#124 The Confident Voice: From Corporate to Coaching for Entrepreneurs

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode #124 Marc Evans

“The Confident Voice: From Corporate to Coaching for Entrepreneurs”

(00:29) Doreen Downing: Hi, this is Dr. Doreen Downing. I’m host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. I get to invite guests that have some story about having a voice, like when they found it or when they didn’t have it. Some discovery that they’ve made and maybe a journey we get to hear. I’m excited today to introduce you to my coach, Marc Evans. Hi, Marc. 

(01:02) Marc Evans: Hi, thanks for having me today. 

(01:04) Doreen Downing: Yes, it’s usually the other way around. I’m calling you and saying, “Help.” Let me introduce you. You have a bio, so I’d like to read some of what makes you so important. You’re a seasoned business coach and fractional CFO who’s coached over a thousand clients and worked alongside top marketers including Jeff Walker, driving revenue growth in operations and product launches from three to 10 million.

Marc’s leadership extends to Mars M and M’s incorporated, where he led a team of 400 plus workers with revenues exceeding 50 million. At Tyco Telecommunications, he managed operations for the world’s first vertically integrated global optical network supplier. 

As an accomplished author, Marc has simplified intricate business concepts in multiple business strategy books, saving clients time and frustration.

He’s renowned for his three-part profit playbook strategies that help clients create and execute growth plans with ease. Marc started Zazo Business Results in 2005. The name Zazo comes from being a proud father of twins, Zach and Zoe. 

Marc boasts about the over 250 live concerts he’s seen and is fan of the New York Islanders hockey team, who at the young age of 13, watched them win a Stanley Cup live. What is it like to hear all those accomplishments, Marc? 

(02:54) Marc Evans: I like it. I added in the end because it’s always nice to get a personal touch. 

(03:03) Doreen Downing: Yes, I remember asking you what is Zazo and learning that it was the twins and well, you mentioned 250 concerts, name one that just pops up before we get started here.

(03:17) Marc Evans: Oh, well, most recently, I would say is Rush. It was the end of their touring before their drummer passed away. But the more recent concerts I go with my son, who’s now 21, one of the twins. 

All of those concerts are the most memorable to me because it’s like the next generation of going to concerts with somebody who can appreciate what I’ve been doing since I’m 15 years old.

So, I would say Rush would be the one with him to watch a band end their career with my son. 

(03:51) Doreen Downing: Oh, that’s pretty amazing, actually, to have a son that follows his father and you guys get to trek out into the world together and share something. Sometimes people do it with fishing or other kinds of activities, but rock concerts. 

(04:10) Marc Evans: Well, talk about sharing your voice. My son is actually taking it to the next level, and he shares his voice because he is a musician. He sings and he performs in front of people. Talking about having a voice out in front of people, my son has certainly learned how to do that. 

(04:27) Doreen Downing: Well, I’ve worked with people who are comfortable singing because that’s their zone, and as soon as the song is over, and they must interact with the audience or speak, they freeze up. They just keep on going to the next song. 

(04:43) Marc Evans: Well, music is something that… That’s how my son found his voice. It was through music because as a child, he would not interact with anybody, and the minute he picked up a guitar and learned how to play music, everything changed.

(04:57) Doreen Downing: Oh, well, thank you for that. I hadn’t thought about asking about a child. How children find their voices and what a parent observes about them. That was profound. Thank you. 

(05:10) Marc Evans: It was night and day for sure. 

(05:12) Doreen Downing: Yes, well, if we’re talking about one twin, what about the other twin and how she’s found her voice or is finding it?

(05:19) Marc Evans: My daughter found her voice very early on as well. She had never had trouble with public speaking, inserting herself. She’s in a completely different profession. She’s into nursing. She wants to help people and provide a voice for people that probably don’t have them when they’re sick.

And she loves doing that work and that’s what she’s chosen to do. She’s had a voice and been interactive and involved since an early age where it took my son a little bit longer. 

