About Brad Sugars

Does Brad Sugars still provide business coaching?

Brad still coaches – but these days he predominately coaches his team of ActionCOACHes. He does this via a weekly webinar with all his coaches – who can ask questions and do coaching role play. Brad also coaches his regional office partners or Master Licensees on a weekly basis.

In addition, four times a year Brad attends regional coaching conferences held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; London, England, UK and; Surfers Paradise, Qld, Australia and an annual global conference held in different regions throughout the world. Brad is on stage for the majority of the five full days and shares business coaching advice with all his coaches as well as some new innovations in coaching at these events.

If Brad is in the region, he also visits the Action ‘U’ which is held every month. Action ‘U” is the intensive training lab that all ActionCOACHes must go through in order to offer services under the ActionCOACH brand.
Brad is also actively coaching his partners in other businesses mostly located in Australia.

What was the reason that Brad Sugars decided to change his company’s name from Action International to ActionCOACH?

Simply put, easier branding, a one word name is far easier in this day of the internet than a very long two word name.

When Brad started the company, he chose the name Action International for the following reasons:

• Coaching is actually about helping business owners get momentum in their business. If you want momentum you need to take action otherwise you remain still, stagnate and go backwards. Coaching is the impetus that helps many business owners succeed.

• Brad’s vision for the company was always to be a global brand. The saying “begin with the end in mind” is the reason why Brad chose to put International in the company name.

More than a decade later, Brad chose to change the name from Action International to ActionCOACH. It was a decision he labored over and worked on for more than 2 years.

He consulted with two of the greatest authorities on branding in the world, Al and Laura Ries, to help reach his decision.

Brad made sure to ask the opinion of his business coaches throughout the world and as a group they rejected many of the original names and then offered many hundreds of their own.

He conducted a survey of more than 200,000 business owners across the globe, mostly in NZ, Australia, the USA and the UK to see what they thought and what the implication of rebranding would be. In fact the company tested at least 12 other names and logo combinations through this market research.

He consulted with and then spent literally hundreds of thousands with trademark attorneys throughout the world.

The simple truth was all the research and professional advice pointed to the fact that changing the company name from Action International to ActionCOACH was the smart thing to do. When the name ActionCOACH was chosen, it received full backing of his franchisees – virtually unheard of when any company undergoes a rebrand.
Overall it has proven to be wise decision allowing much easier brand recognition, far easier understanding of what ActionCOACH does and most importantly a brand-able word for SEO purposes.

Why is Brad’s global headquarters based in Las Vegas? I heard it is an Australian company.

The company was founded in Brisbane, Australia and Brad Sugars is Australian born and raised. The original office was based in Milton, on the river in Brisbane, Australia. The second main office was opened at the World Trade Centre in Singapore with Brad’s partner in Asia – Kenneth Ho.

Brad opened an office in London when the brand first entered the European market. He also opened an office in the Bay Area, in Silicon Valley when the business expanded into North America. Two years later Las Vegas was chosen because of its lower costs of doing business, its ability to pay much more reasonable wages, its state tax system, its weather and its conferencing facilities (the ActionCOACH certification program is conducted in Las Vegas every month).

In those days, running a global company meant you needed multiple offices. However when ActionCOACH enters a new market, they partner with Master Licensees who open regional offices to provide a local contact point and support.

ActionCOACH has more than 60 regional offices throughout the world, and it is these offices which support the brand on a day to day basis. In turn Brad and his global executive team from the World Headquarters supports the 60+ joint venture and master licensed regional office partners.

The business decision to move to one headquarters was actually a very easy one to make. World time zones from Brisbane, Australia meant making calls in the middle of the night were more common than not. An executive team based in the southern hemisphere meant travel distances were excessive and costly whereby in Las Vegas, it was easy for most countries to fly in and out of, the weather predictable, and Brad’s executive team can speak with any office even across Europe and back to Australia during normal business hours. Add to this the fact technology and the internet enables faster and more effective communication via web conferencing, voice over internet and email – the decision to relocate from the southern to the northern hemisphere was one that made perfect business sense.

However the personal decision to move to the United States was not as easy to make. Two of Brad’s biggest joys in his life were just starting school in Australia and both sets of grandparents would not get to see them as much if they decided to move. Like any expatriate can tell you, leaving your homeland is a huge decision – one that any parent spends many hours weighing up.

However – it must be said Brad did not leave Australia completely behind. He owns a vacation home on Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday’s right on the world famous Barrier Reef. He still has several trading companies in Australia and many property investments as well as many prize winning race horses.

Visit the ActionCOACH Global Office in Las Vegas and you will see photos of Australian landscapes and Aussie sports memorabilia adorned on every wall including Brad’s beloved Brisbane Lions AFL team where he is still a high ranking Lethal Lion.

Brad Sugars also returns to Australia several times a year to visit family and friends, see a game of footy (or two!) and when invited to speak at business events. And of course Brad’s parents, his kids’ grandparents, visit the USA several times a year.

How does Brad find time to write so much and still run the companies …?

Simply put its called editors. Brad Sugars has worked with several different editors over the years, where he would record, note, write and dictate much of his works and editors would help him turn his strategies into the written word.

As Brad says, “I am a two finger typist, well three if you include my thumb on the space bar, but having had some great editors over the years has allowed me to get my strategies clearly down on paper for the whole world to benefit. “

That said, Brad Sugars was always up until the wee hours laboring over the final edit of every single word in every single book.

Is Brad ever going to run his famous Entrepreneur training again?

Yes this course is a part of what made Brad famous. A 5 day event he only did once a year by plan where he for many years hand selected the audience. If you ask Brad today, he’ll simply say I don’t work that hard any more.

Why? Well the course started with Tai Chi at 5am and ended most nights with mediation around 2am. It was long, hard and a lot of fun and if you check the testimonials you’ll see just how many true Entrepreneurs it created.

Will he run it again? Many hope so, but not likely.

Who are the biggest teachers in Brad’s life?

You know Brad Sugars has been asked this question thousands of times. Much of his work is based on the books he has read, the people he has met, what his mentors have shown him and of course from his own actions and lessons of what worked and what didn’t.

Here’s Brad’s own list of some of the greatest minds he appreciates.

Claude Hopkins, John Caples, Murray Raphel, Jim Rohn, Tom Hopkins, Michael Gerber, Paul Dunn, Anthony Robbins, DC Cordova, Blair Singer, Chris Newton, Robert Kiyosaki, Keith Cunningham, Brian Tracy, Buckminster Fuller, Paddi Lund, Jack Canfield, Al Reis, Jack Trout, Jeffrey Gitomer, and Jay Abraham.

Does Brad Sugars have any plans to write any further books?

Brad currently is working on a couple of co-author projects with two prominent business writers which will be due for release in 2010. Brad returned to the role of CEO for his main company ActionCOACH in 2007 and this, along with speaking engagements keeps him very busy that sadly he has very little time to write books.

However he has released free ebooks, whitepapers, tip sheets on his websites. He also blogs on a regular basis. So if you are interested in hearing from Brad on a regular basis you can subscribe to his blog or download his ebooks, whitepapers and tip sheets.

Brad Sugars also has a Facebook Fan Page and a YouTube channel and is a regular columnist on entrepreneur.com