Small Business Bestie
Entrepreneurship is hard, and sometimes we could use a friend to walk a mile in our shoes. Small Business Bestie is here to provide that friendship, support, and inspiration that small business owners need from time to time.
Small Business Bestie
23: Empowering Women Entrepreneurs with Allison Begor
Can you really balance a thriving career, authorship, and personal life without losing your sanity? 🤯 Join us on this episode of the Small Business Bestie podcast as we welcome the incredible Alison Begor, an executive coach who specializes in guiding women through career transitions and leadership development. 🌟
Alison shares her thoughtful approach to coaching, from virtual sessions to empowering in-person retreats, helping clients—from fresh graduates to midlife professionals—discover new perspectives and enhance their leadership skills. 💼✨ Get inspired by her own journey from a music performance background to a successful career in HR and coaching, and learn about the leadership retreats she co-hosts, designed to help women fully embrace and elevate their unique leadership styles. 🌱
Ever wondered how to juggle a job outside of your business while pursuing your passion projects? We dive into the benefits of maintaining a job for community, health insurance, and steady income—a win-win for entrepreneurial life! 💪 Plus, hear about Alison's experience with writing and self-publishing her book, "Work-Life in Balance," and her practical advice on integrating different aspects of life. 📚
In this episode, we discuss the importance of reflecting on achievements, incorporating play and rest into your routine, and capturing those spontaneous ideas that can spark your next big project. 📝 Don't miss out on Alison's valuable resources and insights, her website, social media, and the exciting upcoming Elevate Retreat! 🎉
🎧 Tune in now for wisdom and actionable strategies to empower women entrepreneurs! Don’t forget to subscribe, review, and share with your network. 💖
#WomenInLeadership #CareerTransition #WorkLifeBalance #EntrepreneurLife #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #WomenEmpowerment #SelfPublishing #SmallBusinessBestie #ElevateRetreat
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Welcome to the Small Business Bestie podcast. I'm your host, michelle. We are creating community and coaching women entrepreneurs, and we are so glad that you're here. Let's meet. This week's Small Business Bestie, allison Begore, is joining me today to talk all things executive coaching for women. So, allison, take just a moment, tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much, Michelle. I'm so excited to be here. I'm an executive coach for women, so I work primarily with women on career transitions. That seems to be a big one, either coming right out of college or I found a lot of women in midlife who just want something different, something new and trying to figure out kind of what's next. I also work with a lot of women on kind of figuring out better balance in their life, learning new leadership skills if they need to learn how to do conflict better, communicate better, how to get a promotion, things like that.
Speaker 2:That sounds like all the things that I need. Actually, we'll just continue talking. So tell me about, like, kind of what that looks like when you work with clients. Do you do virtual, in-person, kind of a mix of everything, or how do you work with clients?
Speaker 1:Yeah, mostly virtual. I do have a few local clients and, if they prefer to meet in person, I love meeting in person, you know, over coffee or something like that. But I do have a lot of clients from all over, and so we tend to meet virtually, which works out great because then you can do it anywhere you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and are your coaching programs like a specific kind of curriculum that you take them through depending on the situation that they're facing, or is it kind of a like a mix and match and just what they need in?
Speaker 1:that moment it's really mix and match what the person needs in that moment. I don't have any defined programs. You know, I do like people to sign up for maybe six sessions if there's a goal they really want to achieve, because I find six is really a great number to see some progress, but there's nothing to find. It's really up to the client.
Speaker 2:That's great. You mentioned that you work with people like coming straight out of college, so are you helping them to define what type of role would be best for them or what type of organization they're looking to go into, or exactly what are you helping them to kind of work through in that particular transition?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I've got a client right now just use her as an example and she really has this belief that she needs to find a job exactly matching her degree, and so then she felt like if she found a different job she'd wasted all of her college years, and so we've been working a lot together to see how the degree she's earned and the skills that she has can translate into so many different career paths, and even talking to other women professionals connected her with some of my friends so she can see how career paths really are different and you don't have to be totally tied to your degree. And I just think that's important, you know, for young people to see all of the options that there might be, because I know when I was coming out of college I didn't quite know what the options were, and so I love helping them kind of broaden their horizon, see the big picture and see how their skills can fit into a lot of areas.
Speaker 2:Great. So, speaking of your own college experience, what did you study in college?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I actually have a bachelor's of music, performance and arts administration, so I'm not a musician right now, so I like using myself as an example. I went into the nonprofit world right after college doing arts type work and I worked for an art history museum and a nature preserve and that's when I really got into human resources and finance and accounting. And it wasn't until I was 40 that I went back for my master's in human resources and finance and accounting and it wasn't until I was 40 that I went back for my master's in human resources. So I've started coaching and doing HR officially, you know, midlife.
Speaker 2:That's really cool that you went from like what would be seen as a completely like creative endeavor and that somehow like led into a more like business minded. You know, less creative, more like numbers, and that's really awesome. So how long were you in the nonprofit sector? Like, were you in that sector after college all the way until you went into the HR world or Pretty much so.
Speaker 1:Hr I was doing within the nonprofit sector, so I was often doing their finances and human resources for smaller organizations. So that's where I really loved human resources and realized how much I enjoy working with people, because there is a lot of creativity with working with people. That's a very good point and I enjoyed it more than the accounting side, and so I had many years of HR and nonprofits and higher education.
Speaker 2:That's great. Other than working one-on-one with clients, I was stalking you on social media and I saw some really interesting things that I did not know that you offered. So would you tell us a little bit more about the types of events and special things that you do in that area?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I'm really excited about are retreats that I offer with another friend and coach. Her name is Becca, and so we started collaborating to create these women leadership retreats. We offer them twice per year, so in the winter, early spring, so around February, they're in Indianapolis, and then in the summer, early fall, so kind of August September timeframe, they're in Lexington. And we really gear them towards women at all leadership levels. We say if you're not sure if you're a leader, you probably are and it's a great place to come really learn about your own leadership style and how you can make it your own. So we don't want to be the stuffy corporate kind of traditional, what people think of when they think of leadership, but really help people see their skills validate, give them more confidence and make their leadership story their own. That's great.
Speaker 2:And Becca you told me before we recorded is in Indianapolis. Yes, yeah, she's in Indianapolis. And what type of coaching does Becca focus?
Speaker 1:on. She does coaching a lot for entrepreneurs and multi-passionate individuals. She helps with their strategic planning and does a really great job and also does consulting. She's also an artist, so she's a dancer and, I think, a sculptor, so she's multi-passionate?
Speaker 2:She is, she's very multi-passionate. That's amazing. I had never even heard that term until a few weeks ago, and I went to a workshop about multi-passionate professionals. I don't know how I ended up there, but I was like immediately, you know, the light bulb went off and I was like, oh, that's why I feel like I'm going in so many directions at one time, constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think most people probably are multi-passionate to some level, yeah, and you feel like you have to follow one path, and so really learning how you can have all of your passions in your life is wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really fantastic, and so the name of that workshop was it Elevate, yes, elevate, okay, and you do it twice a year, yep. How would people find information on that workshop specifically?
Speaker 1:You can go either to my website or Facebook or Instagram and it's linked to Elevate.
Speaker 2:Okay, great. And then are there other events or any types of workshops that you do around the community or that you collaborate with.
Speaker 1:Primarily I'll do some free webinars at times. So we'll do some on goal setting, for example, or kind of mid-year reset is one that I have coming up soon. I often will speak for local organizations as well, and so that's just kind of ad hoc as they come up. So I'm always looking into kind of new things you know I can do in the community. One idea that I don't know I'd love to hear if people think it's good or not. But before Elevate I'd love to have a local gathering where people can meet each other prior to going to the retreat, because I know for a lot of people going to a new place with new individuals can feel kind of scary or hard or we can talk ourselves out of going. So perhaps making some connections in advance and learning a little bit in advance makes the retreat even that much more valuable.
Speaker 2:I would be into that for sure. Yeah, so I want to touch back on, like, the different types of people that you can help. I feel like I kind of rabbit trailed off a little bit, but talk about the women who are kind of in transition in, you know, the midlife. Maybe they've been in a career for a while, or they've been a stay at home mom or what have you. What do you do to help them work through their path unfolding?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, actually I did have a client a few years ago who was a stay at home mom for 17 years.
Speaker 1:She had done a lot of things, a lot of different work, a lot of volunteer work, but because she wasn't in the traditional workforce, nine to show how she did have the experience she had been working, even if it wasn't traditional, and helped her gain confidence about what she had done and what she knew, really see that she was proud of a lot of her accomplishments that she had done and then figured out what career she wanted at this point in her life, based on what she really enjoyed and what she really enjoyed and what she was proud of.
Speaker 1:And so it was really great working with her. She gained a lot of confidence and then she got a job, you know, right after that, and since then she's even been promoted into a new job and we work together on that. So it's really fun to watch her growth. And then I have a client now who's still in her career but thinking kind of about what's next, and so she's not anxious to move on but really see how her skills and what she's done can translate into different opportunities of what she might like to do next.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. You know, when we come into a season where we know that there has to be a change and we doubt ourselves or doubt the universe is like going to provide the right path for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so many people think you need more certifications or more degrees to receive kind of that validation. So I really try to help validate and give confidence so that they don't need the certifications, that they really do know what they're doing. Yeah, they do have the skills for what they want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's wonderful. So, speaking of people being validated, if I remember correctly, did you have a little like self-doubt about whether you were a true entrepreneur because you weren't coaching full time and like how validated you are as a coach because of that, and could you talk just a little bit about?
