Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted, we talked to Allison Iantosca , president and owner of FH Perry Builder in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. As a seasoned business professional, you have certainly been on both sides of the give and get equation when it comes to guidance. Give guidance, get guidance, gain a mentor, bestow some wisdom, and so on. While in these essential help moments, we want to be impacted and make an impact.

Mark: But that doesn’t always happen. Does it help to know that there is a difference in the types of support you can offer, though? A nuanced distinction at best. Coaching, consulting, and mentoring are not the same thing, and Allison is here to break down the differences. We’ll hear all about them in just a minute.

Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria Downing and welcome to PowerTips Unscripted where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Mark Harari. Hidey ho. Hey, how are you doing over there, Mark?

Mark: I’m doing good. How are.

Victoria: You? Oh, I’m so excited about today’s topic. Because this is the meet, the meet of one of the biggest challenges that most remodeling company owners run into, right?

Mark: What’s that? meet? Well, that.

Victoria: meet is really. How do you help your people excel? How do you build a company that’s not relying on you? That that you’re not making all the decisions that people are accountable to? I mean, it just goes on and on. Well, and.

Mark: And so many people, it’s like, well, what is the difference between a coach and a consultant? Yeah. Or a mentor even here.

Victoria: Even here. Right. Right, right. Well, our consulting services, we’ve dallied about that.

Mark: Right. It’s like, oh, is this a consulting or is it a coaching?

Victoria: And in addition and Allison’s just I mean, I’ve known her for a million years and she’s smart and she’s taken over from her dad, who was also super smart. So I’m really excited to talk to her. So shall we.

Mark: We shall.

Victoria: So. So what nuanced distinction at best. Coaching, consulting and mentoring are not the same thing. Allison Iantosca is a president owner of FH Perry, and she’s ready to break down the differences. We can actually help each other out. Welcome, Allison.

Allison: Delighted to have you.

Victoria: And you’re back again. You did one for us there.

Allison: There is.

Victoria: Very exciting. And again, we’ve known each other for a long time. I think you were about getting married when I first met you. And now you’re married with kids and running the business and.

Allison: The whole thing. Yeah. We don’t need to talk about how long that’s been, but it’s all good. Everybody’s happy and healthy. And I’m glad to be talking to you. Still. Victoria, I know really well.

Victoria: It’s great. Thanks again for taking the time. So tell us a little bit about what is the difference between coaching, consulting and mentoring in your mind and to whom does it apply?

Allison: Well, I, I just it just dawned on me that it is a helpful distinction, because I it’s these are terms that we all banter about on a fairly regular basis and it we need to sort of stop and think about what it is that we’re either asking for. So I think it’s, it comes from the person who’s asking for or seeking one of these things.

Allison: and it’s also really important to know what you’re giving when you’re in the position of thinking that somebody is asking you for one of these things. So I think it goes both ways.

Victoria: Well, so how often are you asked? I mean, how were you asked who asks you?

Allison: Well, that’s it’s great because it’s not like someone doesn’t come to you necessarily very often and say, hey, will you coach me in this situation? People just come with their issue, whatever it may be. So, a lot of times it comes from my staff for sure. on a daily basis, we all do that together. and a lot of times that could come from somebody who is thinking about getting into the business, someone who is mid-career and is trying to think about how they might shift from the career they’re in into a new career.

Allison: Lots of different ways that people approach you and ask you for help. And my this favorite word advice. Yeah. And I think what’s so funny is when you get asked for advice, I want to give advice is you want to make want to help somebody out. You want to make something work better for somebody. But just giving advice isn’t always the best thing.

Allison: I don’t think.

Victoria: Okay, so let’s talk about specifically people staff to start out with.

Allison: Okay.

Victoria: So if somebody comes to you, I mean, how do you know whether to coach them, consult them, mentor them. What are you what ref. Where do you go with that.

Allison: Yeah. Well I think a little bit of it depends on who they are. what your relationship is with them. and not that it doesn’t, when I say it depends on. I think it depends on what you want to offer in that moment. Because I think you can offer all three to staff at all different levels.

