Franchisor Spotlight: FocalPoint Coaching

By: Tim Parmeter on 02/14/2019

This month’s Franchisor Spotlight shines on FocalPoint. FranCoach recently sat down to speak with FocalPoint’s Senior Vice President, Dan Fields, to learn more about this amazing franchise opportunity. Dan is the Senior Vice President and part owner of Focal Point as well as being a certified FocalPoint business coach.Dan is also part owner of FocalPoint as well as a certified FocalPoint business coach. Check out what we learned during our conversation with him:

What is FocalPoint?

FocalPoint is a professional services franchise where owners are building their business coaching practice. FocalPoint owners are working mostly with small to midsize businesses, those in the $1-5M annual revenue range. These businesses are everywhere, and they tend to desperately need help with improving their business.Over the last 30 years, FocalPoint has figured out how to identify all the major problems any business has. FocalPoint coaches work with clients 1-1 on a weekly basis to help them identify all the problems, how to measure each problem, and then implement world-class solutions to turn the problem into a success.

There are four main areas FocalPoint coaches work with clients on:

Increase revenue and profits
Improve the people side of the business from hiring to training, and maximizing production of a high-performing team to talent retention
Planning and strategy – short, medium, and long-term business goals
Creating an exit strategy for the owners

These four categories can be broken down into 72 parts or potential problems. FocalPoint has determined that all businesses have these 72 different parts to them, regardless of industry. This means, FocalPoint coaches can work with their clients on each one of these over the lifetime of their relationship to help improve their business.

The work FocalPoint coaches do with clients creates real change in that owners’ business. In many cases, the affects are life changing resulting in the owner being able to work less, take family vacations, and send their kids to college.

What are some of the key differentiators for FocalPoint owners?

There are several. First, there is very little competition. The main perceived competitor is the individual leaving the corporate world who thinks they can do some consulting on their own. This is typically very limited in scope and only done until they can find another corporate gig. There are a few other coaching groups, but they typically have only one or two different revenue streams.

FocalPoint has nine different revenue streams for their coaches to utilize as they grow their business. A FocalPoint coach’s main revenue stream is 1-1 coaching with small business owners. However, some of the other revenue streams coaches can also tap into include group coaching, business workshops and training sessions for both corporate clients and small business owners, expense reduction projects, and numerous sophisticated assessments. FocalPoint owners can also grow their overall practice by bringing on up to three additional associates or partners.

Another huge differentiator surrounds FocalPoint’s longevity. FocalPoint has been in business so long it typically allows owners to acquire more clients, charge a higher amount per client, and then keep the clients significantly longer.

This longevity has also allowed FocalPoint to build up a massive, world-class array of content, tools, and materials for coaches to use with clients. FocalPoint coaches always have well organized modules at their fingertips. This means a FocalPoint coach always knows exactly what questions to ask their clients, which path to follow with clients to determine the biggest problems that should be attacked first, which solutions to implement to solve the problem, and then which problems to analyze and attack next.

What does FocalPoint look for in an owner?

There are several key traits. First, we look for someone with significant corporate management experience. Someone who has built teams, solved problems, and been a part of running a business. This person could also be someone who has run a business of their own.

Aside from their work experience, we look for a person who truly enjoys helping someone solve problems. Additionally, we look for someone who is genuinely nice, kind, gracious, patient, and of course someone who can follow a process. These are key elements to the FocalPoint culture.

A FocalPoint owner must relish the idea of helping stressed out small business owners by being able to simply sit down and have a relaxed comfortable conversation. The person must understand the importance of strong client management as a FocalPoint owner will build a very long-term relationship with each client.

Finally, a FocalPoint owner should not be scared of sales or prospecting.

What else should we know about the FocalPoint opportunity?

This is an enormous lifestyle opportunity. Owners are able to leverage what they learned from the corporate world to build their practice without worrying about having to learn something new.

Owners can also make big money. There are no employees, no equipment cost, no inventory, and no real estate required which allows FocalPoint coaches to operate with 90% margins on day one with the potential of being cash flow positive sometimes as soon as month two.

Furthermore, owners can make the money they want to make without having to kill themselves to do so like they did in the corporate world all while having an extreme lifestyle flexibility for the owner and their family.

Thank you for having this discussion with us, Dan! Here are some facts about FocalPoint: