Dear Dan,

I want to thank you for the opportunities you and The Growth Coach have provided for my family and me. Your support as well as the support of the entire corporate office has been tremendous. As you know, I’ve owned several franchises and also worked at the corporate office of a franchisor. There are outstanding franchises, average ones, and poor ones. The Growth Coach clearly falls in the outstanding category in all respects.

Honesty and integrity are extremely important to me, and I try to run my business and life ethically with the highest level of integrity I can. One of the reasons I chose to invest in The Growth Coach was the sincerity and integrity I felt existed with you and Gary Green. As you may recall, I told both of you I was going to trust all you said and follow the system. Thank you to both you and Gary for living up to my expectations of integrity and trust. You have not once let me down, and my trust in you is greater than ever. I consider both of you very good friends and have the utmost respect for you.

My dealings with Greg Scheingold have also been outstanding. He is very dedicated, responsive, and intuitive and is a definite asset for The Growth Coach team.

I’ve worked very hard since beginning the business. My financial goals have been exceeded and the future looks quite bright. The marketing and coaching process flat out works. I very much look forward to a long relationship with you and am very excited about what the future holds.

Thank you again Dan. Please express my gratitude to Gary and Greg.

Sincerely,
Mark S. Eldridge
Owner, The Growth Coach
Omaha, Nebraska

Dear Dan,

Thank you…Thank you…Thank you! You were right when I talked with you over 18 months ago about becoming part of The Growth Coach Franchise System. I was looking for a business that would keep me active in the business world, one that I could help business owners and professionals achieve their business and personal goals and still achieve my business and personal goals… while working only 50 percent of my time. The Growth Coach was exactly what I was looking for and I am grateful to you and Gary Green for what this organization has done for me and my clients. The Growth Coach is a first class organization and I am very proud to be a part of such a positive, growing and caring group of people.

After owning my own business for over 25 years and selling it, I thought I would be satisfied with retiring at the age of 50. I was wrong! I needed something more, but I didn’t want to get back into the 70 to 80 hour work weeks. The Growth Coach has been a wonderful way for me to earn a substantial income on a part-time basis while helping people become more successful in their businesses and better balanced in their lives. What a wonderful way to go through life!

After I completed your extensive training class in December of 2006, I was confident, focused and fully prepared to start delivering our coaching process. I immediately scheduled January 25th and January 31st, 2007 to conduct my first two Quarter 1 Strategic Mindset Workshops. I worked on promoting these workshops just like I was taught in training and was fortunate enough to have a terrific turnout of referral sources and clients attend these two workshops. Furthermore, the outstanding evaluations from these clients further proved to me that there was a true and deep need for this type of coaching. Business owners and professionals are seeking help and this “business coaching process” is exactly what they need.

In the past 16 months, I have launched six additional Strategic Mindset Workshop tracks and have been very pleased with the number of clients attending each session. In particular, the number of paying clients attending my February 19, 2008 workshop far exceeded my expectations – I was thrilled to say the least.

This first year in business I have had many clients totally improve and change their life – becoming more successful in their business and more balanced in their personal life. I have clients that have taken their first vacations in 5 to 7 years because they were totally imprisoned by their business. They are now beginning to realize the importance of working “on” their business rather than working “in” their business.

Many clients after reading our “Becoming a Strategic Business Owner” book have told me that it was the best business book they have ever read. This book and our Quarterly Strategic Mindset Workshops have totally changed their lives for the better. One business owner told me that 2008 is the year he is taking charge of his business rather than the business taking charge of his life… and he is proving it through his actions in our Strategic Planner. The positive changes I have seen in clients are phenomenal.

My experience this past year has helped me see two things very clearly concerning The Growth Coach:

1. If you work your business plan (as we were taught in training), you will get clients willing to pay and attend the quarterly workshops.
2. Our powerful “Coaching Process” absolutely works!

The franchise investment fee, training and marketing expenses are insignificant compared to the huge potential this franchise offers me. My ability to earn a wonderful income even on a part-time basis is terrific, but the feeling of personal satisfaction in helping people achieve their business and personal goals in life has humbled me.

