The SuperCoach Summit 2024- A Review.
Jackson Lohr" This was my second year attending the Super Coach Summit. I almost did not attend, but I’m incredibly glad I did..."
The Super Coach Summit- Why I Went Back
This was my second year attending the Super Coach Summit. I almost did not attend, but I’m thrilled I did because the value they delivered this year was incredible!
Trevor, Kane, Kav, and their team assembled an event that delivered on all levels! Before we dive into the individual events, I want to highlight one aspect of this event that sets the SuperCoach Summit apart: the service. While this was technically only a two-day event, the Coach Catalyst support team was made available by appointment to meet with coaches who wanted help optimizing how they use the app with their clients OR troubleshoot any preexisting issues.
SuperCoach Summit is assembled by the team at Coach Catalyst: “We help coaches keep their clients accountable when they're not with them”.
Being relatively local and already a user of the app as my client service delivery software, I met with Ashley, and I got many ideas on how to improve my client onboarding process! Conveniently, The event itself started on that very same topic, with CoachCatalyst’s CEO Trevor Wittwer discussing the importance of providing clarity in your onboarding process to set expectations for the coach-client relationship as you move forward together! He emphasized the importance of building an automated yet humanized system, which I felt was a breath of fresh air. Where a lot of automation can lose sight of the relationship aspect of coaching, he emphasized the important role it plays in improving it. Why leave things to chance and risk forgetting birthdays, milestone achievements, and other important check-in moments when you can automate those initial check-ins so you’re never missing an opportunity to connect?
An Emphasis on Connection
Ali Gilbert followed with a similar presentation to the one she gave the previous year on her process that she follows with getting men the physique of their dreams. One of the things she highlighted early in the talk was the importance of connection when it comes to coaching high-performing men. What’s evident to those who often train men, especially high-performers, is that those men are lonely, so the role of a coach is often much more than that, so coaches need to be prepared to ask questions others might not.
Ali was followed by CJ Appenzeller, who highlighted the value of the client experience for the gym owners in the room. As the owner of multiple locations, CJ prides himself on his ability to impact his members by developing deeper connections through events outside of traditional fitness-based events such as flag football, black tie awards galas, and even Prom! One member, in particular, took over three years before developing consistency in the results he got from the gym. Still, he stuck around as a member for the annual flag football games despite not using his membership regularly.
Jen Broxterman followed with an engaging presentation on motivational interviewing and games to establish buy-in with nutrition coaching clientele. Personally, I found this to be one of the most practical talks of the day, coming away with multiple things I can immediately apply to my coaching to improve not only my confidence but also my effectiveness. Primarily, these things came in the form of the games she demonstrated in her talk. While it’d be challenging to go into detail in a review, I’m sure if you reached out to her, she’d be more than happy to share them with you.
A Gem In The Morning Panel
The morning was capped off with a panel of speakers featuring Dr. Mike T. Nelson, Jeb Johnston, Ben Mayfield-Smith, and Anna Clough. While I think the SuperCoach team does a great job with conducting their panels compared to others I’ve seen, I personally have a hard time getting much out of them. Dr. Nelson, however, did drop one gem I thought was well worth sharing: “Find a mentor and a system that you like that has proven to be effective and stick with it for a long time.” He reasoned that if you do that, you’ll be able to reach out to the person who teaches it or has developed that system for direct advice and be able to build a relationship with that person. With the general advice usually being to take a sort of “grocery cart” approach to our systems, picking and choosing what we like and what works for us, this method stood out to me as something younger coaches (like myself) could undoubtedly benefit from.
Creating a clear mission for yourself and the world.
Holly Rigsby started us off for the afternoon, talking about her experience building an online community in an era without social media. People who need what you have to offer. Her message was simple: “Provide what your people need or help them do what they wish they could, and do that consistently over days, weeks, months, and years!”
Nichole Eaton, author of Rock Your Comeback, followed with a presentation that I felt wasn’t well placed within the weekend It’s hard to elaborate on why, but it just didn’t feel like it fit with the rest of the presentations. I don’t think it was bad, and I did manage to make one practical takeaway from her talk. She presented the concept of writing a thank you letter to your future self for the things you’d like to accomplish. This puts you in the mindset to achieve them. Essentially, the things you focus your mind on are the things you’ll notice opportunities for.
Following Nichole, Justin Kavanaugh, CSO of Coach Catalyst, showcased his new business Sites at Scale by discussing the power of branding in your business. “Imagine if Nike built a hotel. What would it look like?” Coach Kav got the room thinking about the importance of having clarity in your business through clear core beliefs, signature style, and a signature talk.
Lance Pincock followed with a presentation that focused on using storytelling to build brand awareness either locally or online. His best practical takeaway was: “If you only do one thing to improve your business, start by running an awareness campaign either on Google or through Meta for 2-3 dollars per day in your target zip code.” He suggested making a video of less than 60 seconds highlighting who you are, what you do, and why it matters to people—plain and simple.
Rounding out the first day was Ryan Magin, founder of Viral Edits. Ryan helps people go viral. And while last year he showed exactly the formula for how much content is required to do so, this year he focused more on people and their message. The main point: “you need to proudly say what you’re great at and don’t be afraid to be “factually arrogant” – to present the facts with such confidence that other people either become your haters or believe fully in your ability to give them what they need!”
