Kerry Boland is an International Business Growth Mentor & Sales Strategist, specialising in guiding impact-driven business owners to success. Through her straight-talking and results-driven approach, Kerry crafts scalable businesses with sleek sales strategies, that fuel team growth and create time freedom for the business owner.   

As the Founder of The Growth Coaching Collective, Kerry Boland’s passion is elevating entrepreneurs with expertise in personal growth, sales strategy, and business mentoring.  With 18 years of sales experience, Kerry spent over a decade in the corporate world, training senior sales teams and C-suite executives on monthly recurring revenue and client retention strategies.

  Passionate about helping entrepreneurs move beyond their fear of sales, Kerry provides strategies for guaranteed success. Kerry brings her unique approach to training, up-skilling, and mentoring business owners to achieve success and build a legacy.  
In this interview, Kerry shares with us for the Entrepreneur Stories Series, her business values, mission, and upcoming projects, giving us a peek into to the challenges and successes she’s achieved as an entrepreneur and business leader.

What is your Business and Coaching Philosophy?

Connection- Human touch, communication and treating people as people. Developing a business and a community based on relationships, collaboration over competition and that together we succeed. 

Could you give our readers a brief insight into who Kerry is as a person?  

Mother of 3 beautiful children, high performing woman, International Business Growth Mentor, Sales Strategist, Founder and CEO of The Growth Coaching Collective, a mentoring business and tech agency for service-based businesses looking to scale to 6 figures and beyond.

I am a massive advocate for women who have faced domestic abuse, as a survivor myself. I started my business to show survivors that success is still available to them no matter what they have faced. I am a massive lover of travel and dancing as well as finding peace in nature, meditation and cold water lake dipping. I wear many hats, but
balancing motherhood, business and wellbeing are extremely important to me and balance
is what I encourage my community to have.  
 

You’ve had a successful career in tech sales. What inspired you to transition from selling to coaching business owners? 

Yes, in the later half of my tech career, I was part of the SLT team, creating the business growth strategies, sales, operations and managing a team, having taken numerous courses Mini MBA, and ILM Leadership courses I knew I was good at business. I understood business, I was able to see things others missed, spot the gaps and create the strategy to close them. I built out multiple teams and new departments within record time with amazing results for the business too. I worked my butt off, but realised that all this hard
work was only lining the pockets of the business owners and not myself. I wanted to help entrepreneurs and specifically entrepreneurs who cared about IMPACT not just money. I recognised that one of the biggest challenges they faced was with strategy and sales and this was where I excelled. They were incredible at providing the service but struggled to gain enough clients to feel like they were achieving their goals and so I was going to be the guiding light, hands at their back and kick up the ass they needed.  
 

The Growth Coaching Collective focuses on more than just sales. Can you elaborate on your philosophy of coaching for balance across all aspects of life? Why is this important for business owners? 

The lotus in my branding represents growth in all areas of life, from personal development
and financial growth to spiritual growth and business growth. After I lost a lot in my life after domestic abuse, holistic practices like meditation, yoga, journalling and cold water became a massive part of my healing journey and where I was able to connect with myself. I created a mastermind called Balance. This promotes what we stand for as a brand, GROWTH in all areas. It includes business mentoring, group coaching and a wellbeing corner with everything from Yoga to meditations, to EFT tapping and subliminal
sounds, encouraging our community to find pockets of time for them.  

As a woman who has suffered from depression and anxiety I channelled everything I had into my career, but I was wearing a mask, when I started my business it was important for me to find balance. I had a vision of what my life and business would look like, however after I started my business I was too hyper-focused on achieving “success” and as a high-performer who thrives off stress I learnt about the impact of this on my body; illness, burnout, fatigue, weight gain and gut issues. After burning out a second time I decided enough was enough. I needed to take my own advice. So many business owners have a fear of
stopping in business, however, when they realise that when they put themselves first everything else falls nicely into place, the magic happens.  

What are some of the most common challenges you see business owners facing, especially when it comes to finding balance? 

Time is always a massive factor, so many business owners say they can’t find the time to put themselves first. When asked “what are you doing with your time” they struggle to be specific and a lot of business owners are constantly stuck doing the do, not gifting themselves any time for movement, or to breathe.  
Building in small habits, intention and structure, that includes an appointment in the diary with yourself, is a great way to build in time for balance. A 15 min walk at lunch, a 10-minute meditation or a 10-minute dance to your favourite tunes, building these in, starting small will eventually lead to you creating consistent habits of “you” time.  

I also see a lot of business owners, in particular women, struggle to take a day off to do something for them. Whether it’s a day at a spa, a day with friends or a walk in nature, it is important to breathe and take time away from work. 

Finally, I see lots of business owners either skipping meals or snacking on things like biscuits and crisps and overloading with coffee. Preparing nutritious meals that you have created yourself to nourish your body and brain, then eating without distraction and not at your desk is one of the BEST things you can do to fuel your body and brain for performance. It is also one of the best forms of self-care you can give to yourself. 

What are some success stories you can share from clients who’ve worked with The Growth Coaching Collective? How did your coaching help them achieve their goals? 

The wins are incredible from my clients and it depends how you perceive success, the wins are endless. From taking their working week down to 4days, to creating boundaries and saying no to things that didn’t serve them. Leaving toxic relationships to building out the most amazing impactful offers, selling out events, £21k prelaunches, winning awards and more. The list is endless.  

