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Interview Transcription
Morris: Welcome to CreateGrowProfit: Coaching Stories. I’m Morris from creategrowprofit.com and today I’m speaking to Jenny Pittz. Jenny is a connection coach and she helps people thrive by giving them spiritual and practical tools. Jenny, thank you so much for being here today, where are you calling in from?
Jenny: I live north of Atlanta Georgia and Swani Georgia.
Morris: So great to have you here, Jenny. We’ve known each other for a couple of years now. We started out together in a mastermind right? I’m so glad that you agreed to be a guest today. So you call yourself a connection coach, can you explain what it means to be a connection coach and why you chose that path?
Jenny: Yes so you have to differentiate yourself when you go into business and there are lots of business and life coaches and so in some arenas, I do just call myself a business and life coach but overall I am a Connect coach. I help my clients connect to what is needed. So most of my clients are business coaches. They need money so I’ll help them connect to a pathway, to a strategy that will help them increase profits.
Sometimes, it’s life coaching and it’ll be a mom that needs help connecting to her child or her husband you know like that’s where the life coaching piece comes in. And when you do one-on-one coaching, it’s very personal to whoever you’re speaking to and I think that connection coach is a very broad term but if I can describe it, it’s helping my clients connect to what is really going to help them to thrive spiritually and practically.
Morris: And before we hit record here, you said something that really intrigued me. It’s a phrase that I hear a lot too where people come to you and they say, “Oh I need more people. I need to see more people or connect with more people for my business” but you remind them of something very important, right?
Jenny: Yeah yeah actually this happened yesterday. So in marketing, we have branding. Branding is like a huge portion and then you have content. The foundation of your brand is your content and it’s the feeling for who you are is maybe even the images that you choose. So a lot of people will say I want people and you can attract a lot of people just using branding but if you want money, you need to convert those people. They need to not just be somebody that you attract but you need to befriend them and then convert them so that they’re paying client.
Morris: Yeah so you don’t just need people, you need sales as you told.
Jenny: Exactly! You just need sales so I help people make sales. Everyone is different. Everyone has different desires and needs so yeah. Sometimes it’s just a process of discovering like what do you really need it’s not people. I mean I know you want people and I want you to have people and we can do branding all day long. If our problem is profit, revenue, we need to strategize a little differently than just the branding.
Morris: Yeah I really like that Jenny in the sense that it’s not just your connection coach, you’re not just helping people build any connection you’re helping them build the right kinds of connections that lead to sales and profits or whatever other big goals they have.
Jenny: Absolutely right?
Morris: And on your journey to become a coach, when did you realize you were a coach or when was the first time you officially called yourself a coach?
Jenny: Well my background’s consulting and I came right out of Marketing School buiness business school as a consultant meeting with Fortune 500s meeting with huge nonprofit and you whine and dine with your clients or you meet with a bunch of vendors and there’s all these different relationships that are formed when you are a consultant and a coach.
But as a consultant, you’re very focused on the projects and the goals of the projects but I was more focused on the people. I really wanted to know who the people were. I would be in board meetings and I’d be thinking, “Who are you? Who are you? How much do you care about this mission?” You know? And I would like have vendor conversations. I was like so much more interested in my vendor family dynamics than I was about the product they were selling me. So there were elements like that in a business where I was like I need to do coaching and then I also had multiple people telling me you need to be a coach.
I had a person who was a strengths finder coach. She did my strength and she goes this would be coaching you’d be really good at coaching. I was too afraid. I didn’t do it. I was like I’m too afraid until I felt like God cornered me like you’re a coach, be a coach. This is your purpose. This is your call, you know. When it’s attached to your heart, it’s scarier. So for me, because coaching is my heart. It’s like uplifting people is my desire, seeing them arrive personally, financially, you know, whatever it is that was a bigger journey than I had anticipated to be honest. It was like this isn’t just building a business, this is building like my life so that I can build others lives you know. It was healing for me on the journey for sure.
Morris: Oh wow that goes way deeper than making profits.
Jenny: Oh yeah. No, no. I mean I want to uplift people you know I want to see the fullness of life in their business and their fullness of life in their personal lives you know like I long to see restoration and healing and like really build people and so no, it’s not just business. It’s so much deeper for me but I meet people where they’re at honestly. Because I say that I give spiritual and practical tools, I will always put like a value sheet to new clients like what do you value and then I meet them where they’re at.
