In this inspiring episode of BEP Talks, I sat down with business strategist Yvonne McCoy to explore the power of authenticity and consistency in business. Yvonne shared her Be Found framework—reminding us to focus on our unique strengths, nurture relationships, and always deliver delight. We discussed how being true to yourself, staying relevant, and embracing vulnerability are key to accelerating your success. If you’re ready to collapse your timeline and get real results, this session is packed with practical wisdom you don’t want to miss!

Want to work with a strategist who keeps it real, delights at every step, and helps you accelerate your growth? Connect with Yvonne McCoy https://www.yvonnemccoy.com/podcast!

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Well, hello everybody and welcome to another edition of BEP

Talks, Beliefs, Experiences, and

Passions. Kind of what life at this stage

anyway becomes all about. You know, we bring you

guests, a very diverse collection of guests,

all of them very special, all of them an expert in their own field,

their own industry, um, at different stages. Of

their career. Some retired, some still building fantastic

businesses. And, um, they come to you to share

their beliefs, their experiences, their passions, hoping

to inspire you, to motivate you,

educate you, sometimes just to entertain you.

Combinations of all of the above. None of it's bad. It's all

good. Today is certainly no exception.

My very special guest today is Yvonne McCoy, who is a

business strategist. She's going to

explain exactly what that means, what her specialty is. So you know what?

Let's just welcome— here she is, Yvonne McCoy. Welcome.

Hey, Beth. I'm so excited to be here. I can't tell

you just the thing that your podcast is about, the

belief, the experience, and the passion, I

think is so important. I mean, one of my beliefs that has come

about over time is that

when I meet with somebody and I talk with somebody and they talk with me,

we both leave better for the experience. Do you know,

whatever the better looks like, whatever it means. But we, you

know, you know, in my Be Found framework, the

last, the D is delight, deliver, and delight. And I want to make

sure that I hopefully can delight the people that are listening to this, that they

can walk away with something that they can remember. My friend,

Yvonne, I have absolutely no doubt

that, that and so much more will be accomplished. And

I say that to the listeners because I have had the opportunity,

the honor, the privilege to speak with Yvonne before. And

we just connect on a very heart-to-heart basis.

And that's why Yvonne being here today talking about beliefs,

experiences, and passions is so natural really for both

of us. Yvonne, because we've both been around the block a few

times. And you realize that when you get to our stage of life

and business, so much more in the rearview mirror, shall I say,

though we hope there's still a lot ahead for us, is that we can reflect

on that. And we have

perhaps most importantly, the experiences to share with

other people to shorten their timeline on their journey.

To whatever it is that they wanna do. So you were just the perfect guest,

and I so thank you again for being here today. Well,

you know, we've shared messages before, both you being

on my summit and you were amazing. Thank you. So I am really happy

to be here. Yeah, thank you. And right back at you.

So what is a business strategist?

Well, for me, a business strategist is a person who

helps you to take what you already have and says,

how are we going to make you the expert

and not an expert, right? How do we make you stand

out? Because, you know, what I found for, for many people who

are in businesses, they have more than they need. And

instead of adding more, they actually need to get rid of

stuff and simplify and focus so that

people can find them because the visibility is like a really big part. I

mean, one of the silly stories that I tell is as

entrepreneurs, we love to create. So one

day we're doing this, the next day we're doing that, the next month we're doing

something else. And it's kind of like you've got a mobile store.

On Monday, you're on one corner and you're selling one thing, and

on Tuesday you're on another corner selling something else. And the person

that came by Monday that wants to find you can't. Because

you've now moved and you're selling something totally different.

Your clients can't find you because you're not, you're not getting consistent

clients because you're not being consistent. This is a great

metaphor. That is a great visual. And I will tell you,

as a much younger woman in New York City where I was cutting

my teeth in business, I lived in that scenario of

seeing the guy on Lex and Lex

and 52nd, and then you'd go there the next day and he's not there.

You're looking for the pretzel guy and now the hot dog guy is there. You're

looking for the hot dog guy and now the guy who's selling the knockoff

handbags is there. That's a great metaphor.

