THE BEST CORPORATE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
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The best corporate team building activities with Terry Barkman
- A sailboat is a great place to work on corporate team building activities and to see how your team is functioning together and where the fall-downs are in your communication.
- The boat inherently sets up short feedback loops and we can tell if the things that we’ve asked for and communicating for are happening, we can tell how quickly they’re happening, we can tell who’s jumping in and being a team player and who’s hanging back and waiting for somebody else to take the lead.
- A big part of what a sailboat coaching trip is is it’s a retreat. It is getting away from the office, getting away from even home, and being in a new setting that’s beautiful and having the trees and the water all around you.
- I feel like if you want to be the best version of yourself that you can be if you want to excel if you want to win at life, you should have a coach.
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Doug: Well, welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today we’re going to take you in a different direction actually in a different vehicle. My guest joining me in the studio today is Terry Barkman. Now, Terry is known as the Sailboat Coach. Now before you think, “Hey, I didn’t log in to this podcast to listen about sailing,” just hang in with me for a few minutes. Terry’s a visionary, entrepreneur, he’s a coach and he’s a sailing captain, and his mission is to create momentum and connection through shared outdoors so people feel empowered to impact the world in creative and meaningful ways.
He was frustrated with the traditional limits of industrial coaching so he founded a sailboat coaching international company This positioned him as a thought leader in the emerging free-range coaching community. Sailboat coaching uses one week on the water to create space for learning and transformation and quality time with other visionaries. They also do team-building exercises that are over a couple of days. And when I first talked to Terry, he said something magical happens when a small group of adventures get together, set out on a boat to explore the winds and the world together. So SCI trips encourage clients to relax, rejuvenate by talking them through their ways of their busy lives. And this is kind of a sacred space that encourages deep, meaningful work for yourself and the next steps you might take in your life. So I’d like to welcome Terry to the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast today. Well hey, Terry, super excited to have you on the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast today.
Terry Barkman: It’s great to be here, Doug. I’m excited to get into it. Let’s talk real fast.
Doug: Well, I think the downside of a podcast is after spending some time on your website and looking at all those beautiful images and then enjoying some of the videos and the testimonials from your happy clients, whether it was pulling up a bucket or a net full of crabs or sitting on the beach having a picnic, I don’t think a podcast is going to do what you do justice.
Terry Barkman: Well, thank you. Like you, I spend time looking at those pictures and dreaming of the trips that I’m about to go on, remembering the trips that we have gone on, but the great news today is that you and I get to talk about trips and team building and all the fun stuff, and that’s fun, too.
Doug: So why don’t you just share with the audience a bit more detail in terms of what it is that you do and who you help and serve?
Terry Barkman: We are coaching on sailboats, and our clients, in the beginning, were mostly personal growth, people coming as individuals and joining a team and being part of curriculums that we run for individuals, but we’ve pivoted now and we are focusing our energy on teams from corporations, and we are looking at C-suite, really whoever is in a place where they want to take their team and work on their attitude, communication and teamwork to really clarify who they are, what they’re about and create sustainable success.
Doug: Well, the first thing that came to mind when you said team building is in the world I live in, in the marketing space, often there’s conflict. So you usually have four players at the table. You’ve got the CEO has this vision, you’ve got the finance guy that you’ve got to go convince to give you money to execute the CEO’s vision, and then you’ve got sales and marketing, and sales and marketing are often at odds. Sales complain, “Hey, marketing’s not doing their job,” and marketing complains, “Hey, sales aren’t closing the deals I’m sending them.” So they don’t always work together as a team. I’ve often seen them more often as silos. So what’s your experience been with, not naming a client, but with teams where they have that sort of diversity of responsibility?
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, it’s true. A lot of our organizations are divided into silos, and that can be quite ineffective. And I guess what we’re talking about here is the importance of getting those silos to work together, especially the leaders of those silos to work together. And so if we can get all four of those people on the boat: the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, and representatives from sales and marketing, then suddenly, well, I mean, the expression may be sounds cliche because we’ve heard it so many times, but think about it. We are all in the same boat. And when we are all actually, literally in the same boat, suddenly we realize, “Well, these four or five teams have to work together,” and they have to work together closely in order to create the result that all of us ultimately want.
Doug: Yeah, and I guess nothing sets that more clear than as you’re trying to set sail to a certain destination if the CEO’s got a destination in mind that’s different than everybody else. As you said, you’re all in the same boat so you’re going down that path.
