You got into this work to coach. Almost nobody got into it to run a business. This course closes the gap - in a disciplined order.
The opening lesson. It's the distinction the rest of the course turns on.
Lesson 1.1.1 · 7 minutes · Module 1, Unit 1: Working IN vs Working ON. Or browse the Tandem Coaching channel.
Most "business of coaching" programs sell scarcity, push you up an upsell ladder, and quote income figures that don't hold up to scrutiny. This one doesn't.
Six practical shifts. Each is something you'll do differently in your own coaching business the week after you finish.
Distinguish operator work from coaching work, name the five operator decisions you've been avoiding, and place yourself realistically on the 10-year arc.
Pick a defensible niche from a single sheet of paper, run it through three falsification tests, and decide when to re-niche instead of grinding harder.
Build a one-page offer with packaging, tiers, and a price you can quote without flinching - tied to client outcome, not hours sold.
The discovery call IS a coaching conversation. Run it with presence, contracting, and the discernment that converts without compromising the work.
The B2B move: sponsor, client, and coach in the room together. Confidentiality, scope, success criteria, and the line that keeps the coaching protected.
The capstone artifact: your offer, your pricing, your channel mix, your discovery-call script, your year-1 numbers. One page, defensible, yours to revise as the practice changes.
From naming a niche through pricing, sales, B2B contracting, operations, ethics, AI, and growth - ending with a one-page Practice Operating Plan you'll keep using as your practice changes.
If you're claiming these hours toward a credential, here's how each of the eight ICF Core Competencies shows up in the course - the ones we go deep on, and the ones we touch in passing.
Deepened means at least one full lesson teaches the competency directly. Touched means it shows up in a scenario or example. A detailed lesson-by-competency map is included in your learner workspace once you enroll.
Two quick lists so you can self-select before you enroll.
Not "led by" - written, recorded, and reviewed by an active Master Certified Coach who is also the co-founder of the firm. The numbers come from inside the business, not from outside the industry.
Alex co-founded Tandem Coaching and built the operator side of the practice from zero - the contracts, the B2B sponsorship work, the pricing architecture, the AI back-office, the carrier choices. Direct, pragmatic, candid about numbers. The course teaches what an MCC-credentialed operator actually does to run a coaching practice that survives Year 3 and grows past Year 7, with the receipts to back the methodology.
About Alex86 short video lessons (5 to 9 minutes each). Watch on any device. Three suggested paths through the material so you can start where your practice is right now.
No 30-day, 90-day, or one-year limit. Come back to a module when your practice shifts - a new niche, a first corporate sponsor, a reposition.
Finish the verification checks and submit the one-page Practice Operating Plan capstone. You'll get a shareable certificate of completion suitable for LinkedIn and L&D reimbursement.
Niche statement, one-page offer, pricing architecture, discovery-call script, three-party contracting template, channel mix worksheet, Year-1 numbers, and the one-page Practice Operating Plan. Yours to revise as the practice changes.
40 accredited ICF CCE hours, structured around the operator discipline: niche, offer, sales, B2B contracting, operations, ethics, AI, and growth.
ICF has accredited this course for 40.0 CCE hours: 9 Core Competency and 31 Resource Development, including the 3 mandatory ethics hours.
$449 one-time, with lifetime access. Three ways to enroll: standalone at $449, All-Access at $349/yr (7-day free trial available, includes every Practitioner Series course), or the bundle at $949.
There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, void once your certificate of completion has been issued. No upsell, no mastermind tier, no high-pressure sales call.
Yes. ICF has accredited this course for 40.0 instructional hours - 9 Core Competency, 31 Resource Development. Worth knowing how the counting works: ICF allows a maximum of 16 Resource Development hours per three-year renewal, so up to 25 hours from this course (the 9 Core Competency plus 16 Resource Development) apply to any single renewal. The rest is depth you keep rather than credit you claim.
Module 8 carries the 3 mandatory ethics renewal hours via an ICF Code of Ethics 2025 walkthrough anchored in business cases.
Coach as Operator. The identity shift from a coach who happens to have a business to an operator who runs a coaching practice. The wordplay back to ICF Embodies a Coaching Mindset is real: bring the same presence and discernment to your practice that you bring to the client.
The course follows a deliberate build sequence - niche → offer → demand → sales → B2B → operations → ethics → AI → growth → sustaining → capstone - because the gap is doing the operator work in a disciplined order.
The Module 0 diagnostic places you on one of three honest starting paths:
Path A - Pre-revenue / newly credentialed: full sequence, Module 1 → 12 in order.
Path B - Early revenue (under $50k or under 2 years): Module 1 → 3 (re-evaluate offer) → 5 (sales as discipline) → 6+.
Path C - Plateaued (3-5 years, $80-150k stuck): Module 1 → 1.5 Audit & Reposition → 3 (reprice) + 6 (B2B entry) → selected from 7-11.
Same content, three reading orders. You can change paths at any time.
You can enroll, but the course assumes you can coach. If you haven't trained in the ICF Core Competencies yet, start with our free Coaching Foundations module on the ACC certification page - that gives you the grounding this course builds on.
If you're pre-credential building toward Portfolio Path and have coaching foundations from elsewhere, you'll be fine.
40 hours of structured instructional content, claimed for CCE. With the build-your-own-deliverables workbooks (niche statement, offer page, discovery script, three-party contract template, capstone plan), most coaches spend 50-60 hours total across 8-12 weeks.
Your path affects total time - Path C learners typically need 15-20 hours by skipping foundational modules and going deep on reposition + B2B.
There's no deadline; your access doesn't expire.
The deliverables you build during the course and keep using:
1. A one-page Practice Operating Plan - niche, offer, pricing, channel mix, discovery script, Year-1 numbers, 90-day review cycle.
2. A discovery-call script you can run from - structured, coaching-grade, no theatre.
3. A three-party contracting template for B2B engagements with sponsor, client, and coach in the room together.
4. A certificate of completion carrying the ICF CCE-Approved Program badge - shareable on LinkedIn, suitable for L&D reimbursement, and the record you keep for your renewal.
Because no honest course can make it. The ICF Global Coaching Study 2023 shows median coach income at approximately $30k/year in the US; less than half of credentialed coaches sustain a full-time coaching practice past Year 3. Promising six figures by Month X requires fabricating a curve that doesn't exist.
What we promise: an operator discipline that gives you a real shot at a Year-3 practice you can sustain, with the numbers and methodology to defend your decisions to yourself, your accountant, and your credentialing panel.
Tandem's flagship programs are ICF Level 1 (ACC) and Level 2 (PCC) - credential-earning programs that take you from no coaching credential to ACC or PCC. Months long, instructor-led, with practice sessions and mentor coaching.
This course is a specialization for coaches who already have foundations. It's narrower in scope (the operator side of the practice), self-paced, and complements - rather than replaces - credential training.
$449 — 40 ICF CCE-approved hours, lifetime access. The deepest course in the Series.
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