(05:53) Doreen Downing: Well, thank you. Let’s put the spotlight on you now. Well, I could go around the family circle. What about your wife, any siblings, your parents? 

Well, yes, let’s do put the spotlight on Marc Evans. We’re talking about voice, and I know you mentioned—because of my psychology background, I like to dive a little deeper into history—and I know you and I have had conversations where you said your mom was one of your biggest supporters early on, and you seem to honor her. She helped you find your voice. 

(06:36) Marc Evans: Yes, and I think as a child, it’s through observation. I Always saw my mom being assertive. She never had a problem speaking her mind to the family, to strangers, and I just watched her interact with that confidence.

That rubs off on a child. I’d like to think that maybe what I’m doing rubbed off on my kids the same way. But yes, I think that—I shouldn’t say I have zero problem with getting up in front of an audience and speaking, but I don’t mind it, so I’m not fearful of it.

I enjoy doing it most of the time. There are times where I’m maybe questioning, “Hey, should I be doing this in front of this audience,” but I’m not fearful of it, and I know so many people are. I think the reason I could go back to being not fearful of it is because I saw how my mother was for sure.

(07:38) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, you pointed—we both pointed back to early childhood and its influence on developing our basic, our foundational sense of self. It feels like the modeling that you got was, “Oh yes, that’s what it looks like. That’s what speaking up looks like.” What about your dad? 

(08:00) Marc Evans: So, my dad would be responsible for my calm demeanor when I speak. My dad has a calmness about him. People always ask me—they always say, “Marc never shows different emotions when he’s upset, when he’s excited, when he’s sad, when he’s angry, all these things. He seems to have the same look on his face while he’s doing it.” 

I’ll attribute that to my dad for sure. So, I think I get the confidence from my mom and the calm demeanor from my dad. 

(08:33) Doreen Downing: Oh, calm and confidence. C and C. That’s good to have a sense of positive early childhood. You come into the school situation, early education, high school, and it feels like you already have a sense of who you are. 

And because I’ve heard so many stories about young boys getting bullied and that doesn’t seem like that’s your story. But what was social interaction like for you in schools? 

(09:07) Marc Evans: I didn’t get too much bullied, although there was some bullying. I’m a short person and always have been. I’m only five foot four. I never hit a growth spurt where I was like the tall person in the room. The bullying was around my height, but I don’t know. 

I think there was maybe a year or two that it bothered me, but I got over it quickly. I don’t know why that is, and now we’re going to get into some psychological analysis. But I got over it quickly, and it never really stopped me from doing anything, so the bullying was a little bit.

I don’t know. I was always pretty good at using my voice to make friends, probably confront any type of bullying to get out of it with my voice. I would be able to turn those situations around pretty good as a teenager and as a young adult. 

I pretty much get out of trouble pretty well with my voice. It’s probably why I stayed in the coaching business. Started at a young age. 

(10:13) Doreen Downing: Oh, I’m already feeling the link between what you just said and your expertise as a business coach, because I’m one of your mentees. We have our struggles and our problems and you’re able to help us talk—you talk us through something. 

It’s like you can see your way through a problem and what you just said about being bullied but being able to talk your way out of a problem feels like there’s a connection there. 

(10:49) Marc Evans: Yes, for sure. I never linked it to until you just brought it up. It’s fascinating. 

(10:55) Doreen Downing: Let’s move on in your growth. One other thing I noted about you being—whatever situation happened with the other children being bullied —for people who have a foundation, a pretty strong foundation of what confidence and calm, what you said earlier, then they go into, maybe a more challenging situation, they have more resources. They have more strength. They have more of a sense of inner self. And those who don’t and are bullied, they don’t have something inside like a center and it feels like your family gave you, early on, a good centering experience. 

(11:45) Marc Evans: Yes. If we’re going through the history of my past to present, when I started entering the job market, I started off corporate for 20 something years and almost every job I had there was some managerial role, where I had to have a voice in many different areas—the managerial role in corporate.

I always enjoyed those new challenges that were given to me in those roles as a young adult into my thirties when I was taking on those corporate roles for sure. 

