The Career Coach Who's Never Given a Refund in 850 Clients | Don Oehlert

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome everyone to doing business with a servants heart podcast. I'm your host, Steve Ramona, and I'm thrilled to have you have you join us today. This podcast is dedicated to exploring the idea of doing business and living life with a purpose, serving others and yes, achieving success. We did, we believe that when you approach our work, approach your work and our lives, your lives with a servant's heart, we can truly make a difference. Some taboos there I got to fix. That's why I like it raw, everybody. You get in the real Steve and the real Don. We created this show for you because we want everyone to be motivated, inspired, and educated to make an impact in your world. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a community leader, or simply someone looking to bring more purpose into your daily life, this podcast is here to support and uplift you. So let's dive in together today. I want you to think about how will you serve today and what impact you create as you listen to my incredible guest. Thank you for being here and welcome once again to doing business with a servant's heart. And a real quick monologue because you're going to hear a lot from this guy. He's incredible. He's doing it for a long time. As I was saying, experience to me outweighs everything else because they've done it. They could do it in their sleep. But careers and impact in careers are huge. And he makes a huge impact. Your career is your life. Besides your family, if you have a bad career or a good career, that could tilt your life so many different ways. And this is where Don comes in and makes a complete difference. And Don, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much, Steve. I'm very happy to be here. You know, I just thought of what is what does a career mean to you or mean to people you work with?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Oh my. Yeah, careers can take so many directions. Uh, portfolio careers, corporate careers, fractional coaching, uh, consulting. It's it's so different from everyone, which is why I build my entire practice around bespoke career coaching based on what let's say Steve Ramona wants to do in his career. Let's figure out what that is, uh, what he should, what he's really good at, and what he should be doing based on the gifts that you've been given.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

What's the challenges that you've run into, or maybe one or two that are at the top that you've seen that might educate the audience what not to do when trying to find your career?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Oh goodness. Yeah. Guessing. Number one would be guessing what I'm good at. I mean, that's it's easy to do. You know, the old I've always done it this way, therefore it's going to be fine to do it that way forever. Uh, the second one would be taking a job simply because you need a job rather than going towards running towards something that excites you, that interests you, that you want to do. Get up in the morning and walk to your point at the opening monologue there. Uh you spend a lot of time at work. Let's make sure it's something you enjoy doing rather than just taking a job to pay the mortgage, which I understand. Don't go, don't get me wrong. Uh, and if you have to do that, take a non-career job that can help keep the wolves at bay while you're looking for the next logical step in your career uh pursuits.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

That's why I love having you as a guest and the audience why I invited them because I was going to go there because people are going, well, I got to do DoorDash right now until I find and you're saying not to do that, but take your path to your career, work towards it or work with somebody like you to get towards what your career should be. And passion's a big part of that, I would assume, too.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if you hate your job, uh we call it the Sunday scaries, you know, you're getting ready to go to bed on Sunday night, and uh you're just laying there in bed going, oh, I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow. Rather than, hey, I get to go to work tomorrow and solve this problem or that problem, or talk to this customer, or talk to that person I work with and make their lives better somehow with what I do for a living. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, I know everybody in the audience. I know you've heard somebody, you're at a party on Saturday. It's like, oh, Sunday's tomorrow. I can't, uh Monday's coming up. I have I don't dread. I know you we've talked, and you don't dread Mondays. And not saying that we're better than anybody else, but that's the goal to be. Yes. You wake up Monday morning, I'm driving to the thing I want to do. What's the scary thing about passion and not being a fit? Like I'd love to be an NBA basket or a I want to be a pro football player as a young kid. I didn't get big enough, I played a little community college, and I was done. How do I how do they in business much different because it's your life? How do you handle that where you passion doesn't fit what your skill set or what you really can do?