Terry Barkman: Yeah. The boat inherently sets up short feedback loops. We can tell if the things that we’ve asked for and communicating for are happening, we can tell how quickly they’re happening, we can tell who’s jumping in and being a team player and who’s hanging back and waiting for somebody else to take the lead. A sailboat is a wonderful place to practice teamwork and also to see how your team is functioning together and where the fall-downs are in your communication.
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Doug: Well, typically how big are the teams that you would coach in this setting?
Terry Barkman: We would be looking at teams between four and maybe up to eight people. Eight would be a stretch. We’d have to make sure that we had the right boat.
Doug: Okay. And then how long are the trips that you typically go on? I’ve looked a number of yours, but I’m not sure what your current offering is.
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, let me divide that up a little bit. The personal growth trips are a week in length.
Doug: Okay.
Terry Barkman: The executive team building trips are typically a day and a night or two days and a night so that a company can come in, they can do it on the weekend. It doesn’t take production time away from when they would be at work leading their divisions. Of course, if a company wants to come in and they do want to do a week-long trip, we are very welcome to set something up for them in a custom nature, but the one- and two-day offerings are the most common.
Doug: Yeah, and that makes sense. As you said, they don’t want to close down the whole company, take the key management team and disappear for a week and say, “Hey, see you guys in a week.”
Terry Barkman: Right. Well, they may want to but often the bottom line, the CFO says no.
Doug: Yes. What have been the biggest surprises for you as you have started this journey? Let’s start with the fact that you’re coaching on a sailboat. So normally in a coaching situation I’d be sitting in a stark office in a boardroom, maybe some art on the wall. If it’s a nice office there might be a view of the harbor, but in this case, we’re out at sea, bobbing away in the sea and feeling the wind in our face.
Terry Barkman: Right. Well, I don’t know if it was a surprise, but one of our intentions at the very beginning was to take people out of their office. Coaching so often happens over the phone where the CEO is on the phone with their coach and the coach is in their own office and there’s separation. And also there’s familiar context, and familiar context seems to drag us out of adaptability, out of change. When the boardroom is just down the hall and you know that you’ve got that deadline and you know that you’ve got that manager who hasn’t been quite cutting it, your office is not the best place for you to really free your mind and to open up to possibility and to create something new. And so we very intentionally take people out of their offices and into a new setting where the wind is blowing in your face and in your hair if you have that. Being in close quarters with your team in a very different setting sets the table for a change, it sets the table for creating something that’s new, that’s visionary, and is more in line with where you actually want to be.
Doug: Well, I’ve enjoyed events, like physical events that we would go to more when they’re in a more remote area. To have something in the city, if it’s a week-long people are distracted, there’s access to different restaurants and clubs and events and things you can do, so getting the team together, keeping people focused on the mission is somewhat difficult with all the distractions. Obviously you get rid of most of those because there’s really no place you can go unless you want to go for a swim.
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, I mean, a big part of what a sailboat coaching trip is is it’s a retreat. It is getting away from the office, getting away from even home, and being in a new setting that’s beautiful and having the trees and the water all around you. Of course, there is swimming, you can exercise. Sometimes we’ll go on a little hike or go explore an island or something. And especially if we’re going to a tropical destination, it’s nice to be able to even just over lunch, grab a snorkel and jump in the water, and just kind of bliss out for a little bit. I know I love doing that, dropping the anchor and throwing on the barbecue and just being in the water and then coming back refreshed and restored and having more energy and more clarity to bring to the team.
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Doug: Right, which is not the typical experience that I’ve had. If I’m in an office setting it’s, “Okay, bathroom break. Okay, coffee break.” Stop by my office, pick up some messages, return a few emails so that I don’t want to use the word zen cause I’m not really a touchy-feely guy, but that piece that I may have found in the morning session will be gone quickly as I snap back into, “These are all the deadlines and all the things that are pressing on my mind,” and all I did was go, we took a coffee break for 10 minutes.
Terry Barkman: Yes. Yeah. I mean, checking your email can be like getting jumped in a blind alley. You never know what might jump out at you. And as much as we develop skills to kind of suppress the stress of that and focus our attention in other directions, on a sailboat coaching trip we encourage people not to check their email. Maybe you use your phone to take a picture or something, but to really minimize the distractions so you can focus in on the team, focus on if your team came with a particular objective that you want to create, or if you’re doing a creative exploration for a change in direction for the company as a whole, and really give that your full attention.