Allison: So you may be tempted to, consult or mentor someone who’s younger, but that’s not always the case. I think there are opportunities all the way through to think about how do you empower people so let me break it down because you please, might be helpful. So coaching I think of more as the person is responsible for the outcome.

Victoria: So as the person being coached.

Allison: The person being coach, the person who’s coming okay. Something I want to work on. Right. And the person who has this thing that they want to work on is being is in the position of being responsible for what the outcome is. You, as coach, are responsible for holding the process in which that person will discover the outcome. So it’s not my job to think about the outcome.

Allison: It’s not my job to know what the outcome as coach, to know what the outcome is going to be. Right? It’s my job to hold a process that allows the person to work it through on their own. Okay. Does that.

Victoria: Yep, yep. Totally totally make sense. Okay.

Allison: Whereas consulting consulting is really where the advice lives the most. So when someone says I really have a problem, I need your advice. I need to know what to do in this situation. Then you’re much more in a tell me the details. Let me piece it out for you. I’m responsible for the outcome. I’m going to give you advice that will get you where you want to go.

Victoria: All right.

Allison: And mentoring is let me use my experience to offer it to you. But you choose to take it or not take it.

Victoria: Okay. All right.

Allison: So there’s a more of a shared responsibility for the outcome. I think that’s the nuance on the simplest level.

Victoria: So who is supposed to be supported by the differences and why?

Allison: Well, I think I think everybody can be supported by the differences. I think knowing either which one you’re asking for or which one you’re giving is where that important value impact or the value equation comes into play. Because a lot of times for my staff and in building relationships with my staff, for example, coaching is a really good way to go because I need them to develop themselves.

Allison: Develop right has to be for dealing with difficult situations, for thinking through where they might bump up against their own resistances or where they’re they may be having a difficult time thinking about engaging in a, in a, difficult conversation. And if I go right into consulting and telling them what to do, that’s going to go in one ear and out the other.

Allison: Whereas if you go through a coaching process and you help them to talk about what it is, they’re concerned about what they want to work through, what they’re resisting, then you’re in a better place of fully developing them, to get it in their in their muscles and in their bones.

Mark: So, Alison, I just had this situation come up. I’ve got a masterclass in marketing coming up in December, and someone called me because they were considering buying it. But they said on the call, hey, we’re going to invest heavily in marketing coming up, but I’m not sure is the master is the class the right thing to do, or should I just have a consultant?

Mark: Have you or someone come down here and just help us go through it and, you know, it kind of turned into basically what you’re saying. It’s like, do you want someone to do the work for you and say, this is how do you do it? Or do you want to learn how to do it and understand the why behind the what?

Mark: And so my question is how? How does one know when to ask for which?

Allison: So are you asking us the person who’s giving or the person who’s getting.

Mark: The person that’s getting, say, how do you know? Should I should I be getting a consultant or should I be getting a coach or or, you know.

Allison: Well, I think I think that’s a really good question. And as I’m sort of thinking about it, I think consulting probably has more of a short term or an immediacy to it. really stuck, really have an issue I need to sort of work through. I need an answer. I want to get an answer. or if you’re trying to sort of implement a new system into your organization that you haven’t had before or, you are really trying to think about, a, a new framework that you need to work under that you want to implement into your company.

Allison: So we have an IT consultant, for example, we have a staffing consultant, for example. Those people I’m asking to come in and really give me knowledge about things that I don’t have knowledge about. So if someone were to coach me on it, I got yeah.

Victoria: Haha. Right. Oh, that’s.

Allison: How I feel about it. But I feel like I know about it right? Some. That’s more of the consulting firm, whereas I think coaching is is a longer process. I think you can have sort, coaching hits to sort of if you’re, you know, I need to go have this difficult conversation about this budget with the client. Again, I could consult to a staff member who is who needs to be able to do this and explain all the things that I’ve done and how you should do it, and how we’re going to do it.

