Welcome to the visual marketing podcast brought to you by C i Marketing, where we explore how to show up consistently, be more visible, and connect with the right people through your marketing. I'm your host, Liz. Welcome to today's episode of the Visual Marketing Podcast. Today's guest has actually been a bigger influence on my business and honestly on me more than anyone else this year. I would like to welcome Michael King. Michael is an executive coach. He is also a keynote speaker, and he is the founder of Teams.coach. Michael is based on the other side of the world to me. He is over in Omaha in Nebraska. He has two master's degrees and he's worked with organizations including the likes of Disney, Pfizer, social media examiner, which is one you'll hear me talk about quite a bit, as well as other Fortune 500 companies. Michael was actually named one of the best executive coaches in both 2025 and 2026. And he hosts his own podcast called The Level Up Leader. So definitely check that one out. And I am lucky enough to call Michael my business coach too. So today you are going to hear both sides of that relationship, what great coaching actually looks like, and why it matters more than anything, especially in an economy like the one that we're operating in here in New Zealand at the moment. And also you'll hear about how Michael has shaped my year. and the launch of something that I'm really proud of. Welcome to the show, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. And ~ man, this is awesome. That what a privilege it is to be able to join you on on your stage. So this is I don't take this lightly. Thank you so much for having me.~ honestly the ~ the the honour is all mine. I really appreciate it. It's just so cool to have you on here, so thank you. what I would love to do actually is get started with your journey prior to becoming a coach. Where what were you doing before coaching? Well, I was you know, I think going all the way back to my childhood, I always felt a little bit like the square peg round hole type of type of analogy. Do they have that saying over in New Zealand? Square peg round hole? Okay. Great. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a thing. Yeah.~ but I always felt a little bit like'cause I'm left and right brained and I you know, I grew up the son of of a of a musician. And so music has always been a part of my life growing up. Music is something to where that was the thing that didn't come naturally to me. That was just the that was just the environment that I was in, right? ~ but the things that came naturally to me is like I was able to reverse engineer and problem solve things from a very young age. And I can I have so many different stories of different of different things to where I was put into different situations in which people had said to me, it's like, That I had problem solved at an early age at a at a at a pretty high level. And and I think The music thing is what I had to work at.~ and my motivation was that I wanted to be a great musician because my dad, it was important to him. And the better that I became at music, the more opportunities that I got to hang out with my father. So, ~ thankfully, the way things had shaped out, I've had a pretty ~ a pretty generous career as a professional musician.~ that led me into a career of of of ministry. Like I was hired on with I you know I my undergrad ~ was in church music and humanities. And ~ I went headfirst into the into the recording industry, being being involved in ~ the Christian music industry and also like doing music and eventually becoming an executive pastor in one of America's fastest growing churches. This is where every church that that ~ I had been a part of, like yes, I was the a talented singer, songwriter, music leader for the church, but there was always a big gap when it came to systems, strategies, and structures and even coaching internally on the teams that I So I I had I had always become kind of like the number two In the churches that I was a part of and and had built up a reputation for being somebody that ~ that churches would want to work with to help build teams and to build their churches, right? Mm-hmm. So ~ I think that this was going back to around 2012, 2013, I started to feel like something was off. in the environment that I was in. Like I felt I felt off internally as far as feeling like I was I was created for more. I was already being invited to stages to speak at leadership conferences, both in the business world and in the church world. I went back to school because honestly I felt like that maybe I was the problem. And so I went back and I I yeah finished out two master's degrees, one in organizational leadership and then one in executive coaching.~ but again it was more for therapeutic reasons 'cause I didn't even necessarily know that executive coaching was a thing. I just knew that I needed to grow I I didn't necessarily know like that there was actually a professional like like title, you know, whatever class of of work that's actually called an executive coach or somebody that's earned a degree in executive coaching type of thing. Mm-hmm. And and now nowadays It's gone absolutely crazy. There's four point two million people on the planet that call themselves a coach, quote unquote. for some reason or another because they might have had success, but the number of people that are actually certified it's under a hundred thousand people like co you know, technically, ~ that actually have a legitimate certification. Now we'll talk about that later because just because somebody has a a certification in coaching, it doesn't mean they're they're a good coach.~ so it doesn't mean that they know how to run their own business either. So like I'm I just got back from speaking at a conference teaching other coaches on how to build their business and I'm pretty passionate about helping good coaches build their thing. But ~ but that's a different story. But but like in the transition coming out of ministry and things like that, my thing was just literally~ I felt like the the thing that I was doing within within the church and having just an incredible success at, I felt like I wanted to contribute to something that had a bigger dent on the planet. Like that just like I it wasn't good enough for me that I was just helping churches grow because I still saw people that were good people struggling with how to run their businesses, how to pay their bills, how to scale, how to grow and how to lead their teams. And I just thought like there was something like within my heart that was that was calling me to it. And and so in twenty twenty fifteen I started the transition of of stepping out of full-time ministry. And ~ And yeah, launched launched my first of my first, you know, executive coaching company called Teams.coach, which is still one of our main primary companies that we own today. And ~ and so for for over a decade now, we've been seeing lives and businesses being transformed.~ and I've gotten the opportunity to share the stage and to to share business with some of the biggest brands in the world. That's a pretty cool story. ~ you mentioned some big brands.