The Online Coaching Clinic

1996 - 2018

Say you want to create a nice blog to memorialize yourself before you die. A pro tip to get expert help is recruit college students studying web design. They come cheap. Here's how I learned that.

I invented The Online Coaching Clinic on February 9, 1996 about four years after I left my last ever job and relaunched myself as an executive coach.

It’s been an existential challenge to turn a simple internet business idea into a marketable product, to find partners, associates and consultants and sell a leading edge concept into the always revolutionary corporate education market. Many times I’ve had to question whether I was doing something worthwhile or just following another vanity project.

By 1996 my coaching business was ticking along and I was ready to distract my momentum by chasing a shiny object. The new idea I needed bubbled up at an elearning conference where I saw a speaker, Vaughn McIntyre, say “soon we'll have access to web based learning for a dime a lesson”. This ignited the idea that I could digitize my coaching ideas and sell them online.

I approached Vaughn and we hit it off. He was the VP of Organizational Development at Star Data building a learning management system that would incorporate web based content. My idea fit right in and he engaged me to develop something.

‘Something’ was an important word because I didn't know what I was doing and had to invent an application. Which I did with many trials and errors.

An expert in the field later called my application,  ‘an elegant solution’. I replicated an actual coaching session in an online module. My design was to succinctly present an idea coupled with open ended questions that stimulated creative and reflective thinking.

The first modules I created for Vaughn were forty five minutes long. Research showed us that fifteen minutes would be better so I adapted the nine original long modules into what eventually became 181 shorter modules.

Topics included Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Communication, Marketing and other professional skills. I spent hundreds of hours creating the modules using a dialect I concocted to sound like it came from Silicon Valley.

Within a year or so the project with Vaughn fell apart when he left Star Data and his vision was lost. I explored other partners who could get me up and running.

One expensive agonizing gambit was to get into business with a Lotus Notes consultant. That fell apart when we hired lawyers to create a partnership agreement.

But it had actually failed sooner. I just didn't know. Lotus Notes was not the right application. I was trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole. A good life lesson.

Then I hired consultant web developers who had a good reputation. That didn't work either. They couldn't interpret my vision in a way we both liked.

That was another life lesson. Don't hire a dog if you want to bark yourself.

Then the pro tip came into play.

In 2000 my future son in law suggested I hire college students to help me. He thought they had know how and would work cheaply without too much ego. He was right. I found a married couple in the engineering department at Ryerson. Aqeel was an electrical engineering student at the time and his wife Shazia was in Computer Science.

While I had had lots of fun when I traveled in Muslim countries I had never had a friend or business relationship with any. So this was going to be a new experience. And it has been a good one.

Shazia and Aqeel had a lot to offer to supplement my elegant ideas. They liked the extra money and wanted to make the vision work. They managed my expectations and their own. Their efforts paid off handsomely.

In short order we had a workable and, I thought attractive, online presence. It was something I was able to sell. Three early clients got us off to a fast start. They were The Law Society of Upper Canada, The City of Toronto and Nortel. Good brands and credibility for The Online Coaching Clinic.

One accomplishment in 2001 while still in our infancy was that I was able to get the Learning Division of McGraw Hill to partner a roll out of The Online Coaching Clinic through their sales force in the USA. That was going to get me over the Rubicon.

But alas it wasn't to be. McGraw Hill’s press release announcing our deal was released to the media on September 10, 2001. Bad luck. After 9/11 McGraw Hill Learning fell on bad times and our association ended.

So by the end of 2001 I'd had some ups and downs with The Online Coaching Clinic. Three good life lessons. First; don't let a poverty mentality let you settle for something that's not right. Second, ensure you have common goals with partners; remember, don't hire a dog if you want to bark yourself and third managing expectations is a two way street.

I met Valerie Walls as part of the McGraw Hill debacle. She lost her job and we started working together but more importantly became friends. One night over a drunken couples dinner with our wives the subject of children came up when Valerie and her very attractive wife, Serra, announced they'd like to have a child.

So here's one last lesson; unless you're in Hollywood be subtle when offering to father another couple’s child, no matter how much alcohol is involved and don't beg and don't be persistent.

I’m closing The Online Coaching Clinic. Shazia is doing the project alone. She and Aqeel split after having three kids. Go figure.

The business has lasted 22 years which is a long time in internet business land. I've made some money and met some interesting people along the way. Just what I hoped for.

October 12, 2018