In this inspiring episode, host Pualena chats with KC Cohn as she shares her evolution from a traditional nine-to-five career to building a thriving six-figure color consulting business. After scaling her venture with six consultants, a life-altering trip shifted her focus to a new calling: Visionary Coaching. KC developed the "Ebb and Flow" framework, which guides clients through the transformative stages of Epiphany, Blueprint, and Bridge, emphasizing the importance of deep inner work before pursuing business growth. She introduces innovative tools like Pinterest vision boards and therapeutic photo shoots, empowering clients to reimagine their self-image and align their personal and professional lives.
KC also unveils The Slumber Party, her six-month virtual coaching container designed to support women entrepreneurs on their journey to clarity, confidence, and community. This unique program combines one-on-one coaching, a nurturing community, and KC’s proven methods to foster both personal and professional breakthroughs. Don’t miss KC’s insights into overcoming self-doubt, finding alignment, and building a business rooted in values and integrity.
About KC Cohn
KC Cohn is the creative founder of House of Vision, specializing in visionary coaching designed for women entrepreneurs and creatives. With over a decade of experience in coaching, personal development, color and design, and personal branding, she empowers clients to achieve profound, life-altering transformations.
Her diverse expertise enables her to provide uniquely holistic solutions that enhance both the personal and professional dimensions of her clients' lives. The "180 to 180" program, developed under her leadership, is designed to guide individuals through a complete personal and business metamorphosis in just 180 days.
This transformative journey delves deep into uncovering aspirations and obstacles, authentically aligning personal and professional identities, and creating strategies that attract ideal clients. For those ready to lead with vision, resilience, and grace—and seeking meaningful changes in life and business—she offers dedicated support and guidance to help craft a personalized path to greatness.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Pua Pakele | RBL Media:
Contact KC Cohn | House of Vision:
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Transcript
KC 00:00
One really easy thing that they can do is take a look at their values. Go go out on a website, look for a list of values, pluck out maybe five, six or seven that you can remember and adhere to those and tell yourself, no matter what.
Pualena 00:21
We should have just recorded all of that.
KC 00:23
That's true.
Pualena 00:24
I always say that, but that was extra magical. You just did a full on microphone optimization session, and it was, KC, sounds amazing right now. KC, tell us about yourself.
KC 00:35
Thank you. Well. Thank you so much for having me on. I actually, I have this great microphone now, and thanks to Pua, we got it straightened out. But what I'm really excited about is to share with you the moment that I had this epiphany in my business, and it changed the whole trajectory of my career, and it was this vision of portrait photography that came out of the sky when I was asking, like, should I burn my business down? Or is there something more? So that's what I'm looking forward to telling you about at some point during this conversation.
Pualena 01:10
Oh my gosh. Tell us right now, because I can just hear hundreds of people listening to this saying, Oh my God, I am there. That is me. Shut this down tomorrow. KC, tell me your story.
KC 01:22
Yeah, well, I said, Okay, if I just start from the beginning, it'll make more sense to hit that point. So several years ago, I was working a nine to five job, and I had also started a side job as a color consultant. My background is in design and architecture and also psychology, and the business was taking off. It was in Washington, DC. I was working in Maryland, just 30 minutes away, and I had started this color consulting business. On the Hill on Pennsylvania Avenue, to be exact. So it really took off, and was doing very well. So after a couple of years in my nine to five job, I was like scratching my head and thinking, well, if I put more time into my side business, I should feasibly do better than my nine to five. So I took the leap and I packed up everything and got an apartment. I could see the capital from my window. It was so beautiful, and I took on I had a business model in a paint store there. That's how I started. So I would help customers who came through the door to choose colors for their home or business, and then, you know, they would invite me into their home. So it was this really great gig, and it was just a wonderful time too to be there. So I had that business going, and it was going really well. I was excited because I took on more hours in that paint store, and things were going well until the manager pulled me aside, along with another person who was working there, and said, oh, by the way, this person has unofficially been doing the same thing you're doing, and we'd like to bring her on as another color consultant in the store, and it won't compete with you. She's going to work for us. You can still have your own business, but we think there's enough people to go around. So I'm like, side eyeing, this, you know. Is there? But come on, we're in the city. There's got to be enough people. I mean, I think it was just crazy thoughts in my head, until it wasn't. Actually, my clientele went down. The numbers were going down. And I was like, Oh no, I cannot have this. Like, I picked up everything. I jumped ship on my nine to five. I mean, I'm out here. I've got to do something. So that led me to expand my business out into the suburbs. So I still held my position there, and then I went out to the suburbs and started growing. And one by one, these paint stores started coming to me because they heard what I was doing in the city. And at the I had this other store. And it seemed like I just woke up one day Pua. And I swear I suddenly had six color consultants who I had trained. I had six paint stores that we had our business model in, each of the color consultants in a paint store. And I had made six figures that year. I was like, what?! That was six, six, and six, but the good kind. So things were going, you know, really well, but it was, it was a lot to take on managing people was a lot different than running your own business. Have you been in that position before, too?
