Your Questions Answered
Before making a life-changing decision to become a business coach and a Pendleton Partner you no doubt have plenty of questions.
While our team is always happy to talk things through over a call many of the questions we get asked on these calls can be found here.
We hope they help you further in your decision to begin your journey to join one of the most emotionally and financially rewarding steps of your life!
If you still have questions that are not answered here then get in touch.
Due Diligence
Firstly, I want to say we endorse and support you making sensible precautionary investigations about this programme before deciding to commit to it. We are proud of what we’ve built here so far and the mission we are on. We are proud of every member of our network. We feel we are an ethical and dedicated group that is passionate about our success and our clients and every partner in our group.
We also recognise that, as with any rapidly growing business, most people joining us are recent joiners, and the model is evolving (and improving) every year. So, some of our stats and data will naturally reflect the stage of our journey, more than the long-term trends of a big old company. The picture is changing and improving all the time for us still, and so you need to engage with your entrepreneur’s hat on, not just your accountant’s hat.
Secondly, we want to ask for your understanding because we have to balance the needs and wishes of our clients and coaches against your needs as a prospect. They must always come first. The reason for that is that they have already shown us trust, faith and commitment, and we are committed beyond anything to repaying that trust in return. If you join us, we will offer you the same. But if you ask us for confidential/private data, or demand too much of their time, to make your decision easier at their expense, then we will politely decline.
If you are willing to decide based on the (extensive) public information out there about us, and which we cover in the several hours of calls with you before asking you to sign anything. Great! If not, we would ask you to wait and engage when you are ready to show us that faith. Waiting for perfect information is the path to inaction. So please understand, we can’t give you absolute certainty.
This brings us neatly to the final thing we have to say. YOU are by far the most significant factor impacting the chances of your success with our programme. You will hear statistics, case studies, testimonials and so on, but not one of those business owners, however similar or different they are, is a predictor of your success or failure. Not even a little bit. Because if you believe in the quality of our model when you look at it, and when you hear how we will work with you to build your practice, if you commit to that programme and process, it will likely succeed, and if you don’t it will likely fail.
So, ultimately, are you willing to work hard? Are you ready to try things that might put you outside your comfort zone a little? Are you willing to stick to tasks and not get distracted by what others are doing? Are you ready to ask for help if you struggle with something?
If we are there working hard to support you, do you think you have what it takes to be the boss of your practice? If so, we will put our reputation on the line with you and fight to make you successful too.
Our ethos is that we all trust each other and succeed together.
If you are good with that, join us. If not, no hard feelings. It just isn’t for you.
In 2010 Rob founded a luxury adventure travel brand which he sold to a mid-market Travel Agency in Scotland in 2013.
In 2011 Rob started a concierge bookings service for which he was voted South West Entrepreneur of the Year 2012, and which he sold to Wyndham’s in 2014.
In 2015 Rob moved back into Transformation and Growth Consulting, for a mix of larger companies, Governmental bodies and SME businesses, under the Pendleton Global brand his family incorporated in 2009, and following the success of his keynote address at the National Business Growth Show in Birmingham in 2020, the Pendleton Partners scheme has expanded from 3 to 30 coaches in just two years.
Pendleton Global is the lean central hub around which the franchisees own businesses operate.
Most of the experts who support the central team hold their own businesses and are paid through retainers and bonus payments.
Client contracts are struck directly with coaches, and fees for client access to the Business Waterwheelheel™ system are paid to Pendleton on a monthly basis from client takings.
Over the last 2 years (since our keynote address at the National Business Growth Show in Birmingham) we have grown 10x, so the picture is one of stable beginnings, followed by rapid growth.
We aim to have 200 coaches, in the UK and in a limited selection of other countries, by 2025, and over 1000 across the world by 2030.
Multiple hundreds of businesses worldwide have completed at least one circuit of the Business Waterwheel™, and a high proportion renews to retain access year after year.
Because of the huge, incremental value we’ve observed when a client works with a coach, we’ve consciously reduced numbers going through the online programme and promoted working with Pendleton Partners around the world as they come onboard.
Clients who work with coaches stay engaged for longer and see even better results!
Licenses are priced based on the primary operating location of the Partner’s business but allow them to practice anywhere in the world.
Most people find their first clients local to them or from their contacts network, but referrals can be anywhere, so it’s important to have the option!
We only sell to Partners who we believe can add great value to their clients and who add skills and experience to our network.
Attitude, trust and respect are critical.
The SME marketplace is so big (on average, there are ~10,000 SMEs in every 25-mile radius) that territories don’t make sense.
So instead, we allow each coach to reserve 50 leads that no other Pendleton Partner can prospect, and as they say yes or no, the coach can replace them on their list.
So far, we have never seen a conflict arise; this is just us planning ahead!
Simple, if you are ready to be a Business Coach, you want to work for yourself.
