Ken Sher is an Executive Coach and Career Coach with 30 years of experience at Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also served as Vice President, Coaching Services at the Velocity Advisory Group coaching clients in positions ranging from first-line Manager to CEO. He has had his own Executive Coaching and Career Coaching practice since 2015.

During his 25-years at Johnson & Johnson, Ken served in various leadership roles in sales, marketing, sales training, leadership development, and he led the Sales Recruiting department for the United States where he learned valuable keys to the job search process.

He has experienced the highs and lows many of us have during our careers. Ken was laid off at 52-years old, struggled to recover from that blow, and then landed 3-new jobs while still in his fifties.

He now shares his career learning through his TRUST Success Model® which, when applied to professional relationships, networking, and job searches, leads to transformational results.

Ken holds a BA in English Literature and Business Communication from the State University of New York at Oneonta. He enjoys giving back to the community. He is a Board Member for the Beacon Networking Group and serves as a mentor for two first-generation college students through the Philadelphia Futures non-profit which provides great educational opportunities for under-served youth.

Key Moments

[00:04:15] From entrepreneurial struggle to success.

[00:08:50] Having a budget and quotas, but loves leading, motivating, and helping people improve. Emphasizes the importance of impact and responsibility in leadership.

[00:12:03] The Trust success model emphasizes transparency, results, simplicity, and team building.

Find Ken Online

https://shercoaching.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kensher/

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. I am your host. As always, Seth, today I have a good budy of mine, ken Shure of sure Consulting. He is a 30 year, even more experienced coach executive. He’s worked for Johnson, Johnson, Bristol Meyer Squib. He’s worked with Velocity Advisory Group. He also had some bumps in the road during his early 50s, where he lost a job, managed to get back into the workforce, then decided, hey, I can do this better on my own. Be my own boss, control my destiny. So, Ken, how’s it going, buddy?

Ken [00:01:09]:

Hey, Seth. It’s great to be here. Things are going very well. Certainly better than that time of life you just referred to.

Seth [00:01:15]:

Oh, I know. I can only imagine. Being control of your destiny is a nice thing about entrepreneurship, but so how did this whole journey get started? You raised a family in Bucks County just north of Philly, pandemic Hit. You decided, I’m going to go to the Poconos, where it’s less people. But we also summered in Philly, and you realized, yeah, we were down there, so why are we doing that? To stay in the poconos. Let’s talk about young Ken. How’d you get all started in all this.

Ken [00:01:42]:

Okay, good. Well, I graduated from college, not very prepared for the world.

Seth [00:01:49]:

A lot of us happens that way.

Ken [00:01:51]:

Yeah. I had an English Literature degree and a Business Communications degree, and they didn’t give them at the time, but I had a partying degree as well that I’m really good at in school. So when I got out of school, I went into sales, and initially I was selling those little tags that hang on clothing, and if you walk out.

Seth [00:02:09]:

The store, those are fun.

Ken [00:02:11]:

Yeah. I was cold calling New York City retail stores, learning I could take a beating, and also learning how to sell. And from there, I was fortunate to get a job with Johnson and Johnson, and I spent about 25 years with them in different sales and marketing leadership roles. I led sales recruiting for the US. And then I also led three different sales training and leadership development teams for J and J. And J and J. I feel very fortunate about that because they’re known for their leadership development and a lawsuit every now and then, too. But besides bandage, baby powders and lawsuit leadership development, and then I led teams that we designed, developed, and delivered it for different levels of J and J.

Seth [00:02:52]:

That’s wild. Yeah.

Ken [00:02:53]:

Then I was laid off at 52 years old with two kids in college.

Seth [00:02:56]:

Oh, no. The best time. It’s always the best time.

Ken [00:03:00]:

It was a tough time for me. I do share my personal challenges about that, and I do a lot of speaking, but I think it’s akin to losing. I went through the five stages of grief.

Seth [00:03:12]:

That much time. Yeah.

Ken [00:03:14]:

So I picked myself up, got a little help from my friends, and I landed three new jobs while I was still in my 50s.

Seth [00:03:21]:

Wow.

Ken [00:03:21]:

The last one was with Bristol Myers, where I realized I was done with corporate America, and I think corporate America was done with me.

Seth [00:03:29]:

Yeah. Eventually you ready to go out on your own. Exactly.

Ken [00:03:32]:

Yes. In 2015, I started my own practice. I do career coaching, helping people out of work, find the next opportunity, and I do leadership coaching as well.

Seth [00:03:41]:

That’s wild. And so how many kids did you have?

Ken [00:03:44]:

I have three kids.

Seth [00:03:46]:

And were they all in college when you lost a job?

Ken [00:03:48]:

I had two in college, and one was a junior in high school.

Seth [00:03:51]:

Oh, jeez. You were hustling. You had a hustle.

Ken [00:03:55]:

Yes. It was not a good time to lose income.

