welcome to spotlight on pittsburgh spotlight on pittsburgh is a program about pittsburgh most fascinating people and what they do to make our city an amazing place to live and work when we come back i'll introduce  three rivers and pittsburgh very own associate producer will welcome andrea weatherall founder of and beyond exciting things that i'm really excited to talk about one of them is my scholarship program i'm awarding a scholarship to a business owner for free coaching for twelve months i need scholarship for coach for twelve months isn't that amazing that is absolutely so that's one number two i haven't asked the coach program and the coach it's a call in program that somebody can call in to me specific hours obviously and they can ask me anything they want to ask me about their business about their staff about their sales about how to improve how to balance their lives you name it they can call and ask the coach coach rob rob so you're now you've gotten a title on top of your coach business coaching yes just coach now i have another want to share with you  consultant for your business let me explain that a little bit further a lot of small businesses they have sales teams maybe anywhere between two and fifteen sales reps on their team most of the time they're being managed by either the owner or the office manager or nobody at all those aren't really effective ways to do business and grow sales so i with my twenty plus years of sales and sales management experience can come in and craft a sales management program and be a sales manager consultant for their sales team it improves revenue improves grossed it improves their sales process and it frees up the business owner to work on what they should be working on and that's their business so you're taking away some of the pressure of the business owners so that they can focus on what they need to do absolutely look lot of business owners they really don't have the pedigree maybe they haven't gone through sales training maybe they really don't know but they feel thrusted and they have to go into that position because it's so necessary to grow business and grow sales so this really makes them relieves makes them feel comfortable that they've got somebody experience it's going to work with their people develop and grow their people grow the bottom line make more money and they can focus on the things that they really want to focus on was being a business owner myself i know that you wear many many hats and yet many many more had and  and i'm on stilts yes and it doesn't always leave you to do probably what's most important for your company because you're trying to do so much for for so many people yes so what kind of business owners would benefit from th really any small business owner any small business owner that is looking to grow or feel that they are in that pattern of of stagnating it's a small business like i said two to fifteen sales reps anywhere in the zone because they need the attention they need to structure they need the process and they need somebody who's going to hold them accountable that's the big word right to be a word so that's what i deliver along with a lot of other different things to help them and  so with the sales team itself you know is this an ongoing thing is it something you do it's a one time training now it will it can be structured a lot of different ways obviously i look at coaching as a coach myself is coach is a journey so it's got to be something that happens over a period of time right because we all develop bad behaviors and good behaviors and bad habits i know some your bad habits but we will share with them point today wanted to share yes we need to change habits in order to change habits we need repetition in time and then through repetition and time in changing habits we develop good behaviors so think about a sales team that you're working with over a period of time they can build a better culture better way of doing things over a period of so to answer your original question it is a process over time but it is inner work with certain workshops and certain power sessions that i kind of throw in there to keep things fresh keep things exciting and keep keep things new so they're not completely just sitting there like they're in high school and you know just paying attention to a lecture it's clear interactive absolutely it's very interactive and that's where the accountability piece comes in there's a lot of interaction between we talk a lot we learn a lot there's a very powerful tool not just sitting standing there  listening to me the whole time though it's you know in their best interest to listen to me but to war learn from the selves and talk about real life experiences that they're experiencing every day and we can utilize those experiences to grow and so can you tell me a little bit more about the ask the coach as well yes ask the coach so i'm the coach right so the call in program it's great it's a monthly membership just like a gym membership you can sign up for my monthly membership it's very simple is no contract nothing like that one month at a time and you have access to me during certain hours to call up and have a half an hour coaching session with me on the phone to talk about anything whether it be sales related whether it be people related whether it be vision in goals whatever it is about the business of the business owner or say a manager or even a sales person wants to talk about they'll have access to me during those times have half hour phone calls and it doesn't tie them into any sort of a long term what it's really designed for are the people that  just want to stick their toe in the water and they know that they want a little bit of coaching they know they need a little bit of help they need some direction but they're not rated dive right in so this gives them an opportunity to get a little taste of what coaching is all about and how they can benefit from having somebody to bounce ideas off of maybe unveil some blind spots they may have which is to help them through some tough times and it's good for new new business owner business owners who have been around you don't anybody that owns a business and anybody that wants to do that they have access to me they can help them with a whole multitude of different questions so what do you think some of the questions would be i know you mentioned a few that the number one that always seems to to plague the business owner is people how do why motivate how do i develop a way to grow how do i get my people to get better results i mean business owners actually care about their employees no they pretend that they d absolutely care and they should care about their employees because that's what business is all about businesses aren't successful because of the business owner that just doesn't happen that way though a lot of business owners have that thought it's all about them they need to shed that need to understand that their business will grow and prosper only because of the people having the right people training the right people and developing the right people and caring about their people is really