Pualena 04:53
Yeah, and were you still also doing consulting for yourself as well? Or were you just in a management position at that point.
KC 05:01
Oh, that’s a really good question. I was doing consulting myself.
Pualena 05:04
So that's a lot.
KC 05:08
Yeah, it was a lot. It was it was so much fun, though. It was really fun, but there were a lot of moving parts and pieces here, and I had gotten all the stores filled, and I thought I'm gonna take a weekend off and went to visit a friend in the mountains, and it's such a beautiful drive to go from DC to the Shenandoah Mountains. I mean, I was going down the highway, and on either side, it's like rolling hills, and in front of me, it almost seemed like the highway was just gonna turn into like, you know, I was gonna hear Julie Andrews start coming over the mountain singing, the hills are alive or something. It's amazing. And this, this peace, came over me like I'd never felt before. And you know, had I not done that, I don't think I would have realized just the hectic lifestyle that I was living in the city and with my business booming. And so it really made me appreciate being in the mountains and relaxing and having a really nice, peaceful time. Just so happens, when I went away on that trip, somebody had called into a paint store sick, and they didn't, they didn't call, you know, my source, and the paint store was upset. So there were, you know, things like that constantly happening. Oh, your consultants aren't wearing the right clothes, or you're leaving things out, or somebody's, you know, calling in, and we don't know what to do. So I just sort of cut ties with that and decided to move to the mountains and just let my color consulting business fend for itself. I would drive a couple of hours to help clients because I still enjoyed it, but I was like, you know, I need something else. So that's when I made a huge change.
Pualena 06:51
Oh my gosh. So two questions, I feel like there was a lot like you were like, I woke up one day and I had six consultants, and I was making six figures, and so I have a lot of questions about how, how you got there, what it was like to train people under you, how, how did you decide to how, like, what was the point where you were like, this is too much for me to handle. I need to bring somebody on. How did you find the right people? I so many questions about that, that phase of your business, and then I have questions about the other phase, but let's start there.
KC 07:27
Okay, so, so I just, I had a growth mindset anyway, and I had a friend who had started a business just prior to mine in the debate world, and he had grown like internationally with this debate camp. And I it just made me feel like, and he said, you know, KC, you're like me, you're a visionary. And I'm like, am I? And I thought, wow, what if my business grew? I mean, I had, I started to have big plans. Maybe I can go nationwide, you know, or international. So I had these really big, lofty goals for it. And by the time I expanded from one store to the other, I mean, there was only so much of me to go around, and I didn't want to burn the candle at both ends trying to appeal to these different places. So I just thought it was smart business to bring in people. And I actually brought in a volunteer first, who was amazing. She was, oh my gosh. I couldn't have asked for a better person. And then quickly I was able to train her, get her up and running, and pay her. And so the business model just started getting more and more refined. And I actually hired a coach, a business coach to help me, and he specialized in sales. So he helped put in some structures, and we would meet in I had this really cool apartment that was beneath this, this townhome that I was living in, but just the way it was designed was so cool and felt very private. And so I would have my color consultants, we'd meet there once a week, and I would teach them about color, and we would just learn new things. And they would be in the stores to generate, you know, more, more business. So I would, you know, leverage that. And then once they were good enough, they could go into the homes too. And just, we would just work out, you know, like a commission schedule for them, and they were actually subcontractors at first, and then I gradually started pulling them in under me, under my business. But that was also about the time that I just cut ties and decided I'd always wanted to go back to school to get my masters. I already had two degrees. I don't know. I swear I'm just a career student or something. I love learning. As a matter of fact, this week, I'm in four trainings. KC, what are you doing? I know it just so happened. It just so happened that way. It’s was not normally that way. But I do love to learn and expand my capacity. Apparently. Yeah, so I decided to go back to school online and get my Master's in construction management. And I wanted to do that right then because my parents were aging. And I thought, let me do this so that I can have that under my belt and be able to take care of them if I need to, instead of having to maybe, you know, interrupt my schooling. So this, this was the next chapter that happened. I was in the middle of my studies, and I was out to eat at this Mexican restaurant with a friend of mine. And the really odd thing that happened Pua that day was we were sitting there eating, and I was like, I smell something really familiar, and it kind of the best way I can describe it is that it smelled like mole sauce or like cardamom or something. It was, it was a really odd smell, but it immediately reminded me of my grandmother, who had already passed away years earlier. And we left the Mexican restaurant, and on the drive back, I got a call from my sister that my mom had collapsed, and my mom had just made it into, like her dream living location, this facility that she'd wanted to be in for 10 years with her partner, but it just wasn't happening. But she had just moved in there, and my sister called and said that she had collapsed. I'm like, okay, all right. I mean, she's 80, almost 81 okay, I'm preparing myself. And she had actually passed away before, like, we could get out there, and I was like, oh no, this. I just felt so bad. And, you know, I didn't know exactly what had happened. I was questioning what was going on at the facility where she was, but the hard part, and the part that just felt like it wasn't fair was she had just gotten there. She was only there 10 days, and this was her dream place. I mean, she used to talk about she wanted to be there because her best friend lived there, and her best friend was like the mayor of this whole facility, and she couldn't wait to do, like the exercises and the art and go on, you know, all these retreats and swim and all the things. And it just so happened that there was a space that opened up. We thought she was gonna have to wait for a year, but there was a space that opened up within a couple of weeks, and she got in right next door to her best friend of 50 years, yeah. So all of that was just so, so devastating. She was only there for 10 days. She passed away. And, you know, I just kind of sat with that. I mean, I finished out my schooling and everything online. I was determined that I was going to be grateful for the time that she was, you know, here she lived a long life, and, you know, just keep moving on, finish my degree and then figure out what to do from there. But that really affected me. It just, it just wasn't fair. I don't know if you've lost any parents or not, but it was hard.
