Investment For My Future

Helen Pethybridge worked in senior HR roles for 13 years at global brands before redundancy allowed her to take time to consider her future

Finding the right franchise

“My research took me to the British Franchise Association’s website. I clicked through to business services franchises and found business coaching. I was immediately excited, seeing that this would give me the chance to be involved strategically, much wider than just HR.

“I decided to take ActionCOACH through to the due diligence stage, as it showed potential for a great income without topping out. In January, I went to ActionCOACH University - 10 days to totally immerse myself in the culture and training to set myself up as best I could.

“The calibre of the trainers was excellent and that has continued into all aspects of support I have received from the UK team. The support and collaboration at ActionCOACH has been outstanding. I feel like I’ve got as many friends at work as I did in my corporate life. I’m an extrovert and I get energy from other people. As an Action Coach, I still get that interaction and energy from my fellow franchise owners.

“While I was training, ActionCOACH’s exclusive client generation centre was working to secure initial meetings with prospective clients and this is how I signed my first client.”

Reaching the goal of £10,000 a month

“I was most nervous about selling to secure new clients. However, ActionCOACH gave me the training to overcome this. I feel more comfortable promoting ActionCOACH the service than promoting just me, Helen.

“One of the suggestions at training is that we practice our client generation seminar on friends and family. I invited my old team from Pepsico to this dry run and their feedback was really positive.

“I signed my second client from my first public seminar and the following two clients came from ActionCOACH’s exclusive client generation centre.

Each client has fortnightly one-to-one coaching and this generates a client income of nearly £5,000 a month. “My goal is to take on another four clients by the end of my first year, so that I reach £10,000 a month in client income. My long-term vision for the business is to have employed coaches and a business development manager.”

In control of my future

“My husband, Guy, travels with work and having cut out my long commute to work every day, I made two commitments to myself. Firstly, I wanted to get to watch my sons at their Wednesday afternoon school rugby matches. Secondly, I wanted a horse riding lesson each week to improve my skills and enjoy something just for me.

“Before redundancy, I was the main breadwinner in the family. It felt good knowing I could use this redundancy money as an investment opportunity to future-proof my career. I’m now in control of my destiny where the speed of progression is my choice and it’s up to me to decide when I want to reduce my hours, when to retire and what work I choose to do.”