Leadership, Purpose, and the Path to Meaningful Success with Line Tousignant

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Line Tousignant, executive coach, leadership development expert, facilitator, and organizational consultant who helps leaders and teams achieve higher levels of performance through self-awareness, strategic thinking, and purposeful leadership. With extensive experience supporting professionals, executives, and organizations through growth, transformation, and change, Line shares valuable insights on leadership effectiveness, communication, resilience, team development, and creating cultures that foster engagement and long-term success. We explore the importance of aligning personal values with professional goals, developing leadership capabilities in a rapidly evolving world, and building the confidence needed to navigate complex challenges while creating meaningful impact. Whether you're a business owner, executive, manager, coach, or aspiring leader, this conversation offers practical strategies and inspiring lessons for personal and professional growth.

You can find her on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/linetousignant/
https://ltstrategy.co/

Transcript

Line Tousignant 0:00

It's not about it's not about an industry. It is about the people you are working with. And you know, I've been doing, I've been working with large corporations, I've been working with small businesses, and I've been working in B2B and B2C. And at the end of the day, when I started saying, okay, I will be, I will filter and I will choose more the customers I'm working with, was really people that would come and have an open mind to question things, to change, to change things that were open to take some risk.

Davis Nguyen 0:44

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're gonna learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is gonna give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:28

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Lynn Tousignon, founder, author, and lecturer whose 25 plus years in business strategy and customer experience spans startups, SMBs, and Fortune 500 brands, including L'Oreal, Samsung, and Mac Cosmatics. Lynn builds her own agents using Cloud AI and recently developed a LinkedIn strategy audit through vibe coding, making her one of the rare strategists who practices exactly what she preaches. Lynn's growth method methodology is built around diagnosing the main blocker first and then building one connected growth engine, a system that delivered 358% reach increase and 25% follower growth in just 10 weeks for the LinkedIn clients. Her offers span LinkedIn growth systems, SMB growth, consulting, and AI implementation for non-coder teams, all designed to help businesses stop leaving growth on the table while competitors move faster. Welcome to the show, Lynn.

Line Tousignant 2:46

Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here.

Pedro Stein 2:49

It's great to have you. And by the way, you you're the you're the one to blame about the intro, okay?

Line Tousignant 2:53

That was all you thought you would cut it, but that's okay.

Pedro Stein 2:59

Okay, okay. Now, Lynn, um, I'd love to go back to the origin story, you know. Um, you could be doing so many things with your life, right? Could be a plumber, you could be a chef, but you chose coaching. So can you walk me through uh why coaching?

Line Tousignant 3:16

Um, well, the first I will split it into uh two parts. The first part is I always wanted to be a businesswoman, even when I didn't know what it implied. I just wanted to do what my dad was doing, and he was a businessman. And and then, you know, during my career and working for different companies, one thing that kept coming back all of the time was that people would come to me and make comments of you know how I was helping them and I was coaching them somehow. And I really enjoyed the process of you know helping people around me and seeing them you know evolve and grow. And then it became natural to consider that I should be in the world of coaching.

Pedro Stein 4:14

Okay. Now, when did it shift from I'm helping people, people are reaching out or helping them, or advice giving to, you know, I'm building a real business around this, you know, a coaching practice. You know, was it the first paying client? Was it the first invoice? You know, the moment you realize this is really a coaching business.

Line Tousignant 4:42

It's um it's interesting. I didn't have that question uh before, but it makes me go back in time. And it is a friend of mine who actually told me he was in the finance business, you know, independent uh financial advisors. And he said, could you organize sessions to tell them about marketing and business? Because they understand finance, they understand nothing about marketing. And it was my first step where I organized sessions and I was working with financial advisors, made them understand the importance of brand positioning, the importance of promoting themselves, and it started from there. And then, you know, people came to me after and said, Well, could you coach me? Could you help me? And then there was.

Pedro Stein 5:41

You start charging people, that's what happened.

