Christina Langdon: Five Things You Need To Create a Highly Successful Career As a Life or Business Coach
I typically work with high-achievers and C-Suite women to help them create extraordinary success both in their career and mindset. If I can help with a new connection or an introduction, that’s part of what I bring as their coach, partner, and collaborator. If they need to learn something new, I’ll find the resource or teach them myself. My clients know I have their back.
The coaching industry is now tremendous. It is a 15 billion dollar industry. Many professionals have left their office jobs to become highly successful coaches. At the same time, not everyone who starts a coaching business sees success. What does someone starting a career as a life coach, wellness coach, or business coach need to know to turn it into a very successful and rewarding career?
In this interview series, called “Five Things You Need To Create a Highly Successful Career As a Life or Business Coach,” we are interviewing experienced and successful life coaches, wellness coaches, fitness coaches, business and executive coaches, and other forms of coaches who share the strategies you need to create a successful career as a life or business coach.
In this particular interview, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Christina Langdon.
Christina is a high-performance leadership coach and consultant working with women in the C-Suite and with mission-driven companies to help them scale sustainably and with more joy. After 30 years of working for big-name media brands from Martha Stewart to Fast Company, she realized perfect on paper was perfectly miserable. Christina’s passion for leadership development is rooted in leading yourself first to lead others to success.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and what brought you to this particular career path?
Thank you for having me. My road to what I call “the CEO of me” came after nearly 30 years of leading sales and marketing teams.
Two weeks after I started working at Martha Stewart Living as employee #9, I met Martha Stewart. She was looking for my new boss to inquire about an advertising premium that she didn’t like. Everyone in the department was out for lunch, so it was just Martha and me. After I explained I was new to the company and had never seen what she referred to as off-brand, off-target, and downright disappointing, she told me that if I was going to be successful, I had to learn her brand, what it stood for, and how it should be presented. That day, Martha Stewart enrolled me in what I now fondly call Martha University. She went on to tell me to learn something new every day and teach it to someone else. I learned what it meant to lead with passion, know your why, and have high expectations for myself and for others. I worked for Martha Stewart for 20 years and earned a one-of-a-kind degree.
When I joined Fast Company as the Chief Revenue Offer, I had successfully navigated my career despite life’s challenges from job loss, death, divorce, and single parenting. I looked happy, put together, accomplished, and in love with life, while inside, I was desperately longing for more. I defined my identity by the job I held. On paper, I looked perfect, but I was perfectly miserable. The daily hamster wheel of busy had become my default. My inner me didn’t reflect my outer me. I thought that there had to be something more. One day, that more came. Just not what I was expecting.
I was diagnosed with AML Leukemia on April Fool’s Day in 2019. My year of treatment gave me time to slow down and really look at who I was and what I wanted to become. What legacy did I want to leave? This introspection was an awakening for me.
I officially launched my coaching business while I was still in treatment. When I finally knew, I knew nothing was going to stop me from realizing what I wanted for me and my future career.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I would say curiosity, imagination, and courage. Most of my career was in sales and marketing. If you want to stand out with clients and businesses to make a lasting impact, get curious. Be out there foraging for what’s new in your industry, what’s new for your clients, and what’s coming that will make a difference. Being open and curious will lead you to conversations that go well beyond the sale. Getting curious about the buyer, their pain points, and their product will help deepen your connection. People typically buy from those who they like and trust. Curiosity, through deep questioning, is foundational for a good sales person, executive and coach.
I always ask, “What if?” On the other side of that question are where the possibilities lie. This is where imagination plays. When you move away from doing things the way you always have done them and open yourself up to imagining what’s possible, that’s where creation and innovation lie.
Christina Langdon, Christina Langdon High Performance Coaching & Consulting
How have habits played a role in your success? Can you share some success habits that have helped you in your journey?
When life gets chaotic, my daily habits are a grounding force amid my daily chaos. Launching the day with intention and a set ritual has been life-changing. I write every morning. Call it journaling, a gratitude list, or a thought download. With it, I bring calm to my chaos by writing down my thoughts. I write daily about what’s possible for my future, what I want to create that day, and who needs me on my “A” game. Getting clarity first thing is a fuel to me. After I journal, I exercise.
Another habit that has elevated my productivity and allowed me to both work in my business and on my business is weekly calendaring. Too many of us leave the calendar up to chance. I no longer think of the calendar as a place to hold space for meetings, but the place where I create the future I want. I use the calendar as a vehicle for what I want most.
Each week, I look one to two weeks out and begin reserving time on my calendar for my priorities. I time block space for creating things, be it a strategic plan, a new workshop, or the product I’m working on developing. I also time block prep time for each upcoming meeting and event on my calendar. Being prepared helps me stay focused and in control. Leaving it up to chance won’t have me on my “A” game. I also calendar “me” time that includes my exercise and the To-Do list. I’m creating what I want by being very intentional about where I spend my time.