Doug: Is there a common theme when you run these retreats? What are the main reasons that someone shows up on your boat?
Terry Barkman: Well, I mean, someone in the personal growth sense would show up for our what’s next curriculum where they say, “I know that I have a lot of options. In fact, I probably have too many options, and I want to do some creative exploration, some guided exploration, with like-minded individuals and really come into alignment with who I’m going to be in the next chapter of my life.”
Doug: Okay. Yep.
Terry Barkman: In the executive team building setting, it’s a little different. It might be something that’s on your budget for every year and you go, “Well, what do we want to talk about this year on our sailboat coaching retreat?” It might be something has really gone sideways in your company and you go, “Well, we have to adjust to this and the best way to move forward is to come up with a really clear answer right now, and so we want to take some time away and get clear on where we’re going next before we drive the team forward.” Or it could be a creative shift within the company and they’re going, “Well, this is working, but what would be better? It feels like we’re missing something and let’s distill what that is and find a solution around it.”
Doug: So I would imagine, just based on my experience, going to what I’d say are more intimate or smaller events. We went to an event in the Philippines in Cebu and it was obviously a very small event, there were 50 people, which is obviously a lot more than a boat. But what I noticed was a lot of those people I developed deep relationships with cause we spent a week together, which is a lot different than spending an afternoon or a couple of days together in a conference center with 2,500 other people.
Terry Barkman: Yes. Sailboat coaching trips are intimate in that sense where you really are spending close time together, you’re cooking together, you’re eating together, and if you don’t already know how to sail, you are learning how to sail together and do that as a team, which is different from the things that you do as a team every day at the office. And people do form deep, deep relationships, and not only deep relationships with each other, but deep relationships with who they are individual. I had a client tell us recently, they said, “I grew more in this week on the boat than I did in the previous decade of my life,” reading and searching and doing all of that.
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Doug: Wow. Well, I mean, I notice that the world seems to, speak of my life, it seems so busy like we’re running around with our hair on fire and then wonder why we’re having trouble with developing relationships with our team or being able to focus or having creativity because you’re always in this go go go mode. This gives you obviously a chance to slow down. I mean, as you said, you’re not talking a week, you’re talking a few days or maybe a week, just to get away, change gears, but also to see people in a different light. I remember once I had gone to a political event with a candidate I was helping and I showed up, and on a Sunday afternoon I had shown up, but I was in my scouting gear cause my son was in scouts, and they’re going like, “I’ve never seen you like that.” And so that’s when I first figured out that people need to see you in different environments. So they see the guy in the suit all the time, which is a lot different look than the tee-shirt, a ball cap, hiking boots and, quite frankly, a bit stinky and dirty.
Terry Barkman: Yes. I think there is tremendous value in seeing each other, you could call it out of context, but I would say in a different context, tremendous value in saying, “Well, this is who we are when we show up in athletic gear. This is who we are when we are maybe a little bit closer to the edge of our comfort zone than we are at the office.” And I feel like there’s value in a little bit of vulnerability that comes from showing somebody another side of yourself and also it can be fun to say, “Oh, well, who are we in a different context? Who are we if we try to make this boat go a little faster? And also what’s for dinner tonight? I’m getting hungry.”
Doug: That’s funny. Yeah. I mean, we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time, I’ve got friends that have got quite a nice boat, and so we’d often meet them, hop on the boat, head down to Cole Harbour, stop in the harbor, pick up a couple of bottles of wine, sit out there, have some wine, a cigar, but we’d dropped the crab nets in, in [inaudible 00:14:52] on the way out, pick them up on the way back and then anchor in one of the coves there and have a bottle of wine and some fresh crab and steaks.
Terry Barkman: Yeah. I mean, this being sort of the Vancouver sailing area, is absolutely world-class. I love bringing people into our backyard and sharing some of the spots that I know that you have been. Montague Harbor is a wonderful place to have a barbecue, pick up some crab and a bottle of wine. There are some isolated spits where they maybe don’t have a name, but we know where they are and you can get in there and really get some solitude and have space for just you and the people on your boat to do a hike or to go for a swim. And there are places around the world, too, that are wonderful to sail. I love getting down to the British Virgin Islands and sharing what seems to be my second home with people there.