~ I mean you you started, I'm assuming, on your own and then you've built a team over time. you don't just work with big brands though, right? You work with people of all different sizes. Yeah, it's necessary. ~ absolutely. And and I think on the on the on the bigger brand s you know, side of things and whatnot, ~ you know, that was like the original concept, like from the from the get-go, was, you know, hey, what can I do to be able to cause I want 'cause I've I'm known as being the architect of some of the world's highest performing teams. And I love that. But along the way, like I started to realize that, you know, when it when you break it down of who actually makes up the leadership of the teams, it always comes down to a singularity. It always comes down to one person. And in this Mm-hmm. case, it could be you, it could be the people that are listening to this podcast, et cetera. But when it comes to Like how do we elevate our own lives? How do we elevate the spaces that we're in? How do we run a business? How do we get creative? How do we survive in this ecosystem? And and the more that technology moves us further and faster, especially with AI coming into the play over the last few years, like I'm I'm you have to adapt or die. And I'm thankful that on the teams.coach side of things, a lot of our business comes from referral. Over sixty percent of our business comes from referral because once we have success in that in that in that industry, people want to work with you. You know, they Yeah. they reach out and they because they will not spend money on things that aren't going to give a res result. And so I'm super thankful that we have a really, really big referral base when it comes to what we do with teams.coach and we have great network of coaches that we've raised up and that are certified with our methodology. And and our and our technology stack is second to none. Like I'm super proud of the product that we've developed over at Teams.coach and the journey that we're able to take senior leaders and their executive teams through with transformation and actually breaking world records. It's been phenomenal. But we have recognized that in an adapter-die market. we're opening up new businesses and we're launching entrepreneurship faster than we've ever launched it before. And a lot of that has to do with the availability of technology. Yeah. And so I want to be a part of that, you know, like I have a vision that even with some of our with some of our development groups, ~ combinator groups and things like that, like I want I want to be a part of like launching the next DoorDash or something like that. You know what I mean? I want to be the guy that's actually helping a small business dream bigger than they've ever dreamt before and for them to be able to take things to the next level too. I reckon you could start a new coffee chain actually. I think I'm pretty good with what we got. Really? I d I definitely for those of you listening, Michael has just picked up a an iced Starbucks. I won't say coffee because I'm I'm not convinced there's any coffee in Starbucks. but that is a whole different episode. Maybe a different podcast. We have an ongoing joke between us on that.~ ~ yeah, now I'm totally lost my track.~ you mentioned about entrepreneurship and in people starting businesses. Fun fact, I learned that in the twelve months to July twenty twenty six in New Zealand, more than sixty two thousand new businesses have been registered. We're in a country of five million people. That's a that's a pretty big percentage. And in September alone, more than five thousand businesses were registered in just one month. And I think that's actually come from a need because Yeah, I I think people have actually ~ we're in an economy that's been really tricky for the last three years here in New Zealand in particular. and I think people are ~ moving on from wanting to work for someone else. Maybe they've they've actually been made redundant, they've lost their job. ~ we're at a fifteen year high for liquidations of businesses. So there's an awful lot of people who maybe have been working for someone else and and just think, you know, enough's enough, it's time to go out on my own and I can actually Give this a go myself. ~ but that's a pretty daunting situation. I think that this is I think it's such a good thing. The thing that you're experiencing, so 62,000 businesses registered in the last twelve years. Yeah, twelve months, right? No, twelve months. Yeah. The and I think the I think the human spirit is resilient. And I think it's beautiful. And I think it's good. And even though like like the the the economy in the United States isn't that great right now, like the economy in New Zealand definitely not great right now, but there's something there's something within us that says, Hey listen, if we can dream we can make something happen. And And I think that that's where right now we're at this precipice between hope and reality. Is that, you know, like our job is to be able to show up and to help keep hope in the ecosystem and to make people see that that there's opportunities for for people to make dreams come true and and what does that look like? So I think it's awesome that so many small businesses are are launching and that they're dreaming, they're registering and they're they're coming the scene. The question is, is what are you actually going to do to take a concept From zero to one. Because registering a business is just part of the equation. But to actually ideate Mm-hmm. and then put something into execution, that's a totally different ballgame, and then you've got those who are are maybe a little bit more established, though maybe a small business like the size of the businesses that I run.~ and I mean I've been operating for fifteen years and and we get to a point where you think you're doing everything right, and then you sort of go, Actually, is that translating to my bank account? is you know, we've been doing the same things we've been doing the whole time and that's been ticking along and then you kinda go,~ maybe there's a few people that are paying late actually at the moment, or maybe maybe we do need to move with technology a little bit more and~ and that's when ~ people need to come to people like you, I guess, and and get a bit of a a helping hand. But that's actually Yeah. quite a scary concept I think for a lot of people too because they're like, no, no, I'll be fine. I'll just I'll just keep doing everything I've always done.~ Is that something Yeah. you come across quite a lot with business owners that they sort of just are a bit against change, maybe? people never change until the pain of staying the same is actually greater than the pain of change. Right? And nobody wants to actually admit that something's not not not right. Nobody wants to admit that. And Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I I think it's kind of an interesting thing too, by the way, is that I think the reason why I love what I get to do is that I think a lot of times~ when I get invited into a a room, the things that people tell me are problems on day one are definitely not the problems that we discovered by day ninety. That's so interesting. And so I have to keep an open mind and kind of make sure that my peripheral vision is up and moving and that I'm taking in a lot of data from a lot of different places. ~ because I know that I know that people, when they first originally reach out to me, I I know that they're they're looking for something. And a lot of times the things that people want are real surface level types of things, you know, but like everybody wants revenue. Of course. Right, because revenue causes or it it it solves a lot of problems, but it doesn't solve every problem. But it does mask a lot of problems. Like I have some companies that I work with that are billion dollar industries and they are some of the most dysfunctional organizations on planet but the pain isn't there for them to actually cause them to change yet because revenue's there, right? But they don't realize that the 10x or the 20x play is that when they actually get the foundations in place of healthy culture, healthy systems, health, healthy strategies, healthy healthy structures, anything is possible. And and it's it's amazing how like a lot of people,~ they they they will avoid actually like looking at the problems that they currently have as long as they can just kinda sustain status quo. It's pretty amazing the you know, how people kind of avoid that. I wonder why. What are they scared of?