This will be intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out directly. Can you help explain a few reasons why it is so important to create good habits? Can you share a story or give some examples?
Habits free you up, give you back time and more energy. Time and energy you can then invest back in you and your business. Habits are food for the brain. Without my morning ritual and my calendar blocking, I get overwhelmed and feel out of control. When this happens, lots gets done in the inevitable default to busy, but it’s in reaction mode instead of in focus of my priorities.
I work with clients to bring habits to their calendars. They start by going back several weeks to see where they spent their time. They create categories to represent time spent and color-code those categories onto a blank calendar week. They can now visually see where they typically spend their time. The next step is to decide what their ideal week would look like if they could spend the time working on their goals and doing what they love. They then take out another blank calendar page and create a visual representation of their ideal week, filling in the calendar with the same color-coding system. Many people who do this exercise find they need to create new categories. From their ideal week, they can build the weeks to follow to reflect what they want most. With this type of awareness, my clients see what is serving them and where change is needed to make a powerful difference.
Speaking in general, what is the best way to develop good habits? Conversely, how can one stop bad habits?
Good habits require commitment and consistency. Both are hard for most of us, especially when life gets in the way. Our brains are wired to resist the hard, the new, and the uncomfortable. Start small. Make one new habit, and do it every day for 60 days. When it becomes second nature, introduce another new habit. The days where we don’t get to our habits — our journaling or our exercise — are the days we likely need them most.
Bad habits are hard to break. I’m a candy addict. I could eat Gummy Bears for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. More than a bag at a time. Coming out of Leukemia treatment, I made a promise to myself (which was supported by my doctor) to reduce my sugar intake and to eat more healthfully. My bad candy habit was so hard to break. I couldn’t even go down the candy aisle in the supermarket. The check-out lines filled with candy made me crazy.
I’ve mostly broken my Gummy Bear habit by reminding myself of my long-term health goals. I check in with the thoughts I want to have in support of my long-term health. The feelings I get from not eating the candy are so much more rewarding than the Gummy Bear sugar high.
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote?” Why does that resonate with you so much?
One of my favorite quotes is, “The most influential person in your life is you, and when you recognize your influence over you, it is a game-changer.”
This is a quote I use in many of my talks, workshops, and writing. I can’t find the attribution. Each time I write it and speak it, I get that thrill and awareness that I am my own game-changer. The influence I have over me is stronger than anything or anybody. This is my life to shape. My mother always told me, “You write your own life script.” I’m writing mine each day, acknowledging that if I want the game to change, that I’m the one to change it.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
HerMd is an organization I work with on executive leadership, training, and development. HerMD is reimagining women’s health care. Their mission is to change the health care experience for women around menopause and sexual dysfunction.
Like every mission-driven company, they’re moving at the speed of light. As they grow and their success is multiplied, they want to ensure that their team stays deeply aligned to the mission with trust and collaboration as the glue. Without it, success can potentially suffer.
People are the key to every organization’s future, and having the people aligned and connected can be challenging.
Trust is a foundational part of HerMD’s success. We’ve developed tools and frameworks, so they lead themselves first in order to lead others and the organization to the outcomes they want. Systems, learning, and intentional communication techniques have been embedded into the culture. The results have been phenomenal.
Ok, super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many coaches are successful, but some are not very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful coaches from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create a Highly Successful Career As a Life or Business Coach?” If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
Here’s my five:
- Know your “why.”
- Don’t spend money before you know who you are as a coach.
- Logos, branding, and capabilities presentations can wait.
- Overdeliver whenever and where ever possible.
- Find a tribe of coaches to support you in your growth.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen coaches make when they start their business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
Where do I even start? I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, painfully learned from them, and readjusted. My first mistake was letting my limiting thoughts hold me back from even launching my business. Thoughts of failure and what others would think if I did fail held me back a couple of years. When I got clarity behind my “why” and what was possible, I began to build belief in myself, and began imaging the possibilities for me, my business, and my overall happiness.
If you are just starting your coaching business, I would advise you not to spend money on branding or websites until you have some coaching runway behind you. Investing in branding, logos, and website development is costly in both time and money. Start coaching and figure out and define who you are as a coach. Keep in mind, you won’t be the same coach in year one as you will be in year two or three. With Canva and other design tools, you can create a logo and branding at no cost with the templates they provide.
Also, don’t let perfection prevent you from moving forward. A 98% solution today is better than a 100% solution in a week. Be happy with your first logo and branding and get to coaching. As your coaching evolves over the first few years, your branding will evolve with it as you hone what you deliver for your clients. Here’s the good news. As the C.E.O of your business, you get to decide to change your branding anytime. And you likely will.
