FAQ: Is the Collective Coaching Program for YOU?

Q1)) I just want to be a practitioner/artist/educator/(insert whatever your thing is) and don’t want to build a large scale enterprise, will your program still work for me?

A1)) Yes. Our program will be for different kinds of entrepreneurs. As a practitioner there are other forms of entrepreneurship available that don't require launching a new full-blown enterprise: solopreneur (independent practitioner with or without a small team) or intrapreneur (working/creating within an existing organization or collective). The Collective Coaching Program will grow your Entrepreneurial Resilience through any of these paths.

Q2)) What if I don’t have time/energy or the physical capacity to participate in the program?

A2)) Here are 2 questions we ask to help you figure out if this program is right for you: 1) Are you ready to let us help you create the time for this program and your work? 2) Are you ready to let some things go?

If the answer is YES to both of those questions, then you are likely to be ready.

We are focused on manifestation, and a huge aspect of the manifesting process is about clearing and making space for what you want. We will help you identify energy drains and the people/activities you may need to let go of.

We’ve structured this program in bite-sized form. If you can commit to that you are also ready to get started. You can design your actions in bite-sized chunks or longer, depending on how much time and energy you have available. Each entrepreneur in the program will get to set their pace and grow on their own time.

Q3)) How long will it take me to take my project off the ground or take it to another level?

A3)) This is a question we often get asked and the honest answer is: it depends.

That is why our program runs as a continuous monthly membership (with the smallest recommended participation being 90 days at a time). We all work, grow and develop at our own paces.

There are many factors at play in getting a project or enterprise off the ground. Each of our projects have been accomplished in completely different time frames. They are their own creatures and grow and develop on their own time. We believe that Radical Entrepreneurship is a journey (with important milestones, of course). And the longer you are on it, the more you will find joy in the process and journey itself -- as much as you do in the milestones.

That said... If you put in the work, you will most likely witness significant milestones (shifts/discoveries) every 90 day period. And, we often notice the biggest radical milestone or change at the 12-month mark. That milestone or change could be a launch of a project or it could be the end of something you thought was your work but you finally realized was not. What we guarantee with 90% certainty is that, if you actually do the work, you will transform and eventually manifest -- and we will stick with you (if you stick with us) for as long as you want.

Growth and development are individual processes -- we are all at different stages in our processes and move at a unique pace. There is no right or wrong. It’s about figuring out how we each work, and how best we each move towards manifesting. That is what the Collective Coaching Program is about.

Also you can review what we wrote on the Virtual Collective Incubator application page:

We value long-term sustainability. We want your work to stand the test of time.

1 MONTH FREE: Once you apply and are accepted to The Incubator, you get one month FREE to figure out if our program is a good fit for you. After one month, you subscribe to our monthly membership based on your category (STARTER Turtle, in this case).

3-MONTHS AT A TIME: Once you sign-on, you are required to commit for 3 months at a time. We (you and us) re-evaluate fit, commitment and benefit every 3 months. You are free to leave - and we are free to let you go - after every evaluation. We may also recommend that you move into another categories based on your work's maturity or sudden life/professional changes.

6-12 MONTH TRANSFORMATION: Statistically: 20-30% of participants will leave us by the end of the first 3-month period. 5-10% will leave us by the end of the end of 6 months. The 65% who stay past 6 months are usually in it for the long run and become family. That said, we can safely say that our members witness milestone transformations every 6-12 months.

3-4 YEARS TO GROW A RADICAL PROJECT/ENTERPRISE: If you're really serious about growing an enterprise, you'll eventually realize that 3-4 years is not a very long time in the entrepreneurial space. It takes people 3-4 years to gain a certain level of sustainability (financial and otherwise). Enterprises generally have to cross the 10-year mark (sustainably)to be considered relatively safe from collapse. Looking for a quick-fix? We're not right for you. We're TURTLE TANK, not Cheetah Tank, for a reason.

Q4)) Will we talk about money and money-making?

A4)) Of course. We are serious about financial sustainability. We want to make sure you’re managing your personal budget (and by extension that of your enterprise properly) and receiving the radical abundant wealth you deserve. And we definitely understand how socio-economic positions play a part in how we approach our work and everything that needs to be unpacked there.

We will also be addressing some basics such as: accounting and how to read financials. And later on we’ll be talking about debt and radical investment. We’ve got a lot planned if you stay with us.