~ think it's more of the reality of the diagnosis, you know. Mm. And and I so I think people are afraid of that, you know, like you know, like one of my clients found out that ~ I found out that his wife ~ had breast cancer and sh and she but she'd avoided going into a doctor's office for a long time even though like she had felt the lump and had been there for a long time, you know. Mm-hmm. And so she finally you know finally went in when finally the pain was was enough to where she re she she recognized something's really wrong here. I gotta get this looked at. And unfortunately business owners do the exact same thing with their companies. You know, they they they can kind of sense something is off. They know that things could be better. like one of the architecture firms that I that I'm currently working with. Like they are scaling ~ faster than they can keep up. But we actually had to put a pause on several of their different scale because they didn't actually have the foundational pieces in place for them to sustain success. They recognized that they've been going so but if they didn't actually fix what they were working with, they were going to spin out of control and probably end up losing everything. And ~ so sometimes you have to be able to like. become non-emotional and you have to be able to become strategic about it. Because when I ask leaders this on a on a week to week basis, and then even like for you in your business, what's the scorecard look like? You know, how are you measuring success? What are the things that are the main strategic goals or the big hairy audacious goals that on a week to week basis that we can come and say, okay, how can we verify that what you've actually been putting your energy on every single week is actually working? Because there's nothing that burns leaders out more than feeling like you're showing up every single day, you're doing what you know how to do, and you're running the plays that you know how to run, but you're burned out because the strategies aren't working. And that's why people Yeah. don't talk about this, is because it sucks being wrong. Yep, certainly does. And we've all been there. Right. And it sucks when you I've been there. I mean I've paid the I've paid the dummy tax. And that's why I'm good at what I do is because I've you know, w I've scaled businesses to multi-millions of dollars and I've lost it all. And it's something where you have to go like You have to figure out the plays, you know, like how do you lose it all and then rebuild it back up again? And then how do you get in the back in the right rooms? How do you coach other people to not make the same mistakes that you make? And there's something incredibly valuable about what I do when I come alongside other companies because I already know the steps that you need to make. Like I know the I know the drill and I know how to make sure that you can protect what you have, but I also know how to make sure that you're making the right strategic plays it comes to everything that makes business work. And those are the types of things where it's like, you know, and that you know and I think that that's the thing is that I I think when the difference between people that are called to this work versus the ones that are just opportunistic a-holes that are like out there trying to build programs specifically to try try to take advantage of people that are within a Mm. cathartic state, is that like I will do whatever I can to make what we do accessible and affordable to somebody as long as I see gold in what they do. And when I mean say gold, I mean this. Number one, is your character on point? Like, are you who you say you are? And are you an honest person? Are you a good person? Number two, are you teachable? You know, nothing burns coaches out more than showing up and delivering everything that you have to the table and then find somebody that's not gonna execute on the things that we talk about, you know. Yeah. and the and then the capacity. Like do you actually have the ability to to to grow and and then competency. Are you great at those things? So I think, you know, that was a lot that was a lot of stuff. But I think at the end of the day, like if you want to win, there are there are certain things that you need to be accountable for on a week to week basis. And if you can't keep score right now today and verify whether or not the things that you're actually putting in the water are actually Are they winning for you? Are they coming back to the surface? Are they loving you back? Well, most people, when I ask them, they tell me the one singular thing as far as how you measure success, the majority of people don't know how to answer that question. Yeah, that's fascinating, isn't it?~ a lot of what you're saying, you're drawing a lot of real similarities to the marketing work that that we do. Like I'm picking up on a lot of similarities, although I guess you're talking more about operational business side of things. One key word you mentioned was strategy. And in the marketing world, strategy always comes first. Well, in my opinion, it should.~ However, in your world, that's not actually first, is it? It's always last. W yeah, so I would love to share with everybody what that order is and how that I mean, having strategy last seems quite bizarre from a marketing perspective. How does that sit in your world? Well, because you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Right? Do they have that saying over in New Zealand? Yes, yes, yes. We do. We're not that far away, right? It's just a it's just an ocean currently. Currently maybe maybe to be renamed. If I just drill down straight through the planet. Yeah. Well,~ no, but I think that this is this is this is good. and ~ but yeah, so you said you know, in marketing, like you think about strategy first. Okay. But again that's where that's where your And I'm not saying that I I'm not saying that in marketing it shouldn't be first, but I think it needs to be a both and in marketing. Now I'm saying that because I am a coach for like like outside of teams.coach, I have quickly over the last two years become ~ kind of the coach for marketers. And so, you know, I'm working with so many different brands and and being invited into rooms that are shaping what the what brands and things feel like globally. Like it's been phenomenal and I've learned so much. But the one thing that I've actually learned as well is that I think it's a both-end conversation. I think for me, like within coaching, because it's a little bit more, I'm more concerned about making sure that that your brand and your marketing is actually a reflection of who you truly really are. Because I think authentic identity is our last competitive advantage. Mm-hmm. And and if you don't know who you are. That is why your marketing strategy doesn't work. I would absolutely agree with that. And so that's where I'm saying from a marketing perspective, I think that there's a great opportunity for you there to say, hey, listen, okay, great. We're gonna go ahead and run some plays that might give us some short game wins. But I think we have to have a long term strategy, a long game strategy in this as well. Because for us, there's these four major components that go along the way. And I think there's even five or six different subgroups that you can expand this to. But our main four groups, it's always identity, vision, structure, then strategy. Okay. Like if I was to reverse. engineer this here's why is because strategy the reason why you don't start la you don't you you put that last is because nothing burns organizations out more than than strategies that don't work you know eats up your resources eats up your energy you know sucks your mojo right For sure. yeah. and okay well structure is always your gateway to effective strategy like the reasons why strategies don't work it always has to do with people always Always. It's either you as a person or somebody on your team, maybe somebody that you've outsourced to, but somewhere along the way, like if strategies are not working, there's a person to blame. Would you agree with me on that? a hundred percent. Yeah, I really would. Definitely. In So we will try to want to ill you know, so it's like, okay, great. So now it's like we've backed up one step. So okay, structure, let's take a look at structure. But what do we have to have in place before we actually start thinking about structure? Structure is who do I need to have on my team? Who do I need to have in my network? What are the rooms that I need to be in? What