Employee Coaches taking home 25% of the fees their work generates tend to become quickly dissatisfied and leave to set up their own business!
We help shortcut this process by giving prospective business coaches a tried and tested approach to get started.
And if someone isn’t ready to be a coach in their own right, we don’t expose a client to them.
So the right thing to do is give experienced individuals the programme and support they need to build a coaching practice and deliver a proven product to their clients.
It is a win, win, win for clients, coaches and the central organisation.
For an average to be meaningful, you have to account for the three main types of practice that coaches want to build.
1. A part-time, side-line or semi-retired coach will want ~5-6 clients for a £50k top-up to their income on just a few working days per month.
2. A full-time coach will want ~15-20 clients for a £150k+ income off around 20h work per week.
3. A practice builder will want over 20 clients and will typically pass the coaching to others in the group to earn a passive income while selling to progressively more clients.
Our system caters to all three models perfectly, so they can choose the style and size of their portfolio and know the infrastructure is behind them, ready to deliver.
Sorry, but no.
We have strict confidentiality agreements and our job is to make their time MORE efficient, so they can sell more, more easily and live a better life.
Using them as unpaid salespeople for us would be totally against our ethics and mission.
Sales and Marketing
While this is a “how long is a piece of string” question in practice, typically, coaches who complete the training to shape their brand and reputation and then build relationships with suitable SME owners over the first two months can secure the first “Yes” in month three.
After that, we say to budget one new client each month, but you can find one good performance at a networking event could lead to three sign-ups in a day.
Inherently what you put in, you get out, to an extent, and we are there to support you, not do it for you.
So if you don’t have the desire and willingness to challenge yourself, don’t start this!
The beauty of The Business Waterwheel™ is that it focuses on the 80% of good business practices common to all businesses, more than the 20% specific to the industry, location, and owner/team.
As such, it has helped businesses in 15+ sectors and industries.
We’ve also served businesses from 3-4 employees to 3-4000 employees and companies from the UK to New Zealand and the US to India.
So the profile is broad! However, we tend to hit a sweet spot with 5-15 person companies looking to grow to 50 and 15-50 person companies looking to grow to 500.
Relationship building! Pure and simple. You have to have a great programme to sell, a proven track record and strong marketing collateral, but people buy people at the end of the day. So we use basic human psychology to tap into what clients need, want and are nervous about, and show how we can help make the problem and all the consequent problems disappear.
The process only takes a month, and in the end, you don’t need to sell. They ask to buy!
Tonnes! And more than pretty much everyone else in the coaching industry.
Most training programmes out there are ‘academic’ in nature.
Ours is actual business development.
We will get you leads, we will turn up on the sales calls with you, and we will even be there to help if you come across a complex client problem you can’t unlock.
This is our edge! We go the extra mile here.
Of the Pendleton Partners who actively set out to achieve full time or practice builder practices and who have followed the programme entirely for the 12-18 months it takes to get there, the majority have hit or exceeded their targets.
So, why is that not 100%? In real life, people change plans, take breaks, have illnesses, enjoy other opportunities, and some get lazy or satisfied with the status quo.
That’s fine! We want you to be happy and prosperous.
The second answer is that you are asking the wrong question…
Why does it matter if a different person in a different place gets a better or worse result from a training programme than you? People flunk out of Oxbridge Universities, and some get 1st Class Degrees from others.
We ask you to look at the programme we offer, speak to us, and then look at yourself!
If you can be a success with us to support you, great. If you don’t believe in it, walk away!
We spend most of our effort on those who engage and work hardest, find things they are afraid of, and ask for the help they need and who never give up. If that’s you, the sky is the limit.
We won’t leave anyone behind, but we are not your school teacher, parent, or boss. Personal responsibility is a huge part of building a coaching business.
And no one else is as significant a factor in your success as you are!
Yes, and no. We have clear strategies that we know work because Big 4 consultancies have used them for a century.
We have modern techniques like handwritten letters done for you by an AI-powered robot.
But NOTHING beats relationship building. And that is between you and your prospects. We can show you the best ways to engage and excite your prospects, and we do.
And, we are right there to do the selling with you, once you have someone interested. However, the process that turns a prospect into YOUR client comes from individuals liking and respecting each other.
On the plus side, this is what makes it such a great business to be in! You get to do golf days, track days, sporting events, fine dining clubs, charity dinners, retreats, all sorts with people you genuinely like and help succeed.
Think of it as teamwork, but with a personal touch front and centre.
The approach we use is completely tried and tested, put in the effort, build momentum, and it WILL win you all the clients you need to be a success! Pendleton blends proven business development methods that have stood the test of time in the world’s best consulting firms with modern, entrepreneurial sales and marketing techniques. These are all part of the course, brought to life through Rob’s one-on-one coaching.
