Changing Teams with Mark Treichel

When you’ve been on staff at an organization—especially in the lead role— transitioning to consulting can be a bit disorienting. Consultant to credit unions Mark Triechel talks about the lessons learned in his switch from regulating an industry to advising them:

How to quickly morph from “retirement” into a Soloist expertise business serving your former constituents.

Dealing with non-competes and ethics clauses honorably while building your new business.

Becoming a “Soloist with a twist”—why you don’t have to work alone.

How “changing teams” allows you to continue serving an existing niche in new (and profitable) ways.

Turning what could have become a pure compliance practice into a strategic advisory business.

LINKS

Mark Treichel Website | LinkedIn

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

BIO

In 33 years at the federal agency known as the National Credit Union Administration, Mark led the agency as Executive Director after starting at the entry level. His varied positions at every level give him a unique perspective on all things NCUA.

He “changed teams” and is now in his fourth year of consulting with NCUA credit unions so they save time and money. He has two credit union educational podcasts: With Flying Colors and Credit Union Regulatory Guidance.

His clients consider his team as secret weapons in the regulatory battles they face every year.

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00:00 – 00:16
Mark Treichel: It’s really important that your ideal client knows that you exist. And figuring out who the ideal client is 1 big piece. If they’re not aware that I’m here, they’re not going to know that they can hire me.

00:22 – 01:01
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton and today I’m here with Mark Treichel. In 33 years at the federal agency known as the National Credit Union Administration, Mark led the agency as executive director after starting at the entry level. His varied positions at every level give him a unique perspective on all things NCUA. He changed teams and is now in his fourth year of consulting with NCUA credit unions so they save time and money. He has 2 credit union educational podcasts with

01:01 – 01:12
Rochelle Moulton: flying colors and credit union regulatory guidance. Mark’s clients consider his team as secret weapons in the regulatory battles they face every year. Mark, welcome.

01:13 – 01:15
Mark Treichel: Thanks Rochelle. I’m excited to be here today.

01:15 – 01:33
Rochelle Moulton: Well, I have to say, Mark, when we first met, you were just getting your business off the ground and living in an RV, at least some of the time. I mean, I remember your Zoom backdrop quite well. So maybe you could tell us the story about how you came to start your consulting business?

01:34 – 02:12
Mark Treichel: Yeah, absolutely Rochelle. So yeah, when I retired, my wife and I had previously, just a few months before that, bought a Class B RV. And for the non-RVers, a class B is the van, right? So it’s a van that’s souped up to live in. It’s a small footprint, but our goal was, I was planning to retire, use the RV to drive around, go to concerts and maybe dabble in consulting. So I made the announcement I was retiring in January, that I would be retiring in June, and that was right before COVID and the pandemic took off.

02:12 – 02:45
Mark Treichel: So you know my replacement was announced, I knew I was going to be leaving. And when we got to June, of course, the pandemic was still going on. And so we had the RV. We also have a lake place, which was the only sticks and bricks, as RVers call it. A sticks and bricks home was in the Adirondack Mountains. And so with COVID, we really couldn’t RV that much. And so I started listening to podcasts, doing yard work. I was fortunate that I was kind of off in the mountains. So life seemed a little bit normal.

02:45 – 03:21
Mark Treichel: And I knew I was gonna have 1 or 2 clients because I had a couple people contact me before I retired. And what happened was I was listening to your podcast, another podcast, learning about doing a consulting business. And I relied on some advice from my dad who never consulted. And he worked for AT&T back when there was only 1 phone company. He worked at AT&T and he was part of when all the phone companies got distributed to Northwestern Bell, et cetera, Southern Bell. And he had opportunities to consult, but he never pursued them. And he

03:21 – 03:51
Mark Treichel: told me once later in life that he regretted that. And he said, if I want to do it, I need to do it relatively close to when I retire, because he said, people stopped calling. They called the first few months, they called the first year, and in the second year, people stopped calling. And so his name recognition and his expertise, he said no so many times, they thought, hey, he doesn’t wanna do it. So essentially, I took 2 months off in the mountains, listened to podcasts, and learned a lot about how to stand up my business.

