by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
In case you missed the Expert Interview Series — our week-long series of conversations with some of the business coaching industry’s most prolific thought leaders — we thought you’d be pleased to know that we’ve made most of it available on our YouTube channel!
All the experts we interviewed tackled one critical topic:
The Top Trends Impacting Business Coaches in 2012…and What You Should Do About It.
The result was one of the most well-received events we’ve ever put together, with grateful comments coming in from around the globe. Here are just handful of the thank-you emails we received…
“Eric, I appreciate the seminar series and will say the 4 sessions I attended were very valuable! Thank you!”
“Hi Eric, just wanted to say thank you very much for organizing these webinars. I found them extremely insightful and helpful in the quest for success in 2012!”
“Eric, as usual you have hit a home run with this series.”
“Dear Eric, What I loved most were your summaries, the way you kept focus! You really worked hard on getting the gist out…this way I could really arrive at some conclusions after a whole week of listening to you. Thank you once again!”
Want to listen or relive the action?
Click here to check out our YouTube page to watch the interviews with Paul Avins, Spike Humer, and Darren Shirlaw (unfortunately, we’ve had technical difficulties with Taki Moore’s and Ben Croft’s interviews…if we can get the glitches sorted, we’ll post them, too)! Be sure to subscribe to our channel once you’re there.
And of course, we wish you the most wonderful holiday season of all time, from our family to yours!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training, Uncategorized
The holidays are upon us, and here at The Coaches’ Coach we’re thrilled to announce an extra special gift just for you!
We’ve put together an Experts Interview Series— five fantastic webinars with some of the business coaching industry’s most prolific thought-leaders — on this theme:
The Top Trends Facing the Business Coaching Industry in 2012…and What You Should Do About It.
Starting Monday, December 12, and running through Friday, December 16, the series will feature one 60-minute interview per day, from 3:00-4:00 P.M. Eastern Time. Each expert will provide you powerful, actionable information on trends you need to watch and what you need to do to make 2012 your most successful year yet!
This is a strict PITCH-FREE zone. No selling, no pressure, just pure, high-value content. Our special gift to you!
To register, CLICK HERE NOW.
The experts featured in our series are…
1. Ben Croft — president of the World Business & Executive Coach Summit and owner of the global business and executive coach marketing consultancy, Modern Methods Marketing. Croft’s cutting-edge marketing campaigns have driven multiple millions of dollars in coaching sales. Only in his late twenties, Ben has already achieved well beyond his years and is considered by many to be an industry game-changer.
2. Taki Moore — the “MacGyver” of business coach marketing, Taki will show you how to turn quick, inexpensive marketing techniques into highly profitable results.
3. Spike Humer — author, speaker, entrepreneur, and thought-leading performance expert. His “10 Day Turnaround Technologies” have helped companies and individuals worldwide make quantum leaps in their business, financial, and personal success.
4. Paul Avins — Europe’s #1 business coach, author, and speaker, with a wealth of experience and knowledge in sales, sales management, marketing, personal development, and training.
5. Darren Shirlaw — founder of Shirlaws, one of the world’s fastest-growing international business coaching organizations, with over 100 coaches in the UK, US, and New Zealand. Shirlaws focuses primarily on helping mid-tier companies increase profitability while managing growth. His high-quality intellectual property and systems make him one of the most important business coaching thought leaders in the world!
To register for the entire series, CLICK HERE! We can’t wait for you to join us!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coaching Tools
For the past 7 years, I’ve been using a wonderful open-source business strategic planning tool developed by Verne Harnish of Gazelles, called the One-Page Strategic Plan (1PSP). It’s been a foundational resource for my business coaching business, and is at the core of the work I do with my clients (and their clients!)
But recently, I found out that it’s under attack!
I can’t speak highly enough of Verne Harnish and his contributions to the business coaching industry in general. So when I heard there was trouble brewing for him, I knew I had to do everything in my power to help.
What’s been happening? According to a recent email from Verne…
“A decade after I introduced the [1PSP], some consultants decided to see if they could trademark the term ‘One-Page Strategic Plan.’ Like me, when I sought a trademark, they were told by the Patent and Trademark Office that the term was descriptive, so the trademark was denied. They tried again and were denied. And they tried again, this time claiming that they were the only ones to ever use the term and asking for a supplemental trademark. This means if no one says anything after five years, they’ll get a trademark.
“In the meantime, their lawyers sent us a letter stating that their clients owned the term and we had to stop using it – seems they want to own the term so they can control it, even though their use of it is limited and they don’t even have a structured one-page document.”
If you’ve spent much time with us here at The Coaches’ Coach, you’ve probably heard about or worked with the One-Page Strategic Plan. Please help Verne keep the 1PSP open-source and available by downloading this affidavit: 1PSP Affidavit. Essentially, it says that you equate the 1PSP with Verne Harnish and his company, Gazelles.
If that applies to you, please print it, sign it, then send it directly to Gazelles at:
44031 Pipeline Plaza – Suite 200
Ashburn, VA 20147
I know it takes a little extra time to print and mail a document as opposed to typing your name into an online petition, but signed hard copies carry a lot more weight with the Patent and Trademark Office…and doing so will help Verne avoid a long and expensive legal battle.