(12:23) Doreen Downing: Sometimes when I interview people who’ve been in corporations, they feel like they’ve been choked, like they can’t speak up, but it sounds like that’s not been your experience.

(12:34) Marc Evans: No, in fact, the opposite. I was always fighting to get my voice heard. But the negative in corporate, to me, were the politics. It just annoyed me that there’s so much political nonsense that went on inside corporations. I just wanted to get the job done and get results. I wanted whatever we were working on to achieve those goals.

I didn’t have time for the politics of why we should promote this person and that person gets more favors because it didn’t matter. I was like, “You need to listen to me. This is what we need to do to get the job done. Because we’re trying to get results here. I thought that’s the outcome of this company, so let’s work towards that. Who cares about everything else?” 

So that was the part that annoyed me about it. But it was also the challenge that allowed me to get my voice heard in those roles, to my bosses, and then to the people that worked for me. To actually become a team, to get to a result.

(13:33) Doreen Downing: I keep linking back to your mom because a corporation is a family and you had a model of what it was like to keep on speaking up and keep on making stuff happen. 

(13:47) Marc Evans: I enjoyed most of it. It’s the politics I could have done without for sure, which is probably what pulled me out ultimately. 

(13:55) Doreen Downing: Well, that’s where I was just going to go. There came an end to the corporate career. 

(14:01) Marc Evans: There were things going on in the corporate realm that were just not conducive. At the time of my life, everything’s about where you are in your life and what should you be doing, what challenges, are you just okay where you are. 

And there was a time there that I wasn’t and it’s where I found the online world and I could do what I’m doing in corporate. I could do for businesses outside of corporate. When I saw that you could do that, it piqued my interest and I was like, “Oh, I can do this managerial stuff transferred into more of a coaching consulting type. I could do that outside of the corporate walls.” Once my eyes were open to that, but I had no idea, it intrigued me.

When my job came to an end in corporate, it was more like, “Hey, we want you to go to some other place.” I didn’t want to uproot my family, and it was like a decision point. It was like a sliding door moment. 

Do you go and take this job at the other location and uproot your family? Or do you try this new thing of going out on your own and working for somebody that’s outside of the corporate four walls there and try your chops on something else. I decided to do that. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since 2009. I took the leap. 

(15:31) Doreen Downing: Yes. Oh, this is so important for listeners to hear that there is that vision of—and I like that frame, “walls,” the four walls of the corporation, and that what you’re doing inside those walls—if you just drop those walls and stepped outside, you would be able to do that same activity: going for a goal, finding strategies that help you get there do the outcome. 

(16:00) Marc Evans: So, that’s where I went next. I started working for several people, but mostly one person, where I was learning online methodologies to help businesses get results. The best way that I was able to find my voice there was by teaching that methodology.

By teaching it, I got to know it better and better. Then I was able to help more people learn from my teaching and coach them to get those results as well. Same goals in corporate, we’re trying to achieve a goal that is a company outcome, but now working with businesses, each business has their own outcome that they want results for.

Well, at this time I had a methodology to show you how to get there, so now let’s work together, you and I, or me with your team together to get to that goal. Same thing, just outside of corporate. I was able to change the voice to something different outside of corporate. 

(17:01) Doreen Downing: Okay. Change the voice. That makes me a little curious what that means. 

(17:11) Marc Evans: Yes. I think inside corporate, there’s a lot of hats that you wear as a manager. There’s the boss. There’s the trainer for the employee. There’s the disciplinarian—things come up that you must keep that boss hat on.

So, you develop different voices as a manager, beside corporation that you take on. What I found that I enjoyed the most out of all those hats that I was wearing—call them hats or voices—was the training part, really bringing people to a level where they can get those results that makes them good at their job.

And that’s where I was shining with them that I like the most, which is what I took outside of corporate. When I say I’m changing my voice, I’m changing my voice to just work on that one area where it’s now coaching. It’s now building people up so we’re working on your problems so we can find solutions and we can get you better results, so I do think it’s a change of voice for sure. 