Pualena 13:13
Yeah, it's, I mean, I feel like moments like that really give us perspective on what's truly important and how quickly things can shift. And even those 10 days, as short as that is, what a blessing that those were the last 10 days for her, where she could be right next to her best friend, see that dream come to fruition. Did that? Was that a catalyst for you to make any big decisions in your life?
KC 13:45
As a matter of fact it was.
Pualena 13:47
I had a feeling.
KC 13:48
Yeah, so, yeah, I finished my schooling, and I had applied for some jobs in my field, but I was quickly realizing the pay wasn't going to be worth the time. I'd have to invest in it. And so just scrambling for what I'm going to do, I started hiring other coaches to figure out what my like, my passion, and my purpose was in this life. And I just kept thinking about my mom, and you know, I was just, I was I was angry, actually, that it happened, because it just seemed so unfair. And some of the things that I was trying on were coaching women entrepreneurs, because I love business so much, and I'm a creative also. So I was doing some branding, like pulling in the color from my color consulting business. And people were really manifesting quickly and with all these different ideas and things that I was just sort of creating that just seemed logical and intuitive to me, but something just kept sitting in the back of my head like, you know, it's not fair what happened to my mom, and I don't want this happening to anyone else, so it became my mission. Really to make sure that women started earlier, you know, getting their dreams and ideas out there. Because the other thing that I didn't realize was that she had wanted to be an interior designer, which was actually what I had gone into interior design and architecture. I didn't really find that out until later in life, but I have a great memory of her taste actually, I remember like being in her closet as a kid. Did you ever play in the closet your parents closet?
Pualena 15:35
Oh, all the time.
KC 13:47
Did you okay? I'm not alone, so I'm gonna date myself a little bit here, but it was in the 70s, and my mom was just on the cutting edge of fashion, always she had the coolest clothes, and, you know, big floral prints and oranges and yellows. And I always remember this pair of of shoes that were like these yellow like, kind of platform, but wedges, and they had this yellow cloth around them and these little tiny flowers on them. And I always remember putting my little feet in there and dreaming of, like the day that I could wear them. And I think she still had them when I was an adult. And just thought, yeah, I don't really want to wear those. But, you know, just her style was so incredible. And you know, she never did that. She opted to raise, I have a brother and sister too, so she opted to raise a family instead, which, you know, I'm grateful she did that, because of all the things that I got from it. But I just thought, you know, if she had had someone like me, which is, I'll get into what, what I ended up getting into, but someone to help her, a coach, to help guide her and help her become stronger, emotionally, have a stronger foundation, and be by her side to help her do the thing that maybe she thought she couldn't do maybe she thought she couldn't have a family and a career both. So that became my mission, to help other women, and thus was born, I would say, Visionary Coaching. It actually came a little bit later, but we'll just leave it at that.
Pualena 17:07
Incredible. I'm so I'm so fascinated by this because. One, I think color is so cool, and I just have a lot of questions for you about color generally, okay, as somebody who does branding, that is like, I mean, I wish you could see it on my wall. I have it's this one right here. It's like the anatomy of color, essentially. And like, you know, there's, there's so much to color, and I would love to geek out on that with you, maybe today, maybe another time, we'll see where this goes. But from a sort of a purpose and a career and a calling perspective. I love stories that show how all of the paths that we take, all of these things. You know somebody, somebody brought in a second consultant in the shop that you were working at, and you're like, hold on. I'm not ready to share yet. What is happening. This is like the worst thing you could have possibly done to me, and then seeing from from that to the great wins of building a team, to feeling like I'm over it like, bye, I'm I'm done, to leaving that world, to the passing of your mom, to all of these twists and turns and how that led you to the absolutely beautiful business that you have today, and the impact that you get to make on people's lives for the better. It's just it's an honor to hear your story and to be able to witness through your storytelling how you got here. And I think it's so important for people to understand that everything that they're experiencing is building on their journey. None of us know where we're going, but we have to trust that it's going towards a greater purpose.