do I need to actually build this thing? Well, I just asked you that first question. Okay, it it starts with a what? What are we actually building, which means that there's an implication for vision, right? So you Yes. never want to actually build out your structure unless you actually know what the vision is that you're trying to build. Now, as an executive coach, I believe this 100%. Like if your vision isn't actually scaring the crap out of you, then it doesn't count. Like if your vision is, if you feel like you can accomplish your vision alone, then you are playing it safe and that is boring and you just disqualified yourself from working with me anyway. So it's like I want to work with people that are saying, hey, listen, let's create a vision that could actually change people's lives. Let's create a vision that could actually change what we do. Let's do something innovative. Let's do something dangerous. Let's do something bigger than we've ever dreamt before. And then let's build the structure based off of a real vision. Does that make sense? It makes so much sense. You're you're you're you're really like I'm I'm remembering times of of my journey that this is really resonating for, which I'm gonna explain in a second. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So and then we we back it up one step to identity, you know, and then here's the thing is that this is where like everything that you are currently doing as a marketer, a marketing agency, a brand agency, even with what you kind of like are currently doing in photography, by the way, it's one of those things to where once the identity box gets clearly defined, and then we give ourselves permission to dream. Because if we know who we are, then we have a strong foundation to be able to build the dream off of as far as like what that vision currently looks like. So think about these questions in the identity track, right? So who are you? What do you do better than anyone else? Honestly. What's the biggest problem that you solve? How do you make people feel? Who are you for? And what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want to be known for? Like if you can build everything off of that. and then go to vision, then go to structure, then go to strategy. Then you can add on the additional two words of system and scale. But don't you dare like try to go down that road without completely owning who you are. What type of legacy do you want to leave behind? What does this thing look like three to five years from now? Now I'm not saying that when I say three to five years from now, I'm not talking about a strategic plan. I wanna be clear about that. Like I don't do I don't do three year strategic plans anymore because technology has moved way too fast. You know? So it's like I do more things like in six months than in a year max when it comes to strategic plans. So Yeah, I would agree with that. We've certainly changed our tact on that as well with our marketing side of things.~ you mentioned that ~ one of the questions that you talk to people about, and I know this for a fact because I you asked me this question, is ~ what do you do better than anybody else? Now, I certainly know on my side of the world, as Kiwis, we are very bad at being able to answer that question. We have this thing called tall poppy syndrome here, where essentially We grow up in a in a situation where if anybody is starting to be better than someone else at something, they're just knocked down. They're just told like don't. Just don't be better. Like just just you just fade into the background, you know? And maybe that has changed slightly over the years,~ with, you know, generations, but ~ I know Kiwis really, really struggle to actually say what they do really well. How do you help people overcome that feeling? You had to do it for me. Well I had to do it for myself first. Mm. And you know, and that's the thing is that like and I think that that's where your culture in in as a Kiwi and my culture of being somebody who came from a very, very controlling and somewhat ~ manipulative church background. You know, it was a very, very hard struggle for me to to to kind of work Now, just in context, you know, it's it's like one of those things to where, like I remember, for example, I was I was doing a ch I was doing music for one of our chapel services when I was in Bible college. And you kind of learned this art of deflection. Like somebody to come and give you a c a compliment, hey Liz, you are amazing at what you did. Well, on this one specific day, I I had got done playing saxophone for the chapel service at our school, and one of my one of my professors came up to me and he said, Dude, you totally killed it. It was so good. It was powerful. You're really, really, really good. And I just want you to know. And my response was, Praise the Lord. Like, like You know, all glory to God. You know, like now don't get me wrong, like if you're a Christian and you're listening to this and all that stuff, I do believe that, by the way, I I believe that there's nothing that we can do to actually take the glory away from a the creator of the universe. There's nothing I can yeah. There's nothing that I that I can say that can do But I do believe that by deflecting Like you are giving away the thing that you were actually created for. Like, and so so he called me out like right on the spot. Like he goes, No. He was like, I gave the compliment to you. Like, I want you to say thank you. Just say thank you. That's interesting, he called you out. he totally called me out. So I'm standing, Yeah. I'm and I remember exactly because I'm standing in the middle of this dormitory And he was like, No, man, don't deflect. Like this is you. Like you are awesome. And I want you to own that. And but the but thirty years of my of my adult life I I'd I'd spent in ecosystems in which I didn't feel comfortable. like leaning into the thing that I was great at. Like I always felt like I had to give somebody else credit. Like I remember even my first band, for example, I got signed to a record deal like when I was working with this I was in my early 20s. Got signed to a record deal and I wasn't allowed to put my name on the record because the person that I was working for told me that there was only room for one famous person in our church and it needed to be him. Yeah, so I had to I had to change the name of the group that I so I so rather than it being Michael King, it I changed it to Breathe Deep and it became this more of a band type thing of my name because of that. And that stuck with me. And so when I started putting out music just a couple a couple years ago again, it was the first time I'd ever released music under my name, even though I have several hundred published songs. That's crazy. Because it was all here. And so when my creative director came to me a couple years ago and said, Hey, you might be the this goes back to your question, right? Is that like the whole thing of like of embracing this thing of like what are you great at? It's because I had to swallow this myself. Like my creative director came to me and he said, You might be the only executive coach that's also like has a record deal and a recording artist. Like We should probably do something with that because at this point in time I had kept the worlds completely separate. Like I was producing music, I was still involved in writing for other artists and and and producing up-and-coming artists and developing them in that in that in that artistic space. But when it came to what I was doing, it I was looking at my music career more as a as a hobby, you know. Yeah. Well, and I I was I was really fulfilled with it you know, you know, just like that. You know, I had like in the church world, I had found too much of my identity wrapped into my guitar and into like what I was doing as a singer-songwriter,'cause every Sunday morning it's like I am on and I'm leading a team of close to three hundred people amongst many campuses of people and and and I in I just felt like after I walked out of church ministry that I was no longer allowed to use