If they don’t want anything spiritual like they don’t want anything Christian or nothing you know, I meet them where they’re at. Like I really want to serve them well. That’s my goal and my ambition is to serve them and to strengthen them, you know. To really love them where they’re at and see breakthrough for them like my aim.
Morris: Wow yeah! I think that’s so strong, Jenny, being able to meet people where they’re at and not trying to force your own methodology onto them, that’s strength I think. Really strong coaching there.
Jenny: Thank you.
Morris: When people started telling you, you should be a coach, did that make sense to you? Was that obvious to you?
Jenny: It felt true because of those different meetings where I was way more interested in the people than I was the project. I knew that serving them well as a consultant looked like a successful project looked like a successful campaign. And I completely engaged in serving them well but my heart was so much more than just the project. It was always the client so I have rave reviews from all my clients because I was so much more in now then I was the project.
I was like “who are you, how are your life going” you know. So whenever I were here, you need to be a coach. I was like yeah that makes sense. I’ll never pursue that. That’s literally what I would think yeah I’m never going to do that. That makes sense but that’s too risky, you know. It felt like risk to me.
Morris: And what happened that you finally pursued that path?
Jenny: Well in 2019, I owned my own agency that was what I knew was a marketing agency and because I was diagnosed with the MS at 21, my career was up and down in terms of on and off. There were moments where I was sick and I couldn’t really engage in business and then like being a mom and like life and so there are things that sort of forced me into the consulting arena for everything always. Because it gives you freedom if I got sick, “Hey client, I just need to postpone this a week,” or you know it’s less corporate you know.
When I had my agency, I had a really challenging client and I did what I knew which was dysfunctional and that was perfectionism and workaholism. I just really wanted this website to succeed and it’s not the same as marketing you know IT, that space is like really tumultuous like you can like I built this website, I thought it was easy. My background in it was like few years of like building systems not WordPress websites so when I built this client WordPress website, I didn’t anticipate bugs and it was like, it was shaking when you scrolled and then like one link wouldn’t work.
I was a mom of a 2-year-old and a four-year-old and I was like giving as much time as I could to this website to fix this website and I’m engaged with all these developers and like engaged with people trying to like you know debug things and I underbid it and it was just a crazy web. It was a crazy bad project and I was on these forums to asking entrepreneurs what to do. Do I ditch the project and say I’m sorry “I can’t do it” like we’re under we’re like way over budget you’re just like a small business and it was like an individual. Half of them said engage and half of them said ditch.
Then I heard the voice of God, honestly. I was going to bed and it was like in my spirit, I heard “I hate this project” and it felt like the jealous voice of God. Because I was idolizing the project I was doing this workaholism-like thing and I was able to tell my client like “pause, no” you know. And after that, I went into ministry actually instead of going into coaching. The ministry as to someone else’s ministry, I kept hearing almost for like a year, “you need to go start your thing, you need to go start your thing now” you know. God doesn’t speak in like word audibly even when I say I hate this project, it was spiritual. Those were words and when it was like discipline. It felt like discipline to me but then when I was leaving the ministry that was more timely. I’m telling you to leave. It was just a feeling of like “it’s time to go, it’s time to go” but I was afraid you know.
It took months. It took months to leave. I finally left and that’s when I got serious about branding, about building, about marketing and really building and knowing who I serve and what I’m called to, what my purpose is because like honestly, the first what I thought was the low hanging through what I thought was like this is my path. Was that I was going to coach people with MS because I was diagnosed when I was 21? So I was like interviewing people with MS and I was like engaged with all these MS communities and honestly all these people that didn’t have MS were like, I need your help coaching and I was like, I need to open my eyes and realize like that’s where I belong.
The thing about MS for me is that while I’ve struggled with that disease, I have made it a very like intentional thing to not make it my identity. I was like I will not own this disease. It’s not my identity and it’s actually one of the reasons I think the disease wasn’t able to just deform me and like destroy me so yeah I sat with the Lord actually.I was praying and I was like who do I want to serve. And I was like I want to serve like people that changed the world and like revolutionist, you know? Like my first job as an act like an activist consultant. I was like consulting all these nonprofits that were activist and I was like I’m an activist you know like I want to change the world and I was in a meeting actually, was a business meeting I have like a lot of very prophetic spiritual people in my life and in coaching, they will tell you pick an edge.