I cannot begin to tell you how it feels when clients and spouses of clients come up to me and thank me for helping them achieve their dreams in life. I thank them for the nice compliment and tell them they had the answers within themselves all along. My job is to help them become accountable to themselves through our on-going quarterly “coaching process” so they can discover what they need to do to help themselves… and then take action on their goals by following our Strategic Planner. It is a great feeling being so involved in helping others!

I feel very fortunate to be able to be part of The Growth Coach organization and very glad that I retired from retirement.

Thank you again,
David A. Miller
Owner, The Growth Coach
Southeastern Iowa

Dear Dan,

I hope all is well with you and your family this 2008. Things are going great in Dallas. We are busy and we have a number of things in the works.

I wanted to take a minute and drop you a note and let you know that I am extremely honored to be a part of the Growth Coach franchise system. I have been involved a little over a year, and this business has exceeded my expectations in almost every way.

I am truly experiencing the freedom that we talk about in our quarterlies. I have been able to apply almost every aspect of the system to my business and it has worked. What I have discovered is that the system works as long as I follow it. The only times I have had any struggles has been when I have tried my own thing or failed to follow the process. Thanks to the operations staff, who have always been there for me, I have been able to get back on track and see this business do what I believe it is capable of doing.

I have aligned all my resources around this business and expect to grow the business even more in 2008. Thanks also for all the support materials and resources you make available. I use the intranet every day to get the information and stuff that I need to do my business. It has become an invaluable resource to me.

I have also benefited greatly from other franchise owners who have willingly shared ideas and feedback. I appreciate the conferences where we have a chance to meet and talk about our businesses. I probably have learned more about how to be successful in this business from the veterans out there, than just about anything else. I have good neighboring franchise owners and we all work together to grow the brand in the Metroplex.

Thank you again for your vision and diligence and creating a system that allows someone like me to help so many people and make some serious money doing it. As we talked about at the national meeting, I am truly grateful for this business. Please let me know how I can help you or any other franchise owners in the future.

Best Regards,
Mike Mirau
Owner, The Growth Coach
Dallas, Texas

Dear Dan,

As I complete five years as a Growth Coach® franchise owner, I thought it would be helpful to you, your organization, and other prospective business coaches for me to share my thoughts and experiences on paper. As the very first franchise owner in the system and the owner of four Growth Coach territories, my insights may be useful to prospective franchisees.

To begin with, let me express my heartfelt thanks to you and Gary Green for being great business partners. Everything you guys promised you delivered, and vice versa. Together, we created a wonderful partnership and as a result, hundreds of small business owners in the Greater Cincinnati area have achieved greater success and personal balance from my coaching and our powerful coaching process. Also, we now have a robust franchise system with business coaches in over 140 markets helping clients throughout North America. I am happy to have contributed to our system’s growing success.

Some prospective franchisees ask me about the risk of being the first franchisee. After viewing the intellectual property that you had developed, my perception of risk dissipated. I knew that I could make the material applicable for our clients and thereby make a difference in their businesses and lives.

Likewise, I am sometimes asked if the risk was worth it and would I do it again? Absolutely! If I were to use one word to describe the overall benefits and experience of owning this business coaching franchise, it would be “richness”. This business, coupled with my hard work and passion, has enriched my life in financial terms as well as in new relationships, greater fulfillment, personal growth, additional freedom and personal time with my family and friends, and is a perfect platform for my creative expression. Overall, this business has exceeded my professional and personal goals and provided additional richness to my family, my clients, and me.

A person who hadn’t seen me in awhile asked me how I liked coaching. My response was that I feel more energized at the end of the day than I do at the beginning. It made me think back to my corporate days and how seldom I would have been able to say that truthfully. Clearly, there is something about contributing to other people’s lives that is energizing and rewarding. I can cite story after story of real people who have made significant, meaningful changes to themselves, their businesses, and their lives as a result of being catalyzed by our coaching & accountability process and my passionate guidance. That richness is gratifying. I have also come to know with certainty that there is not a small business owner alive who could not benefit dramatically from our coaching process – the marketplace need is immense.

Personally, I can see clearly that I am a different, better person than I was five years ago and this profession will continue to enable my growth and development. It is even more exciting to realize that there is really no limit to the types of people that I can meet and the experiences that I can have in this profession. As a curious person who loves learning and a diversity of experiences – it doesn’t get any better.

