Episode #15: Toku McCree - Sales With Honour and Love on the End of a Sword
Toku McCree is a former Zen Monk and a renowned Executive Coach. His life changed after meeting a man at a party who had a calmness about him that Toku had never seen before. From there he fell in love with mediation, spent two and a half years in a monastery, and went on to launch a six-figure coaching practice.
Toku had over 30 jobs before he was 30 - from running a sumo chicken boxing ring to tuning guitars for rock bands, being a pre-school teacher and even working on a political campaign. But it took becoming a monk for him to realise that the sense of purpose and meaning he’d been avoiding through most of his twenties was in fact what he needed to turn his life towards.
His writing and thoughts have been featured in The Huffington Post, Zen Habits, TEDx, The Change Blog, The Good Men Project, and Tiny Buddha. He launched Samurai Coaching Dojo to support coaches. And, he loves the practice of selling, so much so that his upcoming book, The Art of Honorable Sales, is a love letter to the process.
In this episode, we talk about:
The practice of raising your rates - why there is a particular time as a coach to set a rate and stick to it.
The role of Zen Buddhism in coaching - how to sit with death as our altar and why coaching is really just about preparing people for the moment of their death so that they can look back and say I lived life.
Sales as a spiritual practice - how to stop holding your nose through the sales conversation and the false choice between selling skilfully and living with honour.
The magic questions to ask at the end of the enrolment process - how to find the tension that leads to commitment.
Plus, we walk through an 'honourable' sales process and there's an exclusive offer to read the Beta version of Toku’s book before it comes out.
For more information about Toku, visit: www.unexecutive.com.
For information about Robbie’s wider work and writing, visit www.robbieswalecoaching.com.
Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg
Things and people we mentioned (that you might be interested in):
Watch the video of the episode with Toku. (The video versions are a little more rough and ready than the audio-only episodes.)
~12: Rich Litvin Intensives: https://richlitvin.com/intensive-rli/
~12: Toku’s Coaches Rising Podcast: https://www.coachesrising.com/podcast/transformative-enrolment-moving-beyond-yes-and-no/
~30: The Prosperous Coach by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler: https://theprosperouscoach.com/praise/
~30: Jason Goldberg: http://www.thejasongoldberg.com/
~30: Steve Chandler: https://www.stevechandler.com/
~35: Hans Philips: https://www.ontoco.com/
~39: Toku’s Coaching Dojo: https://samuraicoachingdojo.com/
~57: Toku’s Coaching Dojo: https://samuraicoachingdojo.com/
~1.59: Toku’s No Woman Vision Quest: https://www.kendracunov.com/ - https://www.kendracunov.com/no-man-diet/, http://unexecutive.com/no-woman-vision-quest/
~2.00: A beta version of Toku’s book: http://unexecutive.com/sell-with-honor
~2.01: Toku’s Coaching Mastermind: https://unexecutive.lpages.co/embodied-coach
~2.03: Ben Allen: https://www.tonicbooks.online
~2:03: Matt Thieleman: https://medium.com/@thieleman1
~2.03: Partnership work with Matt Thieleman and Atlas: https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-atlasq/
~2:04: Christina Salerno: https://www.s-l.xyz/
FULL BIOGRAPHY FROM TOKU
My mission is to be of deep and fundamental service to others, to support myself and others in walking the path of transformation that leads to freedom from suffering and embodies the virtues of wisdom and compassion.
I work with…
…inspiring owners/founders of visionary businesses;
…hidden leaders (with their own vision) tucked inside of larger organizations;
…creators and builders who long to bring their vision to life but keep finding something in the way.
Sometimes they lack presence. Sometimes they get lost herding cats (aka details/team). Sometimes they think their partners or their team are dragging them down. These leaders often report that they want to get better at leading a team, enrolling others in their vision, and getting things done without friction. And yet it never seems like enough.