SPEAKER_01 5:28

What we try to do there, Steve, is is uh abstract the concept of playing football versus being involved somehow in the world of football. So whether that be you become an announcer for a sporting team, a particular uh football uh organization that you follow, enjoy, local, whatever, you got to get started somewhere, of course. And then as you polish your skills, you can move up and up and up and so forth and so on if the passion goes along with the gifts you've been given. And you you'll see me going back to this or hear me going back to this uh concept of your natural gifts. One of the other examples that people have used to me, Andre the Giant wanted to be a uh jockey when he was young. And obviously, Andre the Giant weighs more than 125 pounds, so just not a possibility for him to do. However, could he be a horse trainer? Could he be uh an owner? Could he be uh, you know, something else again involved with with horse racing to feed that passion in a way that works with the gifts you've got? You can polish the diamonds. I'm sorry to interrupt. You can polish the diamonds, Steve. Uh you know, if you do weigh 125 pounds, you don't have a natural gift, you can practice and and and and work at it and become better to the point where you might be able to win it. But again, if you're more than 125 pounds, you're not gonna make it as a jackie. If you don't weigh more than 300 pounds, you're not gonna make it as an offensive lineman in football.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, NFL. That's amazing. Well, you just did that two-minute counseling session. If you told me that as a 20-year-old, my life would have probably changed. And that's not a bad thing where I am today. I'm super happy where I am today. But can you imagine if I had that conversation? Audience want to hear this. This is what he does, where I say, Hey, I'm five foot nine, 185, I can't be a running back or linebacker. Let's look at different areas in sports, and maybe it's not football. That is powerful because this is a kid, it would have changed my life completely. Not bad or good, but I love that. But let's talk about money, passion, and your career. Money is that can be that evil thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah, we do all have to pay our mortgage, we do all have to buy groceries and gasoline to get to the office and whatnot, or wherever you work. Uh, yes. So the idea behind passion is is it something that can feed your passion? For instance, I one of my hobbies is I I make wood pens on my legs. I enjoy it, it's a lot of fun. But can I make a living at it? No, probably not, because you just can't charge enough for a pen and several pens in a in an order to do that. Plus, then it takes the fun out of the hobby and it becomes a job. I'd rather keep my hobbies fun and separate that level of passion from the uh the professional passions that I have.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah, and and this question I want Ben to ask you since we met a few weeks or a month, a month ago, is side hustles good or bad? And when should you drop them when your career is, you know, the career is your goal?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Side hustles, yes. You really have to be aware of whether or not you have any kind of a can I work outside the uh nine to five in a side hustle with your current employer. Some people have you know, no, that's a no-no. Other people say, sure, go ahead, as long as it doesn't compete with us and steal our customers. Uh when you are at the point in your career where you're absolutely loving what you're doing, when you're earning enough money to keep the wolves at bay, as I mentioned a while ago, and you're able to set aside something for a vacation once in a while, annually, hopefully. And then some aside for retirement, because you will retire someday, uh, and so on and so on. As long as you hit those marks, probably side hustles, unless they only take a couple hours a week, could be left to put you know, left at the parking lot.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Do the budget side, just budget yourself while you're building your career using sports again. I start as an announcer at high school games, making a thousand a year, and then college and move up the ladder. And this is again, audience, this is what he does. Why I'm so excited to have him on because I've never talked to a career coach before, as you can tell, asking these questions, uh, little at old at 62. I shouldn't say that. Never too old to change your career, ever. Never but you know what's interesting about you that I love is you're in corporate, and there's people listening that are in corporate and they're doing very well financially. But then you went and created the business. Why? And what was the difficulties and what was the great things about?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Uh yeah, difficulties of starting your own business. Uh well, when you're in corporate, uh, you kind of have a little bit of blinders, you have a blinders on to some level. Excuse me. And there are people to the left of you, people to the right of you, above you, below you, over at all the different angles away from you that do things. You may not know what they do, and you may not know what they do really, really well. And when you start your own company, you got to do all those things. Uh, so having that uh realization can be challenging for people in the entrepreneurial world, frankly. Um for me, it was that I did my job and I did it pretty well, I guess, because I was promoted several times in all of those uh societal uh norms of advancement. But it just wasn't incompletely fulfilling to me. I wanted to help other people that were out of work get back to work. So for 15 years I volunteered with a uh a Catholic church uh uh in the area here, northwest suburbs of Chicago, and helped people rewrite their resumes, attended seminars, gave seminars on job search process, finally wrote a book about job search process. Uh on the and after about 15 years, I said, you know what? That was all a ministry. So there was no money accruing to me for doing that. I decided after 15 years of volunteering that I could help people better if I had more time with them. So I designed the practice around people 45 years and old, 45 years old and older because ageism is a thing in job search. And if you don't believe that, read any headline in any booth any news uh organizations uh vehicle uh websites or magazine covers, whatever. So I help you figure out your marketing message around that. I also work, try to work with director levels and above because as a rule, those people have been very successful in their careers, have been with their employers for a long time and don't realize that job search has changed. For instance, for me, from 1987 to 2003, there was no well, the internet towards the end was a thing. Um, and so how you search for a job from 1987 to 2003 fundamentally changed. And so I had to learn how to do that for myself. And then as that's where the 15 years of uh volunteerism came in. And um, when I learned it, taught me how to read a book, I write a book, I'm sorry, and now I help people in that kind of category, director level and above, because they have the money to be able to afford a coach like myself, and I can help them because the higher up you go in the corporate uh uh uh hierarchy, the fewer chairs there are. So your message has to be very clean, concise, and powerful.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I like that. And working with the directors, you're right. And that's such a great message, too. Whatever you're selling in, product or service audience, make sure you're networking with the people, and not saying not network people like that. You don't know who they know. And I always tell people walk in a door, if you can walk out, they're not a fit, shake hands and walk out. So that's interesting to me. And I'm thinking back to our conversation. Directors are changing jobs, C-suites are changing jobs pretty frequently. No, so that's where you come in. Tell us the journey. I'm Steve Ramona, CEO of XYZ company, and I'm burnt out. I'm done working with pipes and plumbing and all that. I want to get into something else. Walk me through that journey when I'm working with you.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Okay. Well, first thing that I like to do is get to know the client very, very well. So I have uh personality profiling software that I've licensed that gives uh six different what I call facets on your personality diamond. And we figure out who you are, why did you burn out? Because there was a reason. It wasn't just time, but there was also mental drain going on because you were doing things that weren't naturally aligned with your gifts. So let's figure out what it is that you who you really are, what you really enjoy doing, and what you really don't like doing. Because we want to avoid those things.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I was just gonna say I like that because you're customizing it to each person. They may think I'm going from an employment company, I want to jump into manufacturing, but after a conversation, may go, you know what, you may want to go to tech, SAS, because here's what you tell me. And audience, this is such a powerful tool, so valuable, because that one message that you give out to me could take my life in such a great direction. Uh, and then of course, comfortable because I'm now I understand what I'm doing. How much is the awareness part of this whole package?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

