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September 9, 2025 15 mins

What makes Bill Gilliland with Action COACH Business Growth Partners a good neighbor?

Ever feel like your business has hit a ceiling? You're not alone. That nagging plateau where growth stalls is exactly where Bill Gilliland of Action Coach Business Growth Partners steps in to transform good businesses into great ones.

Bill shatters the common misconception that business coaching is solely for struggling companies. "It's not a business hospital," he explains with refreshing clarity. "It's a business gymnasium." This powerful distinction reveals the true nature of effective coaching—not rescuing failing enterprises but strengthening ambitious ones ready to level up. With 18 years of experience helping entrepreneurs scale, Bill has honed his expertise particularly with businesses in the trades, construction, and professional services sectors.

What makes Bill's approach particularly insightful is his understanding of the psychological barriers to growth. "We're all our biggest lid on our own business," he notes, highlighting how often entrepreneurs themselves become the ceiling that prevents scaling. The conversation takes fascinating turns as Bill draws parallels between business breakthroughs and outdoor activities like fly fishing—reminding us that our best ideas often emerge when we're not actively thinking about work at all. This holistic view of entrepreneurship acknowledges that mental space away from business paradoxically creates room for business innovation.

Looking for guidance to break through your business plateau? Connect with Bill through his website billgilliland.biz, attend the upcoming Asheville Business Summit on September 23rd, or simply reach out for that cup of coffee he mentions might spark your next breakthrough. Sometimes the difference between staying stuck and scaling successfully is just one conversation with someone who's helped others navigate the same journey.

To learn more about Action COACH Business Growht Partners  go to:

https://billgilliland.biz/

Action COACH Business Growth Partners

(828) 348-1787





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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor
Podcast.
So today we've got a veryspecial guest with us live.
We're live today as well asrecording.
I don't know if we would, butthrilled to have a special guest
in our studio with us for thefirst time.
And I'm sure you'll be just asexcited because today I have the
pleasure of introducing yourgood neighbor, mr Bill Gilliland

(00:33):
, who is the owner operator ofAction Coach Business Growth
Partners.
Bill, welcome to the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Well, we're thrilled to haveyou and, like I said, excited to
learn all about your business.
So if you don't mind, why don'tyou kick us off by telling us
what you do?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, so we're a professional services business.
We work with mostly businessowners.
We do coaching and training,coaching and training.

(01:11):
So you know it tends it tendsto be business owners who are
ambitious, who are looking toscale their businesses and their
teams and, yeah, we help thembe great at business.
That's what we do All right.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Helping business be better, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
We can all use that.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, how, Bill, how'd you get into helping
businesses years?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
ago reading an article in the wall street
journal about I think it wasabout executive coaching, but it
was about coaching and I'm likeand I'd never heard of it and

(01:49):
and I thought, well, this is,this seems like a pretty cool
thing and and I didn't doanything with it.
I was running another businessand then we sold.
Actually, the guy who owned thebusiness sold it.
I was running it with him and Idon't really have anything to
do.
So I was out there looking fora business to buy or or a sales

(02:12):
territory or just you know.
Just I had resumes, I wastalking to people and I got a
call one day and I said have youever thought about being in
business for yourself, but notby yourself?
And I said well, I did thatonce before.
You know, tell me more.
And the more I went down thispath, it ended up being the
whole action coach environment.

(02:32):
And you know, here we are 18years later.
It's been a good run.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
So Wow, 18 years.
That is an awesome run actually.
Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, so what are some?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
uh, excuse me, bill some myths or misconceptions in
the coaching business well, it'sgone from no one knowing what a
coach is to everyone thinkingthey know what a coach is, and
so I think the misconception isthat you know everyone, that all
coaches are created equal, and,and so the market is very muddy

(03:08):
out there in my opinion, and soone of the things I've got on
my YouTube channel I've gotthings like how do you pick a
business coach?
How do you pick a coach?
What should you be looking for?
And so I think themisconception is that one coach
fits all the other misconceptionis that you know why do I need

(03:31):
a coach in the first place?
And probably the biggestmisconception about business
coaching is that it's for thepeople that are in trouble, that
it's a business hospital.
It's not really a businesshospital.
It's a business gymnasium, it'sa business trainer.
So a great Olympic potentialathlete is going to have a