Rob Pendleton has personally trained thousands of people in the business advisory industry. These people have gone on to find tens, even hundreds of thousands of clients, ready to buy advisory services.
The world’s most successful business service professionals use many of these same processes to find and secure new clients. And Rob will help you learn to deploy them hands-on!
Pendleton’s simple yet effective approach is new to the world of business coaching. We reject the “lone wolf”, “used car salesman”, “self-aggrandising” techniques that dominate the coaching world today. The rapid growth of Pendleton itself during a global pandemic is a testament to the effectiveness of this approach.
And, Rob always practices what his Business Waterwheel TM preaches. Every year he invests his own time and money in the latest methods and training from the world’s top experts in the fields of sales and marketing. Rob’s diligence in business development ensures not only the growth of Pendleton but, by extension, the growth of all the Partners in our network. A success that directly benefits all our clients too. Be part of something exciting and life-changing. Build your practice with us!
Coaching
Absolutely! And we want them to interview you too, to make sure you will be a valuable addition to our network.
We thrive on quality, and we believe a chat with an independent business owner who is on the other side of the decision you are making is an important part of the due diligence process.
That said, a conversation with a coach comes near the end of your journey in becoming a Pendleton Partner.
One of the key reasons people join Pendleton as a Business Coach is the lifestyle that we give them. Filling their calendars with phone calls with potential new coaches would undermine our mission.
Absolutely not! Coaching is a trust-based business, and confidentiality is critical. Sensitive business and personal matters often get discussed during coaching sessions.
We also respect that many business owners don’t want it to be public that they receive coaching and certainly would not want financial or strategic decisions exposed to members of the public. Business Coaching for many companies gives them a competitive advantage, and revealing this would allow competitors to leverage the power of coaching themselves.
Pendleton also takes its mission to add more value than it takes from its relationships with both coaches and clients. So we don’t use either to help us sell our service unless they volunteer.
We save them time and make them money. And compensating them for paid promotion doesn’t sit right either. So we don’t do this.
Unlike almost all other coaching companies out there, the vast majority of our coach training is delivered one on one directly with Rob Pendleton, the founder of the business (generally via video calls).
Over time, we acknowledge that Rob will need to share more responsibility.
Still, his view is that it’s critical to make sure every coach gets the very best service right at the start of their career, as this makes the biggest difference and is when we see the widest range of skill gaps.
The personal approach counts, and while we have put a lot into our videos and workbooks, that time with people like Rob, who have been there and done it, is motivational and inspiring and leads to the best outcome for new coaches.
The training covers learning the Business Waterwheel™ and applying it to grow your own business. This is critical because you always feel one step ahead of your clients! But, of course, it goes much further in the particular field of building a successful consulting and coaching practice.
We start with building your brand and reputation online so that when you meet your first prospects and they research you, your profile screams business coaching and business growth expertise. That is critical to getting in the door at all.
Then we teach how to identify prospects and typically provide a list of 50 leads that meet each coaches’ chosen industry, size and location targets and our profile for a Waterwheel client. We show how to research clients, identify talking points, and build relationships with business leaders. When you’ve got a “fish on the hook”, we help reel them in, actively joining the sales calls to team sell the way PwC or Deloitte would. We show how to onboard and deliver the coaching programme and teach a range of consulting techniques.
It is all about getting you to a profitable practice as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Operation
The Business Waterwheel™ is round for a reason. We start with a maturity assessment, which guides the growth and improvements we target in the first circuit of the wheel.
But after one turn around the Waterwheel™, the business will be different, the market will be different, competitors will be different, the world will be different. So we assess again and go again.
We want relationships that will last for years! And since the programme generates great value to the business, we see the vast majority come back year after year.
Sustainable change takes time, and compound growth begins with minor improvements that you repeat again and again.
Since the pandemic, 95%+ of our meetings have gone online. It is far more efficient and actually forces better focus and preparation from the clients, who want to maximise the progress they make.
The first meeting each month turns ‘Strategy into action’… Reviewing the strategic ideas of the client, challenging them, offering external perspective, and helping the business owner feel confident in their ideas, then turning them into clear plans.
At the end of the month, the second meeting makes sure the operational and tactical delivery of that plan is in progress, assigning catch up actions or direction pivots to the right people before picking up the next area for a strategic review.
Small and logical steps month after month will guide a business to optimal improvement and growth.
Yes, exactly. They are your clients, using our system and with you both getting consulting support from the wider group at the times you need it.
World-class advice, delivered with peak efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Absolutely. You deserve to have your own choice of name on the shop front and sell whatever products and services you wish.
We have a proven product in this space for you to get started with and specialise around. We are happy for our (highly lucrative, fun and effective) service to compete with others you may wish to sell, and the ongoing costs only get paid when your clients choose to buy it.
Can’t say fairer than that!