03:52 – 04:26
Mark Treichel: And I really kind of pivoted and said, I think I’m going to throw myself into this because there’s nothing else to do really because of the pandemic. And essentially now I’m working full time. I don’t consider myself retired. I’ve built the business into more than I ever anticipated. And then the interesting thing is we get to November, the Adirondack Mountains in November are not really a place you want to be. So we got in the RV, we headed to Florida and we lived in the RV for 6 straight months down in Florida going from state park

04:26 – 04:59
Mark Treichel: to state park. And that’s essentially where and when I started the business. I dabbled in it a little bit before that, but we got on the road. I was doing training classes, listening to podcasts, hiring coaches, and then picking up an occasional client those first 6 months. So it was kind of born really, the beginning of the business was born there in the RV, which was an interesting way to start. It was a good conversation piece. Like you said, the background was kind of good for those conversations, but that’s essentially how it started. And I really

04:59 – 05:07
Mark Treichel: think ironically, if not for the pandemic, I might not have thrown so much energy into it and I might not be having as much fun as I’m having today.

05:07 – 05:09
Rochelle Moulton: It’s that divine timing.

05:09 – 05:10
Mark Treichel: Right, right.

05:10 – 05:19
Rochelle Moulton: Plus, I understand you’re still happily married. So those 6 months in the van creating a business. Yes, Yes. Not everybody can survive that. That’s awesome.

05:19 – 05:24
Mark Treichel: It’s funny because we’ve had friends that say, wait, you know, if I did that with my spouse, we’d have to have 2 vans.

05:27 – 05:43
Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. Exactly. So I’m just curious. So what kinds of pressures did you feel starting your business? Because you had a long and pretty public career, right? Did you have, like, was there a non-compete? I don’t know if the government does such a

05:43 – 06:20
Mark Treichel: thing. Yeah, great question. So there is a non-compete in ethics clauses that come into play. I could not be involved in anything that I had a direct hand in for 12 months, and then there was another rule for 24 months. The interesting thing was, while I was executive director, my team of executives actually took most of the direct actions. I was, as the executive director, you’re kind of the conduit between a politically appointed board of directors and staff. And so I would be guiding my staff, communicating what the board wanted done, but the actual actions were

06:20 – 06:51
Mark Treichel: taken by somebody else. So ironically, while I was involved in everything, I didn’t actually make decisions on a lot of things. And it’s that decision piece that precludes you from certain things. So I could immediately take on clients because none of the actual credit unions that are around in the country, and there’s like 5, 000 of them, none of them actually directly reported to me or did I take a specific action on. So it uniquely kind of positioned me to be able to hit the ground running. Now pressure wise, ironically, so when I was at NCUA

06:52 – 07:19
Mark Treichel: as an executive, the pressures I had there was working for a politically appointed board and which would change every couple of years there’d be a new person. So the politics of that created pressure and then managing the staff below me created pressures. But then leaving and retiring and actually maybe for the first time being able to speak from my own voice only was actually very freeing.

07:19 – 07:19
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.

07:20 – 07:50
Mark Treichel: Because if you think about a political board with 3 board members, each 1 of them has their agenda. And then you have my direct reports. Each 1 of them have their responsibilities. And when I would go out to speech, my brain to speak, my brain would go through this process of, okay, these 3 board members each would want me to say it this way. My staff is expecting me to say it this way. So my brain would come up with, here’s the way to say this publicly to serve all those audiences. Now that I don’t have

07:50 – 08:27
Mark Treichel: to do that, I’m basically giving my opinion to my client. It’s like the parting of the Red Sea for me because my opinion is my opinion, And I can help them by giving them what my truth is. And so essentially weren’t pressures. And I guess the other piece is with where I’m at in my life, when I retired, I was 57 with a nice government pension. I didn’t have financial pressures. So I was really kind of taking clay and forming it, and it was really a playground of what can I do, what systems can I learn,

08:27 – 08:33
Mark Treichel: what clients can I pick up, you know, how do I get my ideal clients? So it was really kind of like I was just having fun.