However, as important as money is, it won't be the first and most primary thing we discuss. We think of money as one aspect of what we call "value". Often times we see that a lack of perceived "value" is at the root of money our issues. We will be addressing the concept of "value" throughout every part of the program (how you value your time, your energy / how you design your projects based on "value" / how you represent yourself etc.) which will ultimately grow your financial wealth as well.

Q5)) Will you teach us about marketing, operations, organizational development, legal issues, how to read financials etc.?

A5)) Yes, but probably not in the way that you’re used to hearing about them.

We’re focused on Relationship Development as the key foundation to all enterprise systems: First) with yourself, Second) with your team and Third) with your stakeholders. Everything you do to grow your enterprise revolves around these 3 areas.

For each of the traditional areas of business (marketing, ops, org dev. etc.) you’re looking at growing an area of Relationship. For marketing for instance, you’re focused more on your stakeholders. For ops and org dev., you’re focused on yourself and your team at different stages.

When you understand the fundamentals around creating good, long-lasting relationships you can bring that to any of the traditional business areas or create any system to support the work. We’ve seen some of our most advanced entrepreneurs miss the basics around building sustainable relationships -- not because they were unethical, but because of the frameworks and containers they adopted that did not serve to lead them to their highest potential.

And yes of course, we’ll share all that we know about the traditional business areas (marketing, ops, org dev.) in our general and more intensive work.

Q6)) Online programs don’t always/never work for me. How will this be different?

A6)) We know that most online programs have a 20-30% engagement and completion rate (at the absolute best). Lots only retain about 15% of the people they bring on board over an extended period of time. We have a 70% engagement rate and we retain around 65% of the people we onboard past the 6-month mark. We are not worried about completion. We are focused on growing your Entrepreneurial Resilience so that you can make the best decisions possible in any circumstance and at any level of responsibility. Our goal is to ensure that you transform and manifest and we designed this program with that goal in mind.

We’ve set up our program to be implementation-based. We won’t be pushing content down your throat. We want to make sure you learn the basics of HOW TO work and implement that. We are creating accountability systems, how-to-work approaches and a container for community. Our combined methods (bite-sized core curriculum with live coaching, accountability parties etc.) are designed to ensure you get things done.

That is why our program has no set beginning or end. We are ongoing (90 days at a time) and we work on making sure you grow your Entrepreneurial Resilience and create from that place, however long it takes. We know how long it takes to establish sustainable enterprises, and we wanted to create an ongoing manifestation process and community that you could participate in for as long as you needed (from the basics to scaling and beyond).

Q7)) What if I sign up and don’t do the work?

A7)) Every 3 months (or 90 day cycle), we will be checking in with each member and reviewing their progress. If we notice any issues (limited participation, no weekly updates, no shows to sessions etc.) we are at liberty to discuss the terms of your participation in the program with you. We want to make sure you are benefiting from the work. If we don’t believe you are, we may decide to let you go. You are also at liberty to leave at any time for any reason.

We do this to keep a pool of entrepreneurs who are both a good fit for our program and benefiting from it.

Note: Issues may arise that require participants to slow down at times or shift gears - we are less concerned with that and more concerned with fit/benefit.

Q8)) How do I know if I’m ready to join the Collective Coaching Program for Radical Entrepreneurs?

A8)) Please refer to: Q2)) What if I don’t have time/energy or the physical capacity to participate in the program?

Q9)) What kind of projects can I work on? Can you give me some examples of 90-day goals I could set?

A9)) You can set a goal that’s either focused on your work or personal life (we believe that for radical entrepreneurs especially, your personal development and your enterprise building are intertwined.)

90-day work goals can vary based on your enterprise’s stage of development.

For instance, aspiring and newer entrepreneurs may set 90-day goals like:

Publish my first podcast interview
Decide on my first offering
Launch a beta/test product or service

More established or seasoned entrepreneurs may set 90-day goals like:

Hire my first team member
Host my first live event
Win a $50,000 contract with my city’s Department of Education

90-day personal goals can vary based on which area of your life is asking for some special attention. Some examples of personal 90-day goals are:

Complete the 30-day Whole Foods plan
Establish a morning routine that energizes me and includes: movement, reflection and meditation
Reconnect with at least 15 friends

Q10)) What if I just want to work with you one-on-one and I don’t want to do the group stuff?

A10)) Everything we offer on an individual level goes through our Virtual Collective Incubator program. For more customized mid to large enterprise strategic consulting, you can reach us through Whale Wonder. Keep in mind that our custom organizational rates start at $1500/month.