KC 18:52
It's so true. And you know, I so I was in that experimental phase when, you know, my mom passed away a little bit after that, and this was about the time, so I started, I started doing, like, success coaching and mentoring women entrepreneurs, and I had some clients, and I had actually a lot of clients with all these other things I was testing, but didn't really want to move forward with them. So I had some clients, and they were doing some really, really magical things. I mean, I would do deep dives with them, which is actually the first part of my framework of what I do now, called The Epiphany. That's the first stage. So I would do these deep dives because I have this psychology crisis center background, and we were looking for bottom level beliefs and blocks, trying to figure out, okay, why? What's, why are these women stuck and not getting their best selves out there, not getting these incredible ideas that they have out there? So we dig and we'd find them. And the way I describe it is, it's like, it's as if they were wearing this like concrete cape before, and once we dug down and found out what this bottom level belief was, what their, where their self doubt was coming from, and like connecting all these dots, it was as if that that concrete cape just disappeared. And so suddenly they feel this lightness, and this, what I call, this energy of euphoria. And what that was doing was allowing, suddenly, things to start coming to them, and it just opened up like this Magical Gate for them. And the things that started coming to them were like I had a writer who also had a part time job at a restaurant as a hostess. She started getting tips all of a sudden from people just out of nowhere. She would come to me and, like, empty out her purse and these envelopes and just, I mean, it just kept happening. It's like, what is going on just out of nowhere? And she was getting receiving other things too. And I had another client who wanted to start a podcast, but thought she couldn't, and we figured out a way that she could, because she was just told she couldn't. And the next time that we met, she said, You're not going to believe this, but I am booked out three months in advance for guests, she said. And I don't even know how they found me. What I mean, all these hair raising experiences were happening. And I was just, yeah, I was just using my intuition to help them, but it was going great, but I wasn't really getting the clients that I wanted. And this was the point where I was like, these great things are happening, but I don't know how to get, you know, more clients. My color consulting business was just a huge boom, and now I'm like, okay, do I burn this down and, you know, go make coffee at Starbucks or something, or not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just I needed to do something. And I remember, I was living in this log home at the time, and I was sitting on the couch, and I just, I felt like this train that was just stuck on these rusted old tracks, like it wasn't gonna move anywhere, you know. And it's like this was reminding me, I was starting to get fears that I was gonna end up like my mom, like living her whole life, not really doing what she really wanted to do. And I did not want that to happen. And here I am trying to encourage other people to do, you know, they're to live their dreams. So this was the moment that I mentioned in the beginning, where I stepped outside the log home, and I remember it was such a beautiful and clear day, and I was on the porch, and I looked up to the sky, and it was so blue, and I just said, you know, it's like one last chance. I mean, I had been through, I don't know, four or five coaches already to help me figure out what my passion and purpose was. I'm like, is there really anything else left? But I gotta tell you, I did not want to have to go work for somebody else, so I was willing to, like, reach out to the sky and ask the universe, okay. Is there anything else that I absolutely love in this world, and I should have known better, because any time I ask a question like that, I get an answer before I even finish the question. It's like something's already in my Have you had that happen before to you, too? It's so weird. But all of a sudden this vision of portrait photography came into view, and I was like, needle on a record player. What?! I am, I'm like, where is this coming from? I mean, I literally saw, like this huge, almost gilded frame around, like this sepia you'll appreciate this, a sepia toned picture of like a brother and sister, you know, when they're young, and I'm like, okay, I mean, I do love portrait photography. I won't doubt that, but I don't think I'm going to become a photographer, not this late in the game.
Pualena 23:56
And has you been a photographer before?
KC 23:57
Well, not really. I mean, I have art classes, but get this, my dad was as a hobby, we had a dark room in our basement, so he used to develop his own pictures. And in grade school, I had the opportunity to kind of delve into that at school, so I did a little bit there, but I was like, I don't, I really don't think I'm going to become a photographer, but I don't want to give up on this, right? And I also don't want to go work for somebody else. I'm not going to give up on this. I'm going to figure out I'm going to, like, I connect dots for my clients all the time. Why not connect it for myself? So, so that's what I did. I started connecting dots. And I was like, you know, I look at social media, and this might happen for you too, being a creative and I can see when people post, and maybe it's not really their authentic self, what they're saying maybe doesn't match with either how you know, how they're portraying themselves, or there's. Just a disconnect. It's like I could, I could see that there's just this sense, and I can just see it and feel it. And I just want to, like, crawl through the screen and and tell them, I can help you. I just really felt like I can help you, because that's part of what I did. So I was like, what if I used like, like, I really love, you know, how women have these beautiful photo shoots that they do, like, you know, branding, personal branding shoots. I just love looking at those. And I guess I just feel like, you know, a picture paints 1000 words kind of thing. And I thought, what if? What if I use what I'm doing with the emotional mastery side, and also building a foundation and setting goals and things like that. But what if I get into helping them with a photo shoot? And what was born from that was a therapeutic photo shoot method that I developed for my clients. Now I'm not the one taking the pictures. Mind you, I was smarter than that.