Doug: That’s really cool. So for people who are listening and saying, “Okay.” We’re living now, as we’re recording this podcast, in a time of extreme chaos, probably more chaos than most of us have ever experienced on a global basis for our business. If you were to give me some advice and say the best way that you could take advantage of what I do, what would that be?
Terry Barkman: As relating to COVID?
Doug: It was relating to running a company at this time and relating to COVID or the last financial meltdown. So you’ve got a team, you’ve got a company, you’ve been blindsided, you’ve got to make some key decisions. I would like to think that the better prepared I am coming into your environment and knowing some of the expectations, the better result I’m going to get. Now maybe I’m totally wrong, so feel free to push back. I’ll turn it to you.
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there’s maybe three different questions in there, and let me see if I can organize myself to answer each of them. First of all, if you’re preparing to come on a trip, we do not need you to be a sailing expert. In fact, if you’ve never sailed before that’s okay because we have the sailing expertise to sail the boat. We’re happy to teach. Having said that, if you want to go grab a sailing book beforehand or take some classes, there are places that I could recommend. And honestly, heart preparation and mental preparation are more important than sailing skills. We do focus our curriculum around attitude, communication, and teamwork, which are very much at the end of the soft skills of things. The hard skills of sailing are, while important, not in the top three.
Doug: So with that in mind, what does that look like to get your, as you said, get your head in the right space?
Terry Barkman: Great question. I think the best place to be before you come out on a sailboat coaching trip is already working with a coach. Whether that’s one of us or whether you already have a coach that you’re working with, I feel like being coached keeps you sharp, it keeps you focused and it sets you up for the breakthrough that we would love to have you have on our trip.
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Doug: And then in terms of when you’ve got that sad part of the trip when you’re pulling back into the harbor-
Terry Barkman: Ah, you’re just breaking my heart here, Doug.
Doug: Well, we eventually need to get there.
Terry Barkman: Does this trip have to end, though? Can it just be the one that goes on forever?
Doug: Does it have to end? Yeah, I mean I remember I shared with you before we got a recording, I remember when we took our first trip to Bora Bora and my wife had rented this beautiful house that was owned by the Four Seasons and my daughter said, “How come we haven’t always come here?” I said, “Well, when you’re a little bit older I’ll explain that to you,” but there are reasons why we haven’t always gone there and we don’t always go there. But at the end of that, we had to get back on a plane and head home. But in your case, this tends to be more personal growth, team building-focused than just pure leisure. When people leave, are they taking away some homework or are they taking away an action list? Are they taking away a reading list? What would it look like as I say goodbye to the crew and walk down the dock?
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, I mean what you take away from the trip ends up being very personal and very subjective to who you are when you came on the trip and the changes that you made. But a reading list could be one of the things that you take away.
I read prolifically, as well as some of our other leaders are active readers, and so if it’s a book list you’re looking for, I’ve got a long list in my library. Some people decide, “Okay, this is where I get serious. This is where I sign up for weekly coaching for the first time.” And so for them, that’s the homework that they want to take on, is working with a coach actively and getting really clear on where they want to be at in life.
For some people, it’s a matter of taking some of the basic lessons of attitude, communication, and teamwork, and saying, “Well, this is how we were applying it on the boat and we’ve kind of talked through what that’s going to look like when we get back to the office and let’s commit to each other that we’re going to hold true to that, that we’re actually going to be at the office the way we were on the boat together.”
Doug: Has there been any certain direction that clients have taken that have caught you by surprise? I’m not looking for dirty laundry, but what I’m asking is you’ve been doing this for a while, you have lots of experience doing this, lots of happy people, but I’m assuming that people show up for a variety of different reasons. And so I’m just asking if there’s someone that’s shown you a different area where they want to improve that you haven’t expected.
Terry Barkman: Yes. Having said that, I’m not coming up with a clear example right now.
Doug: Okay. No worries, I’m just trying to think through because you probably can gather by my questions, I’m looking for okay, so what’s the action list going to be when we go in here?
Terry Barkman: Of course.
Doug: What are the goals and objectives? What’s the feedback? Where’s the innovation going to come from? What’s our list when we leave? And so that’s most often my personality style, but I know that not everyone’s like me. I’ve gone through and I’ve done the disc and the different programs at PSI, and I very quickly learned that my personality style is quite different than others and I have a different view of those people and they have a different view of me. So what I did learn in that coaching session was to appreciate and understand why people did what they did in certain situations so when this type of person is under stress, this is how they react. It doesn’t mean they’re weak, that just means how they react.