How much in terms of money or in terms of time?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Uh no awareness of where to go my career. I'm leaving this company. That's sorry.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

That it's critical, it's foundational to the engagement. We have to um uh the whole thing is built around these outcomes that you've generated over the course of your career, and then we plug in all the personality results, uh, and we can say now for instance, one of my clients, I'm gonna interrupt myself here for a second. One of my clients used to be the chief operating officer for a major pharmaceutical company. After we worked together, he became the chief operating officer of a makeup company. You go from selling drugs to selling makeup. Well, what we figured out was that was his passion was to get people to look their best with what they have. So let's improve on what we can and and live with and enjoy uh the rest because all of us are different to your point earlier, Steve. No one is any better than anybody else or any worse than anyone else, anywhere, anywhere, anywhere in this world. We're just different. Uh the other thing that the personality, I'm gonna go back to my train of thought now. Um the other thing that really helps with the personality profiling is it gives us an indication of where we are and how people outside the world view us so that we can be more aware of how people view us. I mean, do they like me? Do they think I'm a jerk? Do they think I'm uh too detail oriented? Do they think I'm too big picture? So forth and so on. Uh and me as an outsider in that whole situation in this engagement, I can help with that because I don't live in your shoes. I don't I don't do the things that you do because I'm not you. So let's figure out what other people in the world feel about the way you do things. This helps increase compromise and professional and courteous conversation among folks.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah, it's a great way. I am gonna tell you, Don, uh, you don't live in my shoes, but you live in my head. Because I was just gonna ask you to give me an example, which was perfect. It's exactly quite a bit different. And how about the money? How much is that part of it? Because we'll use that story. We don't say numbers, but so he goes from draw, you know, pharmaceutical to skincare, making less or more. How important is that type to the passion?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Well, to him, he could have been making the same or even a touch less, um, because he was already doing quite well, obviously, as a chief and officer. Uh, but it turns out he made, I think it was close to double of what he was making before in the pharmaceutical industry. Uh, and he was able to move to Utah and ski. So is he appealed to his personal passions as well, his professional. I mean, it was absolutely a perfect alignment of person and profession.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