Speaker 1:that, Of course. So when I started coaching, I really wanted, you know, the time freedom and the financial freedom which I think a lot of people want when they start side hustles or entrepreneur adventures, and I believe the only way to get that was to do it full time. It was a struggle. So I'm a single mom to two teenagers, was working a full-time job, wanted some time for myself. It was really hard to figure out how to build a coaching practice to take the place of my full-time job and it just didn't feel right to me. I often had that self-doubt that you mentioned, that I wasn't a real entrepreneur because I was doing it part-time, it part time and finally, I would say only in the past nine months, if I really embrace the identity that you know, I'm a full time HR executive and I'm a part time executive coach for women and they are both my identity and I love it and that's okay. I don't have to be a full time entrepreneur to be a successful entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love that there are so many people that I come into contact with or that I work with, who are, you know, in the beginning stages, and they're thinking like, should I, you know, leave my full-time position so that I can pour everything I have into this side hustle or this business to try to get it off the ground? And sometimes the answer is yes, you absolutely should. But oftentimes the answer is let's give it a little minute, you know, like let's pause and make sure that that's exactly what you want to do Because, like you said, sometimes you find that your identity really is in both, you know, and it doesn't make you less of a business owner or less of an entrepreneur, or less creative or less anything to be multi, passionate, to have you know those two different sides of yourself, or three or four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes there's just the realities of life. So, as a single parent, I need health insurance Right, and so you know, having a full-time position that offers benefits so I don't have to worry about it, is a lot different than if I was a full-time entrepreneur and seeking out health insurance for my family. So I mean, taking that into consideration is important for people too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of loneliness that can come with entrepreneurial life. You know you're you're working alone a lot of the times, you're doing the back end part of the work, and having a job outside of your business or your side hustle, you know, can really fulfill a lot of places that can become empty. You know whether it's your community or, like you mentioned, you know your health insurance or your benefits or your you know regular salary, right? I think that's a really wise and beautiful decision to realize like, hey, this is great. You know both aspects are really good for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, and I say also as an executive coach still working in an executive environment helps me be more relatable to what they're currently going through.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I mentioned that I stalked you on Facebook and Instagram earlier because I'm a procrastinator, so it was just this morning. I did not know that you were an author. Yes, and I was so excited about that, I'm definitely going to buy your book. So do you mind talking about the book and kind of the process, like what spawned the idea to do that and did you self-publish? Like tell us all the things.
Speaker 1:My book is called Work, Life and Balance. It's a tiny book and so it's really kind of meant to be, you know, put in your handbag, in your backpack wherever you're going, and you can read it in small sections at a time. And so it has 15 strategies, with questions at the end of each chapter to really think about how you might want to bring more balance into your life, whether that be through your work, your family, your entrepreneurial mentors, yourself. So it's not necessarily about balancing the scales, but more about integrating everything into your life. And I started that book gosh, I don't even know a few years ago now, but it was really kind of fun to write down and figure out, you know, what I felt was most important, and a lot of it were things that I was doing in my own life that I wanted to share with others.
Speaker 2:That's great. Like I said, I'm definitely going to purchase the book. I don't know if it's better to purchase from you directly or Amazon, or how you want me to do that, but either one. It looks really interesting and I'm excited about it. I'm also excited because I think that there are so many opportunities and maybe because I've searched the internet, you know, with terms like how do you self-publish or things like that. So now, like, all of my feeds are just filled with, you know, people selling me ideas of how to publish my book or have an ebook or whatever.
Speaker 2:But I do think that it's kind of like you were talking about earlier, where, like, we doubt that there is a path for us because we don't have the right degree or certification or whatever. But I think that many of us hold intelligence and wisdom that other people could benefit from and, because of the technology that's available today, being able to communicate that wisdom, information, knowledge, is so easy. Well, I say easy. I know it's not easy. It's so much easier than it has been in past generations. So I was just wondering if you could talk just a little on like how that process was for you Once you got the idea that you wanted to write a book. Did you go through a traditional publishing method? Was it self-published, like? How did you get your knowledge into book form and out to the masses?
Speaker 1:So I've always thought about writing a book for years and years no-transcript path and so I did take a course it was called the tiny book course and I learned all about self-publishing through that course and it really was helpful to learn it that way. But self-publishing is not as hard as you know, the traditional publishing world I mean. I have a friend who does have a fiction book and traditional publishing and knowing what she had to go through to have it published was a lot. So the self publishing route was much easier, that's great Well, congratulations.