Allison: But that’s putting it on from the outside, whereas I think the person will be much more successful as they’re thinking about what are their concerns, where are they going to get nervous, where are they going to get trapped? Why don’t they show the budget number in the way that they feel comfortable with it? And that is more on the inside of sort of how do I change how I feel about it?

Mark: Hey, this is Mark cutting in with a quick break to tell you about our masterclass series of courses. These courses are intimate, two day sessions of rich, interactive information with plenty of hands on instruction. We kept our classes at 12 to 15 individuals, which means more opportunity to work one on one with your trainer. All our instructors are well known, respected industry experts and some of the best in their field of expertise.

Mark: To see which courses we currently have available, visit remodelers. advantage.com/masterclass. Now back to the show.

Victoria: Now, Allison, you’ve had some training and being a coach or a and or a consultant. Correct.

Allison: just a coach okay. As a coach.

Victoria: Yeah. So do you find that that had helped you in your interactions with your staff?

Allison: Yes.

Victoria: Yes. How do you mean? I mean, what was it that you learned?

Allison: So the biggest thing I think I learned is that sort of that moment when you have somebody in front of you with a problem and I have learned how to shift to ask powerful questions that help the person process it, and to be there with that person without the answers. It’s so tempting in a leadership position to just want to give the answer because you’ve been through it, right?

Allison: You think you know it. You want to continue to add value. You don’t want to become, a dinosaur and not have any impact on the people. You’re like, I want to be super important, but actually when you stop and breathe, the have that breath of the moment, you’re like, okay, I don’t have the answer for the person in front of me has the answer here.

Allison: All I can do is ask questions I don’t have the answer to, to see if you can sort of process through and get to that place.

Victoria: But don’t you? I mean, you really do have the answer, but you, you want them to come up with the answer right?

Allison: Well, not necessarily. So let’s use that example again of going and presenting a budget. Right. I know what I need to do in that situation or what I have worked on in the past or what has worked for me. But you may go and present a budget and be in a totally different place and have a totally different reason for where you get stuck or nervous or anxious, or don’t want to bring up the number for a totally different reason than mine.

Allison: And if I give you my reason, it won’t have the same impact as if we go through and discover where you might need some support.

Victoria: So if you have an employee that needs coaching and they come to you with a problem, what are some of the one, 2 or 3 questions or statements that you would say to them to get them to start thinking, and them to start taking responsibility for that result?

Allison: Well, I think it’s really helpful to start with what they want the result to be. What is it that you’re trying to achieve and where are you now? Because then you can work through a process of understanding what you need to put in place in order to get from where you are to where you want to be. And it’s very aspirational, which is, which is sort of a great place to start from because we get very interested in what possibilities exist.

Victoria: Right.

Allison: That’s one piece. I think the other piece is to say, and what’s wrong with what’s happening now? Yeah. Because oddly enough, when we can really lean into the reasons behind the choices that we’re making in the now, the choices change.

Victoria: How do you mean?

Allison: So so let’s say I want to go to more networking events.

Victoria:

Allison: That’s something that comes up a lot. You have employees that want to get out more, but they get very nervous and anxious about it. And so they don’t go okay. So if we stop for a minute instead of coming up with all the reasons why you should go, which they’ve already got, I need to be more out in the market.

Allison: And I need people to know who I am. I need connections, there’s also always a competing reason why they’re not going that’s equally as strong. Like, I don’t want people to, think I am boring.

Victoria: I’m not. Okay. Yeah.

Allison: Who think I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know how to connect with strangers. It’s a very uncomfortable one for me to walk up to a group of people and interact. I don’t know how to do that. So what am I doing? I’m protecting myself. And protection is really important. What? What do you have against protecting yourself?

Allison: So if you and I were having this conversation, Victoria, and you were talking about wanting to network more, but not choosing to, I would say, well, you know what? It sounds like you’re doing this great job of taking care of yourself. That’s really a wonderful thing. Once you are able to own that, then a different choice to make should you want to, you can choose to either protect yourself or then we could begin to talk about some experiments you might want to take.