That said, through our Collective Incubator, you will have a certain level of access to one-on-one support.
This depends on the group you are in (Starters, Growers, Transformers, Amplifiers). Starters, Growers and Transformers can add on one-on-one support on an as-needed basis at a discounted price for members.

Amplifiers are signing up for a package that includes one one-on-one session per month. The number of sessions can also be increased as need arises at a discounted price for members.

Our program is designed to be affordable at the level of project/enterprise maturity you are in. The more you are earning, the more complex your work gets, the more support you will need, the higher your subscription rate.

We also understand that learning is exponential in a collective setting. Community engagement, group accountability and collective implementation are moving people much faster and deeper in their growth journey than they would if they were working one-on-one. As coaches/strategists that have worked individually for many years, we see the incredible impact we can create through collective work as a win/win: you get exponentially more support at an affordable price and we are able to sustain and grow our work fairly.

Q11)) When will you open registration again?

A11)) We’re not sure yet. We open registration as we're growing our capacity. Depending on the number of participants and our capacity, we may open registration again in Fall of 2018.

Note: each time we re-open registration the price may increase and offerings may change.

Q12)) Why do you use the word "enterprise" instead of "business"?

A12)) The word business comes from the root “busy”. We don’t necessarily want to be busy with no aim or purpose, we want to be effective. The word “enterprise” comes from the French word “entreprendre” which means “to undertake”. We believe that an enterprise is an undertaking which requires that we take matters into our own hands. The word enterprise is focused on the process of creating something (the undertaking) rather than the idea of being busy.

Q13)) I see you have a Facebook forum as part of the program, what if I don’t have Facebook? Is it mandatory to participate in the Facebook Forum?

A13)) After visiting many forums, we’ve found that Facebook is still the simplest and most effective for participation. We provide a closed, private forum which is not public to anyone outside of our community of participants.

If you do not have an account, we recommend that you create a private/invisible account (you don’t have to invite any friends over and no one has to know it exists) that you can use to participate in the program. You can always delete it once you’re done participating in the program.

That said, Facebook Forum participation is mandatory. Why? Because we've found that members who are engaged in our Facebook Forum experience the best results. They are the most supported and growing. They tend to stick through the process in a much deeper way. Community engagement is CRUCIAL to developing your sense of self and your Entrepreneurial Resilience. We can't do without it and we don't recommend that you do either.

Q14)) What if I join then realize I can no longer participate because of changes in my financial situation or availability / time / energy?

A15)) The program is meant to be affordable and approached at your own pace. However, we realize that financial situations or availability can change.

If your financial situation changes and you are still interested in being a part of the program, we strongly consider that you contact us before deciding to end your membership. We may be able to help brainstorm solutions. That said, if you realize you're ready to leave us, you can end your subscription at any time. Please note: there will be no refunds under general circumstances. Once the monthly payment has registered, you're payment for that month is no longer refundable. When you are ready to leave, make sure you contact us to end your subscription as soon as possible.

With regards to availability, please refer to Q5)) What if I sign up and don’t do the work?

Q15)) Can I use PayPal to pay for my subscription?

A15)) No. Our structure does not support PayPal recurring payments at this time.

Q16)) I don't live on the East Coast or in the Americas. Will your live sessions and Facebook office hours be time-zone sensitive?

A16)) Yes. We have several coaching sessions and office hour options per month and we're working to make at least one of each available to most time zones.

Q17)) How does the Collective Co-Working Session work?

A17)) If you want to attend a co-working session, you have to sign up 48 hours before the scheduled session. The day before the co-working session, you will get an email with instructions on how to join us using your phone or your computer. If you join us through your computer, you will be on video chat. Everyone will be muted.

We’ll spend the first 15 minutes with a short grounding exercise and an inspirational quote. Each person will then share their intention for the 90-minute work session over chat.

We’ll then spend the next 90 minutes working together. Since you’ll be muted, you can play your music as loud as you want or enjoy the silence.

After 90 minutes has passed, we’ll come back together. You’ll be led through a short chair stretching routine. Then we’ll end the virtual co-working session by sharing what we accomplished and learned in our 90-minute work session in the chat box.

Want more than one virtual co-working session each month? The program includes a short video tutorial on how to set up and run your own virtual and in-person co-working sessions with your friends and/or fellow Collective Coaching Program members.

Q18)) I'm part of / co-founder of an existing mid to large organization. Do you have specific packages for organization-wide support?

A18)) Yes we do. To get more information about organizational rates and support, please contact us here.