Terry Barkman: Right.
Doug: When I’m under stress, I react a certain way and people say, “Hey, you’re arrogant, you’re just charging ahead.” It’s like, “Well, someone’s got to lead the pack. Everyone’s hiding.” So I’ve found by getting in those settings that it was a discovery of how other people think and work.
Terry Barkman: Yes. Yeah, and that’s absolutely right. And actually, now that you’ve been talking about you, I’m thinking about the ways that you and I are similar and it reminds me of somebody who came on the boat who was very different from me and different in ways that I wasn’t expecting, that I wasn’t quite ready for. You and I show up most of the time in what we call an SEI, a posture of leadership. It’s engaging, it is forward-thinking, it is action-focused. You and I are people who take initiative. We get into learning, we finish the book list. There’s a checklist, there’s a clear goal.
I have had somebody come on the trip where it felt almost like they were along for the ride. Not that they weren’t part of the experience, but they were part of the experience in a very different way than you and I, who are action-focused, would have expected. And so, yeah, that has certainly happened and it gives me a chance to adapt and go, “Well, how can I meet this person where they are and how can I make sure that, it’s not the experience that I would want necessarily, but it’s the best experience that they want, and we can still provide that?”
Doug: Well, and that’s what’s really cool. I mean, if everyone was like us the world wouldn’t work. So it’s great that they can find an area, an experience that suits them suits their personality style and that helps them with whatever it is they’re looking to… They’re there for a reason. Like you said, maybe they’re there for the ride or just the great food, but not likely.
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, I would say that person still ended up having a life-changing experience. It did give me a chance to adjust and go, “Oh, right. Yeah, they’re wanting a different kind of change then I would be showing up for,” and that was good.
Doug: So in terms of your business, not your process but your marketing, I mean, I’ve never met someone who coaches on a sailboat. I’ve certainly seen cruise ships and different events that are held in exotic locations, but they tend to be again a larger setting. How’d you come up with the idea?
Terry Barkman: Great question. Really, if we want to take it back, sailboat coaching is rooted in my experience at a wilderness camp when I was 19 and blonde. And if you would ask me at the time, Doug, I would have said I just love taking people outdoors and going ice climbing and telemark skiing, and mountain biking with them and being sort of a guide. But it didn’t clue into me until a couple of years later after I left the wilderness camp that what I was really doing is I was coaching people. I was giving them tools, I was giving them training and I was holding the rope for them so that if they fell it wouldn’t be very far. And so I had that wisdom inside of me and I was at a place in life where I knew I had a lot of options and I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. And my coach asked me, “What would you be doing if you could be doing anything?” And I just blurted out, “I would be coaching on a sailboat.”
Doug: That’s really cool. For our listeners, there’s nothing wrong with that. If that’s your passion, why not combine a passion with skill and make it a business?
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, and so now all we have to do is learn how to market the thing.
Doug: I’m sure you’re doing fine in that area. The reason I’m asking is that it’s unique and lots of times the conversations I have with potential clients are, “Well, what you set you aside from your competition?” The most common answer I get is, “Well, we provide better service.” I’m going, “Okay so you don’t know,” because better service isn’t the right answer. Clearly, what you’re doing, you are doing something very unique so I think that obviously gives you the advantage to stand out. Did I hear you say that you guys do coaching in addition… So you don’t have to do just sailboat coaching, there’s coaching you can do either before or after with you and your coaches?
Terry Barkman: That’s right. Yes, we do individual coaching, which is very similar to, in some ways, the standard executive coaching model. And honestly, during COVID right now, that is a bigger focus for us than it would be when we were out focusing on our sailboat coaching trips.
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Doug: What would you advise people that want to look into the kind of what you’re doing and see if this is a good fit? I mean, cause I think you clearly said, “Hey, you don’t have to be experienced sailing.” Now, I’ve only been sailing twice, only once did someone let me take the helm, much to my wife’s… She didn’t have a great experience. I wanted to see how far could we lean the boat while she was in the head, which clearly was a bad idea. It seemed funny at the time. So you don’t have to have sailing experience, you can if you want, where would they start the exploration? Say, “Hey, is this a fit for me? Is this something I should do individually to find out where I want to go or is this something I should do for my team?”
