Social Impact Heroes: How Kathleen Black Is Helping Women Who Are Victims Of Domestic Violence
Speak out against domestic violence, and violence in general, whenever you have the opportunity. Or, intervene by calling 911 when you know that a woman is being abused. Remember, silence is the language of complicity.
Support shelters and outreach services financially. Investing in shelters is an investment in the health and wellbeing of our entire community.
Volunteer your time at your local shelter, second stage home, or outreach program. Learn about local resources targeted at people experiencing abuse.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kathleen Black.
She is North America’s leading real estate team coach and trainer, delivering her proven success techniques to agents and teams around the world. That growth is worth billions in additional sales volume annually across her client network with 80% of her clients being national top 1% producers. Kathleen, the best selling author of “The Top 1% Life”, will help you to expand your business, at a fraction of the time and cost, using the tried, tested, and true “KBCC Ultimate Expansion Strategy” that has powered her client growth.
The success of KBCC centers around integrity, honesty, and results-driven measures, the very things that represent Kathleen. Kathleen has been named twice as Top Elite Women Driving the Future of Real Estate by REP Magazine and as Top 20 Emerging Leaders by T3 Sixty’s 2018 Swanepoel Report. She was recognized within the top 1% of Realtors in the Toronto Real Estate Board, has ten plus years of agent development experience, and hundreds of teams attribute their growth and success to Kathleen’s leadership. Most recently, Kathleen was awarded with the Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All/ Iconic Leaders Creating a Better World for All Award. This award is based on experience, results, influence, and commitment to change the world for the better of all internationally.
Kathleen is also the driving-force behind the Ultimate Team Summit, the largest team specific Real Estate summit in North America and the Ultimate Mastermind Series of events, including the 100 Deal + Ultimate Mastermind.
Kathleen lives in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada with her two free spirited, independent, and very loved children Ethan and Ella, and their cat Ethel.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Beginning my career as a RE/MAX Real Estate Agent and working my way to being recognized within the top 1% of Realtors in both the Durham Region and on the Toronto Real Estate Board, many would agree that this level of success is the pinnacle achievement amongst their peers; but for me it was only the beginning.
Identifying the need, I set out to work on further developing the systems and platform of educational programs and coaching methods to which I attributed my own professional and personal success.
With the launch of KBCC in 2015 and building upon my 10+ years of Team and Agent development and guidance, hundreds of teams (80% of which are top 1% producers) have attributed their growth and success to my integrity, honesty and results driven leadership directly or through one of her coaching programs.
I was selling real estate as a busy single mom of two children and I had done a lot of content and systems development with a look to creating better work life balance. The team I worked with was creating a coaching company and I had a background in psychology, so it just seemed like a natural fit to try to become involved. That coaching company found itself in some challenging territory in early days and there were differing opinions within the ownership as to how it should be resolved.
This ultimately resulted in the departure of the director of coaching and I was given the opportunity to step into that role within 18 months of the company going live. I had been a coach for just under one year at that point. It was really a chain of complicated events that led to a great opportunity for me.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
Every single time someone has tried to harm our company or damage my career, it has always led us into better opportunities.
When I thought I was going to lose my first coaching business, it actually led to working with higher caliber people, which further expanded the business. The interesting thing in my journey has been that at the beginning of my career as a coach, I never had the support of the ‘big’ Real Estate boards, or conferences and ironically, it drove me to create and hold my own events without relying on other people. In the end it actually gave me an edge, because I didn’t have to rely on the support that other people were getting. Even though it was more difficult to get there, it made me and my company stronger in the end.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
An example that I give often is I used to mentor, coach and train while I was relatively new to selling, so I often had someone shadowing me. I ended up realizing a couple of years into it when I left a buyer presentation, which I would sign 98 per cent of, with one of my mentees, when she told me that she had seen me present my buyer consultations many times, and that she had learned so much, but the logo on the PowerPoint said ‘Your Team Name Here”. I didn’t even realize that for two years I had been using my coaching company’s version of my buyer consultation and it didn’t even have our team logo on it, and yet I was still signing 98 per cent of all consultations I sat down in front of and attended.
When building a business, it’s really easy to say you need the perfect brand, but in reality, what you need are the clients.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
Due to the pandemic, victims cannot shelter safely at home and some have been robbed of their ability to find safety in their communities. My company, Kathleen Black Coaching & Consulting (KBCC) is fundraising as I pilgrimage onto the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We are raising money and awareness for domestic abuse where people cannot shelter safely at home and for those who have been robbed of their ability to walk safely in their communities. We refuse to live in fear. This decision, to refuse to be blinded or paralyzed by fear, is one I hold across all areas of my life. We believe in our intuitions, combined with data driven and educated risks. Fear will not protect you; it causes us to live in the effects of painful situations as a life sentence. We believe victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault deserve the resources to live without fear, as do our communities. It is absolutely necessary to bring awareness to a certain way of life, and the services that are necessary and crucial. Relentless to Rise is an initiative by Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting to support services across Canada in empowering women and their families to relentlessly rise, knowing the truth that they are deserving of safety, they are worthy, and capable of cultivating a new path to a better future.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
I am hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain from August 18, 2020 to September 20, 2020. As of right now, there is not a particular individual who has been impacted or helped by our cause. We are currently fundraising to support services across Canada in empowering women and their families to relentlessly rise, knowing the truth, that they are deserving of safety, they are worthy, and capable of cultivating a new path to a better future. Due to social distancing and restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, many victim services in Canada had to modify their methods of assisting and supporting victims. Many physical locations had to close and staff worked primarily from home.