Let me also acknowledge and thank The Growth Coach operations team. Their, and your support, have been remarkable and unwavering. I never hesitate to ask for help when needed and they never hesitate to help. I truly value being in business for myself but not by myself, including the ability to seek input from other franchisees.

Finally, Dan, let me take this opportunity to recognize the value and transformative power of the unique intellectual property you developed over fifteen years ago – there is nothing else like it in the marketplace. While it is my responsibility as a coach to bring the material alive and help our clients to apply it, the material itself is very powerful in helping our clients to change their mindsets and behavior. Our coaching process puts the client front and center in developing their own solutions – helping them to discover the strategic changes they need to make and then being held accountable to themselves so they achieve those outcomes.

With a committed client, the strategic focusing process works time and time again no matter the owner, business or industry. While results are not “instant pudding”, clients are invariably thrilled with the outcomes if they stick with the process. Best of all, I get to witness the transformation and elation of my clients, much like I have experienced as a basketball coach when a kid who nobody thought would develop into much of a player steals the ball and makes their first lay-up -- again, a wonderful feeling of richness.

The other day, I was talking to a fellow entrepreneurial client who was struggling. His perspective says it all…he said, “A bad day owning my own business is better than a good day working for someone else in the corporate world.” Amen to that.

Thanks for all the richness, Dan.

Tim Shepelak
Owner, The Growth Coach
Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky

Dear Dan,

I just finished talking with another potential Growth Coach franchisee (the third this week) and I was moved to write this letter to you as I thought about and recounted all the reasons why Boyd and I have been pleased with our franchise purchases.

The first reason is that the intellectual property that you have put together and make available to the franchisees is invaluable to us. We use and leverage the information and presentations for coaching, speaking engagements, proposals, and articles. Regardless of the length of our speaking slots and the audience, we can always find something on the intranet to help us prepare and present with confidence.

The GC system and processes absolutely work and are impressive to talk about. We ask questions that uncover pain and discomfort that may be have been hiding in our prospective client’s subconscious and it is a relief for them to be able to talk about it and know that they can be helped.

Whether you have no coaching experience whatsoever or significant coaching experience like we do, the Growth Coach’s unique and powerful coaching process allows a new franchisee to become a competent and confident coach out of the gate. You will guide your clients through the process and they will do all the thinking, planning and writing. Everything your clients need is contained in the coaching process. We also appreciate that the process includes a significant amount of life coaching since our philosophy is the way someone “does” life is the way they “do” their business and they continue to bring their personal baggage into the business environment unless and until that baggage is handled. As we debrief at the end of a workshop, we hear both business and personal insights and breakthroughs that came out of the workshop. The recognition and acknowledgement of life issues in our coaching is one of our strongest unique selling propositions (USP’s).

Speaking of USP’s, the money back guarantee is also impressive. We can stand behind it in quarterly workshops and one-to-one sessions and know that our clients are aware that all they need do is ask and they will receive their money back without a problem. That said, no one ever asks for a refund which is a testament to the system. We know that our clients are pleased and they will refer because they have gotten value.

The Growth Coach gives us credibility that opens doors that may be closed to independent coaches. I have had the opportunity to teach at the college level, gain one of the coveted speaking slots through my Chamber, and was selected as a contract trainer for an internationally recognized customer service training program that I will present as a Growth Coach special project.

The regular franchise conference calls and individual coaching calls that Corporate makes available to us are very helpful. Communication between the coaches is key as we are constantly finding new prospecting avenues and learning from our colleagues. We would not have the opportunity to share if not for the calls that Corporate arranges.

Finally, we have found you and everyone at the home office to be supportive, helpful, warm and fair in all of our dealings. We know there are many franchise organizations out there that have an “us vs. them” mentality and The Growth Coach is at the other extreme. We feel that you do what you do so that we can thrive and prosper. As the saying goes, “if you help enough people get what they want, you will always get what you want.” That is the feeling from Corporate.

Thanks for building such a quality organization with great systems and processes and we are proud to be The Growth Coach franchise owners.

Warmly,
Sheryl Spangler and Boyd Harrell
Franchise Owners, Seattle, WA and Brandon, FL