08:34 – 08:59
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, well, and the other thing that’s interesting is, you know, most of the people listening probably don’t have a politically appointed board, but what a great sort of Petri dish to figure out how to deal with all different kinds of personalities and get things done. And so I feel like that freedom, that newfound freedom that you had afterwards, but you also had this knowledge of what it’s like to deal with people with different agendas.

09:00 – 09:11
Mark Treichel: Boy, you’re right. Yeah. And trying to come up with a way to serve all the parties turned out to be a very marketable skill when I left and in the niche that I chose to work with.

09:11 – 09:15
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So how long did it take you to hit your first hundred thousand?

09:16 – 09:20
Mark Treichel: I would say less than 6 months.

09:20 – 09:21
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that’s fast.

09:22 – 09:57
Mark Treichel: It was quick. And the niche is very small. There are 4, 800 credit unions. And the reality is with the team that I put together and the services that I am now able to offer and that I actually was able to offer right out of the gate, there’s really probably only 20% of them that I tend to cater to. So we’re talking a small group of say a thousand potential clients, but they also have decent budgets. And if they’re dealing with issues, particularly with my expertise and knowing the agency that regulates them, there’s not a lot

09:57 – 10:04
Mark Treichel: of options other than me and my team right now. So I’ve, while it’s a very small market, there’s not a lot of competition.

10:05 – 10:25
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and a thousand targets is quite a lot when you’re 1 guy. And we’ll talk about, you know, your team in a minute. But the point I want to make here is you can make a very nice business and living, targeting a relatively small group of people if you’ve got the right story to tell and the right expertise.

10:25 – 10:27
Mark Treichel: Yeah, I would agree with that, absolutely.

10:27 – 10:42
Rochelle Moulton: So how did you look at your soloist earnings? Were they like sort of the cherry on the Sunday? Or did you feel like from a revenue standpoint like you had something to prove? I mean you said that you know you weren’t worried about money, you had your pension, but I’m just curious how you thought about it.

10:42 – 11:15
Mark Treichel: That’s a great question. I never thought about it as something to prove, but that’s probably a little bit of what’s going on because, again, 33 years as a government employee made a very good salary. It’s an agency that pays well. However, working for the government is different than working in private practice. So it was really kind of an opportunity to say, okay, what can I do in the private sector? So I don’t know if it’s something to prove or let’s just see what I can do. And the other thing is, I know you recently had an

11:15 – 11:29
Mark Treichel: episode with a financial planner, and I have a financial planner that I utilized on occasion. And 1 of the things he said to me, I love quotes, but he said this quote, it’s better to give with a warm hand than a cold hand.

11:30 – 11:31
Rochelle Moulton: I’m thinking about that.

11:31 – 12:00
Mark Treichel: Meaning give early. And so I’ve got 2 daughters, I’ve got 2 granddaughters, a third granddaughter on the way and it’s nice to be able to have extra money to go visit them, to have them come visit me, to assist them and see them have some of their pressures relieved, you know, early in life as opposed to, you know, hopefully 30 years down the road, you know, whatever’s left in the state. This provides the opportunity to do a little bit more of that.

12:00 – 12:07
Rochelle Moulton: Do it now. And the audience doesn’t know that you’re recording from Cleveland, where you’re visiting 1 of your daughters.

12:08 – 12:19
Mark Treichel: Exactly. Yes. And I think I might join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here because I’m going to be here for quite a bit this summer. So there’s a good opportunity there to kind of tap into what Cleveland has.

