Vision Pros Live Podcast
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What's your vision? Patrick Donadio. Podcast Session 1.
2,476 words · 3 speakers
Tell me about your vision.
Well, Harry, it's great to be here. Pretty much I've started out my business with one goal in mind, and that is to add value to other people. And as I have kind of grown in my business and I've been doing this for about two decades, I really like to help people be more effective communicators to increase their results, build deeper relationships, and of course, add value to their business. So that's kind of my vision in a nutshell. I really like helping others and helping them get results.
That's amazing. I think adding, being able to add value to someone is a very powerful tool to be leveraged. So tell me more about that. What exactly do you mean by adding value to someone or a business?
Well, when I started out as an entrepreneur, I started out doing a lot of training. And then over the years, I've kind of, you know, fine tuned what I really do. And mostly what I do now is I'm a communication strategist. So I help my clients who are mostly leaders become more effective communicators, to lead more effectively, to communicate more effectively, to present more powerfully. And even if they're on a podcast, how to make sure they get their message across, right? So communication is something that we spend a lot of our time doing. In fact, some studies say you spend about eighty percent of your waking day in some form of communication. So what I have developed is what I call the six step impact process. And I kind of teach people this methodology that they can use to craft and deliver
more powerful communication, whether it's face to face, or in writing, or in front of a group, or, you know, on camera.
That's awesome. And how long have you been doing that? Like, when did you start doing all this?
Yeah, I started my business back in, you know, so it's been over, I'm just gonna say over two decades, because it's been a little bit longer than that. But, you know, I started doing this when it really wasn't popular to have a home office, right? People were like, you'd like to pretend that you didn't have a home office. So you didn't want people to know, you know, you worked out of your home. But now, of course, it's almost a daily routine for a lot of folks.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that.
So tell me more, Patrick. How did you get started into this path twenty years ago? I would say coaching, speaking twenty years ago? I don't, I can't imagine it being that big, that a lot of people will be doing that.
Right.
So how did you get started on that? And where did this all come from?
Well, my undergrad degree is in radio and television and I have, I went back and got my masters. And so right before I started my business, I was the executive director for a state association. So I was out there running an association, leading other leaders on how to be more effective in their particular specialty. And when I started my business, I really started out wanting to do mostly speaking and training. So as a director, right, I was hiring speakers to come and speak at our conferences. And I was saying to myself, you know, I can do that, you know, not knowing, you know, you have to have more than a good speech. You have to know a lot about the business side, but that's really how I got started. I quit my job, I started my speaking business. And of course, I do a lot of work with people that want to be speakers today.
We have an organization called the National Speakers Association. And we have local chapters, there's actually a chapter right there in Austin, Texas. So one of the things that I try to help people do if they want to be in the speaking business, and that's not my normal niche, but it's one of the things that I do, is I tell them, don't do what I did, which was just to quit my job, you know. So I just quit my job, Harry, it really wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I really wasn't happy at work. I didn't want to get up and go to work anymore. I'd saved a little bit of money. And so I put out my shield and started doing speaking and training. Now, when I started, you know, speaking has been around, it's a lot more popular today. You know, I belong to the National Speakers Association. That organization started back in the mid 1980s.
And coaching wasn't even on the radar when I started my business. So I hadn't done any coaching when I started. Eventually, I, I learned more about coaching and I added coaching to my speaking business. So now I spend probably, you know, maybe 50% of my time speaking and training, and maybe 50% of my time doing one-on-one coaching. It fluctuates, it could be 60, 40, but now I do both.
That's awesome. Thank you for, for sharing that with us.
What would you say, Patrick, that?
The lessons you have learned going through twenty years of twenty plus years of business and and twenty plus years of coaching.
Yeah.
What what would you say that some of the things that you'd like to share with our audience regarding that?
Yeah. Well, I think to me, you know, there's one fundamental principle that I've always lived by, and that is, you know, to build deep relationships. It's all about relationships. And right before the call, we were talking about, you know, you mentioned people don't care how much you know till they know how much you care. Actually, that's the quote, at least that I've attributed to Zig Ziglar, who I've actually heard speak in person at the speaker's conference. And I really think to me, if you want to be in business, yes, you have to have a great product. Yes, you have to have a good service. Yes, you have to understand sales and marketing. But really, I think your motto, Harry, is a kind of the most important model is you have to let people know you care. And people like to work with people that they know, like and trust. So that's a very important part of the process.
Yeah. I mean, the one of the biggest organizations on the planet, Apple, people think they're in the in the business of selling phones and services. No, they're not. They're in the business of selling smiles.
Yes.
And the same with McDonald's, like the it's not a it's it's not a coincidence that the biggest, almost the biggest franchise in the world for for fast food. Their mascot is is a clown.
So, yeah, that's absolutely correct. Yeah, thank you for sharing.