Seth [00:03:57]:

No. But then you made the jump into entrepreneurship in 2015. So you had five years before the whole world went upside down.

Ken [00:04:07]:

Yes.

Seth [00:04:08]:

And how was that? It was a lot of in person stuff. Was it kind of a little bit in between the two things?

Ken [00:04:15]:

It was a mix of things. It was some virtual and it was a lot more in person, for sure. And starting out this being an entrepreneur show as well as I do, it’s hard. Those first few years, it’s still hard, but different. Even figuring out how to make money, how to package things, how to price things, initially, I was getting paid by the hour, and that’s a hard way to make a living. Eventually figured things out, got good advice from people, and developed some different packages. Now that I can really help people out a lot and get fairly compensated as well.

Seth [00:04:53]:

We’re going to take a quick break here from our sponsors and get right back to the show. So in the journey, what has been the best thing about being entrepreneur? Because you’ve done like you didn’t do a short stint in corporate America. I mean, you were a lifer, for all intents and yes.

Ken [00:05:09]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:05:10]:

What was the biggest difference between the mean because you were an entrepreneur at J. J. You kind of ran teams, which means you kind of have the entrepreneurial spirit inside. What’s the difference between being entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial?

Ken [00:05:24]:

Yes. I like that. That’s a nice distinction. Yeah. Well, I guess the biggest difference as an example, when I was a product director, I was a lead product director for one of the products we were selling, and I had a $5 million budget.

Seth [00:05:42]:

Wow.

Ken [00:05:42]:

As an entrepreneur, you don’t have that kind of budget. Quite have that budget, but also besides that, just all the support. You have market research support. You have finance support, you have administrative support. And then all of a sudden, you got to figure it out and do it all yourself. Or get to the point where maybe you’ve done this, too, Seth, where you realize, I could do it myself, but those aren’t income generating tasks. I could go find a virtual assistant and pay them to take that time for me.

Seth [00:06:17]:

Exactly.

Ken [00:06:18]:

Again, part of the evolution of being an entrepreneur, right?

Seth [00:06:21]:

Absolutely. So what’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur versus being the entrepreneur?

Ken [00:06:26]:

Yeah. Well, I mentioned I had a very difficult time after I got laid off, and I did go into therapy to help me through that. And after a few sessions, my therapist said to me, how did you survive in corporate America for so long? Because you don’t have that personality. I don’t have that cutthroat step on people to get to the top personality. And somehow I managed. So being on my own, being able to develop my own approach, my own culture, even though I’m a solopreneur, but do things the way I want to do them, treat people the way I want to treat them, and be in control of my own destiny is really a great part.

Seth [00:07:07]:

I love it. So what keeps you up at night?

Ken [00:07:11]:

Where’s the next client coming from? I’ve gotten into a habit, Seth, where every night as I get into bed, I first am thankful for everything I have not only just work wise, but personally. And then I call on the universe to send me some more send me.

Seth [00:07:29]:

Some more business, please. Send me some more good vibes, that kind of thing. What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Ken [00:07:36]:

I think the key to my success personally has been that I think I’m empathetic. I’m an empath for sure. I really do feel other people’s pain to quota former president of ours. But I do. I feel people’s pain. I take things very personally with my clients once we’re signed up. Their success is my success. Their failure is my failure. So I think it’s that ability to connect with people and feel what they’re going through as best as someone can feel that. And also, having experienced it myself, I’m able to share that, and I’m pretty much an open book. I told you I went into therapy. I have no problem sharing my challenges so that other people realize, okay, this happens, and you can survive.

Seth [00:08:22]:

Yeah. So let’s go back to Johnson. Johnson, what was your favorite spot in the corporate, like, where’d you learn the most?

Ken [00:08:28]:

Yeah, I loved when I was either it was really sales management, so a district manager or region business director. I just know, especially from the region business director, I had more control of the business. I didn’t have p l responsibility, but I did.

Seth [00:08:46]:

Kind of nice to have them watch A-P-L. Kind of have someone else deal with that for you.

Ken [00:08:50]:

That’s true. But I did have a budget, and I had quotas and goals to meet and all that. But I love leading people. I love motivating people. I love helping people get better and improve their lives. When I would bring on a new district manager, when I was a region business director, I would have a heart to heart with them on day one about their responsibility and how it is an awesome responsibility. And I don’t mean awesome like, awesome, dude. I mean awesome. You’re responsible for the person who reports to you, which impacts their family, their clients. We were calling on doctors, so it impacts their patients. What you do is important, and I think that’s something that a lot of leaders miss, that people need to know how what they’re doing has a bigger impact than just their job. And when you can do that, that’s a big part of motivating people, I think.

Seth [00:09:49]:

So how do you bring that into now your coaching, then? It’s different, because every client you have is a different thing. A different thing?