Line Tousignant 5:44

Yeah. I said, Well, I guess then this has value, so exactly, right now.

Pedro Stein 5:51

After you got rolling, right? Who are the people that kept showing up, knocking on your door? You know, the ones who realize, okay, this is my tribe. Because in the early days for coaching, especially, well, I had I went through that. We're trying to help everyone, right? Sometimes it's like anyone that wants coaching, I'm there for them. I'm just trying to make this work. But eventually, I'm not sure if that happened to you, but we niche down or not, right? But who are the people you kind of were like, yeah, I can serve this type of people, you know? Who were they?

Line Tousignant 6:26

You know, you use the word type of people, and I think it's very important here because that's the distinction that I came to, you know, along the way, where it's not about it's not about an industry. It is about the people you are working with. And, you know, I've been doing, I've been working with large corporations, I've been working with small businesses, and I've been working in B2B and B2C. And at the end of the day, when I started saying, okay, I will be, I will filter and I will choose more the customers I'm working with, was really people that would come and have an open mind to question things, to change, to change things that were open to take some risk. Because, you know, we have, you know, if you if you reverse this and you put yourself in the shoes of the customers who come to a consultant, most of them are they want you to help them, but at the same time, they are a little bit concerned, they are a bit afraid to take some risk, they are a bit skeptical, because consultants for many people are oh, they just, you know, they come, they talk, and they talk, and then they go and they charge us, and it doesn't change anything. So there are all of those perceptions. So I became more careful about the the first part, the discovery part to make sure that it would be a good fit.

Pedro Stein 8:10

So a client from hell, that's what you were trying to avoid, right? Everyone already found one of those. It's like, and you have that gut feeling that something is off, but sometimes you're like bills are knocking on the door, or you want to hit certain metrics, and we're like, okay, I can help them. And then eventually down the road, we got burned, right? Because they're like, oh my god, micromanaging the service or whatever. So yeah, I feel it, okay, where you're coming from. Now, I want to do a quick exercise with you, if you don't mind.

Line Tousignant 8:41

Okay.

Pedro Stein 8:42

Okay. So let's pretend I'm one of those people, right? I am open-minded, I'm a risk taker, I'm a business owner, okay. And potentially I'm your ICP, I'm your ideal client profile, as they say, in a fancy way. Um, and I'm wondering, first of all, how would I be able to find you, you know, marketing-wise?

Line Tousignant 9:03

Uh, well, you know, here in New York, it's newer, if I would say. So most of my customers honestly come from referrals, but I built my system, my content uh engine system for a reason. It is just to be more visible on social media. I really believe in in organic, I really believe in networking, and this is usually how people find me.

Pedro Stein 9:28

Okay. So let's pretend I was referred to you. Oh, I or I looked at your content online, as you you you mentioned. Let's say it's LinkedIn, whatever. That resonated with me. I'm like, you know what? Lynn can help me, right? And I'm like reaching out. So I want to speed up the sales process just a little bit, okay? Let's say I'm a cool guy, okay? Uh there's alignment. You can I feel like you can help me, you feel like you can help me too. We go through the discovery process. And I understand you may have different offers, okay? So we can run with the main one. So, can you walk me through how does it look like to work with your business, then, and the potential outcomes I can expect out of it?

Line Tousignant 10:13

So, well, what you can expect it is that it will be practical and really, you know, based on reality. I I am a doer, I like to things to be concrete. So when I work with my customer, the first step is always to make sure that what they are coming, you know, the reason why they are coming to me is really what they need. Because quite often it's not. So sometimes they come for A, but you realize that they need B. And so that's the first step. But then the second step is that I really work with understanding their business and as you said in my introduction, to identify what are the blockers to where they want to go. Because if we don't remove the blockers, I can build the best, the most beautiful plan. It will just not happen. And I always want to make sure that it is, it can be implemented. That's my top priority. Does that answer your question?

Pedro Stein 11:15

It's interesting. Yes, it sounds like first we have to peel it off the onion, like get to the root cause that's block the blocker, right? So we can move forward. Something like that.

Line Tousignant 11:28

Yeah, so let maybe I can give you a concrete example. So I someone someone came to me and they said, we want to have uh a plan to be able to be more visible on social media with our target audience. That's the reason why they they came to me. So they didn't really know who, you know, they didn't know their ICP, so we did some interviews. But when I was working with them, I learned that they were working at changing their business model. So and so and then I said, This is this is a problem. Whatever I will do, if you change your business model, you're changing your ICQ. So we have to do one step back and understand where you are, where you want to go, and then after that, we can have something that will put you out in the world with the right offer and the right approach.

Pedro Stein 12:35

So that's who do we serve, right? Then we see about the offer.

Line Tousignant 12:40

Yeah, because it's you can you can have an offer, anything that you offer is great, but if you don't know who needs it, you you just you will hit a wall. So the ICP, really understanding the clientele that you want to work with, your customers, what are their needs, what are their pain points? You know, what do they what are they looking for when they go and they search online? You know, all of those kind of questions where you can really understand not only how you can serve them, but how you can serve them in your own way to really push your differentiator and your strength, you know, how you can make a difference for them.

Pedro Stein 13:31

You know, I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs and they're like thinking about the tools and how to solve problem X, Y, and Z, but they skip the part of talking with someone, right? The the ICP itself. It's like, dude, first talk with them, see if there's a real problem, connect with your the people you want to serve first instead of building something based on an assumption. You know what I mean?

Line Tousignant 13:56

Totally. I wrote I wrote a guide about that. So then just to tell you, because even when you work with large corporations, another example I can give you a customer came to me and you know it said, we we we have it cost us a fortune in customer service. We think that our we need to redo our website, our website is not clear. And then I started asking questions about their customers to realize that they didn't know their customers that well, you know, they it was kind of generic. And I said the first step is that we will do customer interviews, and we did 65. Remember the number, 65 customer interviews, one hour each, and then what came out was that what the my customer thought was the flag product was a product that their customer didn't understand at all. So they it's and they had they thought that the offer was very clear, but this was the problem. The offer was not clear, people didn't understand, so they were not buying it, they were just buying some other things around it, but not their flag product. So customer interviews led us to understand that.

Pedro Stein 15:35

You know, uh as a say I I was in high-ticket sales for a a business coach, right? For a while, and uh it was blue-collar people, right? And they didn't get coaching, most of them, right? So it's almost like an awakening process, I'll put it like that. But how much you can learn during the discovery process or the sales process to uh to not just having that point of view of I'm gonna close or sell people or even serve, but in a point of view of I'm gonna interview my ICP and I'm gonna know more about them. If you come from that type of direction, you are you're already establishing report just by them showing up, you know, even if you don't close them or whatever and don't turn into a client. But how powerful is that, right? And you guys eventually create what 65 interviews? That could be 65 sales calls that as far as I know, you know, and and you you could just talking to people, you get to know them, get to know your ICP. I mean, that is such a powerful reminder. I think most people don't do it, they like trying to solve a problem that they imagine exists, and because they're sometimes they're not the ICP, sometimes they are, but sometimes they're not serving past self. And then they find that exact problem. They're like, oh, it's so clear. But at the end of the day, it's really not, right? You know, like this is so wild, like to think about that awesome research of man.

Line Tousignant 16:59

And and I would even add something, you know, with my practice, one of the things that I also learned is that my customers not only they didn't know their customers, but they didn't know themselves. And especially when you know the team are bigger. So over you know, over you know, after many different customers with the same issue coming back, where it was oh well the CTO thinks this, but the CMO thinks this, and that they they were just not aligned. I made at one point I said I made a decision, and I said every time that I work with a customer, if there are many decision makers, the first thing I do is a kickoff meeting with all of them in the room at the same time. And it's usually a two, three hour meeting where we go through everything and where I can clearly see who disagree with who, where they are not aligned, which is the source of the problem. You know, when I say the blockers, that's what I'm talking about. It's just and then I could say, okay, I need this is how I need to work with these people because I need to bring them in the same place that they can move forward.

Pedro Stein 18:31

That is so interesting. I can only imagine the drama, right?

Line Tousignant 18:35

Um it's sometimes challenging a little.

Pedro Stein 18:38

Do you have a good example for me? Like one that pops up to mind you're like, I was running this meeting, I was expecting A, and we got to Z, and people start pointing fingers. You know what I mean?

Line Tousignant 18:50

Yes, I have one. I have one that I remember where we had there was one of the executors that the only thing that he was doing was complaining. He was just complaining and blaming everybody uh around, and and I was in, I was thinking, I was like, okay, how do I how do I pass this? How do I, you know, just so and then what I did is that I said, okay, well, we'll do an exercise. And I did some kind of brainstorming exercise, but I really put the spot on him where he had to present his point of view, and instead of his colleague questioning it, I was questioning it. I was bringing him to without no confrontation, but just asking questions. And gradually he started to shift. It took it was not done within one meeting, you know, it took different steps. But eventually we were able to get to a point where he was on board because he was he was a blogger.

Pedro Stein 20:08

Interesting. Okay. I love that you unpacked that with questions. Like at the end of the day, that's what a coach do, right? Now let me ask you about this. So I'm curious about what's next, you know, about future. So where are you taking all this? Where are you looking ahead? Where do you see the business going? You know, are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Line Tousignant 20:32

Uh yes, yes. I, you know, what I'm doing right now, I'm focusing a lot on product eyes. You know, it's going from practice to business, IP backed business, where I can take what I know and say how I can I package this to serve my customer even after I am out of the room. How can this continue? And this is one of the reasons why I built what I call the content component. It's it's just to have a content system, and I built it for myself first because we have to create content, we have to be visible on social media. It is a pain for everybody, it was a pain for me. And and I tried many different things, and then I decided that I would use AI and that I would build a system that does it from the beginning to the end for me, that I just need I'm just watching and approving at different steps, but I'm not doing the work. I'm not a I'm not a content creator, I'm a consultant. So, and then now I'm I started offering this. It's the same thing with, you know, um with a partner who helped me who is technical because I'm not. Um, I also created an application. Application that is to be able to track metrics of your efforts on LinkedIn and to build an ambassador, employee ambassador program for small businesses because it is more efficient than their business page on LinkedIn. And this is connected to LinkedIn API. So I'm creating products that can help the customers to keep growing their business without having to add more people or to spend a lot of time themselves, you know, creating this content or being on the social media. So that's where I'm heading. My goal would be to have a team that each person on my team has a team of AI to support them.

Pedro Stein 22:55

Okay. Now you mentioned content system. You're not a content creator yourself, right? You mentioned that. So let me ask you this. I'm still um trying to pretend I'm the the ICP here. Okay, I'm still your potential client. Let's put it like that. Um what do you would you say to me is like the main the key difference from that you can actually help me with, you know, that others couldn't, for example? Is it your background on consulting? Do you understand more the business side? I'm trying to wrap my head around what's your key differentiator, you know what I mean?

Line Tousignant 23:35

In in terms of the tool itself or generally speaking? The tool. Okay. Well, my pain is the pain of my customers when it comes to content creation. It's just which is it is time consuming, very, very time consuming. And if you want this to work to really give you results, you really need consistency. But I don't have time for this. I need I need to take care of my customers. I need to, you know, so I cannot always spend 10, 15 hours every week creating content. That just doesn't work. And I save this time now. And I have a system that the first thing that I gave to my system is my ICP, my goals, my business context. So my AI has all this information, and then every week we'll do the research to find me some topics, things that I can talk about, and then give me here. This is the angle that you could take to talk about this. This is trending, this is aligned with what you know, this is relevant for your audience, and then we'll create the content, we'll create the visual, we'll create the image, we'll publish it. And I just, you know, I said, I just said, I just need to go and to approve and say, no, change this. So it's still my voice, it is still me, but I don't spend, I no longer spend 15 hours trying to do it or hiring, hiring someone that I'm trying to coach to understand my business, that they can create some content that I I feel comfortable with.

Pedro Stein 25:19

So at the end of the day, you feel like it would still keep my voice if I hired you, for example, you're the tool, right? And I uh insert the data, because that's the thing, right? I think most people are thinking right now, it's like there's a lot of AI slot out there, and sometimes it shows, right? It's easy to detect. Um so what it would would it be different from that? That's my my question.

Line Tousignant 25:42

Yeah, because the system, it's it's a one-time system. So you you take the system, you implement it into your business. It's not it's not an app that you go to, it lives inside your system. And all the parts that is that are unique to you become replace the parts that are unique to me. So it becomes really your voice. And in the system, you know, my in my system, my writer, because I have my thinker, my writer, my producer, and my analyst. So my writer, the first thing that it has to do every time that it writes something is to look at who is the ICP, what are the pinpoints, what I'm looking for. And here are examples of content written by Lynn. And that's what I need to do. I need this is the tone of voice. And I'm still doing a check to say, okay, I read, I read it, it nothing goes out before me looking at it and saying, oh, I will change this and this. But this is nothing comparing to the work of doing everything. And then I can have something that is, you know, I will add an emoji, I will add a little comment, things that, or a little anecdote, things that are really related to me, to my experience, that AI would not do, and especially not an application that is from, you know, some uh something that a subscription application.

Pedro Stein 27:20

Interesting. So you don't take for face value, right? It's not just like auto-posting, you you you need to approve, you need to take a look at it. It's not just like, hey, I built this and I don't even know what's out there, right? It's not like that.

Line Tousignant 27:34

No, I I could I could not I could not do this. I mean, maybe some people would say, oh, just automate everything and I I know. I think especially as consultant, I think that our voice is so important.

Pedro Stein 27:48

Yeah, I'm on the same boat. You know, I'm not sure.

Line Tousignant 27:51

Yeah, I think that I think that I really want to make sure that nothing goes out without me, you know, having a look at it. And it's the same thing for the visual part. You know, if I like to have images, AI create my images, but I like to have images that are photorealistic. So if my AI drift and gives me something that looks like an illustration, then I say, no, we do that.

Pedro Stein 28:21

Right. Okay, makes sense. You you you wouldn't still have your voice, and you're very careful about that. I like that. Okay. Yeah. Now, of course, whenever we're talking about future, next chapter, always something we're refining, we're sharpening the blade, right? So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Line Tousignant 28:43

Uh well, I right now it's really to make you know those products visible and getting leads. Because the other thing that I realize is that, you know, I I have a few people, you know, that came to me and they say, okay, I want, I want this. But the other thing that it's better than a lead backnet. Meaning that it just brings people to say, Oh, I want your system, but by the way, can you help me with this? Or can you help me? So it also helped me to get really, you know, uh contract or work as a consultant, helping them with their business, not only them using the system. So this is why it's it's just a reverse, instead of meeting, you know, it's just reversing because it's easier for people to say it's a system. So if they understand the system, they like the system, it's easy to say, okay, I I will get the system. But then it opens a conversation that leads to something else. And that's what I want to push on.

Pedro Stein 29:52

Interesting. It's like it's a it sounds like it's working to an extent, like a top-of-funnel strategy for the system, and you have an upsell for the consultant side or slash coaching side. So they already got to know you. Hey, I want to meet the the person who actually built this, right? It's just it's like a it's like so natural to think about that if you if you really, really think about it, right? It's all the next step to to know more about you, right? Did you did you create that by design or was something that happened naturally?