So being consistent,

so important. So what I'm

hearing from you, Are we getting in our own way? Oh,

absolutely we are. Okay. So what should we do? It's

not your fault. And this is the reason that it's not your fault.

Okay. And that is because

historically we are moving out of kind of an

industrial way of being educated into the new

informational age. In the industrial age, you know,

Buckminster Fuller says we are all born geniuses and then it's educated

out of us. We were taught in school to follow the rules

and do exactly the same thing. We were all, you know,

supposed to come out to be cubes to fit into the square hole.

Yeah, right. That no longer is what we need.

And so we are following people and following

people's advice, you know, and saying, this is the expert

that, you know, is going to help me. And it has nothing—

you know, there may be strategies in there, but it's not personalized.

Information is now everywhere. People can get information all over the

place. So as an expert, your expertise

is not necessarily information,

it's implementation and personalization. It's

how— what do you need? How can I help

you get that and implement it and actually use

it? I've actually started in my coaching sessions leaving

5 to 7 minutes at the end where people can actually work

on stuff. So they don't leave with homework because I'm like everybody else.

The night before my coaching sessions, I'm like, I need to do this,

I need to do this, you know. So we actually start on it and start

working on it together so that they've got a head start. They know what it

is, they know what the questions are, and they actually are leaving

hopefully with something that they can put to work right away.

And, and people just really value that. Like, it's not like one

more to-do. Right, right, right. You know, and

going back, talking about education, I think children should not get homework in school. If

the teachers are doing a really great job in the classroom, they should accomplish it

then and there and let the children go home and be with family. That's

another whole topic. So, so, but I feel that way. I

feel that way. Giving people homework because, and I was that,

that student who was writing term papers the night before they were due. Oh yeah.

You know, and Yeah, it's

just I was being consistently inconsistent.

So getting in our own way, what's the,

what's the, what's the solution to that? Are we, are

we taking in too much information from too many directions? Are we

not staying focused?

Okay, so here's, here's what makes this

an ongoing kind of puzzle. Okay,

and that is you need to stay relevant. The

world is constantly changing, so the solution that you

had, let's say before COVID doesn't work after COVID.

The solution that you had maybe 2 years ago

may not be relevant for where you want to be now. So you've got a

lot of moving things going on. So that's the other

reason that you kind of have to have a core And your

core really is your belief and

your uniqueness. That stays the same. That's your North Star.

I mean, oh, I like that. So that as you're

navigating all these other things and all these other— that part stays

the same. I mean, I had someone who,

who was actually a client who came to my workshop, and she said to me

afterwards, I don't know who that person was. That was presenting

that workshop, because that's not the person I like working with.

Because in the workshop, I was like, I had it structured, I had it

timed, I had, you know, I wasn't

my loosey-goosey self that I normally am, right?

And so that's the thing that needs to stay the same. I mean,

when I had to do— I decided to do the same workshop, I was like,

this is going to be so boring. You know, the same

workshop every single month, right? And this is what I

learned. First of all, in between workshops, I learned new things

from the workshop. The people that come are different, so the

energy is different, and you get to know your subject, and you get to,

to learn to go deep into what you do

as opposed to be very thin and wide. Yeah. Yes.

So true. So true. So

to be consistent, I'm thinking of the saying, to thine own self be

true. Know what you know, know what you don't know, um, and

become really great at who you are, what you do, and

do it consistently so that you can be found.

Oh, be found. You have a program that's called

Be Found. Found is an acronym, F-O-U-N-D. Would you talk to

us about that please? Sure. So the B is really easy.

Be yourself. That's the best person you can be. It doesn't

take a lot of extra energy. You don't have to say, you know, am

I in the right whatever? Just relax and be yourself.

You know, none of us are perfect. And so, you know,

enjoy it. And that's really what I've started stepping into.

So that part is, is really important because you will

show up the same way all the time.

The F is focus on your unique strengths and

abilities. We all have different things that we're good at,

right? And typically I tell people the things that you're really good at

are probably the things that irritated your family no end.

They did not appreciate you for who you were. So my thing

is, my sisters and my kids even will say to me, Mom,

don't fix me. You know, don't fix the

problem. I just want you to say, I'm sorry you feel sick. And

because what I typically say is, did you take something for that? Yeah, we want

to be the fixers. So what does the F stand for? F stands for

focus. Focus on your unique abilities.

