137: Intuitive Business Insights with Life Strategy and Business Coach Sasha Laghonh

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert plank Show episode 137 intuitive business insights with life strategy and business coach Sasha from Sasha talks.com. Everyone and welcome back to the Robert plank show. We're here today with Sasha from Sasha talks calm, and she's a seasoned MBA professional who specializes in organizational and human behavior, which grants are a broad base from which to approach many topics. Hey, Sasha, welcome to the show.

Sasha Laghonh 0:33 Hi, Robert, thank you for having me.

Robert Plank 0:36 So can you tell me about what it is that you do? What makes you special?

Sasha Laghonh 0:40 What makes this special? Well, I have two parallel career paths. My initial career path has to do with business. I have a bachelor's from Boston University with this, and also an MBA in global management. So I started out along my corporate career path where I do a lot of business development and research in the market. And that is how I work corporate contracts, helping out executives streamline their business plans and help them with their corporate strategy. On the other side, I also initially started out to talk where I was selling special counseling services. So you're doing reading, the more metaphysical work. And then a common person would say, well, those two interests are really polarized thing, because one is really fashionable and judgmental. And the other one is a little bit really fluid and cannot be measured. And it got to a point where social talk started growing at a faster rate than I had anticipated that I had merged my business consulting services onto some Sasha talks. So I can standardize the audience. And I went on the tooth in two different worlds at the same time.

Robert Plank 1:59 Okay, so So how did I mean, how do they do this kind of coming to come to be like, I know, you said that you have this business background, and you have this website. But I mean, how did you get your, your counseling clients and things like that?

Sasha Laghonh 2:13 Okay, well, FAFSA talks was already a part of it, in theory, by the time 2008 came along, but when the economy started going down, a lot of my corporate opportunities started getting downsized because of budget, that I told myself that what are some skill sets that I haven't fully capitalized upon. And that's when faster talks was launched. And I went out, and I was doing radio shows, podcasting, and at the same time, as employed by third party websites, where you get to the center services, so whether people are paying you per minute, or buying small packages to talk to you on the phone or for online chat. And at that time, I was in between five, six different platforms, which are websites by owned by private owners, and that was providing a form of income. But it got to a point where I said that if I'm already helping other people out to third party websites, why can I not do that to my own. And at that time, I slowly started marketing, Sasha talks and picked up momentum, through blog talk radio, BBs radio, and basically doing a lot of speaking engagements where you're marketing yourself out there, you're giving people samples of your work, you don't have to work for free. But you also have to encourage people to invest their resources in new and fully so that it picked up momentum. And I've gotten this far because of word of mouth. Because the best referral, or best compliment you could get is a referral. And the people have tried you out and they've paid you for your service, they'll share the good news with other people. But if you have bad news, it will travel faster. So you have to be mindful of what type of publicity for you attracting even though you cannot control the perception of the audience at the end of the day, keep at it and be consistent in what you're offering.

Robert Plank 4:17 Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And I like I mean, I like a couple of things about that. I like that. First of all, when you saw that people like the economic downturn, and you saw people getting downsized, you said, Well, how have the skill, you know, like you're, you're a good speaker, or you can fill out someone's business. And you just said, well, now I'm going to apply I'm going to kind of change things up a little bit so that now I can kind of replace these, these business clients that I'm losing. And the thing that I like too is that is your use of these these third party websites. So you said that so you have word of mouth, and then you get traffic from having like a blog talk radio show it is that I mean, is there anything else that you you look for as as far as the traffic you send to your website,

Sasha Laghonh 4:58 other than that, also, when I ran Sasha talks, I think Sasha talks close to three different blogs up to date. And the latest blog highlights all of the guests that I host on the platform. Initially, the blog has to do with love and relationships, because for some reason, a lot of women and men then usually don't talk about it out loud, I have this interest in exploring their love lives. And they want to have that looked into it's usually loving relationships, career. And sometimes they want to know a little bit about their life path, exploring about what what goes on within themselves when it comes to the social services. And of course, there is a gray area because those meetings fall into the entertainment realm, and not delivering a science, it's not a formula, there are so many different spiritualists out there that focus on different types of services. So I have to make that clear. And then on the business aspect of it, before I started doing professional coaching, I was doing academic coaching. So it gave me an opportunity to slowly merge different types of coaching that I'm doing, and complement that Sasha talks. So it's not a completely entertainment, entertainment platform, but it's also a very hands on tactical tool that people could apply in their lives if they choose to.

Robert Plank 6:26 And that sounds pretty cool. And that sounds like something that can help a lot of people. So can you kind of walk us through so if someone so say someone, like they, they hear about you from from some other website or word of mouth, and they say, Oh, hey, I want to I want to hire Sasha for to figure out my my career path or something. What's the process? Someone goes through Wednesday, they hear from you, they go to the website, what are the steps they take?

