Dr. Pamela A. Larde has always been passionate about helping people and teaching. As a professor, she has taught and mentored hundreds of students in her 20 years of experience in higher education. In 2013 her personal passions led her to start the Academy of Creative Coaching. With over a 20-person team beside her, Dr. Larde and staff help develop aspiring professional coaches on their path to certification. The Academy of Creative Coaching began using PaySimple after their revenue instantly jumped and they needed a seamless way to manage enrollment and customer engagement.
Now with PaySimple the business has faster access to their cash, saves hours a week tracking and managing payments, and has a fully functioning CRM. The payment experience they provide has also improved as can now accept an expanded range of payment methods. A benefit their clients truly appreciate.
Background
When you think of a coach, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a sports coach. However, coaching can be applied to all aspects of life. While a sports coach can help someone transform their physique, a professional coach can help someone transform their life. However, if you’re interested in helping people transform their life, how do you go about learning the skill necessary to help people make such a change?
This is where the Academy of Creative Coaching comes in. Established in 2013, the Academy of Creative Coaching was born out of a passion to help people by two university professors from Atlanta, Georgia. After working towards starting a coaching business, Dr. Larde soon realized she could increase her impact by not only coaching individuals, but also training people to be coaches themselves.
“After attending a coaching course to develop the skills to become a coach, I realized that, as a professor, I too could train professional coaches. I partnered a psychology scholar and friend, Dr. Sonayia Shepard, Ph.D. and we developed our own program.”
Challenge
Prior to using PaySimple, the Academy of Creative Coaching began using Eventbrite for course enrollment. Though Eventbrite worked well as a temporary solution, the Academy planned to eventually find a replacement that could handle their event management as well as – customer management, invoicing, and product cataloguing.
“Our company was growing so fast, we needed so much more than an event management tool. We needed a product comprehensive enough to be the financial one-stop shop that for everything we offer.”
In early 2020, the Academy of Creative Coaching transitioned from Eventbrite to PaySimple. In response to COVID-19, the Academy needed to quickly pivot to online courses and found PaySimple to be a better match at handling their online needs. Since Dr. Larde was familiar with PaySimple, the transition was completed quickly and successfully. In just one day PaySimple was up and running for the Academy.
Solution
Dr. Larde had been using PaySimple for her publishing business since 2014, so she knew the solution would work well for The Academy of Creative Coaching. With PaySimple, the Academy uses an online store to sell their courses and events. Dr. Larde and team also rely on PaySimple’s advanced features that other solutions she explored simply don’t have, like the ability to offer recurring billing, access to better reports. Most importantly, because PaySimple uses dedicated merchant accounts, The Academy of Creative Coaching no longer has to worry about having to wait to access their funds when they need them.
“Now we have a dashboard that shows us payments in real-time daily, monthly, and annual sales volume within a few clicks. With the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) component of PaySimple, we can see easily individual clients payment history. Having everything in one system saves us several hours each week.”
Sometimes switching providers can be a major headache, but with PaySimple, this was seamless for Dr. Larde and her team. Within the same day of taking down Eventbrite, they were able to get PaySimple up and running.
Not only are they happy with the business solutions PaySimple provides, they have also had a much better experience with PaySimple’s customer service.
“Not only was the implementation smooth and quick, we receive premium customer service with PaySimple. They are always readily available to assist, and that means a lot.”
For business on-the-go, Dr. Larde has found added value in the mobile app that is included with PaySimple. When she receives a call from a client asking about how much they need to pay for a course or upcoming event, she can quickly open the mobile app and provide the information to the client. In the future she hopes to use the mobile app for in-person event payment processing.
As Dr. Larde and team adjust to the new normal, they are well equipped to handle payments however they need. As one of the distinguished professional coaching organizations to receive accreditation from the International Coach Federation, they are positioned for a bright future. They currently hold partnerships with large public corporations and serve multiple government and military divisions.
To learn more about billing, payment collection, and customer management with PaySimple, contact us today. Our team is here to provide all of our clients with premier customer service so they can quickly get back to doing what they do best.