Speaker 2:I hope that it was a fulfilling project for you. It was, yeah, all right. So we've talked about your kind of path into how you ended up in the HR role that you're in, as well as your coaching and some of the things that you offer to your clients. Are there any pieces of wisdom or advice that you would like to give to women entrepreneurs who may be experiencing some of these issues of like what do I do next or how do I handle this, that you could just kind of add a little value for them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, two things come to mind when you said that, and the first that I love to have people do is I ask the question what are you really proud of?
Speaker 1:And so just take a minute, journal down everything that you're proud of and it could be lots of things, not what you're most proud of, just everything that you're proud of.
Speaker 1:You could even, if it helps, have a framework, kind of go through your different jobs or your different projects or your different clients and write down something you're proud of and you'll start to see themes emerge. Plus, you'll start feeling really good, right, like your confidence goes up automatically when you think about all the great things that you've done. So that's a great way to start to see what you might like to do or get unstuck or just feel better during the day. And then the other is. So Becca and I in our Elevate Retreat we really focus on the work, play, rest model, and so if you're not playing or resting I'm assuming everybody's working, that one never seems to stop. But if you're not playing or resting, just finding some time to do something new with play even 10 minutes, 15 minutes, doesn't have to be a lot each day Also can kind of grease the wheels a little bit or just make you feel a little more unstuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel that when I'm stuck. So I studied under a life coach for a while and he had a little activity called make your move. So if you were feeling kind of stagnant, your energy was starting to drop. You had like the signature move. It usually was really silly looking, you know, but you were supposed to count down. You know, three, two, one, make your move, and then you had to do your silly little dance thing or whatever it was, and it really did work, you know. And that's when you said play, that's what it reminded me of.
Speaker 2:To just be a little playful and like a little silly and get your energy moving a little bit and it really does work to get you out of that mindset kind of help you reset and be able to focus again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. It's playful and moving, because moving is the other way that you can kind of get unstuck. Yeah, I know for myself the amount of things I joke. That I remember while I'm driving my car or I'm walking from the car to the office or I'm walking from my home to the car is when I think of everything. So then trying to remember it when I can write it down is another challenge. But you know, that's when you're moving and not just sitting at your desk. That's when the thoughts come.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite ways to capture those random thoughts is when I'm driving and my brain starts like spitting out all the things that I've forgotten throughout the day. I'll just tell Siri to start a voice memo and then I'll just start, you know, like unloading all of those random thoughts that are coming into my head, so that I have them captured at least somewhere and then, when I have time, I can go back and go oh yeah, that was right, I needed to do this thing and call that other person back, or you know, whatever the real thought was yeah, a friend of mine told me too once just to start video on your phone so it could be videoing the roof of your car.
Speaker 2:Exactly phone, so it could be videoing the roof of your car, exactly, exactly. Just some way to like capture.
Speaker 1:Yes, your brilliant ideas come in the car or the shower, right?
Speaker 2:For sure I don't take my phone in the shower with me, but I might need to from now on. Yeah, but then we would get a lot of really terrible Alanis Morissette singing and we don't need that. That might be fun, playful, it would be playful, all right. Well, allison, is there anything else that you would want to leave our listeners with, to let them know anything about you that we haven't covered, or your business, or anything like that?
Speaker 1:The only, thing I can think of is just that there's no one way to do something. So your career, if you're an entrepreneur, whatever path that looks like for you, that's right, that's the right path and that's correct for you. So there's just not one way, and so if anybody needs help kind of figuring out their way, I'd love to chat with them.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and so we've mentioned your website and social. What is your website?
Speaker 1:My website's my name, so it's allisonbegorecom, and then my socials are the same, so you can find me on Instagram at allisonbegore, and Facebook I believe it's allisonbegorecoaching.
Speaker 2:I'll make sure to link all of those in the show notes. So if anybody would like to reach out, you can go in the show notes or the description on social media to find those links. For Allison and I am really excited about the Elevate retreat specifically, so I'm going to look into that and hopefully see some of the small business besties at one of those retreats in the near future. And also, don't forget to grab her book. I'll link the Amazon listing for the book in the show notes as well. Her book I'll link the Amazon listing for the book in the show notes as well. Well, allison, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. I've loved learning more about you and I hope that we stay connected. I would really like to continue the conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, michelle.
Speaker 1:This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Absolutely All right. We'll talk to you guys later. Thanks for listening. Friends, my name is Michelle Smock and I own Cultivate Accounting, a boutique accounting firm specializing in small business, and I own Small Business Bestie, where I help women entrepreneurs go from idea to launch and beyond. Check the show notes for links to my website and socials, and also please take a moment to subscribe and review. It really would mean the world to me.