"Surround yourself with other successful entrepreneurs" with Porschia Parker-Griffin
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Porschia Parker-Griffin is Founder and CEO of Fly High Coaching and the Millennial Performance Institute, where she empowers ambitious professionals and motivated executives to add $10K (on average) to their salaries. She is a Certified Professional Coach, an Associate Certified Coach, a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Certified Practitioner, and an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner. Porschia also has experience as a director and business consultant in the financial industry, helping companies unlock millions of dollars in potential hiding in their organizations. She currently serves as a Career Contributor for BioSpace and has been featured in FlexJobs, Levo, iOFFICE, and the Rochester Business Journal. https://www.fly-highcoaching.com
Can you tell our readers about your background?
I have a degree in Psychology from the University of Georgia. Like many Millennials, I graduated in the depths of the recession when the job market wasn’t great. Instead of pursuing a master’s degree, I decided to jump into the working world and literally moved to Los Angeles without a job lined up. I began working for a financial consulting firm and stayed there for almost five years. It was a great experience to learn about the consulting world from client services and sales perspective, but I knew that it wasn’t my calling. After helping the firm to secure millions of dollars in revenue, I desired to do more and be of service to others in a more meaningful way. I decided to become a certified coach and focus on helping people with career and business challenges.
What inspired you to start your business?
Coaching is the thing I always wanted to do, but never knew existed. In college, I only learned about therapy, counseling, and other traditional, helping modalities. When I heard about coaching (prior to it becoming more mainstream), I dug in and researched it for weeks. I was extremely inspired by how professional coaching supports people to take meaningful action and achieve positive results in their lives. It also paired really well with all of the consulting experience I had. I immediately saw that people needed help in their careers and businesses that I could support them with.
Where is your business based?
We’re primarily a virtual business, but most of our team is in Atlanta, GA. You can usually find me traveling between Atlanta and Jacksonville, FL.
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
I’m a big researcher! I literally found out everything I could online about coach certification programs and the coaching profession. I decided to focus on attaining a coaching certification and getting coaching experience, before launching the business. After receiving my certification, I built my own website and started learning about online marketing and business models, to decide how I wanted to incorporate coaching and consulting into my company.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
About five years ago, I decided to start speaking at conferences and events. Speaking consistently and networking in person at events have been extremely helpful to raise awareness for us. This allowed others to get a good idea of what we do and how we can help them solve problems.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges I had when starting the business, was that I didn’t know any other business owners. Everyone I knew was an employee at the time. While many friends and family members can help you, they usually don’t know the right steps, or actions that lead to being successful in entrepreneurship. In the beginning, I was trying to figure everything out on my own by reading blog posts online and books. I think many new entrepreneurs think that one book or blog post is going to solve all of their problems. I eventually, hired my first coach about six months into my business and have worked with a handful of other coaches and consultants since then. Getting the right support at the right time made all the difference for me.
Another major issue for me was start-up capital. As a single, self-sustaining woman living in Los Angeles at the time (where it’s very expensive) I wondered how I was going to pay for everything to get the business off of the ground. I took out a loan to cover my coaching certification and have been self-funding ever since. Being smart with your money is very important as a business owner. Even once you become profitable, there’s always another program, product, or service you can buy. Knowing what to invest in, and when to invest in it is vital, especially during the first few years.
How do you stay focused?
I’m a pretty focused person in general, but I try to set boundaries in other areas of my life to maintain that focus. We all only have so much time, energy, and resources. There are some things and opportunities that I say “no” to, in order to bring my best to my business.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
In our business, we focus on providing the solutions our clients need to be successful. We don’t try to sell people cookie-cutter offerings. We have some programs established as a baseline, but we can customize solutions for clients. For an individual, career coaching clients that might look like also providing a professional resume writing service and interview coaching. A business client with a goal of developing their team might come to us for executive coaching or multi-generational consulting services. We aim to use our core competencies in the best ways to support our clients.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Public speaking and professional networking have been our most beneficial strategies. It’s funny to say because I’m an introvert. I’ve worked on coming out of my comfort zone to host speaking events and participate in networking opportunities. After I attend, I usually go back home to recharge. As a business owner, I’ve learned that marketing is simply a way to share how you can help people.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
My best piece of advice is to surround yourself with other successful entrepreneurs. If you’re not around other people who are actually making things happen and doing what you’d like to be doing, it’s easy to give up. That could mean regularly attending business events, joining a networking group, or working one on one with a business coach. Just getting yourself in the mindset of being a business owner, learning how to make wise business decisions, being resilient, and understanding your business model will take you very far.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
Trello is my favorite app! I literally use it to manage almost everything related to the business, different aspects of my projects, and my team’s projects. I love how simple, but use it is.
I follow the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) Blog. I went through their coach training program and find a lot of helpful information there.
Choosing one favorite book is very difficult for me because I love to read. One of my favorite business books is What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith.
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
ZoHo CRM is my favorite business tool. We work with hundreds of clients per year and it allows us to keep track of the sales and customer relationship processes. Having easy access to all of this information enables us to pull reports easily and send cards or gifts quickly.
Who is your business role model? Why?
This is another difficult one because there are so many women I admire. Right now, I think Sara Blakely’s story of self-belief and resilience is amazing.
How do you balance work and life?
I try to delegate tasks effectively, so I’m not taking on too much. Empowering my team to make decisions and handle things has made a dramatic difference over the last year or so. I also changed how I look at family time. I treat time with my husband and family just like important meetings on my calendar.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
Going for a walk outside is my favorite way to decompress. I wholeheartedly believe the research about it helping you improve creativity and have gotten some of my best ideas while out for a walk. I love being out in nature with different plants and animals, it just makes me feel good.
What do you have planned for the next six months?
Our goal is to stay motivated and positive during the last six months of 2020. With all of the uncertainty in the economy and community health in general, reaching more people to support them with their career and/or business is a top priority. Helping someone to earn more money or improve their working environment can have lasting impacts on their well being and family. We’re also planning to further enhance our online presence and marketing strategy.
How can our readers connect with you?
We’d love for you to check out our website: https://www.fly-highcoaching.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/porschiaparker/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/64512733/