Today we’d like to introduce you to Vimari Roman.
Hi Vimari, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I started utilizing my talents at age 15 when I began my career in Hospitality, working at the front desk of my father’s hotel, where he was General Manager. My parents divorced within months of when I started that part-time job, and a couple of years later, my father remarried someone that was not very caring or supportive of his children.
That relationship pushed me to move out on my own within a few weeks of graduating High School at 17. I could move out on my own by utilizing the savings from that first job, and from there on, I started to create my professional branding and career strategies with purpose. That first job was the initial step into a successful 20-year career within the hospitality industry.
In 2012 I was recruited as the Director of Sales & Marketing for a hotel, and although I wasn’t crazy about the product, I took the job because of the money and proximity to my home. I also envisioned this being my last hotel before transitioning into something new. I gave myself 5-7 years with the brand to develop a strategy for my transition as an entrepreneur, but sometimes, things do not go as planned.
I arrived at the hotel on my first day and immediately knew I had made a mistake. But I was too proud and afraid of walking out and quitting fearing the perception of others and how that would look on my resume. I decided to stay in that environment, give myself one year to turn the business around, and leave with honor. My goal was accomplished ten months into the position, and my boss decided he no longer needed me.
At that point, he was trying to do everything he could to push me out. After a few months of what seemed like a nightmare, I was given a severance package and freed. I was so burned out and realized that I had outgrown my career, so I decided to take a couple of months off to plan my next step, and that’s when in 2013, I transitioned my skillset and started my first company, Be Productive Meetings & Events.
After a great start, I felt that something was still missing. I went inward and discovered that I missed the coaching and leadership of my teams. I returned to the drawing board and started the strategy process again. One year later, in 2014, I received my Global Certificate in Leadership Coaching and founded Be Productive Coaching intending to make it a boutique coaching firm based out of Miami, Florida. It took working with various clients and approximately two to three years before I could figure out my niche.
In 2017, I found that I was working with high-performing professionals in various industries who had also outgrown their careers or were dissatisfied and wanted to transition to the next step. I started to work on career strategies, helped with professional branding, and coached them through the process, and suddenly I realized that my clients had developed my niche.
That’s when I decided to re-brand myself as a Career Strategist and Coach, and five years later, I can say that I am well respected in this area. Today we help mid-senior level professionals transition to the next step of their careers with purpose through career strategies, professional branding, and leadership and mental fitness coaching.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. Entrepreneurship and being a small business owner come with many ups and downs. Many fears and doubts came up for me when I decided to focus on my coaching practice. Including imposter syndrome and self-doubt. I questioned what others would say about me changing my focus once again. Especially my existing corporate clients for my meeting planning business. I feared I would be unable to make “enough” money with just coaching.
All these thoughts crossed my mind and delayed my focus until I finally decided to push through. I was finally able to push through once I felt that I had a niche, and once the career strategies and professional branding came in, I realized I could rebrand and push through my fears and doubts. I tested the market with my rates, but I came in too low because I feared that if I asked for more, I would not be successful. I also became extremely busy with volume, which was more focused on professional branding, including resume writing and LinkedIn profiles.
Not many people knew what a coach did at the time, but everyone understood what a resume and LinkedIn profile were. I was successful because I offered tremendous value but was not serving my ideal client, and our fees were too low. So, I had to return to the drawing board and do a competitive analysis to narrow my market, strategize, and rebrand. This took about a year, and when I was finally ready to launch, the pandemic hit.
In many ways, it was a perfect time to rebrand and develop a new website because everyone was home, and we got many hits. I couldn’t hit the ground running with my ideal client and rates, but my marketing and brand helped me grow our average customer over time until we finally got to where we were serving our ideal customer.
In addition to all of this, the highs and lows can be brutal, and at the very beginning, I did not surround myself with a support group or community of peers. I also did not start automating processes immediately and doing it all manually and alone became pretty stressful. Looking back, I wish I had sooner because things would have been much smoother. The hyper-achiever in me just wasn’t used to asking for help. That’s changed!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Be Productive Coaching?
We change lives at Be Productive Coaching, helping mid-senior level professionals transition to the next step of their careers with purpose. Our clients are feeling lost, frustrated, stressed, and unsure of the next step in their careers. They need a strategy to move their careers forward and reduce the impact this has had on their personal lives. At Be Productive Coaching, we have developed a proven process to maximize their personal and professional potential through mental fitness, high-performance coaching, career strategies, and professional branding.
After working with us, our clients feel more confident and can maximize their potential while achieving work/life balance, career advancement, and a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Our competitive advantage is that we are a one-stop shop for career growth and productivity. I am not only the founder but also my first client. I’ve been there. I’ve walked this path of growth. We lead our clients through a step-by-step process that meets them where they are. Whereas competitors delve into many non-focused disciplines of coaching or focus on resume writing.
In 2019, I was approached by LinkedIn to become one of their contracted Career Experts, and in 2021 I became a certified positive intelligence coach, which gave us the missing piece to differentiate us from our competition. This differentiator is essential because as much as an individual would want to transition to the next step of their career, if they are not mentally fit to face the challenges that can come from transitions, they will not achieve their goals as quickly. We all know that mindset is everything, and emotional intelligence is also vital to achieving fulfillment and growth.
Our process of implementing positive intelligence and mental fitness into our work truly sets us apart. Our services are also available to corporations and small businesses. We help with executive and leadership coaching, identifying outstanding talent for positions, and succession planning. Our PQ Powered Teams Program has proven to increase performance, emotional intelligence (EQ), and well-being for transformation and competitive advantage.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Our mission is to bring humanity back to the workplace. As a speaker, I speak at conferences on Mental Fitness, Professional Branding, and Career Strategies and Transitions. I am an engaged member of the South Florida International Coaching Federation (ICF) Chapter and on the faculty for 50/50 Women on Boards, teaching the Personal Brand Workshop.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.beproductivecoaching.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beproductivecoaching/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeProductiveCoaching/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vimariroman/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/beproductivemia
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeProductiveCoaching/featured
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/be-productive-coaching-el-portal-2?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
- Other: https://linktr.ee/beproductivecoaching
Image Credits
Hazel Rodriguez (Hazel Photographers) and Soliman Productions