We’ll tell you that in all business long with way. I was struggling with the idea of coaching only women because they’ll always do that like “oh you coach women because you’re a woman” but I’ve never felt like I coach women. I’ve always felt like I know that I don’t coach women so I felt a little pressure to like coach women. So I’m in this meeting and everyone’s talking about their niches or whatever they’re doing with their business and I, kind of was like , I do not coach women and the leader go. I mean she’s like I was going to tell you that it was really weird, Morris.
I was going to tell you that she’s like you coach innovative leaders and that was exactly what I had said when I was praying to God about the people that I wanted to serve. It was like people that like are builders and leaders and innovators well actually I didn’t use the word innovation. She used the word innovation and I looked at my list and I was like that’s business. I have a degree in business. I have the consulting in business. I’m 6’1 I don’t know what that is in meters, that’s tall. I’m really tall. So I was like okay like I need to go into the business mountain. I need to go into business and consult business people and it felt right honestly.
Finding your path and your journey and like the business that where you truly belong and where you’ve been created to be is. It’s really a discovery process that I went through. So now, I’m doing it and it’s like so lifegiving and joyful, you know, especially when I meet the people who I’m like I knew you were going to be my quiet. Like I knew I was going to have it quiet like you and they’ll say word that I’ve like prayed and I’m like stop it, like you’re destiny like you’re you know we’re supposed to be together like that’s actually happened recently. And I’m like I it makes me feel confident in the direction I’m going you know when you have spiritual connection to the journey you’re on. It’s really special.
Morris: Wow! I can only imagine the other person feels that too.
Jenny: Yeah I hear people say you’re my spiritual guide. Some people tell me that and I think it’s funny because I’m like totally a Jesus person you know. I’m not like a new agy hippie. I’m a hippie probably but I’m a Jesus hippie. So I don’t know. I kind of almost feel like there isn’t terminology for a spiritual Christian in the marketplace, to be honest. It feels like pioneering what’s happening in my life. And it’s full of joy but it’s also full of like faith and mystery and like surrender of like God. What are we doing and where are we going like and how do I serve this person?
Well I’m always praying even if the person that I don’t want spiritual or I don’t want Christianity, I’m praying for that person you know. I’m praying that like they can connect to life like that our relationship will look like abundance for them. So I’m just having a blast, Morris. I have a blast over here.
Morris: Yeah I can tell and thank you so much Jenny for sharing your whole story. So authentically I think I mean you’ve touched me. I don’t know.
Jenny: You’re so sweet.
Morris: So you mentioned, I have so many follow-up questions. So you mentioned innovative leaders, what is it that innovative leaders need when they come to you?
Jenny: I mean I constantly hear I’m stuck and depending on where they’re on in their journey. I have different pain points so the beginner journey is have a lot of stuck, pain points. Some of the more veteran pioneers, they feel lost. I sat across from some at lunch once and I out nowhere go. I hear a lot of people are lost that’s a pain points I hear and he goes, I mean. It was like he had a visceral reaction when I said that to him and he goes everybody’s lost so that those are sort of my biggest pain points like I hear stuff and when I hear stuck I’m like let’s give them really practical tools to get unstuck.
And when I hear lost, I’m like let’s go spiritual but I meet them where they’re at and I also I like basically if we’re going spiritual, if I’m sensing that like God wants to love on them. Sometimes, I’ll just straight up say to them, can I pray for you? And they’ll saying I’ve heard no actually “no you may not” and amen. Amen to that like if you don’t want me to pray for you, like I’m picking up on something that Jenny can’t reach and me God will reach in me, I don’t.
If you don’t want to hear the blessing, I’m going to go in my closet and bless you. It’s cool with me, you know like just cool with me. I want you to feel safe, you know and it’s only in humility that you’re going to make your client feel safe. If I know they don’t want the spiritual or I don’t know that was actually somebody, I only did that one time and that was somebody that I didn’t give the questionnaire to. We were very on purpose with a small task. I enjoyed that encounter, to be honest as it felt like very we were both being authentic, you know. It was just like I want to love you, I think this might be loving you know and she’s like I that like amen thank you for being you. Feeling safe to be yourself, you know like I really really don’t want anybody to not feel like they can’t express authenticity with me and where they’re at and so, that look that was a moment where we had different belief structures. So we had to and I was like okay I picked up on something in the spirit realm that you don’t even know about it, let’s get back to task.
