it on paper, okay, maybe you'll get through the system, fine. But then you're gonna get to the interview. Like a human is assessing you. And so if you as a human can't express yourself, can't tell that story, then what good is the written word that's not humanized, right? Like you have to know how to tell it on paper and verbally. I think it's so important, and people are forgetting that, and I think it's gonna be a bit of a problem with the reliance on AI. I agree with that.

Pedro Stein 27:44

Okay, and on the other side, like what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously?

Marcelle Yeager 27:51

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, I think that it's hard, right? Entrepreneurship is really hard, and I don't think it's for everybody. You know, I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs over the years, and you really have to be okay for things not going well all the time, right? There's there's failures, small and big, it's hard work, these quick fixes, like, you know, oh, you can make X amount of dollars in a month like right away, and those stories, right, of these big successes happen very rarely. So I think it's important to really, if you're thinking about going off on your own or even continuing with your business and questioning whether you should, I mean, yeah, I think you really need to almost do an analysis of of how it's going and like what are your numbers? What is your energy like? What are your goals? Do you still love this? Do you can you do this for years and years to come working hard and really evaluate if it's either to start if it's the right direction for you, or if you're already going and having doubts? Like, is it something you want to keep up with?

Pedro Stein 29:18

I love that. Okay. And if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Marcel, where can people find you and connect with you?

Marcelle Yeager 29:27

The best two places are LinkedIn. If you find me under Marcel Jaeger or Career Valet, or our website, which is www.careervalet.com.

Pedro Stein 29:40

Okay. You know, there were a few things you shared today that really stayed with me. I'll put it like that, you know, building that confidence in the early days through repetition, you know, I think that's so crucial. You know, one of my first clients, because I'm a coach as well, is like he opened my eyes. I was like, I create this entire plan, right? On how I'm gonna solve X, Y, and Z. And he starts immediately on the first call telling me he lacked confidence, he was worthless, and all of that. I was like, oh my God. And I wasn't expecting it. So that's the repetition, right? I was like going with a with a point of view like of a consultant. Oh, we're gonna take a look at your resume, we're gonna do it. He's like, Yeah, I'm I'm not really sure. I I should even attend a call because I'm I'm not good enough, you know, that type of mentality. So I think that's when the coaching piece uh starts. And and I think the repetition, you know, the the raps they're so important. And I would emphasize the fact that you were like fearless to the point that you're contacting uh your own network. And I know sometimes people feel judged about doing that. Oh, I you know, oh, I'm gonna talk to X-Men. See what they're gonna think about me. You know, I had this big corporate background, and they're like, but they're you know, all that all that bullshit, that noise that goes back to you, like sometimes imposter syndrome, you know, those those type of things. So you cut through that like butter, which I commend you on doing that, you know. So really cool. I would say, um, when I asked you about capacity, that you told me that was happening. So that was such a vulnerable moment, right? From you, it's like, yeah, I've been through a lot of stuff, and sometimes I'm still solving it because that's the the true journey, right? You you're not just from a point of view of like I'm in a lecturer standpoint, and I'm gonna tell people what they should do. No, I'm actually in the middle of it, I'm still solving stuff. So I really like that. Okay, I think that's that's key for a true coach, it's like having that growth mindset, you know. I really liked uh the way you framed about pricing, you know, the value-based, and when you had mentors and people tell you, you know what, Marcel, maybe take a look at what you invested, right? It doesn't have necessarily to be like in a cost mentality, but into an outcome mentality. But yes, there are you invested years and years of study, research, career development. So I I would say this is just my long way of saying, right, that I appreciate what you do and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. Okay, it was great having you on.

Marcelle Yeager 32:16

Thank you. It was great talking to you as well.

Davis Nguyen 32:19

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.