Q19)) I'm not able to pay the monthly fee. Do you provide scholarships? Am I eligible for a scholarship?

A22)) No and Yes.

We currently provide a number of our members with a scholarship.

That said, we are committed to keeping our price affordable while still maintaining the sustainability of our program. We are dedicated to serving people at the Crossroads and on the margins. Market prices for comparable offerings (with customized support and depth) are likely to be at least 8-10 times more expensive. We are working creatively (and hard) to keep this program simultaneously impactful and affordable. For now, this is the pricing structure and model we have and we will certainly evolve accordingly.

That said, if this program is a massive stretch and will significantly take away from your basic needs, we recommend that you participate in our many free offerings and really engage with / apply the material we provided. We are committed to providing the core foundation in our free offerings. As entrepreneurs, we spent several years studying and applying free material before getting paid support. We believe that in the ultra-early stages, that may be the best approach.

However, we realize that some people may be ready to develop their Entrepreneurial Resilience despite not being able to pay the membership fee. We require that they commit to and figure out a way to pay for the first 90 days of our program. Once they've done that, we evaluate their eligibility for a potential scholarship. We evaluate their eligibility by:

their level of engagement with and the application of our material (both free and in the first 90 days of our paid program)
the length of time they've been on their entrepreneurial journey
the self-care/self-development infrastructure they've built for themselves
their commitment to actively growing their financial wealth

Q20)) I noticed you mentioned that the Collective Incubator is a people of color-centered space with all allies welcome. What does that mean? As a non-POC, am I welcome? As a POC or non-POC, will I be safe?

A20)) The Collective Incubator is an inclusive space. We focus on creating radical relationships in every way across race, gender, class, ability etc.

That said, we also believe that the richness and wealth found in this program and Turtle Tank are outgrowths of (queer and straight) Women of Color (WOC) intellectual, emotional, spiritual and cultural labor and wisdom. We are also very aware that our voices as queer people of color are often obscured in the entrepreneurial spaces. Yet that is not the main reason why our space is considered POC-centered.

Here's what we think: by creating a people of color-centered space, we are not asking for our voices to be heard simply because we are traditionally marginalized or silenced. We are simply stating that our genius, our intellectual wealth, our educational framework, our economic models and approaches are an outgrowth of our uniquely rich lived and learned experiences. And, by virtual of their position in the social framework, are so very needed to resolve the challenges of our times.

Why?

Well, we who live at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression (or the margin) have a wholistic view of the challenges we ALL face as people. We often say that we can have a more wholistic and inclusive perspective that, by extension, allows for innovative and inclusive solutions to our collective challenges.

At Turtle Tank, we are simply harnessing the genius of our lives (as queer people of color) and creating inclusive systems for all. That is what we mean by a 'people of color-centered space'.

Ultimately, our collective goal and purpose is to provide safe incubation spaces for all Radical Entrepreneurs committed to growing their Entrepreneurial Resilience.

Within our community structure, we provide people of color-only spaces as a way to create much needed safe space for people of color. We think of this group as an “internal” concentric circle within the Turtle Tank community rather than a separate circle. We have intentionally and simultaneously kept the Turtle Tank community open to people from all walks of life while continuing to provide safe spaces for traditionally more marginalized people.

The purpose of the POC-only space is:

To create nourishing and safe private space where people of color (POC) can process and engage with each other on their entrepreneurial journey without being required expectedly or unexpectedly to witness, engage with or hold space for intentional or unintentional, overt or covert, conscious or unconscious forms of personal or structural/socio-cultural silencing, scapegoating, invisibilization or re-traumatization that are currently (unfortunately) perpetuated by the spaces we exist in on a daily basis.

We are also currently working on creating non-POC private spaces for generative processing.

We see these smaller private spaces as an act of self-care and deep self-love: to witness and be witnessed by others who share a similar journey in our complex and ever-evolving communities. We also encourage anyone who is interested to create their own safe and private spaces that support their growth and evolution.If it had not been for those private and safe spaces that helped nurture that work, neither of us would have been in a position to create radical, balanced and sustainable curricula, frameworks, approaches and spaces that everyone can and should benefit from.

It is also worth adding that the purpose of the POC group is NOT:

+To serve as an attack on any non-POC person’s character, integrity, contribution or self-awareness.
+To serve as an act of separatism, isolation or disengagement.
+Based on a singular person’s behavior or actions.

Thank you for understanding and we look forward to having you be a part of our truly diverse and radical community.

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