"An entrepreneur is a visionary. It's much more than being able to make money with a certain skill or product, especially in today's marketplace."
Jackie Appleby is the Diligent Assistant. A highly organized and strategic Business Manager and Business Coach who’s worked with coaches across North America to bring calm and focus to their business. As an administrative and operations champion: Jackie operates on the principle of work smarter not harder, finding solutions to operational challenges to help others achieve their goals. and creating connections between people, processes, and technology.
As a Business Coach, Jackie works with her clients one on one using her “Coach to CEO” framework to allow clients to discover and plan the best strategies for stabilizing consistent income and moving their coaching practices to a growing and scalable business model. Jackie’s company – Diligent Assistant Inc offers business coaching and business management packages designed to support independent coach practitioners.
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Table of Contents
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Jackie Appleby: My company offers business management services to small business owners, primarily coaches who are great at their core money-making skills but need assistance in the business management, sales, and marketing areas. Coming from a place of advising and educating for best practices, the vision for the future is to create a collaborative space where coaches can come together and get sound business advice as well as learn new and emerging processes and technologies to keep up with the changing entrepreneurial space.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Jackie Appleby: My earliest memory of career passion was wanting to be an air-hostess when I was about 9 or 10!
Not really knowing what I was good at, or having a skill or passion that was able to direct me in any way I left school at 16 and went straight into customer service with a local car dealership. Over the years I moved to different industries but stayed within the customer service area and each time I took on a train the trainer, facilitator, supervisor role. What stuck out was my ability to learn systems and processes and then be able to train others on the most efficient ways to do things, tweaking processes and designing new ones where necessary.
My parents have run a successful company themselves so I was no stranger to the entrepreneurial path and after moving on from a full-time role to providing some much-needed support to my kids I was left questioning what I could dig into that would encompass my skills. The VA & OBM world was emerging and admin and operations were at the heart of processes and systems so it seemed like a good fit. I was lucky enough to land some great clients early on and several of them were coaches, which was when it became apparent that these amazing people with so much to give, needed help getting organized and making headway and so my niche was revealed!
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Jackie Appleby: I don’t have a favourite colour!
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Jackie Appleby: An entrepreneur is a visionary. It’s much more than being able to make money with a certain skill or product, especially in today’s marketplace. It’s about being able to create a company that resonates deeply with its prospects and customers. People don’t just want to go with the cheapest option anymore, they want to associate themselves with brands that make them feel good and align with their values. An entrepreneur is one that can make that connection with people and still operate in a fiscally responsible way to make a profit and do good in the world.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Jackie Appleby: People have many talents, all of them different from one person to the next. Being able to create a culture in the workplace that takes advantage of those many talents creates amazing results. Just because it’s always been done a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the best way and the new and emerging workforce made up of different backgrounds certainly provides pause for thought around new growth strategies for businesses. Having a supportive and inclusive culture means pulling in these amazing resources and talents, no matter how high they are on the ladder so that everyone creates momentum.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Jackie Appleby: A leader can be disruptive in the post covid world by leading with positive influence. With so much negativity, unhappiness, and devastation in our world currently the positive impact leader is even more important. I’m not just talking about the glass half full optimism. I’m talking about leaders reaching in and demonstrating what is possible when we lead from a place of values, care, and compassion.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Jackie Appleby: I help others figure out how to spend more time with their 5-year-olds.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Jackie Appleby: I’m really good at unknotting balls of wool or jewelry. I have the patience of a saint to be able to not break anything and gently trace back where the knot is coming from and find a new path forward.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Jackie Appleby: It’s not you, it’s them – accepting your ADD as the gift it was intended to be!
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Jackie Appleby for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Jackie Appleby or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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