We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful C.J. Wilkins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with C.J. below.

Hi C.J., thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Often I work with leaders who are skeptical about the role of emotions in the workplace and holy smokes, I get it. Earlier in my career I even had a policy with myself that I didn’t make friends at work because it was every person for themselves. It wasn’t until I became an entrepreneur that I learned how important the complete person is at work.

Those lessons in entrepreneurship are the basis of how I help those clients who are stuck today. I’ve been in their shoes and had many of the same limiting beliefs they hold. Without that connection, there’s no trust or credibility. Too many folks working with leaders today lack the experience of having the buck stop with them in a business.

In addition, traditional executive coaching, although powerful, can be slow and needlessly frustrating for leaders. When I’m approached by potential clients who have experience with coaches, the top thing I hear is that they get tired of just being asked a bunch of questions and then being offered up a Brené Brown quote to help them feel inspired.

After working with a client, they often tell me how grateful they are that I’ve met them where they are on their leadership journey and didn’t force them to be someone they’re not, while also challenging them to grow.

C.J., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In a nutshell, I’m hired by leaders who are frustrated that their team monopolizes their day, preventing them from getting to their work until 5pm.

Together we transform their team into high performers without constant hand holding so they can regain control over their workday and advance their priorities and career.

My background is in energy, tech and arts sector public relations where I spent a number of years in progressively more senior roles working with leaders to communicate effectively. Following that, entrepreneurship called and I dove into a new industry, having founded a sign manufacturing company in Kelowna, BC. While being an entrepreneur, the lessons of leadership really took hold as I alone was responsible for organizational results. Fortunately, I built a successful team as we became recognized for our sustainability and entrepreneurship efforts. The business was named “Green Innovator of the Year”, I was named “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” and the business was a finalist for small business of the year back in 2012. I successfully sold the business in 2014.

After a tragic accident and spending a couple of years physically rehabilitating, I went into marketing communications consulting with my brand, Wilkins Creative Insights. While doing this work, I observed that one of the biggest sources of value I was providing was not in the consulting I was doing, but in the lead up in a meeting to the consulting where I would learn more about my client, what their challenges were and how they might be able to overcome them. Those challenges were never limited to marketing but were critical to their success and happiness. I knew I could make a bigger impact for those clients than just helping with marketing. So I decided in 2019 to make the leap into leadership development and coaching.

Since then I’ve become a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coaching Federation and a Master Certified Facilitator. Over the years worked with dozens of leaders at all levels of organization from front line to CEO and Chairperson.

I’m most proud of the growth my clients experience when we work together. Challenges that once felt insurmountable become bumps in the road. Perspectives on their business or their people become far more more robust and often they wish we’d worked together sooner.

Noticing common threads among clients, I developed a framework called the ROI of Understanding™ that focuses on the core leadership concepts of Relationships, Organization and Information. I believe these lead to a better understanding, which, in turn, is the key driver of performance and results.

More recently I am focusing more time on facilitation – any time there’s a mission critical or mission forward meeting at an organization, I know that if I come to help facilitate it that the organization will achieve an improved result at the end of the day. Working with teams like this is incredibly rewarding because the results are real-time. Lots of lightbulbs and productive conversations vs. boring team building and cliché leadership jargon.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Gratitude can be an incredible force in someone’s life. I know it has been in mine.

In 2014 I had to start everything over again. I’d sold my sign business and while on holiday, I crashed my paraglider into a remote granite mountainside.

I’d delivered a TEDx talk a couple of years prior that talked about passion vs. risk and how we will take more risk when we are passionate about something, but understanding and preparing for that risk, while a slow and difficult process, can help mitigate it. Now became the time to have the risk become realized.

Without going into too much detail, I now have a spinal cord injury that affects daily life. It happened at a time when I wasn’t working, having sold my business. While the profit from selling the business was nice to have, there were no safety nets (literal or figurative) to help me get back onto my feet. So while I took the time I needed to physically rehabilitate myself as much as possible, it was mental resilience and knowing I trusted my skills and experience to build a career once again.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Relationships are critical to growing my business.
There is a TON of social media marketing out there about leadership and entrepreneurship. I don’t participate or subscribe to it to the point where I really believe social media has become one of the biggest downfalls of our culture in the past decade.

Back to business… The best way I can build my business is for someone who has been positively impacted by working together be willing to put their reputation on the line by recommending me to one of their colleagues, peers or friends. Everything else feels ego driven and not client-centric.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wilkinscreativeinsights.com