And I think I missed the E. What is the E? No. Well,

the B is just B. B is B. Gotcha. Gotcha. Oh,

boy. Sorry. The B is just B. My bad. My bad. Okay. And the

O? The O is outreach. Once you focus and

know what your, your unique abilities are, you're going to do outreach in

places that make sense for you,

right? So if I'm selling ice, I'm not going to go to the Arctic,

right? Unless it totally melts. But once you know what

you've got to deliver and what your uniqueness is, you know, to

be able to go to the places where those people are,

right? The U is to understand your client's journey.

Okay, so here's the thing that really

attracts people to you is that people

say, she gets me, he gets me. I

don't have, you know, I don't have to explain this to you. And when you

understand their journey, then you can language it in a way

that lands with them, right? Right. You know, when people

do their pitch, which I absolutely hate the word pitch, I

call it an introduction. When it starts with I,

it's like, to me, that's a turnoff because

I want to know if you recognize my problem. I

don't want to know who you are until I know that you can recognize my

problem. All right. So I

typically do my introduction something like,

when I was doing productivity, I would say, do you get to the end of

the day and all the important projects are still sitting on, you know, that only

you can do are still sitting on your desk. Now I've got your attention,

if that's you, right? As opposed to,

I'm Yvonne McCoy, I'm a productivity coach, you know, or I'm Yvonne

McCoy, I'm a strategist. Well, what does that even mean? And, and, and if

the perfect person was there, they may totally stop listening.

So understand the stages that they go through. Do your

clients need to recognize the kind of

problem that you have? Do they have to acknowledge that they have it?

Right? What makes them go from, you know,

acknowledging it to starting to investigate that they're going to get some,

and so that you can fill their needs, right? Right. And what are

they saying so that you can use that language back to them,

right? So that's the understand their

journey. The N is to nurture all your

relationships. And by that is, it's the thing that I said to you

when I first started networking, which I came to very late in my business career.

I I was looking, you know, everybody had a dollar sign on their forehead. You

know, I was looking for a client. Are you a client? Are you a client?

You know, that is probably the worst thing you can do because first

of all, if you meet somebody

who's going to collaborate with you, they're worth far more than a client

is, right? And it may just be that you've got

somebody, you know, somebody that you'll never work with. But what I

found that has totally surprised me is I'll go to a networking

thing and somebody that I didn't think that I had met,

but I had spoken someplace else will say, you need to talk to

Yvonne. Now, this person is neither a collaborator nor, you

know, whatever, but you develop those relationships, you show up, and

you're yourself every single time, right? And then the D

is delight, deliver, and delight. And I have to tell you, I have to

laugh because ChatGPT always takes out the first delight

when I, when I do this. And I think if I can't delight

you before you choose to work with me and I deliver,

then you're not gonna come and let— you know, work with

me, right? Yeah. And even once you're working with me, I have

to still delight you, right? I have to

awaken something, help you be motivated, help you get your momentum

going. And I have to tell you, momentum, I've learned,

is even better than motivation. Because in the

last last couple of months I've had a couple of things happen,

but the momentum has been going. And even on the days when I

don't feel like it, good things are happening. Oh, that's

so good to hear. That's so good to hear. Yeah. So that's the— that's

the B, found. You know, that makes so much sense. And I just want to

go to the D, because when you said about ChatGPT, and I don't think anything

that artificial intelligence can ever replace

or equal AI, meaning

authentic interest. Mm-hmm. Going back to the N

of nurturing the relationship. So a lot of

people are willing or capable, very good, very skilled at even

delighting at the beginning. Then you get the transaction

and now they think it's done. It's like delight,

done. Yeah. You know, as opposed to, well, now you gotta

deliver, always overdeliver more than you promised. Yes. And then

let the delight continue because you over-delivered.

And hopefully those people who have engaged

with you and trust you are getting results,

right? Why wouldn't that continue to— I love that. Be

Found. It stands for so much. Be yourself,

focus, do the outreach, stay consistent in

all of those things so that people can anticipate where you will

be because you're always there. And reliability—

I'm going back to when you said about stay relevant— reliability,

that's kind of missing these days too, isn't it?