Sasha Laghonh 6:52 Well, if they go on the contact page, there's a drop down for requesting a certain type of service. And I will follow up with them. Usually they hear back from me within two to three days max, usually I try to do it within 24 hours. And then I asked them a couple of preliminary questions to gauge their interest. And if they happen to be the right clientele that I work with, because I will only work with people who are ready to take action in their life. They're serious about it. And they're not just fooling around because they're bored. And they're just sending out requests to find out what services are available. Because even though a lot of people have money out there, and they're willing to pay you, I'm not only out there for the money, but I want the satisfaction that they're making the vital investment in a new walk away. They could say that working with Sasha was worthwhile because I learned a lot and now I'm applying. But she shared with me. Sometimes people are under the impression as I hate my job, I want this to happen, how come I don't have love in my life, let me go to a coach or specialist paid them and overnight, they're going to fix my life. But fixing can only be done by the client. I could only provide you with the ingredients and the tools of how to go about fixing it. Or how about looking, finding your perfect career opportunity, or how to have a healthy relationship, how to attract money, how to build the business, those are things that can be taught to a degree but if the person doesn't want to apply it, it says didn't have a came to me. And they'll be out of money.

Robert Plank 8:35 So basically, you have this initial meeting to figure out if they're coachable. And if there's something that someone that you'll actually feel fulfilled with by my meeting with them, I guess

Sasha Laghonh 8:46 yes, because I'm looking for results. And initially, when I started out, I think I was a bit more hopeful that you are more vested in your client's well being but I will find clients that didn't care that much. They thought that I could just go to one person have one time meaning pay them and go fix my life problems. So it doesn't quite work that way. So it's more of an engagement. And it's a two way street, that I am there to help you and there to coach you. But at the end of the day, once they walk away, I want to make sure that they're able to sustain the level of success that they want once they achieve it.

Robert Plank 9:29 That makes a lot of sense. So you can only kind of show them the way so So wait, so you have this first meeting and then if you decide that they want to move forward, then what's the next step?

Sasha Laghonh 9:39 Oh, once we decide that we'll be working together then I give them a handful of questions. And then we start our sessions, whether it's on Skype, chat or phone and then I worked them through there, whether they are their challenges and stuff that they want to learn new stuff about, but typically when clients come to me They want lately, the questions I get have to do with entrepreneurship. How do I take the first step, and part of it that I usually drill into them is that plan ahead of time, you can't go to work on a Monday morning, if you're working corporate, and thinking, I hate my job, I'm gonna run out and just start a business. All of that requires planning and a process. Then this the other hand, where I meet people where they plan so much to become an entrepreneur, but they haven't put any of the plan into action. So it says they haven't taken any steps to move away from being dependent on whether it's corporate America and third party that's providing them with income. And you have to learn how to strike a balance, but also have to explain to people that want to make a change of why it's necessary to take action, because I know a lot of people who will plan but they will not take any action.

Unknown Speaker 10:59 So what's the fix for that?

Sasha Laghonh 11:03 Typically, I asked them, what is holding them back? And what are the emotional blocks within them, it could be anxiety, fear, because he could understand anxiety, if you're getting paid bi weekly, you're going to go from getting paid bi weekly to whenever you make your first sale. And the goal that entrepreneurship has to do with not only working for yourself, but having the passion that will drive you to the point to create and consistent form of income. And unless they can answer those tough questions, I cannot help them because it's one of those things, Jesus is a person who needs help all of the resources out there in the world. But if they're not ready to take that leap of faith, it's as they haven't done anything yet. Things to feel emotionally secure. To say that I'm going to take that leap of faith and no matter what happens or what the outcome is, I can live with it.

Robert Plank 12:01 So how does someone get to that point?

Sasha Laghonh 12:04 I feel that some of my clients get to that point with time. And so and not just Time heals, because I think time accommodates, once somebody brings to your attention of what is holding you back, what do you fear. And as long as you know how to plan and you have a contingency plan, and you have the right support telling you that you have a good idea. Now, this is the time to take those steps. If you have the wrong people surrounding you, whether it's friends or family or people who care for you, and you want to be entrepreneur, but your idea, I don't like to say stuff, a lot of people will hold their true opinions back and kind of set up that person to fail, because they don't want to be that messenger. People are entitled to their opinions, it doesn't mean that the potential entrepreneur has to agree with them. But you need someone to give you objective and honest feedback. Because at the end of the day, I don't have anything invested in there. I'm not investing money in them, I'm investing tools in them, and I want them to do well.

Robert Plank 13:11 So would you say that that's a big part of what you do this being that objective person and maybe, you know, not being like not being mean on purpose, but also not not just telling them what they want to hear.