That's a great goal that you have.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I guess me too.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

I'm like, holy mackerel. And of course, it doesn't always work that way, but if it's closer to that than the other thing is, okay, I'm going from another job to the same thing and I'm not happy, uh, it's not good. Right.

unknown 18:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Can people fire themselves? Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

It's called resignation. You know, you can sit there to your earlier uh question. You were saying you're the CEO of the plumbing uh organization and you're just burned out. Firing yourself is along the lines of, you know what, board of directors and C-suite members, peers. I've had enough. Uh, I just need to get out. And you either should take a sabbatical or you should look somewhere else. Again, try to figure out why you're not happy, why you're burned out. Yeah, because the why is the whole thing, right? Everybody, assignment Sinek, will tell you that the why is everything. And I'm uh I don't work for him and I don't get money for him from him, but I'm a big believer in his messaging.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, I like that because that ties your desire, you know what I really want to do. So I'm come home, you know, and I'll bring up your phrase again, no more Sunday scaries. That guy that went to Utah, he probably Sunday scaries. Well, I mean, um, you know, across the board, you you're gonna wake up sometime on a Monday, go, Oh my god, I got some something's coming on. But we're saying on a consistent basis, you're not you're not waking up going, oh geez, it's a Monday. I usually don't even know what day it is. So when somebody thinks it's a Monday, that's always a situation. Yes, you know, you you do great coaching, it's unbelievable coaching he does. Uh, I've seen some of it at work, audience, but you offer a money-back guarantee, yes, which is unusual, yes, scary a little bit, but did everybody take you up on that offer?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Not one. I've helped over, I think it's 850 people roughly. It's probably more than that by now. Uh and um no, I've never had anyone ask me for the money back guarantee. I also charge a little differently than a lot of coaches. I take up a retainer fee, if you will, at the beginning, which I'll charge monthly if that's easier for you. I'm pretty easy to get along with in that regard. And then when you land, I ask for a small percentage of your first year's salary. And that again can be paid monthly. But if you don't like what we're doing, we stop working together and I'll give you back your money if you really, really want it. If you feel I've done nothing to help you. Okay, I don't want to upset people out there. Um I want them to be successful. So if if we're not successful together for whatever reason, then yes, I do have a money-back guarantee.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

