A team of seasoned entrepreneurs who have faced the highs and lows of building businesses are expanding their mission to help others through the launch of their new coaching academy.
Is This You? a fast-growing personal and business performance coaching company based at the North East BIC, is scaling up with the creation of a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) accredited academy. The new academy is designed not only to equip the next generation of coaches with professional certification, a proven coaching framework, and expert mentoring, but also to provide them with a business that is ready to hit the ground running.
Founded 18 months ago by John Forth, Phil Gray, David Beharall and Steve Beharall, Is this You? draws on decades of experience earned by the team who’ve built seven-figure businesses and led organisations at the highest levels.
The company’s growth has been fuelled by an innovative, high impact coaching model that addresses both business and personal challenges. Their focus to date has been on coaching business leaders, and developing high performance teams so businesses and the people who run them can operate at the highest level, whilst maintaining ‘lives well lived’.
Now, with the launch of the Is This You? Academy, the team is aiming to increase its impact with a training model that has national and international potential.
“We’ve built something powerful and now we want to share it,” said John Forth, co-founder of Is This You? and Business Adviser at the BIC. “Our clients, and the people in our network already know the quality of what we deliver, but this is about moving outside of our current networks, creating a wider movement and extending our mission to achieve more lives well lived.”
John brings a deeply personal perspective to his work. Having lost his seven-figure property business during the 2008 credit crunch, he turned to personal development to rebuild – not just professionally, but emotionally.
“I threw myself into personal development about 15 years ago after losing my company and it helped me through,” he said. “I built another business in renewables, but although it was successful, it was purely financially driven, it wasn’t inspiring or driving me. I found the anxiety and stress coming back. I felt like I was losing myself again and realised I needed to change.
“I’d reached an age and level of experience where money alone just wasn’t going to do it for me. Life needed to be about purpose.”
Now, through Is This You?, John and his fellow co-founders are helping others navigate that same journey, combining lived experience with the company’s powerful coaching framework.
Over the past year, the team has developed the Is This You? Academy – a comprehensive, CMI-recognised programme that gives aspiring coaches everything they need to build a meaningful, profitable coaching business. Described as a ‘coaching business in a box’, the academy offers live training sessions, a supportive business community, access to events, CMI certification and a brand licence including sales and marketing strategy.
The programme is designed to be accessible for those seeking purpose-driven businesses or second careers, including retired professionals and founders, existing coaches requiring a certification and an established business model, and even elite athletes transitioning from sport.
“We’ve had interest from people at all stages of life – from those looking for their next adventure after the euphoria of selling a business to those searching for something meaningful after sport or retirement,” said John. “But this is about more than becoming a brilliant coach. It’s about building a brilliant business with purpose.”
As part of its scale-up plans, the company has based itself at the BIC, a decision John said aligned with the company’s collaborative and community-driven values.
“Moving the business to the BIC was a no-brainer because of its strong and supportive network. Sunderland seems to be where everything is happening right now and we’re right in the centre of it, here at the BIC,” he said.
“We love the collaborative nature of the amazing coworking space, and the beauty of the BIC is its versatility – we host events and workshops here in purpose-built spaces, if we need a dedicated board-room we have one. It truly is ‘a space to build a better business’. There’s nowhere else we’d be.”
John says his dual role as Business Adviser at the BIC and co-founder of Is This You? brings everything full circle – he is living proof of the power of business support and good networks.
“It’s very humbling and incredibly satisfying to hear how the work we’ve done has touched people’s lives,” he said. “Whether it’s helping someone change careers, overcome stress and anxiety, or break free from a career situation where they felt stuck – we’re genuinely changing lives.”
With national rollout plans now under way and international ambitions on the horizon, the Is This You? team are laser-focused on their purpose.
“We’d like to be global. Our dream is to have coaches and clients in as many different countries as possible, and to be a catalyst for Lives Well Lived globally,” John added.
“When it comes to personal development, I’ve never met anyone who considers themselves fully ‘balanced’. But it’s not about achieving perfection – it’s about progress. Continuous progress. We only live once, and we need to maximise the potential and the time we have.”