12:20 – 12:54
Rochelle Moulton: That’s awesome. So I want to kind of throw in something that I remember from our discussions, I don’t know, 2 years, 3 years back. And I remember when you started targeting your universe of credit union people and You know you talked about how it’s essentially a thousand people but can you just sort of give like a sort of a bird’s-eye view of how you looked at this because I remember at the time feeling like you were being very thoughtful and smart about how you did this.

12:54 – 13:29
Mark Treichel: So 1 advantage that I have is that there’s public data and information available for credit unions. So the 4, 800 credit unions have to file quarterly financial reports. The names of their CEOs are available. The names of their executives are available. And I knew some of those folks. So I really dove hard into LinkedIn. And see, I retired on June 30th and I did a post. I’ve got a picture of myself with the American flag that was taken when I was at NCAA on the 4th of July. I did this post about that I retired and

13:29 – 14:05
Mark Treichel: how much I missed credit unions, but that I would be doing a little bit of consulting. It was probably, actually ironically in my 5 years on LinkedIn, aggressively, it was probably my most liked post. So I really hit LinkedIn very hard relative to reaching out and making people aware of the fact that I was doing what I was doing, but trying to do it in a thoughtful way. 1 of my coaches early on suggested that, when I mentioned that I was connected with, at that time, maybe 800 CEOs on LinkedIn, he gave me some ideas on

14:05 – 14:39
Mark Treichel: how to capitalize that and get some emails. So I started down the email path and then listening to your podcasts, the concept about starting a podcast. So I learned early on that it was really going to be critically important for people to know that I existed. The part about who my ideal client was, which can be a challenge sometimes for I think for some people who are pivoting, That was easy for me because I had the list of the 4, 800 credit unions and then really the targeted list of the thousand credit unions of who those

14:39 – 14:45
Mark Treichel: clients were. So the important thing really became how do I make them know I’m doing what I’m doing?

14:45 – 14:50
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And so there’s a lot of one-to-one kind of communications in that process.

14:51 – 15:25
Mark Treichel: Lots of one-to-one communications, you know, with email. Here’s 4 or 5 different emails that I have as kind of a key to start off with that. But then when I’m posting on LinkedIn, that leads to a lot of conversations on LinkedIn. Really, that’s where I have most of my conversations, that they either come from that direction or from somebody listening to the podcast. I don’t know if you recall this, but back when I started the podcast, I was on like my third or fourth episode and I had a really good client that came in right out

15:25 – 15:30
Mark Treichel: of the gate on that. And I was just shell shocked that that paid dividends so quickly.

15:31 – 15:44
Rochelle Moulton: Well, when you’ve got a tightly niched service and a tightly niched audience and a podcast that reflects that, yeah, I mean, nobody guarantees that, but that absolutely can happen more often than you think.

15:44 – 16:16
Mark Treichel: Yes. And I guess, you know, back to the, is there something to prove? I really am enjoying learning new things. And I think, again, being a soloist, not having the income is a nice to have, not a need to have. It makes it very freeing to explore new things like a podcast. And because, I mean, go back to my first podcast and listen to it. It’s hard for me to listen to how stiff I was, probably compared to how I am now. But it’s really enjoyable to be able to learn new things, learn the software as

16:16 – 16:33
Mark Treichel: it relates to the conversations we’re having right now. How does that work? How does payroll work? How do you put things onto LinkedIn more efficiently? All those things, I’m just really enjoying learning all of those things that, again, go back to helping people know that I’m out here doing what I’m doing.

16:33 – 16:42
Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. So Mark, you’ve referred to yourself as a soloist with a twist. So talk about what you mean by the twist, will you?