Reliability. And I think the other thing

is what you're saying, reliability. I also think a piece of

that is vulnerability. You know, so it was,

it was really You know that I have— I have a— I

hit my head and I have a concussion. And it was— and so I haven't

been able to do 100% of what I've been doing. So

it's a wonderful way for me to focus. We know, you know, you go, what

do I really need to do? What, you know, I'm outsourcing some things.

But one of the things that has been very interesting is

it has actually given me content when I acknowledge that I've

got this limitation. It has actually given me content

to help tell people you need to focus. I mean, I'm sending, I'm

sending out an email today that's to my affiliates, which

is kind of weird, but my neurologist gave me a list of

vitamins to take to help me with my memory and, you know, my

cognition and stuff like that. And I put it into my affiliate email.

I was like, hey guys, I just got this information and, you know, if you

can use it, great, but I'm sending it to you to help you to

remember please promote my workshop.

Listen, that's very smart. That, that's a win-win-win.

You know, so what you've done, what I'm hearing, and I give you so much

credit for it. And I just wanna say to the listeners that how

vulnerable Yvonne just made herself by saying she's not

feeling— my point is this. Can you imagine when she thinks she's on her

A-game and this is when she thinks she's not on her A-game?

Because it's I couldn't tell the difference. But that

vulnerability makes people say

they're— you're real. I mean, yes, yes.

A lot of the lessons that I've learned, which sounds very weird, at one point

in my life I was 440 pounds. I lost almost

200. Now, I never talked about that at

all. I mean, Zoom to me was the best thing that happened because you could

only see me from the shoulders up. Right.

But, you know, what I learned was there was nothing worse than going to

an exercise class with somebody that was really, really skinny.

Right. And you're struggling to do what they're doing and

you can't do it and you feel awful and they don't know how to modify

it or connect with you. But if you say to somebody, I've

struggled with these things, I've gone through this, I— you

know, it is hard. It is hard to bare your soul

to somebody who puts themselves out there as perfect.

Yeah, yeah. And it's not, that's just a false start.

Right. And the know, like, and trust that we all hear about in business,

you start to automatically know that you don't

like the person. And then now I

can't trust that person. No, no. Yeah. And you know what? I said

it earlier today to somebody, you know, by the time you get to

my age, you've kissed a lot of frogs. And,

you know, the warts eventually go away. You heal, you get better, you

learn. You have learned and you move on and

stay consistently authentic

to you. I believe in being open-minded

and always be willing to learn something new from somebody new,

but to your own self be true. But here's

the other thing. I think again, when we say there's lots of information, I did

a workshop one time and somebody at the workshop said, can I talk

to you afterwards? And I said, sure. And she said, I hope you don't mind.

I have a couple suggestions for you. And I was like, okay.

And she was like, you know, I think you spent too much time here. And

then she started telling me all these things, you know, you need to do. And

I was like, wait. I said, what do you do? And she

said, I'm in entertainment. And I

go, I think your suggestions are great for

entertainment. I'm not an entertainer. I

don't— you know, what you said to me is I'm entertaining too much in this

workshop. I need to— I need to go in the opposite direction because

I like to tell stories. You know, but you are.

And I even said at the beginning of this that sometimes it's about inspiration,

motivation, education. And I even said entertainment. But

the thing is, when you don't know what your purpose is and what you're

trying to achieve, it is really easy to chase after other

people's suggestion. They're like, oh, this makes sense. Oh, this—

it's like once I realized where she was coming from, that was not where I

wanted to go. Right. Traveling in a different caravan.

Yes, absolutely. If you wanna head west,

go west, don't go east. Eventually, if you went east, you'd get to the west,

but it's a shorter path. So the authenticity, you'll eventually

get there, but it'll be a longer, harder trip, obviously. But

in 2020, I read, I read rather that in

2020, you created something called the Clients

client's trust journey. What is that?

The client's trust journey? I already alluded to it. Um, I use it.

I use a thing called RAINN. Um, I actually think it's

an addiction model, so it's not mine. It's an acronym.