Pualena 26:09
Oh, you are coaching them through how to do their photo shoots?
KC 26:16
Yes, but from the lens of I know you and I know you very, very well. I'm not just a photographer taking the pictures. I'm not even a stylist styling you. I'm I understand you on a very deep level, and we config… I know now where your fears are. I also know where your power is. So what if we emphasize that power and get shots taken of you. So that phase produced amazing, amazing things, and it all started in Pinterest. And I love Pinterest. I don't know about you, Pua, but I love Pinterest.
Pualena 27:01
Pinterest, I recently learned, okay, I'm gonna really try to stay on track here. Okay, but I recently so I've always thought Pinterest was something like, I've always turned to it when I was, like, planning for photo shoots, for sure, renovating, designing a space, right? Like it was sort of this, like, creative tool. And I've recently learned that a lot of people are having a lot of success on it, as in, like the coaching space and like the online learning space, there's Pinterest ads. I didn't know any of this, so I have this newfound admiration and respect for that platform, although I don't know it all that well. Other than I have, like, inspiration boards that are largely unfinished, but tell me. Tell me a little bit more about. Okay, so the reason why, wow, that was not a full question, but I promise I'm going somewhere. The reason why this is so cool and exciting for me to hear is, as somebody who has had a few branding photo shoots done in the past. And I have one photographer who I just adore. She gets me. She's like, she's it. But I've had many before that who I've it's just been like, you get the photos back and you're like, I don't know if I can use any of these, and I don't know why. Like or, you know, for some reason maybe you weren't feeling it that day, or you didn't like your outfits, or they didn't capture the vibe, or like it's not really something you'd want to post on your work Instagram or, you know, and so there's, like, a lot of and I always thought, wow, that's on me for not preparing myself better and for not preparing my photographer better. But at the time, I didn't realize A) that that was even a thing I needed to do. And B) what could I have done to make that better? Like I still didn't know you just end up with these photos that you're not going to use. So from that perspective, I love this so much. I'd love to learn more about how what your process is and, yeah, tell me more, because this is so fascinating.
KC 29:04
Yeah, thank you. It is really fun. So let's see, where was I? What I call my framework is the ebb and flow method. So ebb being spelled, E, B, B, the first stage is the epiphany that I was talking about earlier, and the second stage is the blueprint. So this is where we take their goals and everything. But we jump into Pinterest like it's a studio, like it's our studio, and we go in and I have them create a few different buckets in there, they're going to create some boards for their life, how they see their life and how they want it to be. And we've already gone through all that with them. They're going to do one for their business, and then they're going to do one for a photo shoot. And this allows them to all of this, allows them to see themselves from the outside. So it's really all encompassing. And with the photo shoot, I didn't really realize what was going to happen with it. I said, Hey, take this, do this. And I don't care if you just take selfies, if you have a friend, take pictures of you, if you want a full on photo shoot, or whatever like, just do whatever feels right to you, wear, whatever is going to make you feel you know in your sovereign self, or you know the victor, or whatever it is that you want to feel. So my clients came back, and one person did have her boyfriend take pictures of her, and she posted those pictures, and everyone started raving. And to look at them, you'd think, Oh, it's just someone that just went out and had a fun time, you know, on this photo shoot. But there was something really magnetic in there with her, so we had gotten this through line that was allowing her to manifest all this attention and her, you know, just her personality was so different by then, anyway, and then the other person, I didn't, she's, she has all these engineering degrees. I didn't even realize I had forgotten kind of what a creative she was, too, like an artist. She comes back, and she had gone into Canva and took existing photos that she already had, and did these really magnificent things with them that put her in her power. And she had these amazing phrases and words and things with them too. And I just got chills when I saw them, and to see the confidence that was exuding from both of them, and for them to start to stand up to people that might have told them that, oh, hey, how's your hobby going, kind of thing, and, you know, be able to stand up to those people and not let that, you know, sort of take them down. So a lot of what I do is experimental, and I do that with my clients, I really start to create things that are made just for them, and then it becomes this framework. So I did the therapeutic photo shoot method on them first, and then a year later, I tried it myself. So I took this process, I did a full on photo shoot. I left where I was in Virginia, went to Savannah, Georgia, and chose this really amazing, amazing photographer, and created all these dynamic shots. And the photographer was a creative, the hair and makeup person was a creative and we're all just kind of collaborating on what this is going to be like them joining in on my ideas. And there was also a second shooter there, so she was capturing video and capturing shots, and she captured this one shot of me having a conversation with a photographer and with a makeup artist, and I saw myself standing there, and I was like, Oh my God, that person right there, and I was in, you know, hair and makeup, and I had my dress on, and I said, Look at what she's doing, like she's standing back, and she is giving power to the people who are helping her. And she's still strong, but she's grounded and humble. Like I saw all these characteristics that I had hoped I would be and that I had been working toward trying to be, and I was like, there she is. Like, look at that. Like, there she is.