the thing that made me happy. Like I love creating I love writing music. I love it being an expression of the human experience. I love this so much. And so when he says to me, hey, I think you need to get over yourself and I think that we need to start utilizing some of these things because I think it's a low-hanging fruit opportunity for you to have more visibility. I was like, no one's gonna take me seriously, but inside of my head, I'm thinking, I don't know if I'm allowed to do this. Yeah. You know, like it was a big it was a big shift. And and then it so I remember when I when I even first pitched like the idea to the to the record label about, hey, I I think I want to use I wanna give this a shot. I wanna write songs about experiences and things that leaders refuse to talk about. And I want it to be have a little bit more of a business leadership approach. You know, and they kinda told me that they felt like it might be one of the stup more dumb ideas that they've ever heard, you know. But they were like, But dumb ideas get great traction, so like let's go ahead and give it a shot. you know, so it was one Yeah. of those things to where it's like, hey, we believe in you and if that's what you wanna do, like, it's probably going to be successful. And it has been. You know, it's been wildly successful. It's taken me all over the world. And Yeah.~ but I think because that Because I had to believe in that myself. Like I had to lean into that idea that there is a differentiator in you and it can only exist when you're being your authentic self. Like there's something contagious about people who want to be real and wanna be hum you know, like again, like you can acknowledge that there's something great about what you do and still be humble at the same time. You do not have to be an arrogant a hole. because you're great at something. Like, in fact, I think if you're great at something, you have a responsibility to own it. I love that. I really love that. I'm sure there are people listening right now that what you've just said has like sparked something inside them. Like it's it's gone that they're sitting there going, like, yeah, actually that this is you're talking to me. Like this is how I feel and I've got like an idea or I have a drive or I just but I just don't know how to achieve it.~ and and maybe those people are on the fence about sitting and like, hey, do I need a coach? Do I need a like a a business coach for my whole business? Do I need a coach for a personal coach for myself? Can you walk me through like why would people need a coach and and what kind of coaches should they be looking for? I'm a big I'm a big fan of good, legitimate coaches. You know, and like I'm not I'm not just saying that because I'm a coach, I'm saying that because I have three coaches. Like I pay people like more than my salary a year to coach me. And why do I do that? It's because I understand that that that that my potential is only what I believe it is. And I need to have people around me that are giving me the right tools and the right strategies and the right mindset for me to be able to make the type of difference that I feel like I'm called to. Mm-hmm. And so like so there's a lot of different types of coaches, but specifically like in the executive coaching space, I'm gonna give you three specific reasons why you need like everybody should be working with a coach is is that the first part is that you need to be able to see what your leadership is missing. Because on the inside you can't see it. It is impossible. You need to have a third party to be able to take a look in because the internal biases, the internal judgments, the internal mistakes that you actually might be accidentally or even or even on purpose trying to cover up because you're embarrassed. Yeah. No, like you need to have somebody there to be able to see what leadership is missing. So it's you know, so we're talking about like identifying blind spots that become business problems, you know, we challenge assumptions,~ and we expose how a leader's decisions, how their habits and how their behaviors actually affect the world. And that's so that's so big. The second thing that I'm thinking about is~ we turn priorities into execution. Like you and I have talked through this at length, right? But yeah. but if you think about it, like there's a difference between dreams and priorities. And and Unfortunately, time is precious and it's it's limited. It really, really is. And I you know, and it's and I'm not saying this because you're also a client, you've and you've become a an incredibly close friend, but I'm saying this because this is the way business business leaders operate, is that like in fact the coaching call that I got off of right before I hopped on this podcast, I had to let them know like it's exhausting for me to feel like I have to be your accountability in a world of cats chasing lasers. Like the homework that I gave this leader, they're gonna probably listen to this podcast and they're gonna text me as soon as they get off. I can't believe you talked about this on that podcast, you know. But here's the reality is the is this is that like their homework that I gave them as I told them, I said every single week I want you to send me over your your master strategic plan for what you are committing to for the And I don't want it to be more than six things. Mm-hmm. And those six things that you're gonna commit to for accomplishing this next they have to be proven, they have to be measurable. Because I don't want you spending your time on things that we're not going to actually see the needle move. Okay, why would I say that? Okay, and first and foremost is that executive coaching is not glorified accountability, but there is accountability in executive coaching. My clients, they treat me as if I'm a fractional executive on their team. I'm a team member. Mm-hmm. And the thing is, is that we measure business and we measure success by the number of promises that we're able to keep. And so you're not doing yourself a favor, you're not doing your team a favor, you're not doing anybody else in this world a favor if you only allow yourself to exist in the ethereal and not the actual. It's actually not very satisfying either to go home on a Friday and feel like you haven't achieved what you had on your list. Like it's not a nice feeling. No, it's not. And here's the thing, is that like believing the best in people, I actually believe that ninety percent plus are good intended people that intended to get things done, but we get distracted. Things pop up and we don't have mechanisms in place for us to be able to help us prioritize what truly is important. So so again, so that second purpose of why you should work with an executive coach is because we turn priorities into execution. Like that's That's it. So but the third one is that you want to be able to grow past your own capacity. And just like iron sharpens iron, like you need to have somebody else in that, in that with you. You can't you can't do it on your own. You're not built to do it on your own. That's not the way that this whole thing was created. So don't. Like, why would you choose to do that? And so when you think about that, when every single decision requires the leader, growth will hit a ceiling. Absolutely. Also, leaders are also humans. I think sometimes people forget that. And humans only have so much capacity, like like you say, going back to what you said before as well, like there there is time is precious, you know, there is there only so much we can do and we we're we're born to communicate w in whatever f way or form that is. And so we actually need to rely on others to be able to achieve those bigger things. Yeah, absolutely. And for you to know like that you're not in that alone, you know, like, Mm-hmm. you know, there are things specifically that I know that that Liz Slade does than absolutely everyone else, but I also know that there's external things going on in your world that mess with your head. It messes with your emotions. It messes with your time. It messes with your bank account. And