Terry Barkman: Right. Yeah, we’re happy to talk to people who are thinking about getting out on a personal growth trip or an executive team-building trip. The best place to start is our website, sailboatcoachinginternational.com, and if you like what you see there we would love to have a followup conversation with you.
Doug: So what’s the engagement look like when you start that process? I don’t want to get too deep into the exact details, but in terms of someone who’s going to start working with you, so they go in and take a look and say, “Hey, this makes sense,” they have a conversation. Do you find that most of the clients typically will stay on coaching after or, as you said, or a lot of them already have existing coaches?
Terry Barkman: I would say less than half already have existing coaches, which is always surprising to me. I feel like if you want to be the best version of yourself that you can be if you want to excel if you want to win at life, you should have a coach. And it’s great when people do but I feel like there are people who are underselling their potential because they don’t have one yet.
Doug: So for people who don’t have a coach, what tips might you give them as they’re starting down this road to start looking and investigating how to hire a coach and why to hire a coach?
Terry Barkman: Personal fit is the most important, but some of the key-
Doug: Let’s just stop there just for a sec. Let’s just answer that first. What does personal fit mean to those of us who might not know?
Terry Barkman: You want to have a coach that you feel comfortable with. You want to have a coach that you trust, you want to feel like they’re listening to you and seeing you and understanding what you’re talking about. That doesn’t mean that they have to be an expert in what you’re an expert in. In fact, invariably they won’t be, but they can ask you the kinds of questions that will unlock you and that will bring our fullest potential.
Doug: Okay. Now you can carry on, I just wanted to make sure we didn’t just skim over what personal fit looks like.
Terry Barkman: Thank you for clarifying. Some of the easy points that you could put on your checklist when you’re looking for a coach are where did they take their coach training? Did they go to a yearlong coach program as I would recommend or did they take one of those weekend warrior workshops where it’s kind of like everybody gets a certificate? Are they a member of the ICF, the International Coach Federation? These are some of the ways that you can distill out if the coach that you’re looking at is serious at coaching if that’s something that they’ve really committed to learning their craft at. And look at the testimonials, look at the kinds of things that people are saying and ask yourself, is that the kind of coaching that I want?
Doug: Right, yep.
Terry Barkman: They may be the best relationship coach in the world, but if you’re not looking for relationship coaching then obviously that’s not a great fit.
Doug: Nope. I mean, that makes sense. The other thing I’ve often asked do you have a coach, which for listeners may sound silly, but I’ve found that the best coaches, just like the best athletes and the best business leaders, they all have coaches and some have several.
Terry Barkman: Right.
Doug: Opposed to, “Hey, no, I don’t need a coach.” It’s like, “Yeah.” I remember a guy pitching me once to manage my financial portfolio and I said, “So where do you make your money?” He said investment real estate.
Terry Barkman: Right.
Doug: Which, there’s nothing wrong with investment real estate, but he wasn’t there pitching me investment real estate, he was pitching me something else. So, “This is what I do for me, but this is what I’m going to recommend for you.” So this isn’t congruent so that obviously is not a fit and not moving forward.
Terry Barkman: Yeah. I had a similar experience with somebody the other day who said that I should not do one-on-one calls with potential clients, that I should do something more efficient and more electronic, and that I should do everything in click funnel marketing because one-on-one calls just weren’t efficient. And the silly thing is that he said this to me while we were on a one-on-one call.
Doug: That’s funny.
Terry Barkman: You just sold yourself down the river.
Doug: Yeah, that’s funny. Yeah, I’m not going to comment on that. I get lots of different feedback on the stuff that I do, and especially now in the email space people, “Well, the email doesn’t work,” I said, “so are you kind of wishing you had a list now that you could market to?”
Terry Barkman: Right.
Doug: Yeah, so the conversation has changed. What’s the bad advice that you hear? I’m not asking you to name names, but the reality is, as a professional in any industry there are people out there with the wrong information freely giving the wrong advice to people. So what’s the bad advice that people should stay away from?
Terry Barkman: One thing that we hear commonly, at least inside of the coaching world, is that you want to sort of pick a silo. If we go back to our relationship coach example, and people go, “Well, what do you coach?” “I coach people in relationships.” Well, is that coaching, or is that consulting? Are you just telling them how to do their relationships? Cause that’s fine, but it isn’t actually coaching. Coaching is explorative and coaching actually makes the client the expert in their own life. And so I’ve done a little bit of consulting, but I try to be clear with my clients why make a clear point of being clear with my clients that that coaching is coaching and consulting is consulting.