So it is recognizing that there's a problem, a

general problem, acknowledging that you have the problem,

investigating a solution, and getting your needs met.

So if you are— if your client is a breast

cancer patient, right?

All of us know about breast cancer. Hopefully we'll

never have it. We will never know anybody that gets it

either. And we will always stay in that recognize that there's a problem. We

will never become her client.

Right. Okay. But let's say we have another health issue.

Let's say we have diabetes, right?

Or we have just aching joints. Let's try aching joints because that's one that

doesn't come on suddenly because we go through those stages at different speeds. Again,

the moving target thing. So, you know, you recognize for

a long time your mother, you know, has aches and pains and suddenly

you have aches and pains. And then someday, some reason,

something happens that makes you go, God, my knees hurt.

And you move into the recognition stage, kind of. Does

it hurt every day? Does it just happen every once in a while? Do it

only happens when I garden? Whatever, right? And so you're in

that recognition stage. Something has to happen in that

stage to make you say, I don't want to be like this

anymore. Oh, okay. So as you're

doing the client's journey, what are you saying to them to make them

recognize that they don't want to be there anymore, that they can do

something about it, that there options for them,

enough that they want to move to, I'm going to investigate this. And

hopefully you've been there consistently and long enough that you become

the obvious choice, right?

So that when they come and talk to you, that investigate what you've got,

right? You're talking in a language they've heard. You— they've heard you from

your newsletter, they've heard you from your interviews and podcasts or

summits or whatever. They've heard that you have a different way of doing

this than somebody else. Like, yes, everybody says you

should lose weight or you should do this, but you're saying there's something

else I can do in addition to this that makes you

stand out. And then when you get

them, you meet their needs, right?

And sometimes their needs are not what they think they

are. I had one of my first coaches said, paint the door red with what

they think they need, but give them what they want, what they actually need when

they're in the house. So when I was doing productivity and and

profit. People wanted time management, but

productivity is really not time management. It's really about

prioritizing and focusing and streamlining, right?

Right. But what, what made them come to me was the time management

stuff, right?

So that's the client's journey. And one of the best things that you can do

for yourself is take a look at the clients you

have right now and say, what was the

unexpected results that they got from me?

Because that will help you see what your

unique strengths are. One of the things that people said to me when I

changed that surprised me was, I did not

realize that you could help me put together my packaging and pricing so

fast. And I was kind of like, doesn't everybody do

that? Yeah. Yeah. So,

so that's— if you think about, you know, ask them, what did you get

from me that you didn't expect, right? A

lot of times for women, one of the things they get from me that

is kind of just a natural thing for me is, is how do I, how

do I use the strategies that I'm giving you for business in your

life, you know, so that you're using the

same strategies both in business and life and you're not like a split

personality. Yeah. Yeah. We went through that

discussion many years ago about work-life balance and the

shifting gears, you know, the proverbial 9 to 5 and then the 5 to

9 kind of thing. And that you had to be two different people and you

had to be perfect in all of it. Not really true. Not really possible. You

are who you are and you cross the boundaries in

a good way. You take it with you. You get better at

both ends of both sides of the

clock, let's say. And the hardest thing— the easiest

thing is to be yourself, right? Either way.

I mean, it's kind of like, probably, you know, one of the best things that

I heard was somebody said— and this again is be yourself— if you don't,

you know, when you're raising your kids, if you don't want to

feel like you're, you know, running a diner, don't say to your kids, what do

you want for dinner? Because if you've got 3 kids and they all

want something different, right? So what

you say is you could have this or this. There you go. Oh,

yeah. And that's the same thing.

That goes back to time management, to all you moms who are saying, what do

you want? And you're making 3 and 4 and 5 different dinners. That's

your time management. Bad time management. Oh, I like that. I

like that. That's a great example. But that's the same way you manage a team.

Yes. Yes. If you don't— if you— I used to say to my

supervisors, if I get a mandate from

corporate and they say we have to cut the budget by 10%, but they don't

care where we cut it, our labor costs, then you get to

pick where you want to do your labor costs. If they say to me,

this is where it's got to come from, I'll give you 5 minutes to moan

and groan, and then you have to figure out how to do it. Because if

I don't— If I don't get to pick, you don't get to pick,

right? You don't give people choices when you really don't wanna give 'em

choices. Choice, right? So that's what trying to be pleasant and

considerate and everything, and it can bounce back and really bite you.