Day 2 of the Super Coach Summit
The Importance Of Communication For Maximum Impact
Kane Sivesand (CFO of Coach Catalyst) reminded the room of the power of video in client communication, noting that with just text or messaging, as much as 93 percent of our intended communication could be lost.
Dr. Dani LaMartina followed him. In her presentation, she emphasized the importance of not allowing people to give up on themselves when viewing their limitations through a singular perspective but providing a different lens through which they can see their training in order to make progress. She documented her progress with Kane as a client, demonstrating her process of helping him see that an “all-or-nothing” approach to his training was not the only way to do things.
Simona Constantini’s talk outlined her mission to help podcasters grow their platform and spread their message. Her goal is to stay focused on helping one person each day. As I thought of the many times I wish my personal podcast would grow faster, this was a good reminder that helping one person at a time has a lasting impact!
Check out Jackson’s Podcast On Spotify and On Youtube: Fitness For Life Podcast
Rehab 2 Perform’s Dr. Josh Funk was up next, and he impressed on us this: Process in your business is everything. He outlined his detailed process for keeping both staff and clients well-served in his business as a model for the crowd to follow. His recommendation is to “Focus on leading indicators of success rather than lagging ones”.
Dr. Sean Pastuch of Active Life gave the last individual presentation before lunch. His message was Freedom Without Compromise. I’d personally heard about 90% of Sean’s presentation via his podcast, but this was by far the most interactive presentation of the weekend, with several occurrences of “Shake it Off” being played throughout. I personally thought the best part of the talk was an exercise he led the room through about how to kill off the part of yourself that you dislike or feel is weak to become the best version of yourself.
After a brief interview with one of the event sponsors, Justin Harris of Troponin Nutrition, the final portion of the conference was kicked off by Michael Sheedy, who talked about being clear and consistent about the person you are talking to in your messaging. He also provided a nifty formula for the exact amount of money you can use to buy back your time in your life and business. Here it is below:
( (Annual Salary - Expenses) /2000) /2
Ashton Wilson followed him with a presentation highlighting the four steps of the sales funnel and how to utilize AI to maximize your lead conversion rates and revolutionize your business. For someone as young as he is, his delivery was impressive and immediately applicable.
Taking a very different path toward the end of the event, Dr. Dylan Seeley presented on expanding health metrics in Personal Training. His talk covered several key metrics he uses to predict the health of his clients in four key categories: Autonomic Nervous System, Sleep, Gut Health, and Mental Health. His talk was far too detailed to summarize, but it was so valuable that I requested he send it to me via email (which he will do if you ask)!
Rounding out the weekend was Nick Komodina, who presented on the next evolution of consumerism. Nick provided an informative outline of how Capitalism was coined and adopted, which evolved into Conscious Capitalism (Capitalism, but with a bit more morality…). He encouraged the coaches in the room to focus their efforts on impacting people and allowing profit to follow within that lens. He coined this next evolution of Capitalism, “Spiritual Capitalism.”
It was an overall great weekend, but Let’s talk Pros and Cons
(Pros)
The Service Team - It’s a massive service to make your entire customer service team available for one-on-one meetings throughout the course of the event (and even the day before). While it may not benefit everyone who attends, those who use Coach Catalyst get next-level service from this team (who are also coaches themselves who use the software, so they get it).
The Location - While it may not seem like a big deal, holding a conference so close to two major international airports makes it incredibly accessible for folks near and far. Not only that, but the hotel this team has used to host the event for the last two years is within easy walking distance of numerous restaurants that can accommodate large groups of people very quickly, making it ideal for hosting 150+ coaches.
The Offer - This is the second year in a row that the team at Coach Catalyst has ended the conference by presenting an irresistible offer to the crowd to encourage use of their platform. And while I see the blatant salesmanship, the amount of value they’ve provided year after year in their offer has been so incredible that I actually made sure I had over $1000 to spend in my account before I left for the event.
(Cons)
A Bit Too Much Youth - As a young person (27) myself, I wasn’t sure how to feel about this initially, but I’ve concluded that there may have been too many REALLY young speakers on the stage. With 4-5 of the roughly 20 speakers seemingly having minimal long-term experience, I felt like some talks and speakers felt out of place. This was particularly evident when one person was on a panel with three other coaches with a combined 60 years of experience in the field. While some of their presentations shined, others felt like they would have been better filled with experience.
Timing - As often happens at events like this, the sessions rarely started on schedule. This was particularly frustrating as it impacted the first day by an hour or more when I had made plans with a local client that I had to delay substantially. The event would have been better served with a thoughtful method of keeping folks in the room and presentations on time.
Overall, the SuperCoach Summit was an absolute blast! I’ve attended two years in a row now and have benefited greatly each time in how well I can serve my clients and how well I operate my business and make money.
If you’re a coach (and even more so if you’re a Coach Catalyst user) who’s wondering how to level up both your coaching and your business and you can spare a weekend to do so, you need to make sure you get your ticket next year! You won’t regret it!
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Awesome work!