In this episode, we have invited Christine Trumbull, Founder of Coaching the Climb. She has worked with hundreds of family-owned, closely-held companies to increase cash flow, grow profits, build better teams, improve employee engagement, and create more satisfaction for everyone. She is a CPA by trade and worked her way through college by working in the private industry. She then founded her CPA firm and focused on business growth, strategy, and improvement.
About Christine
[1:46]
Christine is a mother, widow, CPA, business coach, and tax strategist. A fun fact about her is that she climbs mountains, and she is soon to become an alpine mountaineer. She rides Harley Davidson bikes, is an avid hiker, nature lover, and workaholic.
Providing support for business owners
[3:58]
Christine spent a lot of time as a controller and CFO before she went into public accounting. She applies something called a “Scaling Up” methodology of helping businesses grow. She helps them solve issues, get past barriers, make sure they don’t run out of cash. She also provides CFO services.
Christine’s Background and Journey
[7:23]
She worked in the private industry and worked her way up to controllers and CFOs. She then moved into public accounting, where she ended up in a unique position because of her private industry experience. She eventually started her own firm, which she ran for 14 years, which she sold. She then worked for her husband, and both of them made a lot of money.
The differences between coaching and consulting
[11:53]
Coaching builds capacity. Consulting helps clients resolve a particular issue or challenge. Typically, consulting is going to help a client address or resolve that challenge or a specific issue. Coaching is going to help the leaders and the teams find the right questions. Consulting does for you, and coaching helps you do.
Common misconceptions about coaching
[15:22]
The coaching world has become a huge industry. There are so many different areas of business that you can focus on and that people do focus on that are getting caught up in that broad title of a business coach. The title of a business coach is so broad that people think that it’s all within the same area of expertise.
Experiences with coaches
[19:32]
Everybody’s going to have a bad experience with a coach. Christine had bad experiences with her coaches. She had a decent number of very bad experiences, but that’s never going to deter her from realizing that there’s a lot of benefits that she can get as well.
When and why does someone need a coach?
[21:30]
Someone needs a coach whenever they’re trying to change something. Anytime you’re trying to change something, or improve something, or reach a new goal, just trying to keep forward movement, you need somebody there to help and guide you, give you advice, bring in their experience and their knowledge.
Favorite self-reflection exercises
[25:03]
Christine’s favorite self-reflection exercise is writing her reality or writing her perfect day. It’s the single most important tool that she uses to get her through her husband’s sickness and eventual passing, and then her stay in life. It kept her from completely giving up. It’s a matter of writing out what she wants a perfect day to look like or writing out what she wants to be doing with her life or how she wants her days structured. She writes what she wants in general.
Lesson from losing her husband
[30:00]
One thing Christine learned throughout the process of losing her husband that if it doesn’t make her happy, she’s not doing it.
What to know when considering working with a coach
[32:12]
Sometimes you hire a bad plumber or a bad mechanic. The same goes for coaches. Sometimes, you hire a bad coach. It’s just part of life. The best way to know if it’s a good fit and that it’s working is to go with your gut. Your intuition is going to tell you a lot. The second one is to make sure that you have milestones or some