16:43 – 17:16
Mark Treichel: So soloist with a twist would be, I moved all around the country when I was at NCUA. 1 of my daughters was born in Texas. The other 1 was in Minneapolis, where I’m from. We moved to the West Coast, moved to New York, moved to DC, to New York, and back. And on that journey, I met a lot of really talented people at NCUA. And there are 8 other folks that used to work at NCUA in 1 variety or another, who are subject matter experts in particular disciplines. And all but 1 of those retired after me,

17:16 – 17:49
Mark Treichel: 1 retired about a year before me. And they’re people I know, they’re people I trust, they’re people I enjoy talking with, that I enjoyed working with. And so the twist is when really great people in the credit union movement that were at NCAA retire, and they have a skillset that would help me help credit unions, I approach them and say, hey, do you really want to be retired or do you want to help me do what I’m doing and help credit unions? And We’re having a really enjoyable time doing that. You know, they say when you

17:49 – 18:22
Mark Treichel: retire you you shouldn’t move right away You shouldn’t sell the house. You shouldn’t do there’s all these different things the stresses of retirement well, we’ve eased the stress of that by continuing to have this sense of community and being able to help people. And then, you know, the other part of that twist, so the twist is I have several subcontractors who help me, and they bring really neat skill sets to my clients. And the other thing is we’re really enjoying looking at life from a totally different perspective. As you said on the front end, we’ve all

18:22 – 18:51
Mark Treichel: changed teams. And so there’s things you can do as a government employee where you can be helpful and then you have regulations you have to, that you have to enforce. But the reality is there’s nuances to that. Everything’s not black and white. And so I’m really enjoying, and my team is enjoying, exploring those gray areas and helping the credit unions, which then in turn ends up ultimately long-term helping our former employer, the NCUA.

18:51 – 19:20
Rochelle Moulton: Hi. There are so many things that are interesting about that. And 1, I talked about this with Joe Jacoby a couple of episodes back, where just because we’re solo doesn’t mean we have to work alone all the time. You can pull together, and these are independent contractors. They’re also people you’ve worked with before, so you know the quality of their work, the quality of their communications and commitment. And it feels like you’ve created a small community within that.

19:20 – 19:54
Mark Treichel: It really is. There’s a community of people. And when we get on, we really enjoy each other before. And we know how many kids each of us have. We know what is going on in each other’s lives. It’s interesting too because I talked about early on how it’s about my opinion and it’s not having to balance everybody else. I remember early on when 1 of my key helpers came on, he put a memo together, and then we were talking, and he says, well, I’m thinking of saying X to this client when we talk, and are you

19:54 – 20:21
Mark Treichel: okay with that? And I was like, I said, is that what your opinion is? And they said, yes. And I said, that’s all I asked for. Because I don’t want this to feel like work for me, and I don’t want this to feel like work for them. I want it to be fun. And they’re at the table because of their opinion, and I don’t want to shield that. And we all had that. So you have that in that corporate background, is all the different competing nuances where you have to kind of balance what it is you

20:21 – 20:29
Mark Treichel: say and what it is you don’t say. I trust them and therefore I don’t want any filter. If they think the client needs to hear something, I want them to tell it to them.

20:30 – 20:42
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and that’s part of the advantage of hiring experienced people to work with you. I mean, you’re not pulling somebody who’s, you know, fresh out of college, who needs to know everything and can’t be put on their own. This is a team of peers.

20:43 – 20:53
Mark Treichel: Absolutely. It’s a team of peers that they all have a unique perspective from the journey that they took. And I know that when they speak, they’re gonna add value.

20:54 – 21:07
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So Mark, you describe yourself as changing teams and I totally get why it would feel that way now that you’re not charged with oversight. But how did and how does that play out in your shift to consulting?