Doug: So you just want to expand on that definition just so there’s no confusion to anyone that’s listening?
Terry Barkman: Yes. Consulting is, and I’m going to make it simple-
Doug: Make it as simple as possible.
Terry Barkman: … it might be cartoon-like.
Doug: That’s fine.
Terry Barkman: But consulting is telling people what to do, and coaching is asking questions and letting the client find their own answer.
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A sailboat is a great place to work on corporate team building activities and to see how your team is functioning together
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Doug: Okay. That’s a great description. I’ve experienced both. I’ve experienced good coaching and I’ve experienced bad coaching, just like I’ve experienced good consultants and bad consultants. So good to know what the difference is. So if your expectation is you want someone to give you advice, then you’re not looking for a coach, is what you’re saying.
Terry Barkman: That’s exactly right.
Doug: Yep.
Terry Barkman: Now you might be talking to somebody who’s capable of doing both.
Doug: Right.
Terry Barkman: But be clear in what you’re asking for and also be clear on whether or not you’re getting it.
Doug: Yeah. I mean, I guess on your trips there’s going to be a little bit of consulting as you’re teaching people how to sail, you’re telling them what to do because you don’t want to dump them in the water.
Terry Barkman: Yeah. We do sail training, which is not technically speaking coaching, but there’s coaching buried inside of the sail training.
Doug: Yeah.
Terry Barkman: It’s embedded.
Doug: That’s really cool. So who’s one guest you think I absolutely have to have on my podcast?
Terry Barkman: Great question. I would say, Francesca Anastasi, although I think you’ve already had her. I would say, Rod Janz, although you have already had him. Have you had Jennifer Henczel?
Doug: I have not.
Terry Barkman: I can introduce you.
Doug: That would be amazing. Super good. Hey, I just want to say thanks for taking the time today. I mean, we live in a beautiful part of the world, so I’m looking out my window and I know how nice it is. Looks like you’ve got an ocean view.
Terry Barkman: Yeah. I do love looking at the ocean.
Doug: Now, how do you want people to connect with you?
Terry Barkman: The best place to find us is through our website. All of our stuff is there, and that is sailboatcoachinginternational.com.
Doug: Super good. When do you think you guys will be back out to sea?
Terry Barkman: Just as soon as this travel ban is over.
Doug: Okay, sounds good.
Terry Barkman: Right now we’re in planning stages, we are in building stages, we’re in connecting stages, and I’m excited to roll out some of the new programs that we’ve been tinkering with just as soon as the travel ban lifts.
Doug: Sounds good. I just want to say thanks. I really appreciate you taking time today and just sharing what you’re doing. I think it’s really cool, and it’s nice to see that you’ve got this, in my opinion anyhow as a marketing guy, this totally unique approach, changing the environment. Totally changing the environment, not just physically moving to a remote location, but actually traveling as your coaching. That’s really cool.
Terry Barkman: Well, thank you, Doug. It has been a pleasure to talk to you and I just love the way you draw things out and clarify them. This has been a lot of fun.
Doug: So there you go, listeners, there’s another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I’ve been a little bit quieter today as I’ve been looking at these beautiful pictures on Terry’s website of the places that he goes and just can hardly wait to have the opportunity to get on a sailboat with him. I’d highly encourage you to take a look at his website. There’s lots of information there, there are some testimonials, there are people who have done this. I think in the world the way it is, we need to do things a little bit differently. We need to find some quiet space in our days and our weeks. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t do that while I’m working at home or working in a boardroom, I need to get out. And for me, it’s usually getting out in nature. So just say thanks for listening. If you’ve got some questions for Terry, we’ll make sure that all of his connections are transcribed and posted on the website. So thanks for listening. We look forward to serving you in our next episode.
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SHARE THIS POST: THE BEST CORPORATE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
THE BEST CORPORATE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES
A sailboat is a great place to work on corporate team building activities and to see how your team is functioning together
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Get in touch with Terry:
- Web – Sailboat Coaching International
- Terry on LinkedIn
Find out more about Terry:
Links to other related podcasts and or blog posts:
HOW RELATIONSHIP BUILDING IMPROVES SALES WITH IVY SLATER
HOW TO HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE AND POWER