Lewis Raymond Taylor is the Founder of The Coaching Masters, a tech-driven online coaching business for aspiring life coaches. A rapidly growing platform, The Coaching Masters has seen 100% year-on-year growth with over $4m in revenue to date, a thriving online and offline community and 5,000 customers from 71 countries.
Lewis Raymond Taylor, CEO and Founder at The Coaching Masters
Tell us about how The Coaching Masters came about.
My journey to the place I’m at now has been a very rocky one. I experienced abuse throughout my childhood and through my teens was on a downward spiral of crime and anti-social behaviour. I was expelled from school at 15, and by 18 I was serving my first sentence in a young offender’s institution. The following years were filled with drug, alcohol abuse and violence, and by the age of 24 I was serving my third prison sentence. The person I was, and the situation I was in, has hugely shaped where I am today.
During my third prison sentence, I was sitting on the edge of my bed and realised that I just couldn’t go on like I was. I decided to start making changes. I invested a lot of time in rediscovering myself. I worked with counsellors and read every self-help book I could find. I went into rehab for six months and attended 12-step drug and alcohol meetings daily. I also began volunteering with charities and realised how much I enjoy helping others, which led me to become interested in becoming a Life Coach and helping give back.
I am now the Founder and CEO of The Coaching Masters. This online coaching platform qualifies, accredits and helps people become coaches while providing coaching and guidance on how to market and build their businesses. The business has seen incredible growth and was recently valued at $ 25 million USD, which is mind-blowing. I split my time between the UK and Bali, which I’ve found has a great community of digital entrepreneurs, and I’m also a motivational speaker, speaking on stages across the world.
What inspired you to found the company?
The adversity I went through in my earlier years and the healing journey I went on inspired me to help others find their happiness. This, along with my charity work, led me to become a Life Coach, and it naturally grew from there. I started connecting with people on social media, and I built a solid client base within six months. Within eight months I was earning a six-figure income, and by the time I hit my first year in business, I was fully booked, with a dedicated online community of thousands of people and a monthly membership service designed to fulfil the demands of multiple clients.
I started to become inundated with requests from other coaches asking my secrets and how I was able to rise so quickly, so I shared my learning with them and they also saw some amazing results with their businesses. Fast forward three years, and I’m now a senior accredited coaching trainer, and the founder and CEO of The Coaching Masters. I have big ambitions for the business and there isn’t an end goal as such ‒ we’re focused purely on growing, helping more people fulfil their dreams of becoming coaches and expanding across the globe.
What services does The Coaching Masters offer?
The Coaching Masters is an online training platform and community for life coaches, which we make accessible and affordable for everyone. It’s based around a low-cost subscription model, leading to it becoming known as ‘The Netflix of coaching’. For $9.99 per month, there are 100s of hours of valuable coach training video content with the option to upgrade for further qualifications to elevate your coaching business.
Our online community is incredibly strong, and many of the people who participate in our courses form close connections. The vast majority of the business is still purely online. However, we recently launched ‘Café Coach’ – an offline hub for the coaching community ‒ which allows people to connect face-to-face. Café Coach is an inspiring place for other coaches to work, learn and meet. Our first branch is based in Bali.
Also, our new interactive app ‒ Coachapp ‒ is launching soon, and is unlike anything the coaching world has seen before. It connects coaches and coachees, enables users to grow with e-learning products, including accredited qualifications, cutting-edge virtual reality and artificial intelligence and enables coaches to exchange services and earn directly into their secure online wallet.
What has the biggest ‘pinch me’ moment since starting The Coaching Masters?
There have been a lot of moments where I can’t believe how far the business has come since I started but a stand out moment for me is definitely when the business was valued at $ 25 million USD. I’m still wrapping my head around it and find it incredible that the business I started has grown into this!
What advice would you give to someone who is considering starting their own business? There are three traits that you need to have if you are thinking about launching a business.
Resilience: Without resilience it’s highly likely you won’t be able to keep going. As a leader, you get knockbacks all the time; things not working, people who don’t agree with you or your vision, obstacles, etc. It would be easy not to push yourself forward and to stay with what’s comfortable and easy. Resilience gives you the strength to keep going, despite how hard it may be at times.
Vision: You have to be visionary in your approach. If you don’t think big then your business simply won’t grow; in fact, it may not even get off the ground. Your vision will also inspire others – in my case, it’s inspired our community of customers, my team and my investors.
Fast decision-making skills: As a leader, you need to make decisions virtually every day. You have to be nimble, think on your feet and make decisions quickly. These decisions also need to be strategically right for the business, as opposed to emotionally driven.
Who have been your biggest influences in starting a company?
I massively admire Steve Jobs, because he was very meticulous in his approach to things. Something that stuck out for me was when he was designing the Mac 2 he went to Pantone to select the correct colour and went through 2,000 different colours of beige to find the right one. Also, when he designed the iPhone 4 he wanted to make it smaller and his team told him it was impossible. Upon hearing this he threw the phone in a fish tank of water and air bubbles came out of the phone. As the air bubbles demonstrated there was space within the phone, he turned to his team and said: “See, I told you we could make it smaller.”
He just had an unshakeable belief that he could do what he set his mind to and I find it really inspiring.
You’ve come a long way since your teens. What has been your proudest moment in your personal life since then?
Without a doubt it was when I married my wonderful wife, Dayana. We were lucky enough to get married in Barcelona and it was a truly special day in a dream location. Seeing such a beautiful, inspirational woman walk down the aisle, and knowing she wanted to spend her life with me, really made me see how far I’ve come.
What plans have you got for the business over the next couple of years?
We recently did a fundraising campaign which gave savvy investors the opportunity to become shareholders in The Coaching Masters platform. This means we can hire more talented team members, help scale and innovate new technologies to help serve our customers more efficiently, and accelerate our marketing efforts to expand our user base internationally.
The funds will also help launch CoachApp ‒ our new interactive app.
Our online community is incredibly strong, and many of the people who participate in our courses form close connections. The vast majority of the business is still purely online. However, we recently launched ‘Café Coach’ – an offline hub for the coaching community ‒ which allows people to connect face-to-face. Café Coach is an inspiring place for other coaches to work, learn and meet. Our first branch is based in Bali. We have plans to scale this and launch more Café Coach hubs in 2023.
How do you set yourself apart from others in the industry?
We put a lot of time and energy into really going the extra mile for our customers. I know it sounds a bit cliche but showing you care is something that so many businesses just don’t do and it counts for a lot. For example, sending a message in between coaching sessions to check in or sharing extra information or knowledge adds a lot to their experience. Coaching is often quite a personal relationship and so showing it’s not simply transactional, but runs deeper than that, is important.
We’re also constantly look at how we can innovate with regards to the courses and services we offer. We want to give our members really amazing value for their money and we also want to encourage them to add to their skill sets and continue developing. Things like the CoachApp – which is unlike anything that is currently out there – is a great example of how we’re reinvigorating the way coaches operate and work their business.
Do you prioritise self-care as an entrepreneur?
Absolutely. Looking after myself has meant I can stay in a good place and work hard on my business. I have suffered with mental health issues, and I know how important keeping myself in a good mindset is. So many people are obsessed with getting the perfect morning routine or working out for hours every day, but I think it’s more important to find what habits work best for you. Maybe it’s taking a yoga class once a week, surfing when the waves are good or going for a run when you need some time to clear your head.
I also surround myself with positive people; people who have the same goals as me and share my vision. This makes sticking to my plans, and growing, so much easier.