you start making decisions emotionally based off of contextual reality, right? Absolutely. And sometimes you just need to have somebody go and say, hey, listen, no, we're not running that play. Like this is your one play this week. This is the moment, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. ~ speaking of, you've we've worked together now ~ since well it must be a little over six months now, I think. Yeah, roughly. ~ and you know, actually putting my cards on the table, the previous three years to that, I I wouldn't have even had an open mind to working with a coach or someone like you. I I didn't know there was a difference between an executive coach, a certified coach. For those who actually still like who are like me who don't understand those differences, can you talk us through what that means? And and I mean, you mentioned however many what did you say four million coaches worldwide? Like w what is that difference? Yeah, it's yeah, I've seen you know, there's a lot of different statistics ~ out there. I think it's four point two million people globally right now that somehow call themselves a coach. And and here's the thing is is that ~ like just like So like my my master's degree is is is to where I am an actual executive coach. Just like somebody goes to school to become a chiropractor, somebody that goes to school to become a doctor, like those a that's a distinction. And Mm-hmm. so executive coach is actually a distinction. And so that's just something to kind of be very much aware of as well. But it doesn't mean that other people don't use it lightly. Coaching is an unregulated industry, so you have to be super careful because out of the four point two million people on the planet that are that are coaches in some sort of way. Now we're talking about people that are mindset coaches, people that are financial coaches, the people that have figured out whatever it is that they decided that they're gonna launch a coaching business on. And here's the thing, if is if Just because you're certified to it doesn't mean that you're a good coach. Like I've I've worked with people that are phenomenal with life experience, and they're really great. Like they're phenomenal coaches ~ because they have a proven track record of success. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know? And so that's the thing is like even though like so I'm not like the protected class and I'm not advocating for for people to go out and only look for a quote unquote certified coach. I think I think there's a there's a higher level of accountability like when it comes to me delivering for my clients because I have a certification body that I've re that I'm accountable to.~ and and I invest in in annual continued education for myself to making sure that I'm on top of my game. But ~ but yeah I think when you look at the on the staggering statistics on this, it's pretty crazy. Like 4.2 million people call themselves coaches. there are 55,000 of those 4.2 million that are ICF or ~ International Coaches Federation certified coaches, which is the largest governing bot or kind of oversight body in the in the in the world.~ but out of the but even out of the fifty-five thousand, I think it's only like fifteen thousand of the fifty-five thousand that are actually full time equivalent coaches, that the average full time revenue of people that are actually in the coaching industry is forty seven thousand US dollars per year, which is about half of poverty wage in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. You know? So like it just tells me like there's a lot of people that wanna be coaches but they don't actually know how to run their own business, right? That's crazy. And you don't want to hire somebody that doesn't know how to run their own business to coach you on how to run Mm-hmm. yours. So you gotta be careful. Like so make sure it's vetted, make sure that they're proven, make sure they have a track record track record of success. Make that they're they've actually hired a coach for themselves because you don't wanna hire a coach that's not actually being coached. Bad idea. So For sure. So on that, you mentioned, you know, there there's you've like some red flags, right? So if someone's looking for a coach, maybe they've like come across a few different people that are looking into Like are there any like real standout red flags or like questions that they should ask before hiring a coach that you've come across or you could recommend? Yeah, d I would say, you know Like look at look at look at their look at the look at their body of work, look at their their track record of success.~ feel free to like get get references, you know, have those conversations. Yeah. Talk to people that they're currently working with, like now, like if they'll give those to you.~ and or like look at their public profile. Like I think that that's the thing is that if you're gonna work with somebody that is ~ that's pretty visible. that can be verifiable. That's just way easier than doing than doing this and to not know like what you're getting yourself into. You know, I think that that's a that's a big deal. But always look for just that that track record of success in making sure that somebody is a person of character ~ and that they know what they're doing. That the like the higher level of competency that you can find in a coach the better. Yeah, for sure. No, that all makes complete sense. well, obviously you passed my red flag list because as I mentioned, we've been working together for six months now.~ and yeah, as as I also said,~ previous to that, I I was in that space where I just didn't have an open mind to having help. I like hand up, like I I've been in ~ like a just a continual loop of like, Hey, we just do what we've always done and it'll be fine and and then I I just got to a point where I was like I'm bored. Like I I am a driven person and I want to climb the next five mountains. But I actually Six. probably 55, but I Fifty five ago. Come on. Yeah. which is why I probably need you to rein me in sometimes. But ~ okay, so cards Yeah. on the table here, Michael. I can take it. What have I been like to work with as a client? You didn't put that in the questionnaire before I I like to throw a little tricky one in there. You know, the thing that's been ~ well to be honest, you you're a complete pain in the ass. But no, you're not. You're great. I'm not paying you next month. Here's what you do really good. And so and the reason why we what the reason why we're working together, and the reason why I work with people and the reason why I say yes to people. I don't say yes to everybody. ~ I have to be able to see I have to be able to see gold. And what I mean by that is I remember we were at so I coach Michael Stelzer with Social Media Marketing World and a lot of the other marketers that are in the marketing space. We we met at Social Media Marketing World and I started to hear your story. And you know, I think we started to just become friends before you even really necessarily knew specifically what I did. It was a chance meeting too. It you just so happened Yeah, yeah. to have flown in at the time that I was heading out for lunch with my colleague Stephanie and I was going out for lunch with Phil Michon, who's a mutual friend of ours and yeah, it just kinda worked out that way. It was like the stars aligned, right? Yeah, absolutely. Phil came up to me and he was like, Hey, I got got a little bit of an awkward ask for you. And I was like, What's the awkward ask? He goes, Well, I'm gonna go out to lunch with these with these gals from New Zealand, but I don't wanna be the only guy at the lunch. And I was just wondering if you would be my be my be my fourth wheel. I'm like, heck yeah, let's go. And so but but then I st you know, and you can't shut if if I see something that To where there's an opportunity for somebody to blow it up in a really, really good way. What's the low-hanging fruit? What's the opportunity? Like, what is that? And I remember talking to you and Steph and realizing that like there are certain ways that you saw your business that were just really limiting. And I've worked with companies from New Zealand before. That you needed a plan, but more than that you needed hope. Yeah. like you needed to have like that and and that's the thing for me is that hope is an engine and if in and hope will be the bridge to unlocking the dream, unlocking potential, unlocking what you could become. And and over three or four days of actually being at the conference together, it's you know like I hadn't it wasn't like I'd put you on my radar and said Liz is gonna become a client, but it was it be kind of became Like my goal was by the end of conference, I wanted to be able to give you enough to do on your own to be able to take home and go, okay, because my thing is I'm gonna bump into all those people at that conference next year, you know? And so for me, it's just like, okay, I'm gonna change the world one leader at a time, and for them for us to be able to give hope. So when I started to see like how adaptable you were and how quick you were, like, because you you would take notes, you would talk to me about the things that you were committing to, the things that we were. To change immediately, I just kind of recognized like there's a lot of stuff I don't know necessarily if you could do it all on your own. And and so it it happened. I give it a go. I'm an only child, like I'm used to I'm used to that. Yeah. Well, I was impressed. You know, I was impressed. Like you you showed up and you killed it. And the things that you have done,~ would you address the hard things. And if you think about it going all the way back, like, now, like remember the thing that I told you at the beginning of this interview, I said, you know, the things that people tell me that they want at the beginning of a of a coaching engagement, we find out ninety days later that's not that wasn't the problem. Mm. And I I think we kinda had that a little bit of that experience with you, wouldn't you say? And you did Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. It's definitely taken me down a path I didn't think it would, but it's been exactly the path I needed to go down. Yeah, so on a scale of one to ten, where would you say is like rebuilding that foundation, like how impactful was that for you on a scale of one to ten?~ completely transformational. Like it's off the scale. Yeah. And now like when you think of a new idea, like debut, Mm-hmm. now you actually have a team that's behind you to champion you. And Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm I'm incredibly lucky I have amazing people on my team, but like we're all on the same path on the same journey. Yeah, absolutely. And so so that's the thing is now anything that we put into the into into the dream pipeline as far as what C i Marketing is gonna do, what Liz Slade is gonna do. And we're just now getting to the point where we're we're getting ready to do a bigger launch of the Liz Slade brand, but but then also these of how everything kind of sits with the C i Marketing universe. It's just Yeah. everything now has a nice placeholder as far as how it works together. And we're just success is just like we're it's right there, you know, and so now we just have to get people to see what we're what we're on. And it's gonna be so powerful. But you couldn't have gotten here without going through this process because as you saw, like I would say in the beginning you were the your level of execution was a little slower in the very beginning. But once you started getting comfortable with yourself, once you started believing in yourself a little bit more, you became significantly more brave and you started pulling triggers significantly faster and moving through failures faster and finding new new rhythms and new success even faster. And that's what I Yeah. love about you is that you've been, you've been resilient and you have been awesome to see, to, to be able to see come, come to this level.~ I appreciate that, Michael. Thank you. That's that's very kind of you to say. I think I'll probably pay you next month. No, because of that. Yeah.~ you actually mentioned ~ something we are gonna have a little chat about, which is something we have just launched, and that is debut.~ and it actually goes back to some of the things we were talking about earlier in this conversation, which is around the economy and small businesses and businesses, entrepreneurs and startups happening all over the place at huge rates, especially here in New Zealand but worldwide.~ and it's something that I haven't been able to solve for my entire marketing career until now. And and that issue is that for more than a decade. We have had clients come to us. We just let me just preface, we absolutely adore working with passionate small business owners, whether they be at the very beginning of their journey or have been around for a while, they're established, We just love working with them. And the reason we love working with them is because of the passion that they have for what they do. And they're often time poor, which is why they come to us because They're doing the thing that their business is, but they don't have the time to get word out there and say who they are, which makes complete sense. They're don't have a lot of people to help them.~ and one of the biggest things that people have needed is visibility, of course. Well visibility right now, especially with all the technology changes, especially with everything moving towards like AI search and that side of things. is you have to move with that technology.~ and getting online, getting visible in a digital sense is like you have to do it now. You can't not. You can't just rely on referrals and word of mouth anymore. It's some of the best kind of business that you can get, but You can't just do that anymore. It doesn't actually work, unfortunately. So we used to have a lot of people come to us.~ And they would be at the very early stages of their business or either at the very beginning or slightly established. And they don't have a lot of cash flow at this point because they're new, they're struggling a wee bit, they don't have a lot of work coming in, but what they do is amazing and they're very good at it. The issue with that is obviously in order to get really good quality marketing, you have to pay for it. And as much as I adore helping people. We're not a library, you know. I've I've got bills to pay, I've I've got a building, I've got staff, I've got all the things that you have to pay for as a business. And I wish that I could give as much information as I could out for free and help people, but ~ there's a reality there as well. And w we tried all the things, you know, we tried like creating PDF downloads and and I mean this podcast, the purpose of that was to give people marketing tips and help them when they have the funding to do things. But I just knew that I needed to do something more. And that's where Mm-hmm. debut came from. So ~ we have created a really cost-effective and highly efficient way of getting small businesses and startups a brand new website that is highly optimized in all of the types of search. So original Google search engines, that sort of thing, but also AI search. And That's been the product that we have been working on for the last few months together, which has been pretty exciting. I think I think it's brilliant. And I think it I think the why behind it is even more is even more powerful is just is is just what you just said as well, is that ~ we have to understand like what is the real problem that we're solving in the first place. Because I think like when you think about ~ Where when you think about like even where you're at? Like the reason why I'm laughing is because so there's a a one of our one of our very, very large companies that I coach. I had their I had this conversation with their s with their their COO regarding their head of marketing within their company. Mm-hmm. And He calls me up. Hey Michael,~ so what do you think the problem is within our marketing? department. I said, you have a chat GPT marketing director, you don't have a real marketing director. Ooh, big call. And dead silence on the phone. And he goes, What do you mean by that? I said, Be because of this. Is that is because here's what I'm seeing happen more and more times than not is that people that lack competency, they go to Chat GPT and they say, I don't know how to do this and I don't know where to go from next. Tell me what I should do. And so ChatGPT does its thing, or Claude or Gemini or Perplexity, or whatever that your your favorite AI tool of the day is. It it'll go and tell you based off of a very, very clinical playbook. And the next thing you know, you have a very, very well scripted something that could could it could pass the BS meter of the uninformed, but it still feels incredibly clinical. And then if you know, if I go and I take back that report that that director went and printed out and said, here's our marketing strategy for 2027, and I'm like, great, read through it. And argue and justify why every single thing that's on that re on that page, why it would work, and you tell me the definitions of those words that are on that paper. So go. Show me that you're amazing. Show me. The reason why this doesn't work is because a lot of times, like if you're not great at what you do. And you're expecting ChatGPT or AI to fill in the gaps for you, it's gonna take you down a path that has no vision, it has no pulse, it has no heartbeat, and it's got no purpose. It's going to give you a clinical output as far as how you can execute. But if you are brilliant. And you've hired the right people on your team that are justifiable in owning that vertical within your company, whether it's marketing, whether it's operations, whether it's team culture, whatever it is. But if they're brilliant and they have a high level of understanding and a high level of competency in what they're doing, and they know how to use AI to be able to replicate their brilliance, it's game over. Like it's a completely different game, yeah. ~ huh. right? This is exactly you. Is that you understand, even from your photography background and how you're able to bring story together, how you're able to bring marketing concepts together, how you're able to bring everything together, like you're able to actually utilize AI to scale your brilliance. And that's what we want to bring to the world. You recognize we have a super big problem with it when it comes to the economy here in New Zealand, and people can't pay their freaking bills. And we have so many people that are great business owners that just lack the accessibility to what good marketing looks like. And that's Yes, exactly. why I love the debut product is because it's taking the thing that you're at, and we figured out how do we scale Liz's and her team's brilliance. And bringing it to the rest of the world. It's kind of like Prometheus bringing fire to the people. Right? Exactly. So that's what I love about debut, is it's is is again, it's like we've recognized a bigger problem. And and we're not, and we've recognized that there is a solution, but we have to figure it out. Now here's the here's the hard part about this. And these are problems for other people to solve. It's not for today, you know, but this is where it's like, okay, why are websites so important? Okay? The reason why websites are so important is because in an a in a world that's being dominated by AI, social media is becoming highly ineffective. Mm-hmm. When you think about 92% of your future business is gonna come from one of four spaces. It's gonna come from the rooms that you network in, it's gonna come from the stages that you speak on, it's gonna come from the people that you currently already work with and the people that refer business to you. Okay, great. That's where it all that's the catalyst, that's the inception of new business. Make sense, right? Absolutely. Okay, the number one place that they stop after that after that step is your website. Exactly. And that's why they need to have you on their team. I just want to also touch on like we absolutely used AI in being able to scale this product. So that that is that was what gave me the capability to be able to build the platform. And we've built it in-house entirely. This is nothing external. It's all everything that has built on our decades, combined decades of expertise across all of our our staff and and all of our IP and everything that we've developed over the years. It's not producing an AI website. That is not what we're actually producing. There are some really great AI websites out there. There are some really not great AI websites out there.~ and we are neither of those. We are still actually producing a human created human-touched, human-checked small business website at a ridiculously crazy cheap price, which ~ is great because then it becomes accessible and it means I get to work with those people that I just adore working with and really helping them achieve what they need to and and I get to celebrate their success with them. And that is my measurement of success on a Friday if if I've Mm-hmm. s if I've celebrated a client's success with them that week. Yeah. Like I'm going home happy. Yeah, I think that that's in keeping keeping you, keeping your team, keeping humans in the loop,~ again, like the sky's the limit as long as you have talented people leading the way. And One hundred percent. and I you know, I couldn't I couldn't support this more. I think it's a brilliant play. I appreciate that, Michael. so if somebody who's listening to this was gonna take like one piece of advice that they're gonna put in place before the end of the week, what would that one piece of advice be that you'd give them? define your success. I like it. I like it a lot. Find your success. Yeah. And I, you know, because if you think about that, and I and I think that this has even been the theme of all my calls today, is ~ most people start off their weeks not necessarily knowing, you know, what's gonna, you know, how do how are they gonna measure a pass fail by the time they get to Friday? And so define your success. Like take ownership of that and then reverse it down to the micro plays that you that you're gonna play out through the week. And then try to prioritize the thing that you're giving your time and your energy to to only the things that actually support what success looks like for you. And and don't be afraid of actually taking time away, stepping away, which is what you got me to do, step away from your daily grind and actually put some time into that. Because the the one hour you take aside and do that in a quiet spot or whatever works for you, like you've got to make it work for you. For me, I needed to wait it till everybody had gone home, put on my favorite playlist and do it in my own space, in my own time. And for everybody that will look different. But taking that hour or however long it takes you to actually put the time into it and write it down will shape your next twelve months. Brilliant. Well, Michael, it has been such a pleasure to have you on the show. If people would like to find you, what's the best way they can get in touch with you? Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, please check out MichaelKingJr.com and make sure to follow me on all socials.~ by the time that you are dropping this podcast, we are getting ready to launch our brand new leadership film called Irreplaceable, which features our new, our new song and also our new leadership film. Plus, we have our EP called Season One dropping next week as well. So ~ please check those out. Amazing. Thank you so much, Michael. It has been such a pleasure and until next time. Adiós, thanks for having me. That's what we say Cheers. here in America or somewhere. They say that, so it means goodbye, I guess in Spanish or something like that. and in New Zealand we say cheers. No cheers is thank you, goodbye, it's all the things. It's just generic, so cheers. Chiz, cheers. Thanks so much for joining the Visual Marketing Podcast, brought to you by C i Marketing. I'm your host Liz, and I can't wait to share more episodes with you.