I want to get on that with you. If you don’t want to. Some people like oh man all they want is spiritual they’re just like so hungry for spiritual and obviously I had fun with that but .. yeah me and people were there at Morris.
Morris: Now that you’re telling me this, I can right like in coaching especially it’s so important to be honest with each other because when you ask the client right what’s your biggest challenge right now and they say something that is a challenge but it’s not really what they’re truly struggling with right now and so you’re working on something that isn’t really what they should be working on. But you can only get to that stage through complete honesty and as you’re sharing these examples, I can just imagine that even if it may be a conflict or different belief systems but it builds that foundation of authenticity and transparency.
Jenny: Yeah yeah yeah. For me like I love prayer. I love prayer because in conversation like if you are struggling with something like you’re telling me like our conversation moved into my wife in the hospital right, well I can encourage you and strengthen you but like actually I want to pray for your wife and you to be comforted like supernaturally. So when I prophesy if they won’t let me, I don’t always prophesy. I don’t always prophesy because if I hear no to prayer, I’ll move in like encouragement to break a lie. If I want to pray, it’s because I recognize God wants to bless you, always.
It’s always. I feel insecurity coming from you or I feel rejection coming from you and I pray no okay how do we get rid of rejection? How do we get rid of insecurity? How do we get rid of the blockages that I’m even if I’m no longer in the prayer zone, I’ll be with God going? How do I bless them? Then I if I prophesy, it looks like love, speaking love over them and prophecy is like kind of declaring truth over them, ultimately. That is all you need to do actually. Because I’ve only been coaching for like less than a year, I really hit the ground running in September. I’m that’s sort of growing like the spiritual aspect of my relationship with my clients is growing and it’s different for each one, you know.
But the prophecy has been fun and I have a girlfriend. She goes you know what prophecy is Jenny? It’s just encouragement just encouraging. So I encouraged someone and I asked God to come in and like break the chain in the process you know. May these encouraging words carry weight and anointing to break the chain ultimately you know that’s where I say, I’m a spiritual and practical coach like because some people need a mind shift. Just hearing truth to replace lies is like what I’m doing you know?
Morris: S you said hearing truths to break lies right?
Jenny: Yeah yeah.
Morris: And is that what triggers an action or new behavioral patterns or is that something else you have to work on specifically with your clients?
Jenny: And that triggers new mindsets because our mind is sort of the conduit between spirit realm and like practical mindsets dictate reality. And so if I don’t have belief in myself and I hear that I’m a champion and I’m a Victor and I stand strong and have influence and I have purpose and I’m created as a coach for breaking other people’s, I don’t know, I mean I just got personal like breaking other people’s chain. Like when you hear the truth in the face of I don’t have what it takes, your mindset gets shifted. So it’s like a spiritual thing but it’s really just a mind shift.
I actually listened to one of your podcasts about a mindset coach and I mean I loved that guy. I thought he was awesome from England. He’s very practical. I say spiritual because I am engaging God and everything like I’m always engaging like the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. How can you love them well? I know this person even if they don’t know God is your child and they’re your beloved child. What does heaven look like? What does like freedom look like for them? What is it they need to hear to know the truth that’s going to set them ultimately? And now I’m in prayer. Before I’m not like necessarily praying in the middle of obsession.
Morris: Yeah
Jenny: But you know, I’m in prayer before getting a sense for like where we’re going and what we’re going to do and all that.
Morris: Are you referring to the episode with Hayden Griffiths?
Jenny: Yes yes. I watched.
Morris: Now that would be great to have you both on an episode too.
Jenny: Yeah that’s interesting. Like mindset because we’re ultimately doing the same thing we’re approaching it two different ways. Because I have been pulled, I’m a mindset coach before and there the battle is in the mind. It is the mind. So yeah it would be fun to talk actually operate that.