Allison: That would be safe, one baby step at a time. Right? You along that spectrum of them going out to all these networking events. Awesome.

Victoria: So what coaching courses? I mean, what taught you to be a good coach?

Allison: well, there are I, I’m just giggling because I’ve picked two professions that have very low barriers to entry. Yeah. Require quite a bit of training and responsibility in what you’re taking on. So, so on my, my construction business side, of course, we’ve, there’s immense amounts of training. And equally, on the coaching side, it’s really important, to take these they, they’re the trainings are very rigorous where you’re learning sort of in a didactic settings.

Allison: So elasticity behind coaching, and then you put in hours and hours and hours of, of coaching practice and then you get certification. So that’s a process that I’ve gone through. There are many different ways to to go about that. but it’s, it’s a really powerful experience.

Mark: Now, listen, do you know what else is a powerful experience? And now here’s the remodelers advantage lightning round.

Allison: It’s a.

Mark: All right, let’s do this. 60s on the clock, please. What is your favorite business book and why?

Allison: well, I’ll stay in keeping with what? We were just talking about immunity to change because it talks about that goal you have and that competing commitment that is equally as powerful. And it’s easy to figure out what that is. Then you have choice. And I think choice is what we all need.

Mark: If you weren’t the president and owner of a remodeling company, what do you think you’d be doing?

Allison: And oh, I think I said last time I’d be a backup singer and I haven’t let go of that. Yeah. and that’s for sure.

Mark: And what are you not very good at?

Allison: I am not very good at being patient with i.t.

Victoria: No, I got yeah.

Mark: Your room, your desk or your car. Which do you clean first? I ha if you had a time machine, would you go forwards or back.

Allison: Oh gosh I would go back so that I can meet all the wonderful people, all my ancestors. All right.

Mark: Keep very nice.

Victoria: Very nice. All right, well, and thank you again for doing this for us. Two dimes or two for this is awesome. Thank you know so but before we let you go, we want you to share your five words of wisdom, this time with our listening audience and why those resonate with you.

Allison: So I’m stealing these words of wisdom from Wayne Dyer. But conflict cannot survive without participation.

Victoria: Okay. And why is that?

Allison: Because I think we forget the let me talk about it from a resistance standpoint. You can’t resist something until there’s something to resist. We talk about people being super resistant kinds of people, but until they have something to resist, they can’t resist it. So I think we need to take responsibility to think about the resistances that we’re either creating or assuming, and that when those become conflict, we have to explore them because you can’t have conflict without there being participation within the concept of the conflict.

Victoria: All right. That’s good. That’s good. Thank you Alice. And that’s great. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. And we want to have you back again. No I just got three. What’s a three for. What is it a sure.

Mark: Well we’ll go with three for.

Victoria: a three Pete. That’s a three Peter. Yeah I remember all right, Alice. And we love you. Thank you so much.

Allison: You’ll see you again by.

Victoria: I love that you know the difference between coaching and consulting. Not only do we run into that here at Remodelers advantage, but thinking about it as an employer, it’s kind of interesting, wasn’t it?

Mark: It’s a distinction that the terms are used interchangeably all the time, and it’s not accurate because there is a distinct difference. As Alison pointed out, between the three. And, and I thought it was great to hear someone else outside of this office to expand on that concept.

Victoria: Well, since an awesome person, she’s super smart and I really appreciate her bringing up the distinctions to the table. And, you know, I mean, how often do your employees come and you have to think about that? Are you going to be a consultant and tell them what to do? Or are you going to be a coach or are you going to mentor it?

Victoria: It’s it’s a super cool, way to think about things that I think that will help everybody manage their teams better.

Mark: Yeah, well, it’s not top of mind to consider. Am I coaching or consulting right now or mentoring, but. Right, at least having that in the in the background as you think those things through, it’s, it’s going to make a difference into into the outcome. So that was fun. Alison, we want to thank you for being here. And of course, we want to thank all of you out there for listening week in and week out.

Mark: I’m Mark Harari.

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. See you next week.