Between mid-March and early July, half (50%) of the Canadian victim services who responded to the survey perceived no change in the number of victims that they served. When asked about victims of domestic violence specifically, just over half (54%) of the responding victim services reported an increase in the number of victims they served during this time. Kathleen Black Coaching & Consulting vows to donate all proceeds from this fundraiser to victim services located in Canada.
GoFundMe Link: https://gf.me/u/ytz76f
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Domestic violence affects all of us. It impacts all aspects of our community including community health, crime rates, the ability to participate in the workforce, child development, and family dynamics.
Employees and volunteers in shelters and outreach/education programs work tirelessly all year, every year to help women understand that they do not deserve to live with violence. They cannot do it alone. Our communities, society and politicians can:
- Speak out against domestic violence, and violence in general, whenever you have the opportunity. Or, intervene by calling 911 when you know that a woman is being abused. Remember, silence is the language of complicity.
- Support shelters and outreach services financially. Investing in shelters is an investment in the health and wellbeing of our entire community.
- Volunteer your time at your local shelter, second stage home, or outreach program. Learn about local resources targeted at people experiencing abuse.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership isn’t a title or position that is held to one person when you’re a part of a team or a company. In these businesses, you have many moving parts, and each one of those parts are their own leaders.
I’m grateful for our team, I have an amazing group of people who support me and there’s no way I would be able to do what I do without them.
We have a collaborative leadership team who are very entrepreneurial, and who take ownership over what needs to happen. It’s very collaborative without a director style delegation, everyone owns their portion of the business. That is how we thrive.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. You Need to have Confidence in your Value
It’s very difficult as a leader to negotiate for yourself in general, but I think it’s very difficult without knowing yourself and knowing your strengths and weaknesses to actually garner what you’re worth in the market.
I wish I knew that I had to be unbelievably confident and relentlessly motivated to believe in myself and to believe in the services and products that we bring to the world.
2. You Have to Make Hard Decisions — That People Will Judge
I wish people had told me that being a strong leader doesn’t mean that everyone will agree with you.
For example, I’ve had to make decisions to stand up for myself, I’ve had people on my team try to compromise our business, and at the end of the day, the most important business decisions I’ve made, that anyone in my place would have made, were the most judged decisions I’ve ever made.
As a leader it’s okay to trust yourself.
3. You Don’t Have to Tell your Side of the Story
You don’t have to justify your actions, as long as you have good, clear intentions and you’re doing what you feel is right for the whole business in the long-term, the people who stay in that business will be stronger.
Business can be difficult; you have to make decisions that will help the future of your business. People management can be really tricky. At the end of the day I really believe that if someone is not a good fit for the business, if you don’t see them being a part of the business in five years, or the impact of their presence in the business will not support your vision, then it’s also not a positive fit for that person.
It’s more important to focus on where you’re going than to stay in the mud of any challenges that might come up.
4. You Have to be so Good People Can’t Ignore You
Our benchmark is to be the best in the world at what we do. At the end of the day we have to be so good, and bring so much value to the market and let our results speak so strongly for themselves that they can’t ignore us.
Setting the bar up so high will give you an edge, because most people aren’t confident enough to show up and be the best.
5. How Often People are Dishonest in Business
I wish someone told me how often people are not honest in business, that it’s more important to work with people who share the same values with you, than the opportunity on the table.
If you do business with people who you don’t believe in or you cannot trust, or your values don’t align with, you’re going to spend more time spinning your wheels, you’ll never be able to get to the opportunities or the growth.
I wish I had known that not everybody has great intentions in business, and that the old saying is true, people will say a lot, but very few people will show up and act on it. Always watch what people do, before you listen to what they say.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Conscious living. I think people who are conscious about who they are, their values, and what they’re bringing to the world are typically better parents, better team members, better community supporters, better people.
I find the ability to ‘do good’ is just more naturally present for people with a conscious mindset. If I can help people raise their consciousness and see their abilities and power, they will ultimately serve the world through their greater purpose with ease. If KBCC can have any influence on people leading themselves versus looking at others, that’s a win!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favourite life lesson quote is something that I’ve heard in my head since I was very young and that’s “You’re built to win”, and when you believe that, when things get hard, you’re going to lean in and really win or learn, so either way you win overall.
Some of my most devastating losses in life and in business catapulted me forward ten times more than I could have ever gotten without them.
‘I was built to win”, allows me to see things in my favour as I’m working in a place of abundance and I’m trying to see myself in the world.
I’ll always try to be better because I want to do good here and I want to have the resources in order to be and do good.
I need a strong business in order to make the changes and impact I want to make for myself and in order to contribute and have a positive impact with as many people as possible.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
There are so many, but I would love to sit down and talk to Glennon Doyle. There are of course so many reasons why I would like to talk with her but most recently, she released her book ‘Untamed’.
I can honestly say that I have never read a book that I could relate to such an extent. I felt like I could have written that book. I have such an affinity for her values and the need for relentless leadership.
Her book demonstrates such a remarkable message to stand-up unapologetically and build what you’re meant to build.
Her book has been a treasure to me because it’s allowed me to feel less lonely, some people say that alpha women don’t travel in packs, but I’m lucky to have an amazing leadership team and I would never get anything done without them.
It’s also inspiring to me that she works on the ground with charities to get average donations of $25. Glennon founded Together Rising as an expression of her belief that the surest way to lift a family or community is to lift one woman at a time — that when a woman rises, she brings her people up with her. Her charity initiatives are incredibly inspiring and life changing.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10528394/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KathleenBlackCoaching/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenblackcoaching/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/kbccoaching
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!