(18:22) Doreen Downing: Oh, this is such a wonderful perspective because it is a little bit like finding your voice and I’m doing this for people who aren’t watching this, I’m doing this centering sense of self that you—you discovered what your zone is, what your element is, and you found the voice that you were able then to give to people like me.

And I want to come back in just a few minutes. I’ll take a break because I want to ask you some questions. Since you have been one of my coaches, I have some specific questions for you. Be right back.

(19:08) Doreen Downing: Hi, we’re back today with my, I was going to say my friend, because he has been my coach for several years and he is my friend, Marc Evans. We’re learning about his early childhood experience of having been positive and foundational, which then has been probably the core that has helped him continue to move through life in a more confident and calm way, were the two words he said that he got from his parents.

We’ve been talking about being, he didn’t say trapped but he did talk about the four walls of the corporation and now we’re talking about taking what he loved best about the voice in the corporate world, which was training, and stepping outside those walls and finding other people to work with or clients to work with that then are having their own goals and help them make outcomes.

So, welcome back. Hi, Marc. How’s this for you so far? 

(20:11) Marc Evans: It’s great. I’m learning a lot. 

(20:14) Doreen Downing: Yes, that’s what I hear from people. I just love this so much. I just get so curious. I know we only have 30 minutes here at max, but I love the connections I’m hearing more about. It’s like you get to blossom right in front of my eyes in a way that I’ve never seen you before, so I’m having fun. 

Moving outside those walls and finding your voice and feeling like training is your expertise and it sounded like you did work for somebody else at first though. Isn’t that true? Outside of the corporation? 

(20:53) Marc Evans: Yes, probably for a good 10 years. But that role there was both an operational role, so taking my corporate operations into the online space, but also a coaching role where I was working with this particular person’s clients and coaching their businesses to achieve results for their businesses. It was a transition and a combination of something new and something old and outside of the corporate for sure.

(21:24) Doreen Downing: But that came to an end. What’s the story about that? 

(21:29) Marc Evans: I’ll go back to my mother. You’re bringing my mother up a lot here. My mother says to me once, she says, “When you were a child, when you were really into something, you were all in. If you weren’t all in and you decided not to do it, you were all out. Whatever you were involved in, you were all in, but once that came to an end, it was time to change.” 

And I guess she’s right about that in my adult life too. It was a long time working with somebody over 10 years. It’s a great time to work for somebody, but there’s an end. There’s time to look to what’s next, what else could you be doing?

And the next step for me was obviously doing what I was doing, just on my own as my own business. There was no ill will or anything that happened that ended anything. It was just time to move on to another phase. I started my own business doing my own coaching for my own clients and not working for anybody else under that capacity.

(22:34) Doreen Downing: What I like about learning more about you today and how it’s affecting the listeners, I can imagine people are hearing that you develop some skill in one arena, and there’s many more arenas to move into should you want to, or should you feel drawn to. Then when you step into that next arena, you learn more. 

Now, we’re talking about your progression. You’re in this coaching, I guess that’s when you did Zazo, but this coaching business that is purely just, “Hey, it’s just you.” You’re everything in terms of what you offer. It’s no longer under anybody else’s roof. 

I was going to say you have your own walls, but it’s not walls. It’s like you have this whole field. That’s what you’ve got. You’ve got a field and we get to come in and play with you. 

(23:26) Marc Evans: Yes, that has its own set of challenges, just like every other phase that we spoke about. Quite honestly, I’m still learning those challenges and finding my, again, my changing voice in this new realm.

It’s an interesting experience to do that as well, being here out on my own. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years now is really finding my voice again in this new realm. 

(23:59) Doreen Downing: I’m going to ask just for a specific example there.

(24:03) Marc Evans: In the last job I had, I was able to learn and teach a specific methodology, so I grew my confidence in that. The through line here through all of this is confidence, which we talked about. Once I had that confidence, I was you’re able to do your job and you’re able to use your voice and do all these things at a high level, at a high performing level, but then when you switch and do something else, and you’re trying to find your voice again, you’re actually trying to find a new confidence.