I help my clients to see themselves, the strategy and structure in business. I can do this with my eyes closed. It’s not about just that for me, it’s about the wider impact on all the different facets of life.  
 

As a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field like tech sales, what challenges did you face during your career? 

This is an interesting question, I worked with some huge corporate clients, designing tech solutions for their business telephony and connectivity operations. The majority of my clients were very respectful, listened to my advice and took the advice too. They could see that I really knew their business, I was down-to-earth, so we were able to have a laugh, but I was also a solution builder and a good saleswoman. However as a woman in tech, other people in tech, particularly men would prey on you, at tech events, awards evenings etc…

Men would treat you like an object, make rude, sexual comments, talk to your chest and not your face. They were generally quite sleazy. I think for a lot of women in the industry they accept this behaviour and laugh it off, brush it under the carpet, as they think they will climb the ladder faster. For me, however, as I have a bit of a fiery personality and given my abusive past, they were told straight by me and often not so politely.  

How have you seen the landscape for women in tech evolve overtime? What advice
would you give to other women aspiring to leadership roles in the tech sector? 

There is still a HUGE gap in women taking up senior roles in the tech industry, however, I have heard of more industries such as comms introducing a new target in their annual plan to recruit more women into senior roles by 2025. Part of me still feels this is just a tickbox exercise, the challenge comes where women don’t feel confident or valued enough to put themselves forward for these types of roles in the first place. 

 My advice would be this, follow that desire. I know the thoughts of “I could do that role”, or“ I could do a better job”, or “I would be perfect there” crosses your mind ALL the time. Yet we choose to push that voice down and allow the fear to creep in. To shut down the desire.

We need to use the fear as fuel and push yourself out of your comfort zone. No one ever moved forward by being comfortable. You have to get uncomfortable, trust that inner knowing and your gut feeling. Men jump into things without a care in the world, but as women we do things with intention, energy and feeling, so trust that feeling. 

 What are some of the unique opportunities you see for women in the coaching and leadership development space? 

More and more women are waking up to the realisation that they are not here to live a mediocre life. There is more available to them on this earth than the 9-5. There are more opportunities for women to use their expertise and experience to create huge IMPACT.

Coaching is an incredible industry, when done ethically and with the right training. Women who start to take up space in this industry are able to demonstrate to future generations that women can create wealth for themselves by helping people and leading from the front. That you don’t have to conform to societal norms, that you can achieve, have, do and be anything you want. That, they can take life by the balls, even in the face of adversity and come out better and stronger from it and lead with love and integrity.  

What are some exciting projects or initiatives the Growth Coaching Collective is currently working on?

 We recently launched our tech platform Connected Campaigns™ which is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform designed to support business owners with lead generation, sales and marketing, pipeline management and more. Our plan is to grow the tech agency and provide more and more businesses with the tools to automate their sales processes for scale. We have introduced our done-for-you tech setup service and have some extremely exciting builds happening for lots of different businesses.

Businesses including accountants, leadership coaches, communications companies and more. Building bespoke systems for things such as their onboarding processes, sales funnels and automations. We are working on creating a service for business owners to have us as an extension of their team, in the form of tech support, removing the headache and overwhelm removing the need to employ and train someone internally. 

I have multiple speaking gigs booked between now and the end of the year in the UK and Ireland. I am in the process of co-authoring a business strategy book which launches in September, and then my own book will be launching next May with a big book launch party and business building event.  

How do you see the coaching landscape evolving in the next few years? How will the Growth Coaching Collective adapt to meet changing client needs? 

I think we may see the industry become regulated and more coaches leaving the industry because of this. I think in terms of the sales and mentoring services I provide this won’t be a problem for me. In terms of the business owners I already support, I tend to attract business owners who have the relevant and ethical training. I pride myself on working with people with the same or similar values as me which are integrity, trust, connection, communication, support, growth and education.

What’s your vision for the future of the Growth Coaching Collective? Where do you hope to see it in the next 5 years? 

My Vision for The GCC is to be a globally recognised company for business mentoring, sales and tech support. I want to create HUGE impact and simplify sales strategy and scaling business for others. I want to demonstrate that GROWTH happens in all areas of life when you allow it and stop people buying into the BS in the online space. In 5 years time I want to see us at multi 7 figures, impacting the world through my books, speaking and services. Providing survivors of domestic abuse with job opportunities to learn new skills and become financially independent. 

What are some daily habits or routines that you personally practice to maintain balance in your own life?  

I get up at 5:30am and I am in the gym for 6am lifting weights. I come home take my supplements and protein shake and then I get ready for my day. Kids up and out to school. Cook a healthy breakfast. Set my intentions for the day. Start work for 10am with anlunchtime walk and then more work before the school run. I enjoy an evening walk, meditation, wind down with family movie nights and conversations with my fiancé.  

Weekends are gym on a Saturday, food shop and time with family. Cold water therapy in the lake and breath work with walks in the woods.  Sundays are family and reflection days, where I reflect on the week; my mood, my achievements, my nutrition and exercise and my habits, I then set the intentions for my
week and write my food plan. When I eat the right foods, I feel good and perform better. When I don’t plan I find it very easy to deviate. 

What tips would you share with our readers for achieving a more balanced and fulfilling life? 

Try new things, try things you THINK you could never do. Move your body, even if it is just a walk and find things you enjoy. Get them in your diary just like you would a client, and keep promises to yourself.