Oh, that makes so much sense. And, and what you're doing is

you're giving very practical examples that we all kind of experience

one way or the other in real life.

That we still just get to practice in our business life. So,

so, so, you know, one of the things that I say to people all the

time, probably the most important question I think that

you can ask yourself is, what's the purpose of this?

Okay. And I mean, it sounds silly.

It's like I'm marketing. But what is the purpose? What is the purpose

of what you're doing and what what you're, you know. So someone

said to me, I just recorded this, you

know, my class, and there, you know, and there's some time for people

to work on stuff. So should I cut that part out when I put the

recording out to everybody? And I said, what's the purpose?

And she, you know, and she looked at me like, well, of course the purpose

is to give them the replay, but what is the purpose? What do you want

them to do with the replay? Do you want them just to say

there's information here and never go there, or do you want them to be

engaged and have the same experience that they would have

if they had attended? If that's the case, leave the work

time in there so that they will work, right? You know,

you can always put in the description, work time is included. If you don't have

time, fast forward, right?

You are so practical, and I love that. It's one of the things I love

about you, but you are so much fun. Uh, that is your

authentic self. Um, I get that. And I know that our listeners

today are definitely getting that. What I wanna say

to everybody is that if you want to work with someone

who definitely makes it fun to work with,

um, who gives you practical life

advice based on beliefs, experiences, and passions.

It's what we do here at Bev Talks. Yvonne McCoy is

your gal. And I promise you, you will have so

much fun, but you will accomplish so much. So in

asking, what is the purpose? The purpose of working with

Yvonne is to collapse

your time and get to the point of

it faster. Because she will be very direct with you.

That's how. And to get the result and to accelerate your results that you can

consistently do. Because Yvonne is gonna ask you, what

do you want? She's not gonna tell you what she thinks

you need to want or should want, or I want you

to want this cuz this is what she does. She's gonna say, what do you

want? And that's how she, Yvonne,

is gonna help you to be found. Guess what?

You have found Yvonne here today.

Congrats. Absolutely. You've taken a lot of steps forward.

So below today's Bev Talks, you're

gonna find out how to be in touch with Yvonne. Now you

know why. You know why you should be,

because she's gonna make the difference that you want to make in your life.

She's going to stay relevant. She's going to be focused on you. She's going to

ask you what you want. She will be vulnerable.

That's the purpose. That was the purpose of BEP

Talks today. That was the

purpose of BEP Talks today. So to our listeners, we always say thank you so

much for joining us. Thank you, Yvonne. I knew you would be such an outstanding

guest. And I love working with you. Oh, you

are so dear. I so appreciate that. I so appreciate that. We

just have good energy together, and that makes it fun.

Absolutely. That makes it fun. And when you're authentic, you have

energy. You can't fake it. It becomes so

hard to fake anything in life, and you can only do it for so long

because the lie, the pretend will eventually catch up

with you. And not a good moment. Not a good

moment. So as we always say at Bep Talks, everybody has a story.

Everybody has great value to share as Yvonne has done today. We want to

hear your story. We want you to be here on Bep Talks. The information

on how to be in touch with the fabulous Yvonne McCoy is below. The

information on how to connect at Bep Talks is below.

Please take advantage of it. You're not here by mistake.

If you say, why did I listen to this Bep Talks? You know the purpose.

It was to meet Yvonne McCoy.

So as we always say at Bev Talks, may the best

always be yet to come. I believe it

is. Do you believe it is for you? Let's discover

it together. Use Yvonne to help you discover what your best is

because it is yet to come if you decide that it's yet to

come. So Until we talk

again, thank you for listening. May your best always

be yet to come. And to Yvonne McCoy, I say thank you so

much. And can you imagine when she thinks she's on her A-game?

Oh my gosh, look out, here comes Yvonne

McCoy. Thank you so much, Yvonne. Thank you. I'll see you again real

soon. Thank you so much. Bye everybody. Until we talk again.