The definition in the dictionary of that is servant heart. And audience, I'm gonna recap again. Over 850 clients over the years, and I'm gonna say years, it doesn't matter. You think of 850, it's a lot of years. Not one person is a money back guarantee. I want you audience to think, is he doing good in this world or is he not doing so good? You I think you know the answer. I just want you to think about that. Now, part of career, and and which I didn't realize until we talked and you sent a question to me, is I'm going for this. Let's use the guy went from pharmaceutical to skincare. There's an interview process, a negotiation. You say you can be on both sides of the table. You gotta tell me how because I want to learn this.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, it's it's interesting, but in order to do better at during the interview process, when you are the interviewee, when you're going for the job, you have to kind of get into the head of the person across the table from you. You want to understand what their pain points are, you want to understand how you can tie the successes and outcomes that you've generated over the course of your career to the problems that they are having. So I believe heavily in informational interviewing. I have believe heavily in uh gathering as much data as you can, Google searching, reading magazines, joining associations of that. For instance, in my uh my the client we were discussing, he joined some associations during the engagement that. Revolve around skincare. So he was able to see what are the general problems that people in skincare have. What are the general problems that that I've done in the past that I could translate to that new industry? And he was able to obviously do it successfully. And as far as I just talked to him about three months ago, we worked together three years ago. I talked to him again about three months ago. He's very happy in his new role. He's having a great time. He's loving it. So it's uh it was the right thing for him.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Man, you're a lesson thrown out king, lessons left and right. Because that is so, and that's where you help. Because I know people are going, hey, sounds great, Don, but how do I do it? That's where you come in. Like you're saying you're both sides of the of the table. Because I could see me being at this place, I don't want to be there. I come here, I'm super excited, Don. You got me set up, and I go in by myself without your coaching or doing what you told me, and I don't get that job. Now the balloon just deflates, and now motivation's gone, inspiration's gone, and all that. Audience, that is a powerful, powerful tool that he does. And just to hire him to help with the interview process, I don't know if you do that, but I I he does. So there you go. That's something to keep in mind. If you're out there interviewing, reach out to Don and how can we reach out to you, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Yeah, website ecareercoaching.com is uh got contact information there, or I'm on LinkedIn, uh, LinkedIn.com slash in slash Don Alert, uh, just like it's spelled on the screen call there. And uh I'm happy to join networks and share ideas. I do free resume reviews so you can get a feel for what I think, how I how I think, and how I would approach your engagement, uh, were you to hire me? Um those are like I said, there's a complimentary as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Free tool, complimentary guys and girls. Can't get a bigger service heart than that. We ran out of time here. It's flew by so way fast. Yes. I'm gonna have to bring you back. So, the audience, you heard that. I'm on the call here. We've got to do part two. But let's get a little personal. If you could interview anybody who's dead or alive, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Abraham Lincoln, no question. Uh, why? Because, in my opinion, I'm a little bit of a history buff, uh, particularly that period in our our um uh country's history. Uh, we had a pretty nasty set of things going on, and he was able to keep the country together uh through compromise, through conversation, through negotiation, to use uh you know that other phrase there, and to understand he was a very humble guy and understood that he didn't know everything, so he had real smart people on his cabinet to help give him guidance on things he wasn't aware of, versus the person that's so arrogant to think they know everything and everybody and I no, let's all admit we're only so good, and let's all be Abraham Lincoln's.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I I love that. That's fantastic. Oh my god, that's such a good and you said so fast, you've been thinking about this for a long time, and that's pretty cool. Last but not least, Friday night comes around. What does Don do?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Oh goodness. Um I'd like to sit in the backyard and enjoy my backyard, enjoy the birds as they uh chirp. My uh wife and I are big fans of bird feeders, so we have a few of them around. Uh, cardinals, for instance, we believe our visitors from heaven. So when we see them come, um, we get a kick out of that. Um, like to have a cigar around the fire pit. Um, gosh, yeah, watch a movie, maybe read a book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

That's that's that's very cool. I just got back from Phoenix, my best friend of 50 years, Mike Sullivan. Shout out to Mike. I love the guy. He has bird feeders and is amazing, even in Arizona, it's hot. But just sit there and always mesmerized for 30 minutes, watch these birds. It's very and I'm glad you mentioned it because it was very soothing and meditating doing that. And you're feeling the same thing. It's very interesting. So, audience, go out and get a bird feeder. If anything you learn, and which is much more than that, do that. And you know, Don, I want to thank you again. Thank you for the great advice, the great lessons, and being a servant's heart that you are.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Thank you. And Steve, same right back at you. You're uh, you obviously give a rip about uh uh things in life, and you know, thank you for having a show like this and for positioning it with your servant's heart. So, yes, I'm I'm very happy to have been here and I I I'm honored. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

I well appreciate that so much. Thank you. And don't forget about my TV show, Fridays, 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. It's called Together We Serve. You can find it on uh um I was gonna say Amazon. Amazon's everywhere. Uh Apple, Roku, Samsung LG, just do any streaming service, you can find it. You'll get more of great people like Dawn. And you know, as always, me and Dawn, thank you so much for listening to this episode or watching this episode. And we look forward to seeing you in the next episode of Doing Business with a Servant's Heart. Take care, everybody.