Back in 1988 when Strategic Coach® was first incorporated, no one had heard of “business coaching.” In fact, 18-year Strategic Coach veteran and program designer Shannon Waller, who started with the company as a salesperson, remembers, “I used to have to explain that we weren’t a bus company.” Since Strategic Coach held its first workshop for successful entrepreneurs in 1989, many more coaches have appeared on the scene, from executive coaches, who focus largely on c–level corporate leaders, to industry and skill–specific coaches who provide more focused coaching to businesses in fields from financial services to dentistry, and on topics from sales to marketing to organizational efficiency. At the head of this burgeoning industry, Strategic Coach remains committed to coaching only the most successful entrepreneurs on how to multiply their time, money, key results–producing relationships, sense of purpose, and impact in the world. With over 13,000 current and past participants, the number of people who have been impacted by the unique thinking of Strategic Coach founders Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith is well into the hundreds of thousands.

As the original business coaching program, Strategic Coach has often been imitated. Many others have followed its model of quarterly one-day workshops in a group setting. However, few if any have been able to garner the loyal following that Dan Sullivan and his team have amassed after 20 years in the business. The formula for this ongoing success is simple but not easy: Give dynamic entrepreneurs tools that produce life– and business–changing results in a structure that works for their unique needs.

Strategic Coach founder Dan Sullivan realized over 30 years ago that entrepreneurs, while incredibly demanding, are the best focus group in the world if you want to create a program that generates real change. They won’t come back for anything less than measurable breakthroughs, especially if it means leaving their businesses for a day every quarter to come to a workshop. The Strategic Coach® Program is Sullivan’s response to over 35 years of working with successful entrepreneurs from over 60 industries and 12 countries, figuring out what works for them and what holds them back from constantly multiplying their results and opportunities.

In addition to its powerful ideas and tools, the very structure of the Strategic Coach Program is part of what helps its participants excel. Every aspect of the Program, from the set-up of the room, to the food, to the ten-minute break every hour, is designed to maximize creativity and allow participants to leverage their unique strengths and the power of a room full of other dynamic, like-minded business owners. While there are many opportunities for one-on-one interaction and support, group coaching, for one full day a quarter, is the foundation. Strategic Coach entrepreneurs are grouped with other business owners at a similar level, and tend to stay with the same group of peers throughout their participation in the Program, which for some is more than 18 years.

If you wonder why anyone would want or need to stay in a coaching program for so long, this is one of the areas where coaching for growth differs from consulting and other types of education, and where entrepreneur coaching differs from coaching athletes. The best entrepreneurs, unlike their athletic counterparts, are able to keep getting better year after year indefinitely. When you love what you do, and it keeps bringing more rewards and possibilities into every area of your life, there’s no reason to stop. This is why entrepreneurs in the Strategic Coach Program seldom contemplate retirement. They’re simply having too much fun, and even those in their seventies and eighties see a future that’s bigger than their past. If you ask them why they invest in a business coach year after year, they’ll tell you that they keep seeing more and more results, so why stop the process?

Another factor in the Program’s success is the fact that the company walks its talk. There’s nothing in this program that Sullivan’s company hasn’t tried itself, and all the coaches who now lead the over 400 workshops a year that the company puts on are active, dynamic entrepreneurs who are in the Program and continue to attend workshops as clients to work on their own businesses. Having one entrepreneur coach another who is at an earlier stage of learning creates a kind of integrity that is difficult to match by coaches who haven’t been “down in the trenches,” running a successful business themselves. Strategic Coach associate coaches know of what they speak and have thousands of hours of experience using the tools in their own businesses as well as hearing how they’ve worked in others’ situations.

Many Strategic Coach associate coaches have been able to branch out into multiple industries and activities as a result of their learning and growth in the Program. Being a business coach is just one of many activities they’re able to apply their unique talents to, having dramatically increased their available time and resources. Each entrepreneur coach goes through a rigorous audition process and receives extensive ongoing training and feedback to ensure they deliver maximum value in the Program. However, it’s their own unique personalities and stories that really bring the material to life. Their experience, combined with the experience of the 20 to 50 other entrepreneur clients in the room, makes Strategic Coach workshops a font of wisdom and creative ideas that enrich the experience of every participant in a way that one–on–one coaching simply can’t match. The variety of coaches allows entrepreneurs who join the Program to have a choice of who they want to learn the material from: Will it be a manufacturing genius from Minnesota or a top financial advisor from Dallas?

Entrepreneurs from all over the world come to Strategic Coach workshops in North America and in London, U.K., to give their creative brains a tune-up and to get re-focused and clear about how to take the next steps toward their goals. A new Dan Sullivan workshop starting in March 2010 will have participants traveling from as far as New Zealand and Dubai to Toronto, one day a quarter, for this pinnacle of business coaching experiences. Word of mouth and the proof offered by thousands of entrepreneurs who have managed to create enviable combinations of business and lifestyle success are what draw them from these far corners. Dan Sullivan, who has always said that he wants his own success to be measured by the success of his clients, wouldn’t have it any other way.