You know, Harry, you bring up a very important point, and this is something I learned years ago when I got my MBA. It was a phrase called marketing myopia. Have you ever heard of marketing myopia?
I heard of myopia. I have it. I don't have I don't know what is marketing myopia.
So marketing myopia, you kind of referred to it as that people sometimes forget what business they're really in. Right? I'm in the speaking business. I'm in the coaching business. I'm in the hamburger business. Yeah, I'm in the phone business. And so I remember this very clearly when I was taking a class and they were talking about the example that when airplanes came in, you know, the the railroads thought that they're going to run out, they're going to be out of business. You know, because now there's a new form of transportation. When movies were very popular, then television came in, same thing. But they all forgot the most important thing is they weren't in the move in the movie business. They weren't in the television business. They were in the. Entertainment business, you know, they weren't in the railroad business, they were in the transportation business.
So I think what you shared is so important, like, you know, Apple's in the smile business. I'm in the education business, right? I'm not a speaker, I'm not a, I'm really, actually, you know, Harry, I'm really in the problem solving business. That's what business I'm really in. So when you start your business and you want to know what your vision is, you got to make sure you don't get into that marketing myopia. Right? You don't want to make sure you're thinking of yourself as a speaker, trainer, or coach. Entrepreneur, you really need to know that you're bigger and broader than that.
So, um, I don't know if you follow Alex Hermosy or not, but he is one of those people who, whose ideas and thoughts are very, very precise on what you just said, mentioned. He was talking about a situation like a lawyer. He said, once you go into a business, right? Um, and then you start to scale it and then you have issues and problems. Uh, after a certain point, that's when you actually figure out what business actually am I in? You're not in the lawyer business, you're not in the case business when you try to scale a business. He said, for a lawyer, that is recruiting business. Like you need to recruit high level talent so you can get your time back. At the end of the day, you can get all the secretaries in the world and all the paralegals.
But if you don't have someone by your side, which is as higher or a better lawyer than you, you will never be able to scale a law, a law firm. And same with other thing, like if you go to, uh, solar or other sales to door to door industries. Um, are you in the sales business or are you in the product service business? I think you have to figure out at the stage when you try to scale it and you can't scale at a point. So you're absolutely correct. Most people have no idea what businesses they're, they are in and what they need to focus on to actually scale responsibility and, and, and the right way.
Exactly. And, you know, I, I have a lot of friends in the speaking and coaching business. I have some, I have a good friend of mine who has a big coaching companies. He has, you know, 10 other coaches and he does a lot of projects. And we actually, together, we did a, um, a seminar for the local coaches chapter. And he talked about, you know, being, running a coaching business. And I talked about being a coaching solopreneur. So there's no right or wrong way to do it. But if you don't have a clear vision, if you don't know exactly what problem you solve, you know, then you're not going to be successful.
I want to push back on a little bit. I want to say you mentioned there's no right or wrong way of coaching and you are on the solopreneur side. I firmly believe that the way to build your business and scale is through a team and the right team and the right leadership. And you definitely don't share that same perspective. I would love your thoughts while you disagree or or maybe partially agree with me.
Yeah, well, I'm not saying it's not good or bad. I'm saying that everybody's got a different perspective. I have a brother who is an architect. He has an architectural firm. You know, he wanted to grow a business. He wanted to have employees. I just never wanted that. And today, more than ever, you can actually run a very successful business of being a solopreneur. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't hired contractors to help me, you know, but I've never really wanted to be a business. And, you know, years ago, I hired marketing and salespeople who were contract workers, you know, but now, I mean, literally, like with AI, you have all the stats you need and you can run it pretty. I mean, I've run a fairly successful, you know, six-figure business for many years.
And the thing about when you run a business, it's not about growth, it's about net. And so I know some folks who have a very big, big business company, but yet I net more than they do because of their overhead and expenses. So I'm not saying there's one way better than the other, but I think if you want to be an entrepreneur, if you just want to have your own practice, right, you can do that. If you want to have a company, you can do that as well.
So the way I see is if you're in a business, you want to,
the way I see a successful business is either you can sell it in a few years, or you can have it working with with less to no time of your own, where it's generating income for you.
And I don't see that as with a solopreneur route, with the contract, even the contracting world. Like the, because if I want to sell my business, no one wants to buy my job. They want to, they want to buy a, a business that's producing and that's why they'll pay the big buck for it. The business that exists in itself without me being involved at all.
If they hire me back.
You're right, Harry. Yeah, I cannot, I will not be able to sell my business because it's.
Correct.
Yeah. However, I can sell my methodology. I can sell my program because I've created a program called Communicating with Impact. So, uh, that is a methodology. I have a book. I've got workshops. If I wanted to, I could franchise that. I could, you know, license it, but I can't sell my business because if, when you take me out of the equation, there's no business.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