how their business will grow and prosper and one of my favorite quotes of like the past month has been if you want to lead walk behind them so it's not always about putting themselves forward but actually you know supporting in and teaching and continuing education with their employees absolutely and so aside from your new programs what else do you have to offer or as a coach as a corporate coach what i can offer is the different lines of coaching and what i mean by that is it's executive coaching it's managerial coaching and your team coaching so i kin essentially attack the organization from multiple levels so you can have a consistency throughout the organization so the coaching that i do and i've mentioned before on the show i'm a strategic mindset business coach and what that means is i help all aspects of the business think more strategically about what they do every day so the executive level or the ownership level think more strategically the managerial the sales the marketing it all works in coordination with one another so that's what i can offer the corporate environment so now they have a systemic way of looking and solving problems and you don't just do small groups correctly tell me a little bit about your public speaking your conferences or seminars what you can do for that kind of situation yeah i love to do that i love to get out and speak at any any particular venue that is sometimes i hold my own and then sometimes i'm a guest speaker and sometimes what i do is i structure certain workshops to focus on certain things for example will do something on disc personality profile and what that's behavioral profiling how somebody can learn a little bit more about their own personality style and how to deliver that in more a conversational way and learn what the person across a men's personality style is another yes exactly and is there anything else you'd like to share that i haven't touched base on that i'm not thinking of just from you know kind of knowing you well you know you think we really did a good job  mystery story i think you should be on the show more often obviously your best guest but no i mean that's really pretty much what i have going on a two thousand and eighteen and excited about it because there are some new things and you know the whole idea behind what i do every day and the why behind what i do every day is that i love what i do passionate about what i do and i love helping businesses grow great and i guess for your scholarship for anything we will have all the contact information available so can get in touch with you about all of it absolutely great well thanks so much for coming on the show and we will actually be bringing you back out later i love surprises and today i thought we'd have a little bit of fun once you get to know the second guest will be doing a is an applied improv consultancy and coaching program so i use improv in corporations to do leadership development and then i also use improv with make career professionals in three different coaching programs where the whole goal is to figure out how can i use the skills and the tools and the resources i already have to do something i love so this is usually my clients or people that are like i've been doing this for a long time but i actually hate it and i would love to have a little bit more joy  fulfillment in my career and let me tell you that improv is a great way to infuse your life with some joy and i love it and so how did you get involved in improv as well i guess we should start with that yes so i went to an improv workshop for the pittsburgh technology council actually oh yeah years ago a long time ago and i fell in love with it right away because it was so clear that it's about more than making people laugh that improv is about this really vulnerable creative process that's about listening to your scene partner looking for ways to support your scene partner trusting that your creative impulses are enough rolling with change in the moment taking risks and being courageous and all this stuff that i was like oh my gosh this is so clearly transferable off stage as well so it's just this really meaningful experience that was also fun and i don't feel that that happens an awful lot that you laugh until you're crying in an experience that's also informing you about who you are as a person and how you can grow and thrive as a human being on this planet so just the relationship between those two things i i just knew whatever this is i need to be able to do more of so in life and as you can relate with us and we're not you know loads of extra time you have to take something off the plate somewhere yeah i still perform you know five nights a week if you're not out every day writing  not out every night you know sometimes i'm out every night getting more diapers from target but basically where and so improvs really changed the way you thought and then you incorporated into coaching so how did you get into the coaching side things totally by accident so when i first started out i pretty much was a one trick pony i had this workshop that like a ninety minute workshop i was doing and i had no idea who my ideal client was i pretty much of people reached out to me like sure i'll come your whatever like nonprofits and were pretty much everyone i was working with like anyone that asked i said yes so what happened was i had been speaking at a networking event i can't think of the name of it in this moment but anyhow someone approach work one on one with people and my background is in behavior change coaching my very first job out of college was actually on a smoking cessation research study and i was administering the intervention using the trance the radical model i don't know how far down that road you want to go but basically kind of like this scientific approach to behavior change which was fascinating and i really loved so i thought you know what maybe there's some overlap there that i wasn't paying attention to before i mean i absolutes firmly within my wheel house to do one on one coaching that's what i used to do with veterans so i told her you know i don't have any programs like that right now but i i'm curious about trying that again you know what you see ok if i sort of like experiment how would this work using improv and like blending my background in evidence based behavior change you know can i like conglomerate something and try it out and i super loved it and since then i have created so that have a different element to i think you know yeah what you're doing so it's definitely outside the box that is people don't usually hear what i do and say really another one and so you have new programs that you just launched ye so a week and a half ago i launched a new program called rise the career advancement system and it's a six month program that involves several components individual coaching as well as the online class i created a whole online class about using improv to get really good at confrontation because that's the thing that usually holds people back but if you think about it improv is all about listening to your scene partner trusting that they're a creative