It’s not just one methodology that I work with my clients. Now it’s a number of different things. I’m using new tools with different clients. It’s not just one size fits all. There’s no client that is really the same. I could use pieces, but I’m putting it all together. 

I’m going back to what I do to gain that confidence, and that is teaching. When I teach these new methodologies, it helps me learn quicker and better, and it also gives me more confidence, so that when I’m working with the clients, I’m able to provide them with better information, so that they can get better results. 

That’s the stage that I’m in right now. I’m back out speaking online and I’m actually speaking live in front of small groups of people because I’m testing out new stuff, new information. It’s really to train me also, not just to get clients, but it’s to train me to get more confident. That’s my process and then once I have that, I can operate at a high level. 

(25:45) Doreen Downing: The feedback cycle that you’re talking about of actually doing is what increases your ability to keep on doing and doing better. 

(25:57) Marc Evans: Absolutely. Yes. I would encourage other people to do the same. I think everybody, whatever vocation they’re in, they should teach what they’re doing. It helps gain that confidence. 

Confidence is what projects you to just do better and better. Confidence is the through line throughout. A lot of people have trouble with it. I do too, but there’s techniques to gain it. I think teaching is one of the best ways to do it. 

(26:23) Doreen Downing: Well, we’re coming to an end and I feel like what I’ve been able to do today is not only, for myself personally, just go, “Wow, no wonder I’m drawn to you because of what you offer,” but that hopefully other people will be able to say, “Hey, he would help me become more successful in my business.”

How do people find you and what can you say anything more about the business that you currently offer? 

(26:52) Marc Evans: Yes, the easiest way to get in touch with me is going to speakwithmarc.com Marc with a C. I’m sure in the show notes, you’ll have some link where I have a giveaway that talks about how you can add profits to your business, so I encourage you to go through that checklist because that’s super helpful. 

My goal with working with businesses is really to increase their profits. A lot of businesses today don’t have the cash flow that they’re looking for. Their margins are super tiny, and when that happens, they run into cash problems and they go out of business, and I don’t want that to happen. 

What I want to happen is you take home more profits, so you can spend that money on things that you want to enjoy in life. The strategies I work with businesses are to increase those profits. Simply that. I’m more than happy to get on a call with anybody for free and talk about the challenges that you have in your business and see if we can work through them.

(27:46) Doreen Downing: Wonderful. Well, I got the little piece of information about how people can find you, but before we end, I’d like to just open up the platform once more to see what might want to come through. You’re so wise and you’re so perceptive. I guess they’re the same thing, but just given our conversation today, what is it that you might want to leave listeners with?

(28:12) Marc Evans: Well, I think the confidence through line is the big one, and I didn’t realize I was going to be talking about that today. but as we’re talking, to me that’s the takeaway that that comes through here. 

I said it before I’ll say it again. A lot of people that I talk with, the reason that they might be struggling, even in their business is not so much a problem that they’re having in their business, it’s a mindset. The mindset is that they can’t get their head around something that’s blocking them. The challenge that’s blocking them, a lot of times is in their mind. 

For me, it’s really building up their confidence to get over that roadblock in your mind is where they have their breakthrough in their business, where they thought they had a lead generation problem or a converting-a-client problem.

It really might not be that at all. It’s other roadblocks. Working on the mindset and the confidence aspect is a big part of what I do. 

(29:17) Doreen Downing: And as somebody who’s had an experience with you helping me with my mindset, I mean, here we are today, I think I have a lot of gratitude for you. You’ve been part of supporting me from episode one, all the way through this, so muchas gracias. 

(29:37) Marc Evans: You’re welcome. I remember day one. It’s fantastic to watch you progress and put out 125 episodes. That’s amazing. 

(29:44) Doreen Downing: You can tell I love conversations like this. All right, Marc, thank you so much. 

(29:52) Marc Evans: Thanks for having me.