(03:54):
trainer to get them fromwherever they are to the
Olympics or potentially,hopefully, to a gold medal.
Same, if you just want to run a5K, it doesn't really matter
where you start.
It all works more like atrainer than than a hospital.
You know the coaching isn'tgoing to help somebody who's um,
it might I mean I, you knowhelp someone who's who's sick or

(04:15):
dying, but um it's it.
That's probably the biggestmisconception, so yeah, not a
business hospital.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
right, right, yeah.
So you're there to help goodbusinesses become great.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, I can't help.
You know, if a plane's on arunway and they're running out
of runway and it can't take off,you know, because it's got too
much drag, there's not much thatwe can do about that.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, Gotcha Good analogy.
Well, Bill, who are your targetcustomers and how do you
attract them?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, our best customers, like you said, are
people who are doing.
They've usually plateaued,they've usually gotten to a
place and get stuck.
So they're Like I said, they'reambitious.
They're either business ownersor founders who are looking to
scale.
They've gotten to a point ontheir own and they usually are
running into a ceiling.

(05:12):
We do a lot of work with peoplein we call them vans and trucks
and crews.
So in the trades and theconstruction and building,
building industries and homeservices, those tend to be a
nice niche for us and we also doa lot of work in professional

(05:37):
services.
So and Jason, my partner, hasan expertise in specialty retail
.
So we like working with peoplewho are looking to scale and
that's just kind of who's shownup over the years and along the
way.
How do we find them?
Obviously, we'd love to findthem all through referrals, but
we, we market everywhere thereis to market.

(06:00):
We, you know, we do podcasts, wedo Google AdWords, we do events
, we do, in fact, we've got anevent coming up called the
Asheville Business Summit inSeptember.
The website for that iswncsummitcom.
We had a guy from Ghana show uplast year.

(06:20):
Wow, I will say it was coolbecause when we first conceived
of the event.
We're like we want to make thisinternational and then boom
right off the bat.
We had somebody come I justfound it on, you know, found it
on Google and or on the Internetand showed up in Asheville,
north Carolina, with the event.

(06:42):
But, yeah, the folks in theTri-Cities definitely should
make plans to come.
It's going to be great.
We had a lot of people comebefore.
Our deal right now is that youknow we're about a year by then.
We'll be about a year out fromthe hurricane and you know that

(07:02):
hit us all and you know we'recelebrating.
You know how we're going tomove forward and so we've got a
lot of good local talent comingthis year and how we're dealing
with it and how we're movingforward and how we're, you know,
back in the game.
So it's pretty exciting.
Like I said, wncsummitcom allthe information there.

(07:25):
Early bird tickets are on saleright now.
So we got a late start on itbecause, hey, we had a hurricane
November and December, january.
We would have been working onthis stuff.
Now we're working on it in June, july and August.
So it's just the way.
It's just what we do, yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Just what you do Business Summit.
Definitely make a note aboutthat.
You ever thought about havingyour own podcast?
I do have a podcast.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
You do have a podcast .
Yeah, you can check it out onall the channels.
It's called Epic Entrepreneurs.
Yeah, we've got a lot ofepisodes out there.
We've interviewed a lot ofpeople.
I do some just solo sort of.
Some people call it ranting,but it's just my thoughts on
subjects and we have done.
We have had some people call itranting, but it's uh, just my
thoughts on on subjects and uh,we, we have done.

(08:10):
We have had some people on whowanted some actual coaching on
the spot, so we did that.
So awesome uh, but generallyit's a, it's an interview, just
sort of like this one.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
So we will check.
We will check that out for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome.
Yeah, well, outside of work,bill, what do you like to do for
fun?

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I got all the you know the vices.
I like to play golf and flyfish and I just like to get
outdoors, you know, basically,with people it's a lot of fun
and, yeah, it's, you know, you,I, I, you know people come to

(08:47):
the, come to our area to do, youknow they do biking and get a
lot of its outdoor activitiesand I'm one of those people.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
So well, we, we live in a beautiful place to do yeah,
we do all of that.
I'm a fly fisherman as well.
So, yeah, good, love it, loveit.
There's nothing else I'd ratherbe doing.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Honestly, it's well, and I took.
My grandfather told me yearsago he used to hunt and fish and
you know he said I don't carewhat you do, you got to have
something you know you can't youcan't work all the time bill
you got to have.
You need something, whatever itis.
I mean, you're out there andyou know it just takes your mind
off of of everything andfrankly, that's good.