Line Tousignant 30:24

It happened naturally. You know, as I said, I built it for myself first, and then I started talking about it. People were like, oh my god, this is so good. You should you should sell that. And then I was like, yeah, that makes sense. And because I want to make sure that, you know, it's not a system that you're gonna go on my website and you will say I buy the system, and we don't talk. It's no, we will do a Discord recall. I want to make sure that this is the right fit for you. I will explain all the details, and I will support the implementation until I'm sure that everything is working well. And this is where then the conversation goes somewhere else, and people say, Oh, well, can you help me with this? Can you help me with you know different steps that they have or challenges they are facing in their business?

Pedro Stein 31:16

Interesting. Yeah, I can see the synergy, obviously. Now, let's pretend here, okay? Let's pretend you're we're in front of a time machine. You've been five years in the game in your own business, but I know you've been more time like 10 years in the coaching space at least, right? But let's say you have the ability to travel five years back, okay, and you can have give one piece of advice for yourself when you were starting the business, okay? What would that be?

Line Tousignant 31:47

Don't try to sell anything. Just try to help, try to understand. Because you know, when I started, especially here when I you know in uh in New York, I was okay, I'm going back to my own business, and then I was trying to pitch, and people don't care, they just don't care, and I and I think that it's um it's something that I want to learn is to say, okay, how can I really help people? I had a call this morning, and we had you know 30-40 minutes conversation, and I did my best to help that person. It was about LinkedIn presence, and I gave you know the few tips, and I said, start with that, and if you think I can help you with more, then we can you know we can talk about doing business together, which is because it goes back to what I said earlier. I want to make sure that customer I work with are a good fit because they will benefit more from the experience, and so will I.

Pedro Stein 33:07

I love that. Okay. Now, Lynn, if someone listening wants to connect with your follow your work, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, okay? But what's the best way to find you and connect with you? I I imagine it's LinkedIn, but please go ahead.

Line Tousignant 33:21

Yeah, well, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, of course, there is uh on my page, there is a link to book a meeting with me. So, and and my my website. So you you said that the links will be there, so you can also reach me to my website and also book my calendar. And I'm happy to, you know, I'm happy to meet people. You know, we talk, and if it leads to something, good. If not, well, that's okay. It's part of the business.

Pedro Stein 33:50

It's all good. You know, I I feel kind of obligated to go back to certain certain parts of this chat today, okay, and highlight them. First of all, when you mention your origin story and you're like talking about your dad, right? You wanted to do to do what he did, you know. You want to be a uh he was a business uh man, you want to be a businesswoman, and that really hits home for me, you know, because my dad was in banking, he was a VP of a bank, I started in banking. So I get that uh dad is doing something cool, that is cool, I want to be dad, you know. Something like that to an extent, right? Eventually, we we kind of evolved from that line of thinking. But uh there's nothing wrong with trying to replicate someone you admire. I'll put it like that. Simple as that, okay? Now that's one thing. The other one is like when you mentioned that they want to go from point A to B, right? Actually, it's you mentioned they want to, they, they want A, but they need B. That's what you saw you told me. Um, we were talking about the discovery, the sales process, and you were on boarding me, right? So it reminds me of a quote, right? Um sell them what they want, give them what they need, right? Sometimes they don't even know that exactly what they need, so you need to unpack what's behind it so it can actually serve them. Which brings to my last but not least point. Don't try to sell, try to help, be of service, right? Well, I like I said, I was in sales. I think that really changed for me when I started thinking less about my agenda of oh, I'm gonna close people, I'm gonna sell people, I'm gonna do blah blah blah. When I started thinking, like, dude, just forget about it, just chill, just listen to them, you know. Uh be present, actively listen. And if there's a way for you to help, help. If it's not, you can either way help, even if it's through referral, a partner, or whatever that sending a resource, whatever that looks like, you know. So, Lynn, this is my just my long-winded way of saying that I really appreciate what you do, you know, and showing up today. So thanks for that. It was great having you on.

Line Tousignant 36:05

Well, that was great to be here. Thank you very much.

Davis Nguyen 36:09

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business to six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you end your business.