Sasha Laghonh 13:22 Right. And I will say that by strategy, it's tough love, but I'm not someone who's loud, vulgar or into yelling or any of that. But I do bring an alternative perspective where I ask them all these questions that says, What are you going to do? If this doesn't work out? What is your backup plan? If you get rejected for funding? Do you have a business plan? Do you even know the market that you're selling to all of these questions that they should be able to have ideas, because sometimes people are in love with the idea of idea of starting a business, but they have no clue where to begin, which is okay, like they have to do their own homework. And paying a stranger can only get you so far, far. But on a bad day, let's say you're working for yourself, and the economy goes bust. And you can afford all of the talent around you, you still need to know how to run your own home, you still need to know how to run your own business. So somebody has to come in and say, Have you thought about these things? And of course, that everything that we do in our life, no matter how many years you've been working for yourself, there's always something new that we learned in the past. But you can depend on other people forever.

Robert Plank 14:35 Right? I mean, that makes a lot of sense. So So I mean, everything we talked about today, or maybe maybe there's something else but I mean, you have all these coaching clients and some of them are like uncertain about you know, transitioning out of a job or some of them have these missing pieces in their business. Do you see a common problem or like a number one problem that you keep seeing over and over with these coaching and consulting clients you have

Sasha Laghonh 15:01 One of my pet peeves is that usually they pay too much attention to what everybody else is doing that they jump on the bandwagon without even questioning do I need to do what my competitor is doing? Do I need to do what my friend is doing? Or my family member told me that it works out perfect for them. So I shouldn't do it too, is that I want individuals to question things that they're exposed to question the information that comes to my question the source, people may mean no, but at the end of the day, if you're putting up your own resources, your own money, and you run dry, you don't want to be standing there alone in bankruptcy court, blaming everybody else. So I would say just be accountable for the financial decisions you make, be accountable for the people that you bring into your professional path. You don't get to control who comes and, or leaves, but be responsible for those who become part of your business. Because at the end of the day, you're the one putting the food on the table.

Robert Plank 16:05 I like that. And and yeah, I like I like that, that whole message. Because I mean, I think that it's really easy, easy to get bullied gonna get pushed around by someone else's opinions that it's easy for them to make, because that doesn't affect them, but it sure as heck affects you.

Sasha Laghonh 16:20 Yes. And even though it is just nice, you should bring your passion and your energy into it. But to keep your emotions in check, because sometimes people get so emotional, for better or worse, that we forget to be rational. When you have to make these decisions, they get caught up in the moment. And then we might realize we never know, somebody goes to the bank, they end up walking out with a larger loan that they need. And later in time, they realize that I didn't need all that money, and I don't have the resources to pay it back. Or they get so excited with a friend doing business that they're not well equipped to navigate to the friendship when the times get rough, because this is getting in the way. So there's so many different variables about balancing the rationale and the emotional aspects of running, running a business and living your life day to day.

Robert Plank 17:14 Interesting. So. So it sounds like a big part of all this. I mean, it seems like there, there are a lot of a lot of things that can trip people up but having that objective person to talk to and listen to sounds like it's super important. And then I like the way that you explain the way that you do your coaching that you don't just necessarily, you know, tell someone what to do. But you kind of ask all the right questions and get them to think things through about about their life and about their business.

Sasha Laghonh 17:40 Yes. And I want people to know that even if they go seek out a coach or spiritual, so whichever type of professional to know that that they are qualified to grant you guidance. And that to others question your source. It doesn't mean that it's a one way type of communication that they come to me, they could ask me questions. But my thoughts are, but at the end of the day, I always tell them, it's not what fascia will do, or like your friend will do or like your family member will do. You are the one making the decisions, and you have to live with the ramification. And you have to feel comfortable in your own skin. And if you feel you're getting bullied by people, then chances are high that you need to change the type of people you're seeking information from or doing business with, because you're working for yourself. And if you don't feel comfortable in your own home, per se, then something is wrong.

Robert Plank 18:37 Oh, yeah, I mean, it's hard to disagree with that one. So, so kind of along those lines, as far as you know, people who if someone out there if they if they want to make a change, they want to fix things, they want to get a coach, they want to read about what you have to say, and they want to find out all about Sasha, where can they go? And where should they go to find out all that information?

Sasha Laghonh 18:56 Sure, they're welcome to go Stasha talks.com. And even though they don't need a session or a package of sessions, because I'm not in the business of keeping people to become a forever clients, I'm there just to help them. And I always treat each client as if we are not meant to meet again, this is what I'm fighting with. So they know how to proceed forward or if they need a critique for their business or something I am available and Sasha talk calm.

Robert Plank 19:27 Awesome. So thanks for sharing what you have not only sharing what you have to say about you know people helping themselves but I also like the little behind the scenes bit about how you kind of adapted yourself and kind of adjusted a coaching business so that it would continue to grow even when the whole outside world change on you. So I mean, pretty cool stuff. Sasha talks.com Thanks for being on the show saucer.

Sasha Laghonh 19:51 Thank you, Robin for having me.

Robert Plank 19:53 Thanks, Sasha for being on the show. And you out there listening go to Robert plank.com/itunes Just search Robert plank show in your podcast player and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a future episode thanks again