21:08 – 21:42
Mark Treichel: So it’s fascinating from a perspective of kind of as an example there there are things that in the English language mean a particular thing and then there are things because those words are part of a regulation they mean a certain thing to that regulation but the reader of that in a credit union may see it in black and white in a report so they get reports they get examined Maybe the best way to describe this is the credit unions get examined between 12 and 18 months, they all have an examination. And that examination is a written

21:42 – 22:13
Mark Treichel: report. And it’s essentially it’s a report card, They get a code, it’s called a camel code, and I won’t go into what the acronym is, but they get A123, or a 5 in 5 different categories. And if you get a 3 in any category, it’s kind of like you’re a C student. And if you get a 3 overall, it’s like you’re a C student, and it means that you’re gonna get visited at least every 6 months So the context of those reports having previously all of my team wrote those reports delivered those reports and said, okay

22:14 – 22:47
Mark Treichel: You’re not operating in a safe and sound manner in this area, and you need to prove X, Y, and Z. Well, there’s a lot of negotiation that can go into that report. But where do you push back? How do you push back? What are the deal killers? What are the things that there is some flexibility? It’s those subtle nuances where we know where to push back. We know where the Achilles heel of the agency might be, maybe where they’re bluffing. So we’re able to talk to our clients and say, okay, well, they’re telling you, you need

22:47 – 23:20
Mark Treichel: to do A, B and C. They’re not gonna cave on A, they should cave on C. And actually we think they’ve overstepped their authority and B kind of falls into that middle ground. By the way, I had a client who told me every time they talk to their regulator and CUA, they have to decide if they’re gonna go along to get along. Meaning, is this a good idea? Should I push back? Should I not push back? So in changing teams, we’re able to kind of tell them where they should just give them what they want and

23:20 – 23:46
Mark Treichel: do it and where they might be able to push back and maybe as a result, they’ll save money because NCWA is asking to do something that they really don’t need to do. And so, you know, and it’s lonely at the top of these credit unions, the pressure of serving the membership, the pressure of serving the board. And then someone comes in and tells you, oh, by the way, you’re not a B anymore. You get your we’re giving you a C and you need to fix these things. That creates a lot of pressure and there’s not a

23:46 – 24:01
Mark Treichel: lot of people to talk to who understand it. So really it’s that perspective of helping the individuals who run the credit union. And that’s really switching the team. We went from being the regulator to helping the regulated.

24:02 – 24:35
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I’m really struck by how you’ve created an advisory business out of what some people would call compliance. Right, this idea of you know you have to fill out this form. I know it’s much more rich than that but just as an example you have to fill out these forms and let me help you fill out these forms so you can pass this thing, versus the way you describe the mindset of your client as they’re dealing with this, plus the experience of you and your team and knowing how these requirements are interpreted. It’s almost a case

24:35 – 24:42
Rochelle Moulton: study for how to create a high-level strategic advisory business in a very niche market.

24:42 – 25:20
Mark Treichel: I think you’re right. Because of the positions I held, because of the title, quite frankly, that I held, it gives me an opportunity to really help anyone in credit unions. And then when I can add to that these individuals who are subject matter experts, I can talk about just about everything a credit union needs to have done or do, but I have other folks that can write a book on the things that I can talk about and can give real-life examples of, No, you know, they’re asking you to do this and they should allow you to

25:20 – 25:46
Mark Treichel: do it in a much easier way. Why don’t you suggest these words? And it’s been a lot of fun, but you’re right. It really, because of that journey that I took in all the positions I held and the people that I can add to my team. It’s so enjoyable when you can see the pressure relieved when they succeed and that we’re able to give them some advice in that they really couldn’t get anywhere else.

25:47 – 26:04
Rochelle Moulton: Well yeah, and if I put myself in the shoes of the head of the credit union, now I’ve got somebody in my corner. So it builds a relationship. Like I could imagine the ties become really strong after you’ve helped somebody through a particularly difficult exercise?

