YOUR LEAP: Branding for Coaches

Eleonora Barbieri is a New York City-based consultant/business strategist/marketer turned leadership and career coach. The native of Italy works with emergent leaders, creatives and change makers to help them own their story, reinvent their career, up their game in current career roles, or create meaningful change in their personal lives. She talked about how personal coaching got her to where she needed to be faster and how she uses her Launchpad.

How did that situation change how you handle these issues?

The solution is to set very clear guidelines and expectations and allow for freedom within that framework.

Q. You worked with both Kathy Yeu and Solen Altop. Why two coaches?

I think what stood out the most was that they were able to zero in on my strengths on both my personal brand and on the coaching side. It didn’t stay on the surface level; they each got into specifics and what I need to do. Compared to doing a branding exercise with someone who is not a coach, they had had the extra ability to see the deeper needs that I had.

Q. What were those deeper needs?

The key thing for me was really getter deeper ownership of my story – to see how my personal brand could support and grow my professional one. Before I saw them in separate worlds and I didn’t see a reason to mix the two. Going deeper around taking ownership of my public persona enabled me to see the benefit of combining the two.

I let go of my personal resistance to present myself. It made me excited to do that instead of seeing it as a chore.

Q. What’s the benefit of coaching?

Sure, it’s something you can do yourself. You can work on a reboot yourself, but it gets really time consuming and you’re never sure you’re doing something organic and that you’re touching all the relevant points.

Q. How did going through the Launchpad process help?

It’s really a painless and effective way to get an immediate result. It made me move forward and further and faster. It was a very empowering experience and made for an inspiring and fun day.

Q. Can you share your headline?

“Keep it simple, make it bold.”

I keep that as my guiding principle. I keep going back to it when I’m lost or not sure. It enables me to communicate in a more effective way and to focus on what’s important. Make it bold is a concept that I use the extra energy from keeping it simple and it allows you to reach so much bigger and bolder goals. … Things don’t have to be hard to still be bold and cool and achievable.