(09:26):
I mean a lot.
A lot of what we do ends upbeing mental right, cause you
know, a lot of times to grow abusiness we have to get the
owner out of their own way.
You know, that's, that's, we'reall.
We're all our biggest lid onour own business.
And so we, you know.
But a lot of the good ideashappen when you're not thinking
about anything, you know, whenyou're trying to figure out how

(09:46):
to get that fish.
That's, you can see by you know, or when you whatever, when
you've just taken your mind offof business.
That's when the great, greatinspirations come.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well, I used to work for a guy many many years ago,
who was really good, greatentrepreneur, and he told me
that some of his best ideas camefrom a cocktail napkin you know
from just you know, meetingwith some folks having a drink,
and then something pops in hismind and writes it down and

(10:17):
becomes a great idea, a hundredpercent, yep.
So, bill, if you could think ofone thing that you would like
our listeners to remember aboutyou and about Action Coach,
business, growth Partners, whatwould that be?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
We're here to help and you know whether that's.
You know if you just need totalk, people are sort of scared
to.
You know, to have a 15 minutecoffee or to have a chat on Zoom
, and you know we're here.
It's what we do.

(10:53):
We do it all day long.
We, we dedicate time to helpingpeople and you know, if
sometimes that is just some ofthe best things, best
testimonials I've ever gotten,then people didn't pay me a dime
.
You know, we just had a.
We just sat down, had coffeefor 20, 30 minutes and some good
stuff came out of it and so youknow, have have a cup of coffee
, get to know.
You know, get to know us andyou know if there's something

(11:15):
more there, then we can talkabout that.
But that's not.
We just we're I love the nameof your podcast good neighbor.
We just want to be.
We just want to be a goodneighbor.
Yeah awesome.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Well, sounds like.
Hopefully they at least buyyour coffee.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, well, it can go either way.
I mean I don't, I don't mind.
I mean, coffee's not thatexpensive and I don't mind.
Yeah, like I said a lot oftimes, I'll even buy the coffee.
Awesome, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Good to know.
Well, if any of our listenersown a small business, need help
or are trying to, like you said,scale, grow their business and
have sort of plateaued, how canthey, how can they learn more?

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, so the easiest way is just to go to our website
.
It's it's Bill Gilliland dotbiz.
If you want to, if you reallywant to, you know, check out
wncsummitcom, because they'llget a ton of information in a
short period of time.
That way you can email medirectly.

(12:13):
It's williamgilliland atactioncoachcom or you can call
me, it's fine.
My number is 828-348-1787.
It's all out there.
It's not a.
We don't hide anything.
You want to get a hold of us?
Get a hold of us.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
There you go.
The business summit is what wasthat date again?

Speaker 3 (12:38):
It is the Hang on.
Let me get you the exact date.
I think it's the 23rd ofSeptember.
Let me just double check thatthat's a it's a tuesday.
So yeah, yeah, it's, it's the23rd.
Uh, if you want to come hangout with some uh vips, there's a
dinner the night before so youcan get a vip ticket, um, and

(13:02):
hang out with uh the speakersand some higher-level networking
.
That's out there too.
So, yeah, check it out.
Wncsummitcom.
That's all the information isthere wncsummitcom.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Awesome, we will definitely check that out, guys.
You heard it here.
Guys and girls, if you're anentrepreneur and you are looking
to grow or to expand, actionCoach, business Growth Partners,
that's what they do and lookfor.
On September the 23rd, like yousaid, that's almost exactly a
year from Halloween.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
It's almost exactly a year.
We're celebrating the wholerecovery and the whole.
You know how we're expandingthis whole area and you know
it'll be great.
It's going to be good.
We've got a good lineup ofspeakers and it's going to be

(13:56):
great.
Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, we'll look forward to that, and you sold me
, so if I can possibly be there,I will be.
So we appreciate that very muchand, bill, appreciate you
taking time out of your busyschedule to spend a few minutes
with us and with our listenersand to tell us all about what
you can do to help businesses.
So, thank you so much, you'rewelcome and I love what you're

(14:19):
doing.
Well, thank you and love whatyou're doing, and maybe we can
have you back again soon.
Yeah love that.
All right, thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor
Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go to gnptry-citiescom.
That's gnptry-citiescom, orcall 423-719-5873.
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