It took me almost a year to have the courage to publish my first website. I wasn’t sure it said enough, did enough, sounded smart enough. A coach whom I trained with gave me the advice to publish the website and change it every day if I wished to. Seeing it as a work-in-progress and something I could always improve upon gave me the nudge I needed. I hit publish the next day. It felt empowering and prideful that I was out there. The website’s been through more than a few rewrites and will continue to evolve as I grow. It will never be perfect, but neither am I.
Before you publish your website, work on developing yourself as your brand. People buy from who they can relate to and trust. A lot of my clients see a bit of themselves in my story. Get clear on your story and your “why”, and with it will come some of your very best clients.
Based on your experience and success, what are a few of the most important things a coach should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience? Please share a story or an example for each.
We are in the service industry, and I believe we must work in service to our clients, and that’s not limited to the coaching session. I believe that exceptional customer experience is delivered with a 360-degree approach to my coaching engagements. My engagements go beyond coaching as I work to help and support my client’s future.
I typically work with high-achievers and C-Suite women to help them create extraordinary success both in their career and mindset. If I can help with a new connection or an introduction, that’s part of what I bring as their coach, partner, and collaborator. If they need to learn something new, I’ll find the resource or teach them myself. My clients know I have their back.
Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business, and particularly in coaching. What are the best ways for a coach to find customers? Can you share some of the strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?
The lead generation conversation is important as it is overwhelming to new coaches. At least it was for me, with all of the marketers and Facebook ads using pressure tactics and scarcity messaging.
I launched my business with a Giving Challenge, where I sent an email, one per day, every day, for thirty days, to my contact list. In it, I offered a one-hour coaching session at no cost to one person. I texted and emailed people who knew me but were just outside of my immediate network. My messaging went something like, this is day seven of my 30-day Giving Challenge, where I’m delighted to offer you a complimentary hour of coaching. I also said the only thing they couldn’t say was no. It worked. The Challenge helped me build my coaching muscle and confidence. I landed two clients from it. Two clients who then wrote testimonials that I used to help with lead generation.
I remember as I got started in the business asking every coach I met how they landed new clients. Over and over again, I heard referrals. But how do you get referrals when you are a brand new coach? Especially at a rate and consistency needed to run a successful practice. I now keep a record of the lead source for all of my clients. Here are the top four sources: referrals, email marketing (blog/content), networking, speaking engagements. Early on, I sent my clients and prospective clients a weekly email. This turned into my Sunday Sunshine weekly newsletter and website blog. It’s driven leads, credibility, and content development.
Coaches are similar to startup founders who often work extremely long hours, and it’s easy to end up burning the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to your fellow coaches about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting their business?
Ask for help. I had no idea how much technology was needed to deliver on a great client experience and to simply manage the day-to-day business. From booking meetings, to content automation series, website pop-ups, invoicing, and bookkeeping. Ask for help from fellow coaches. Ask them what they use and how they’ve overcome tech challenges. If you have to invest in help to get you up and running smoothly, I think that’s an investment worth making, especially if it saves you both time and negative head-space.
Own how you spend your time in pursuit of building your business. I work with high-achievers and mission-driven companies who are out there making big things happen. Many come to me feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, and on a hamster wheel fueled by a calendar that is leading them. We work to take back their time and get clear about what running their business should look like, and be reflected each week on the calendar.
Coaches need to organize their calendars with weekly consistency that reflects coaching hours, marketing hours, development hours, and so forth. If my business is going to continue to grow, I need to dedicate weekly hours to investing time in my own growth. Getting clear around our time and reframing the busy is one way of managing the stresses of owning your own business.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
The kindness movement is not new, but leading with kindness is needed now more than ever. Kindness doesn’t take money. It takes intention. Best of all, it can have a lasting impact. I remember my child’s nursery school teacher welcoming her students every morning by saying, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Don’t we all want to be treated kindly?
I’m not talking about random acts of kindness. That’s random, and random doesn’t create long-term trust. Let’s not be random. Instead, let’s lead with kindness. I don’t mean superficial kindness. Kindness can be hard. Telling someone the hard truth is an offering kindness, but may not be easy.
Kindness is a choice we make. Kindness creates connection. I believe making the choice to be kind and creating connections is a strategic fuel. With this framework, how can we put kindness to work?
Kindness builds trust. With trust, collaboration takes hold with positive intention and without judgment or gossip.
We are blessed that some very prominent names in business, VC funding, sports, and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
That’s easy. Brendon Burchard is a best-selling author and one of the first high-performance coaches. Brendon inspires me to show up with intention every day. To bring my A-game to my clients and to create the business I want on my terms. Brendon’s story inspired me to take ownership of the legacy I want to leave and create the life that I wanted. His books, teachings, and courses have changed my life.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can check-out my website at christinalangdon.com. You can also sign up for Sunday Sunshine here. I’m also on Instagram at @christinalangdonbosslady.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