Ken [00:09:56]:

Yeah. Well, there are two ways I do it. One of the things, Seth, that I found when I was at Johnson Johnson, I think the key to their success was the trust that they’ve been able to establish with the different stakeholders, and they do this. I think it’s interesting. There’s something called the J. J. Credo. Are you familiar with that?

Seth [00:10:15]:

No, I’m not, actually.

Ken [00:10:17]:

Okay. It’s a one page document, four paragraphs, written by General Robert Wood Johnson, who is the founder of J j. And the first paragraph is about the responsibility to the healthcare workers and patients that they serve. The second paragraph is the responsibility to employees providing a fair wage in a safe work environment. The third responsibility is to the community being good stewards of the environment. And the last responsibility is to shareholders. And what was interesting about that is he was the only shareholder at the time that he wrote that. So he put himself last.

Seth [00:10:49]:

That’s wild. Yeah.

Ken [00:10:50]:

But he knew if he took care of everybody else, he’d be successful. And that’s pretty good.

Seth [00:10:55]:

It kind of worked out a little bit. Just a little bit. That’s wild.

Ken [00:10:58]:

Yeah. And if you think about, like, the Tylenol scare, I know you’re a young man.

Seth [00:11:01]:

You might not no, I know about the Tylenol scare, but I was a baby. I was a baby.

Ken [00:11:05]:

Yeah. Well, four people died in Chicago after somebody tampered with the bottle. So J J, they looked to the Credo first responsibility of healthcare workers and the patients, they pulled the product from.

Seth [00:11:17]:

The shelves globally, because, you’ll know, four people died from it. You’ll know, how many more are tampered? Exactly.

Ken [00:11:25]:

Yeah. So j j Pulled the product, and then when they put it back on the market with the first tamper resistant.

Seth [00:11:32]:

Bottle ever that was before tamper resistance.

Ken [00:11:35]:

Yeah, exactly. So that was the first one, and it very quickly became the number one over the counter pain reliever again, because.

Seth [00:11:43]:

They put their clients first.

Ken [00:11:45]:

Yeah. So I think that’s where leadership starts with trust. I built something called a Trust Success.

Seth [00:11:50]:

Model, which it’s an acronym register copyright. There you go.

Ken [00:11:56]:

Right. And it’s an acronym. Any good model has to be an acronym.

Seth [00:12:02]:

Talk about that a little bit.

Ken [00:12:03]:

It stands for transparency, which means, just as a leader, don’t hold back. Give them everything they need to take advantage of opportunities. Handle challenges to be successful. About results. That’s the R in trust, delivering not only the end result, but milestones along the way to encourage people and motivate people understanding where people are coming from. What are their career aspirations? How can you help them be successful? The S in the Trust success model is about simplicity. World’s crazy. Keep people focused on what’s real important. Last is about teams building both a personal and a professional network of people to support you and help you, and that you can help as well.

Seth [00:12:46]:

I love that. That’s awesome.

Ken [00:12:48]:

Yeah. So that’s how I approach that. And then I also believe, like I said, that helping people see how their role is bigger than they are, I think is also really important.

Seth [00:12:58]:

That’s awesome, dude. Awesome. Not awesome. Responsibility. I think this is awesome.

Ken [00:13:03]:

I think it’s really good.

Seth [00:13:04]:

I like that a lot. So where can people find you online if they want to connect with you?

Ken [00:13:09]:

Well, a number of ways. I certainly am on LinkedIn, as any good business person is these days. You could also I have a website at sure. Sher coaching.com nice and short, too.

Seth [00:13:22]:

I guess the long part of that is Kenneth.

Ken [00:13:25]:

That’s right.

Seth [00:13:26]:

You have to do long short or short long. Unless you want to be really mean to your kids.

Ken [00:13:33]:

It’s funny you say, except by mother, whose maiden name was Goldstein. I think I told you that probably.

Seth [00:13:39]:

Not related, because that is clearly the Smith of Jews.

Ken [00:13:43]:

Absolutely. That’s right. But when I started calling myself Ken, she said, I gave you a multi syllabic first name to go with our single syllable last name. Ken shurer. Sounds like you’re sneezing. You gotta go. Kenny or Kenneth.

Seth [00:13:57]:

No, there’s definitely a Ken. You got the personality of a.

Ken [00:14:02]:

You know, it’s wild.

Seth [00:14:04]:

So you’re on LinkedIn also.

Ken [00:14:06]:

If you want to reach out directly, Ken@surecoaching.com, I’d love to hear.

Seth [00:14:11]:

Yeah, absolutely. Ken, this has been so much fun. I’m so glad we got to get you on the show.

Ken [00:14:16]:

Thank you.

Seth [00:14:17]:

What a story.

Ken [00:14:18]:

I’m honored to be on because I know you’ve had a lot of guests on, so thank you for asking me.

Seth [00:14:22]:

We’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network at Marketing Podcast Network. Goldstein Media hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Marketing Podcast Network.