Pualena 33:35
Like an out of body experience.
KC 33:36
it kind of was, and I was like, I've arrived. I don't know when I got there, but I saw it, and I wouldn't have seen it had I not gone through all of that. So that is the magic of the therapeutic photo shoot method that happens in the blueprint stage.
Pualena 33:55
It's so beautiful. So I'm thinking back, had I had access to a program like this, to guidance like this, you essentially help people to create vision boards for different aspects of their life that they would then manifest through these photo sessions. Is that kind of the concept?
KC 34:15
It is, it's it happens from the first time that we talk, it opens them up to manifest. But then what happens with the photo shoot method is it really allows them to kind of see themselves from the inside out, or rather, I should say, from the outside in. So it's like the photo shoot, by the time they get to that, it just solidifies everything. And then I think you'll appreciate this. We take all that we know up to there, and we do a conceptual like mood board branding board, get some colors in play, because that, you know, I can do that, and we move all of that into their marketing. So by the time they get to their marketing and put in place something that's going to help sell themselves and what they do, it's it is this through line that we created, from The Epiphany like to the Blueprint, and then the last stage is The Bridge. We're bridging all of that so that they it's like they have a rule book. They know what to do now, and they're very confident with it. They don't have all these extraneous ideas and, you know, just kind of sitting in the middle wondering what they're supposed to do. They know exactly what to do. They know exactly who they are, they know exactly what they stand for, and they've got photos to help, you know, guide them into their marketing, and we help them with their marketing and make sure that they're aligned with what they want to do, whether it's on stage or social media or webinars or podcast guests.
Pualena 35:53
I love this. I love it so much because very few people, very few coaches or programs start with the person, and you very much help people to find that alignment within themselves, that power within themselves, because they're the drivers of their business, at least at that point. And it's a step that many people, myself included, totally skip. We're so focused on, like, who's our client, who's our target audience, who's our demographic, what is our marketing? What? What processes do we need to, you know, put into place, and we forget that we, the energy that we put out is the energy that it's going to attract people back to us and to our business, both from a client perspective, but also from, like, a team perspective, you know. And I just, it's, I've had an epiphany of my own just now sitting here thinking about this.
KC 36:58
Wow, that gave me chills. That's fantastic. It's, um, yeah, it's, it's pretty amazing. And that's, you know, the other reason that I went about it the way I did was because I could see that there was, like, a gap in the marketplace where, like you said, you can take all the action. I mean, we've all come on, let's face it, we've all taken all the courses, I mean, four trainings this week. But, you know, we've taken every single course and then and then some, you know, duplicating what we already know, as if we think that's going to help somehow. But I found what happens is, with all this knowledge, and we and we hire, you know, the best that money can buy, sometimes, getting a, you know, business strategist, or, you know, a branding person or what have you, but they're those, you hire those things because they're designed to deliver, they're going to deliver you something. And I find, I found what happened for me. And then when I started talking with other women too, we start to get scared to put it out there, like you could create the most amazing brand or website or whatever, and it's like, I'm going to be out there in public, people are going to think, I'm not really this good. I like it looks amazing, but I'm not really this good. You know, imposter syndrome starts to break in. And I can't tell you how many times I've been delivered something from one of these professionals, and I just didn't even use it because I was like, yeah, no, I'm out. I can't, I can't be visible right now, there's that end. The other end is we seek help through therapists. I mean, we we realize that we're struggling somewhere. So, you know, thank goodness there's people available for us to talk to and sort out, you know, the problems that we're having, or, you know why we can't sleep, or why our relationships are troubled, or why our finances are struggling, or we're just not where we want to be, but we don't ask our therapist for business help. This is not what they do normally. I mean, I'm sure there's outliers, of course, but for the most part, that's not what they do. And then I, you know, I know I've tried sometimes, and I'm like, oh boy, I wish I wouldn't have gone down that road. That's just not it was on their forte, or it's not what I was thinking. You know, they're not. They've been working on on this with me. From day one, they're working on my emotions so so there was a gap in the middle. It's like, that's why these beautiful entrepreneurs are stuck, because they're not able to get the right support that they need from both ends. So since I have a psychology background. I have a creative background. And then, oh, by the way, I'm a fourth generation entrepreneur, so and then, you know, I've got a few classes that I've taken here and there, and all of those things are what brought together the. Visionary coaching that I do now so that I can help bridge both of those gaps, and then when we're done, they can still take what we have and, you know, go seek a professional. But wow, that professionals like thank you for all this information that you just gave me. They don't have to dig in deep, and it's going to be a much deeper and richer experience, because they're bringing all of this knowledge. They know who they are. It just, it gets to be a much greater design strategy. And they're ready. You give it to them, they're like, let's do this. I was so ready. You know?