genius and if you can figure out how to do that in the middle of a confrontation you're going to get a different outcome  that might be true yes it's definitely i've never tried it i'll take your word for it yeah so yes of the crew advancement system is basically designed to help people get expert caliber skills in several professional competencies that make a huge difference if they're trying to really really thrive where they are because career advancement can be i want to bloom where i'm planted i love my job and i want to step into more leadership or it can be super hate this golden handcuffs get me the heck out of dodge sometimes that's that too but when you know how to advocate for yourself well when you know how to give and receive difficult feedback when you know how to show up as the highest expression of yourself and communicate your message under pressure improv speaks into all of those things and those are the same skills that make a difference if you're in a time of transition or at a time of growth professionally you do a lot with people in career transition yes yeah and so  what can they do what kind of people are looking for this kind of program so most of my clients right now are also a mid career professionals and really there's kind of a variety i have one client who for example has a criminal record and is this wonderful person who's like i've grown so much that's not who i am anymore but is having some trouble like figuring out what are the next steps i have someone who came to the united states last year from england and just recently got approval to work in the country and is trying to figure out what's next for me i'm totally reinventing myself and i've worked with clients that are like i've worked in corporate for thirty or forty years and i want to start a nonprofit or  idea for a business so really there's a variety of people but the thing that they have in common is what's happening right now for me professionally is not what i want to have more of like there is got to be more for me than what i'm currently off i guess right field and what you were doing so you know both both as the most honest answer to that my degree is in social work my first job was administering the intervention on the smoking cessation study as a social worker you know social work is about client focus it's about strength based perspective it's about believing that people are experts and then you always early enjoyed working with people and helping people blackly yeah yeah and then but i i knew that i was an entrepreneur so i left my job after a few years as a time limited research study anyhow so we knew that there are certain number over here is that you could work there and then it was like figure something out anyhow and i started a company with a good friend of mine and we did that for a couple of years and i learned so much about entrepreneurship i mean there's really not a better way to learn and doing it absolutely for me i'm sure that there are some people who teach entrepreneurial skills that are like no don't listen to this moment take a class for different different idea different people right yet i jumped right into it and learned a whole lot and it was through that experience that i found that works  i told you about so it really was just kind of one thing led to another and that resonated with me the things that improv was and that workshop resonated with me the same way that motivational interviewing and stages of change coaching that i was doing at my first job it was that same feeling of like oh wow this is big this is right now you need to have a little bit more fun with it yeah yeah i love it and so is there anything else that i haven't touched base on that you want to talk to me about or tell me about whether it comes to coaching or speaking or contacting or anything sure so i also do speak i know rob was talking about that as well i also speak at events and i'm happy to if people are looking for something super engaging and they're not afraid of doing a little bit of improv i'll tell you that i've never spoken at anything where there wasn't a little bit of improv involved that is like collaborative effort with the protest but i think the main thing thank you for asking that question that i just always want to communicate any time i have the ability is that i believe in hope to me improv is about hope all of my work is about hope i believe that if you are in an h r position and you are anyone that has a stake in what your company feels like to show up at work every day how it is not how it has to stay and so if you know that things are not how you want them to be it's totally possible to change and that's everyone's job everyone has the ability to make it a better experience so hope is what i'm all about in your career in your office that's what i care about well thank you i'm going to we're going to take a little break i'm going to bring brought back out and since we had you on the show and you are involved in some improv and you do it everywhere you go we're definitely have to bring rob out here and see what you guys can do ok ok so we'll see you in a moment perfect learn more about and beyond improv dot com andrea and rob will join us after the break first bestial a special improv challenge all right so we are back this is my favorite part of the show because i get to watch what you guys do and you guys have no idea what's about to happen i'm nervous i you're both in leadership you both help corporations in two different completely different ways and you're both great at it which is fantastic now having her doing improv i wanted to bring in a little bit of fun here so i said before whenever she was on  i talked about her improv being outside of the box but i guess the first thing in a very traditional sense of improv is putting you guys inside a box so let's see how you do for ten seconds or they're doing great can we talk you can talk is there someone on the other side of this cardboard i don't know i can't see you but ok but so yes then because you heard me and answered i can hear you ok so ok it sounds like you're saying yes there's a person on the other side of a cardboard ok are you a scary person or a nice person it all depends on what you think is scary and nice ok that's a good point all right all the sudden the box has just disappeared and it's freezing outside i mean it's i'm very excited cause you both just went to the moon the moon is my favorite part of space absolutely isn't it amazing i love the movie i wasn't disappointed when it turned out to be made out of organic material not cheese that's ok i wasn't disappointed i was like you know what yes and my own way to be made out of rocks and stuff it's so cool it's so cool i still have some of my pockets you are told from the moon andrew stole from the moon andrew robb well what's what's andrea's stage name then rob pick a good one i hope good stage name for andrew your andrew episode of spotlight on pittsburgh and thank you all for watching please follow us on facebook and instagram on spotlight on pittsburgh and join us again next time when we shine the spotlight on two new g