26:04 – 26:39
Mark Treichel: You know, I’ve had a lot of great clients. I’ve been pretty good at picking clients, and I have 3 or 4 that I have had almost the entire time. And 1 in particular comes to mind. And she had taken over a credit union and was running a credit union for the first time. And they had some issues, but the agency also overreacted. And she was trying to figure out where her place really was in all that. And in 1 of the first calls, she was like, you know, Mark, if I’m really as bad as they’re saying,

26:40 – 27:16
Mark Treichel: please tell me because I’m trying to figure out if I can do this CEO thing, right? And we were able to explain what she really needed to do and we help her position herself to go from being a C student to a B student and she was actually the 1 who came up with that you’re my secret weapon. And it was just very rewarding to help her realize that she could do this and she was doing a good job. She could improve. But anybody quite frankly, you take the first year I was executive director, I’m sure

27:16 – 27:37
Mark Treichel: I did a lot of things wrong. And I learned from that. We gave her the confidence to realize she could push back and now 4 years later she’s still a client and it’s very rewarding to talk to her and see the things that they’ve achieved just because we were able to help particularly at the beginning.

27:38 – 27:56
Rochelle Moulton: To me that’s why I love consulting. It’s those kinds of relationships. So whenever I hear you talk about your work and your life you always sound a little bit like a kid with his hand in the candy jar, right? Like, how can it be this good? So what do you do with the flexibility that you now have in your life?

27:56 – 28:32
Mark Treichel: Well, I travel up and down the East Coast. When we sold the RV, We bought a condo in Hollywood, Florida, which is where our residence is. We visit our kids. I’ve got a daughter who’s a police officer in Fairfax, Virginia. My daughter here in Cleveland is a dermatologist, just wrapping up her residency. My wife helps me with the business and you know I turn the business on, I turn the business off. I am a kid in the candy store trying new things, having conversations with credit unions is a lot of fun. We go to a lot

28:32 – 28:46
Mark Treichel: of concerts. We visit our kids a lot and we’ll pay to have them fly to come see us because we can take a little bit of that pressure off. But I don’t, ironically, I don’t feel like I’m working. I feel like I’m playing.

28:46 – 29:01
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that’s the best. So I know you listen to the podcast, so you know what’s coming next is the question. So if you could go back to who you were when you first started your business, like what’s the 1 thing you’d advise him to do?

29:01 – 29:37
Mark Treichel: You know, I touched on it a little bit and I may have learned this from you on the podcast, but it’s really important that your ideal client knows that you exist. And figuring out who the ideal client is 1 big piece. It wasn’t a big piece for me. But if they’re not aware that I’m here, they’re not going to know that they can hire me. And it’s really important for them to be aware. And then the other thing I would say in addition to that is, you know, when I got my first client, I paid to

29:37 – 30:12
Mark Treichel: get my website started and I paid for some coaching. And I basically took most of my first contract and put it into that. And that really helped build the foundation. I knew a lot about NCUA, I knew a lot about leadership. I did not know much of anything about how to start a business or how to attract those ideal clients. So really invest early on in coaching, in opportunities to learn and sharpen that saw. I’m a big Stephen Covey fan, sharpen the saw, and it will pay itself back in spades, and it’ll help you develop that

30:12 – 30:23
Mark Treichel: foundation early so that you can start hitting your revenue goals earlier as opposed to later and start helping more of your ideal clients.

30:23 – 30:33
Rochelle Moulton: A good advice, good advice. So we’ll be putting all sorts of links to you and your content in the show notes, but where’s the best place for people to learn more about you?

30:34 – 30:59
Mark Treichel: So number 1, the best place would be LinkedIn. I have a website, marktreichel.com, and With Flying Colors is a podcast that I have that’s specific to credit unions, so it’s very, very, very niche. But I do a lot on LinkedIn and if someone wants to reach out relative to what I learned, or you know, on the consulting side, feel free to do it and LinkedIn would be the best place to do that.

30:59 – 31:15
Rochelle Moulton: Well, Mark, thank you. It’s always a pleasure talking with you, but hearing you describe the journey and how excited you still are to wake up in the morning and do this work and live an amazing life. So thank you.

31:15 – 31:19
Mark Treichel: Rochelle, I appreciate the opportunity to chat. Good catching up with you.

31:19 – 31:26
Rochelle Moulton: So awesome. So that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time for The Soloist Life. Bye bye. Bye.