Pualena 40:36
That's so awesome, and it, it really puts the onus on the person to do the inner work before they show up to the professional. And there's, you know, like, before I was like, oh, these photographers are awful. Like, it's not their fault. I wasn't clear on who I was, I wasn't clear on what I wanted, what my vision was. Same thing, and I it applies, I think, to any service, right? If you're going in, you're getting a brand created, or a website created, and you have no clarity on who you are, what you do, who you serve, what your passions are, you'll get something that's misaligned, and you'll say, God, this was a terrible, terrible designer. I've done it. That's why in this that's, that's how I got into web design. I had a business with a friend, and we had, we had a podcast, just because we thought it was fun, and we talked about whatever we wanted to talk about that week. There was, like, no subject. There was no point to it, but it was the most fun thing in the world, and I it, we ended up, like, going somewhere with it. But we had a website designed because we thought that was the first thing that we needed. And we had a referral from a friend. We paid $8,000 and we were like, What is this crap? It was. It was so bad. And we, granted, I do think that, you know, maybe we didn't go with the best designer, developer, whatever that was at the time, but largely we were extremely scattered and unclear about who we were and what we were doing, and had done none of the inner work we had just immediately jumped to invest in this thing that we thought we needed. Yeah, and it was a great learning experience. It was the catalyst to get me to where I am today. And I am so grateful, and I am so grateful for people like you who, like you, are saving people time and money and energy and giving them this robust, beautiful, elevated experience that they wouldn't get if they didn't have you.
KC 42:41
Thank you.
Pualena 42:42
I'll take that.
KC 42:43
I appreciate being seen. It's, you know, it's a lot of times too. I mean, the branding strategists or website designers or what have you. They actually, there are some really great ones who do ask the questions, right? If you went to them and didn't know anything, they will ask you, and they're, they'll get deep with you, but they're only going to get the answers that are as deep as that person knows to go. And if they've, if they've got blocks and things like that, they they can't get any deeper. So that's, where we go, excavating, you know, into that.
Pualena 43:24
Question for you. So when it comes to showing up in all of the ways that we want to and need to for our businesses, you touched on this a little bit earlier. And there's we experience this right before the launch of any, not any, but a lot of our clients, right before we're about to launch their website or their new brand, or they're going to make an announcement, or we are going to announce it on our channels and sort of tag them in, there is a flood of changes that come in. Oh my actually, I want to do that. Can you take this page down? I'm not quite ready to do ready to do that. Oh, you know, I'm like, Hey, this is, I think we're, this is, like, a little bit of, like, upper limit stuff happening. We're gonna be okay. Let's breathe through this. And it just occurred to me that, had they gone through this work with you, because it's so common, like, right before you launch, this happens all the time, and yet, I'm just like, could we build in this phase of personal development, before the business development, before the website development? That would like, override that phase that happens over and over and over again. So that's question number one and two, in this work with people, do you see this come up? So we have, they have their initial work with you. They've done the inner work. They do their photo sessions. They're showing up. They're excited. They're vibrant. Are there levels to this where they maybe they've gotten through that first phase, they're showing up publicly, and then they level up again. Do you see this repeating itself, and do you kind of go through a similar process every time we reach these new levels? What does that look like for you?
KC 45:20
Absolutely So part of the ebb and flow method, the Epiphany, the Blueprint and the Bridge are just the framework. So that's that's the first part of getting all this together. I run a six month container, so they're manifesting right from the beginning. But the first three months, we try to use the framework, and we leave the rest of the three months in case we need to do some more of that work? But there's a lot of support that happens in there, because that concrete Cape just came off, and while they feel like they're flying high and things are great, you also can get very vulnerable and you're not, people are going to start reacting to you differently. There's a lot of things that come at you, so the work that we do helps them. It's kind of like you're always going to fall or do something you know, that you didn't plan on doing, but that fall is just going to be a lot shorter than had we not done anything, and so that you can get, you know, back up again. And beyond that, then we do take it to another level, because I mean for myself and my mentors that help me, I'm always stretching my capacity to do more, to be more, to give more, to provide more value, to dig in more to my clients. And there's always things that I face. They're always bigger and bigger each time. So that's the same thing that I work on with them. We work more on that, you know, stretching of that capacity. And we don't really have to work on the framework as much. There might be a little, you know, some things that we tweak here and there, or if they decide they want to rebrand or something, but mostly it's having that person by their side and not feel, you know, isolated, like often happens with us women entrepreneurs, because people just either don't understand what we do or we don't want to take up everyone's time, but they've got someone by their side to help them, you know, just manifest more and be able to see their vision and make it a reality in life and in business, both.