Please, if you’ve ever benefited from the 1PSP, take some time to do this today — and forward our post along to any of your colleagues or clients who have likewise benefited! Thanks for your help preserving great collaborative tools like the 1PSP in the Connected Age!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
The business coaching industry is abuzz with an exciting online event planned for later this summer — a first-of-its-kind platform, where all the major thought leaders in the business and executive coaching space will gather together to discuss the state of the industry and share best practices, techniques, and strategies.
It’s called the World Business and Executive Coaching Summit…and I, for one, think it’s time for just such a thing in the industry.
Until now, there hasn’t been a place where all the major business and executive coaching gurus, licensing organizations, franchises, and experts could gather together and engage in direct dialogue with each other and the coaches they serve. And I think that’s been to our detriment. Business and executive coaching is a hot industry these days, but we’ve taken some black eyes and have had some questions raised about our overall credibility (challenges that every new industry has to confront eventually). Yet, I’m not sure we’ve been unified in handling it as effectively as we could — in part because we haven’t been together to even have these kinds of conversations!
That’s exactly the gap that the World Business and Executive Coaching Summit is aiming to fill. I think we all benefit when the reputation of the industry is elevated. And that can’t happen until we work together to share best practices, to raise the quality of coaching across the board, and to begin dialoguing with each other about what exactly it means to be a business and executive coach in the 21st Century.
So might I suggest that you mark your calendars NOW for the online summit, taking place July 28-August 18, 2011.
Now, I’ll admit upfront that I was honored to be invited to present at the Summit — which means I’ll be sharing the virtual stage with people like Brian Tracy, Marshall Goldsmith, and Michael Gerber — but even if I hadn’t been, I would still endorse this event as an important milestone for the industry and something that all of you should strongly consider participating in.
There’s some great information and freebies available for coaches who are interested in learning more, so head on over to the World Business and Executive Coaching to check it out.
In the comments below, tell me what you think. Is it time for something like this? How could the industry be best benefited by coaches and experts working together? Are there risks? I’m interested to hear what you have to say!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coaching Franchise
This is a difficult post for me to write, but an important one if you’re considering business coaching franchises as a way to get started in the coaching business.
That’s because I’ve seen tremendous heartache from friends and associates over the years.
Here’s the cold, hard truth: Many business coaching franchises will do everything they can to enforce their largely unfair contracts–even if it means forcing you into bankruptcy.
Here’s how it usually goes:
A few times each month (or week, depending on the size of the franchise system) another business coach quietly disappears. They stop showing up to conference calls, stop reporting in to their regional manager, and fail to pay their royalty for the second month in a row. OUCH! Now the franchisor and regional manager are paying attention, because they’re not getting paid.
After a few failed attempts to collect payment from the business coach who’s gone astray, the franchise goes after personal assets. They take the coach to court to enforce the agreement. If the coach owns property, they’ll attack it. If they can garnish accounts, they will. In some states, it’s become standard practice to sue a franchisee in default in order to get the franchisee to agree to a lesser amount or reduced payments. Then if the franchisee fails to deliver, the business coaching franchise can have them arrested for violating a court order.
It sounds extreme–and it is–but I’ve seen it happen over and over again.
Why are business coaching franchises so bold in their enforcement of these contracts?
It comes down to one thing: they have to keep everyone else in line.
If they let one failing franchisee out of their contract without a fight, there would be a large scale mutiny, as a majority of franchisees are profoundly disappointed in their earnings.
From there, the whole franchise would fall apart.
So they keep driving you long after the point where anyone with common sense would throw in the towel. They recite the party line right up until your house is about to be sold at the county courthouse: “Try harder! Stop blaming the system! Get ‘above the line’ and start taking responsibility for yourself and your own results!”
And, of course, on some level this is true and good advice. But beating people continuously with this stuff while they siphon away their life savings is ridiculous. Expecting you to honor your agreement is one thing; forcing you to make royalty payments when your business is failing and the last of your assets are being liquidated to survive another day is sheer brutality.
Expecting you to honor your agreement is one thing; forcing you to make royalty payments when your business is failing and the last of your assets are being liquidated to survive another day is sheer brutality.
But hey, at least they know that if you’re completely broke when you quit, you’ll be less likely to sue them back.
This is especially egregious when you consider the fact that the license is essentially virtual real estate and the hard costs on the franchisor’s part are almost completely (if not fully) covered in the set-up and initial training fees that they charge.
Business coaching franchises have essentially licensed you to copy their business model from a home office. To take such a hard-line approach gives a truly transparent view into the motives, perspective, and underlying attitudes displayed by many franchisors in this industry.
It’s been absolutely agonizing to watch coaches slowly whittle away their life savings because they’re afraid of retribution.
I don’t mean to freak you out, but when I say this is serious business, I mean it. Make sure you understand the agreement. Never agree to a personal guarantee, ever. If they won’t award you a franchise without the guarantee, then don’t walk, but run the other direction.
Want to know what other pitfalls you need to be aware of? Download a FREE copy of our ebook, The Business Coaching Franchise Buyer’s Guide to get a behind-the-scenes look at the games business coaching franchises play–and how you can come out on top.