Morris: Would be so interesting. Let’s see if we can make that happen both of you. I mean, I’ve known you for couple years now already and it always had the sense that you just attract clients right? But you also have a background in marketing, so can you tell me a little bit about what marketing do you do for your coaching business and what would you recommend to other beginner coaches?
Jenny: Well, I do a lot of branding consistently. Branding is really the essence of who you are and it’s putting yourself out there and being known. So when I say that I put a lot of memes that have motivational language and a picture of me like I do that consistently every Monday. I do that every week. I try to do other motivational, say I utilize Facebook also Facebook Groups and connections through Facebook. I have been doing testimony Tuesdays, sharing stories because stories are such a powerful tool of connection, you know? You have Donald Miller’s story brand and like so I’ve done that and I’ll make videos as well of different topics that I coach and with all the purpose of helping my clients overcome, you know.
Morris: So you have a Monday theme and you have a Tuesday theme and are Tuesdays your live streams?
Jenny: Those have been my live streams and I make them very organic and like conversational and I like make mistakes constantly and I let it be. Because I feel like we’re such a performance culture to like be perfect and I mean I’ve been doing it now some 2020 or 2019 even way before I was a coach. I was doing it because I had this God encounter. When I was pregnant, I had an MS episode and I had a bunch of people praying for me and this one guy of demand goes I heard the Audible Voice. I heard the audible voice of God and I was so down and out like having a mess when you’re pregnant like there’s nothing you can do because people with MS don’t get an episode when they’re pregnant.
I called the doctor and he’s like I don’t know what to do because you can’t do the normal protocol which is to take solumedrol and so I’m in this ministry school and I got prayed for gratefully and my friend said, I heard the Audible Voice and he said you’re testimony is going to be the release of thousands of miracles. I was like Wow and it broke my fear. So the next morning I woke up and I didn’t have an MS episode I was like my arm was numb the day that I was at Ministry school but the next day I didn’t have any numb arm. But I’ve always felt like my story is like going to help people and so I’ve been very consistent about sharing different testimonies and even like modern-day testimonies of like things. I’m struggling with and things I’m overcoming with there’s you know different things. But the testimony is such a powerful tool and I try to be consistent with testimony and even though I’m probably going to like to do less lives. I’ll probably make videos with a story, you know.
Morris: I’ve seen several of your live streams that’s why I brought it up. But it’s nice to hear you explain your strategy because I’ve just been observing right and I saw your posts and you put out really good photos of yourself. And the photos that you post, you’re always, how do I put this like,you’re in a good place like energetically speaking. The photos of you it’s like you look happy, you look like energetic, all those things with the right message plus the live streams focus on Facebook. I’ve really liked what you’ve been doing with your branding so.
Jenny: Thank you. Yeah yeah so and I did get a I got professional pictures taken like with an awesome camera and I would use Canva to make the Facebook post that’s what I do. And thank you for that I’ve had there was one post that generated a lot of like compliments. They like, loved one of these posts and I thought that’s amazing you know. Canva guys. Canva for the win!
Morris: Yeah yeah.
Jenny: I mean, it’s like, so I guess like most coaches will do this in the beginning and then you hire a social media manager. They’re the ones that do it but in terms of like being a coach that new, you can do that and then get just your professional pictures and then hire somebody else to do it. At that point, when you’re hiring out you’ll have enough brand that the brand manager can like really look at it and help you continue to put yourself out there.
Morris: I also really recommend that people check you out on Facebook and look at what you do because I’ve been showing your Facebook profile to a couple people to show them, “hey you know this might be something that would work for you to get these types of photos taken and put your message next to it”. So you know, as we’re coming to a close here, Jenny, mentioning your Facebook, how people listening to you here today, how can they get in touch with you?
Jenny: Well Facebook is a good avenue, way to get in touch with me. My email is jenny@jennypitts.com and that’s a really great way. I have a website jennypitts.com but I’m moving away from my website. So email me or message me through Facebook is the best way to connect with me and I’ll send you a calendly link and we can do a call together and I love people so reach out to me.
Morris: Yeah don’t be afraid to reach out to Jenny. We’ve been talking on and off. It’s always great speaking to you. Alright, so I will link to your Facebook profile and I will put your email in the description below this episode, is that okay?
Jenny: Awesome! Thank you Morris I appreciate it thanks for having me.
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