Pualena 47:33
Beautiful.
KC 47:34
Thank you.
Pualena 47:35
It's so, what you do is so fascinating and so needed. And once we have finished this episode, I am really excited to talk to you about collaborations or ways that we can work together, because I think if people come to us after they've worked with you, there is magic in that space, because it would allow us to have, you know, creative freedom, to build off of the energy that you have unleashed from these people, rather than, you know, people come to us very similarly to how we came to our web designer. Because, you know, that's something that you assume, that you need early on. And I have a lot of conversations with people. A lot of our clients are established already, and they just want to rebrand or refresh their website. But some people do come very early on in their business and say, you know, I, I know I need a website. Can you help me? And we can do a little bit of that work with you. But if it's, you know, if you're at Ground Zero and you're really just either just starting out or going through a little bit of those growing pains that like that's a different kind of support that I'm not qualified to provide, and to be able to have somebody like you to say like this, there is someone who can really just unlock your potential and provide you with exactly what you're looking for, to be ready to come to somebody who is a designer for your brand, or even you know your life and your lifestyle. What an incredible gift that will be. So yeah, we will talk.
KC 49:21
Yes, I would love to actually. And speaking of gifts, I actually have a gift that I would love to provide for your listeners.
Pualena 49:29
Oh my gosh, we love gifts. Thank you. That's amazing.
KC 49:32
It's called the “Why You?” exercise, and what it does is allows you to figure out how to stand out in the sea, I mean, the sea of everyone else that's in your industry. And so it's an exercise that I developed that sort of just ticks off all these things and allows you to see what makes you different, what makes you unique, but the way I do it is also really unique. So I will leave for right now they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, or I'll leave you with a link or something that they can go to to get that.
Pualena 50:17
Yeah, thank you so much. That's so generous and very cool. I also can't wait to receive this gift, because…
KC 50:20
Awesome.
Pualena 50:20
It sounds awesome, yep.
KC 50:21
You can have it. And the other thing is, I have a… the way that I use my framework I just launched with my six-month container, what I call the Slumber Party Virtual Retreat. I developed it because women want a place where they can go and feel safe and be able to get out all of this stuff that they want. It's one-to-one coaching with me, but then it's community support with other women who are just like them, who are going through the same thing, who can compare all of these, you know, phases that that they're going through, and be able to get feedback in a space that wants to provide the feedback, and to be able to have that sisterhood, so that feels like you're living in, you know, this, this big house for six months, and you get to Just work on you. It's all spotlights, all on you, and when you come out, you've got the tools that you need to, you know, have more clients, make more money, and have more opportunities, and just have so much fun and so much confidence doing it.
Pualena 51:35
Beautiful.
KC 51:37
Thank you.
Pualena 51:38
This is incredible. We I will, you know, send me those links. We'll link them in the show notes. And how can people, you know, what? How can they find you on LinkedIn? Or is there another place that they can connect with you learn more about you?
51:51
Yep, right now, I'm on LinkedIn. They can look for my name, the initials, K. C. the last name, C-O-H-N, and I am also on Facebook, and I can leave you with any other social media links for that.
Pualena 52:05
Brilliant, amazing. Do you have a website?
KC 52:09
I don't have one for the Visionary Coaching business right now. I have one for my color consulting business. If anybody wants that, it's.room-color-schemes.com and I can do virtual consultants too.
Pualena 52:20
Awesome. We will have to geek out on color together again, yes, because I, as soon as you said that, I was like, I've got questions for you. We for another time that is going to be really fun. But thank you, just thank you for the work that you're doing in the world. Because it's, as you said, there's a gap in the market. It is very rare to find people who are finding pillars of alignment to support both personal and professional I think it's very siloed right now where people are either doing personal development or professional development. And I think it is like completely unrealistic to expect us to separate ourselves into two pieces when we all come as a whole, and to allow that to blossom, both personally and professionally, it's just incredible. So thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for sharing with me and with our audience. I am super grateful to know you and to be connected with you. Do you have any final thoughts?
KC 53:30
Thank you, I would just say, for your listeners out there who want to do something right away, one really easy thing that they can do is take a look at their values. Go go out on a website, look for a list of values, pluck out maybe five, six or seven that you can remember and adhere to those and tell yourself, no matter what, to make sure that you get the strength and the foundation that you need. And it's a reminder when you do that, whenever you're in a situation like, oh, yeah, integrity, I'm going to be honest with this person right now, no matter what, like, there's no backing down as soon as you say, no matter what. So that's something that I think is helpful, beautiful.
Pualena 54:13
Thank you again I look forward to staying connected.
KC 54:17
Absolutely thank you. Pua.