Teachers made a difference (and it showed)
Before we get into week 10, the biggest shout out goes to the OPEX trainers and mentors. This didn’t seem like a typical “educational group running a course” organization. The people who lead the program are also people who run the company and shape the brand.
In the first eight weeks we learned with Carl, the CEO of OPEX. This matters. When someone at this level takes the time to teach coaches every week, it sends a clear message of what the company values.
Then the last two weeks turned into marketing and sales for fitness professionals, led by Kandace, CMO of OPEX. He’s been in marketing leadership roles with well-known fitness brands for more than two decades, and you could feel that experience in how hands-on the resources were. Not just ideas, but tools you can actually put into your business.
If you are curious about the guidance itself, OPEX describes it here: Guidance Details OPEX Method.
Because “confidence follows skill” kept coming up
In coaching (and frankly most careers), confidence doesn’t come from hype. It comes from knowing what you’re doing and being able to repeat it under pressure.
The skill also keeps moving. The more you learn, the more you notice what you don’t know yet. This can feel daunting if you expect to “finish” learning. Or it might feel like a challenge you’re excited to take on.
This program leaned on that second path. It wasn’t made to make you feel like you’ve finally arrived. Built to help you keep building, with better structure and better language.
The cohort model solved a problem that most courses ignore
Many coaches (and physical therapists) have the same experience with self-paced classes:
You plan to start next week.
Next week turns into next month.
A year later, you remember you bought it and can’t find your login.
The format of the OPEX method helped because it was not passive. It was a group of small groups with live weekly sessions. You show up or people notice you didn’t. You can’t hide behind a muted microphone and a block off camera forever. If you always leave early, it stands out.
That external accountability matters. So does the community side of it, being in constant conversation with other coaches working on the same problems you are.
And the best part is that you’ll still have your library of pre-recorded material afterwards. Live sessions encourage consistent action and recorded content means you can continue learning at your own pace once habits are built.
Week 10: marketing and sales without the “bad” feeling.
Week 10 focused on marketing and sales, and the goal was not to turn coaches into influencers. It was to build a simple system that creates demand and guides people to a decision.
Candace named it Minimal Viable Marketing System (MVM). The idea is clear:
Turn what you share publicly into demand.
Take that demand and drive it to decisions from prospective customers.
One line that stuck with me was the concept of teaching publicly so you can sell privately. When your public message is clear and consistent, the sales pitch feels less like a push. The prospect often appears to already understand what you are doing and why it matters.
If your messaging is weak, selling looks awkward. You end up forcing the conversation because nothing you’ve shared has created clarity or trust. Powerful messages change that. It creates the feeling that the person approaching is already “sold” through the way you show your work, your training style and the results you help people achieve.
A content system you can actually maintain
A lot of the marketing discussion has been about content structure, especially for coaches who live on short-form content because it’s realistic and repetitive.
The approach was not “post more”. It was “post by design”.
Short-form content anchored to long-form
One practical structure we talked about was anchoring short-form content to a weekly long-form piece. That way, your Instagram (or similar) posts aren’t random. They support a bigger idea and lead people to a deeper explanation.
To me, YouTube has always been very similar. Where do you start? Are videos just longer versions of short posts? And how can you stay consistent when the reason you can post often is because the posts are short?
The answer we worked on was to create a small “hub” of longer videos covering your key topics and then using short clips to support those videos over time. You don’t try to reinvent your message every day. You reinforce it.
Using custom GPT to schedule five anchor videos
In week nine (which fed directly into the week 10 content plan), Candace shared a custom GPT designed to help create five YouTube anchor videos. The issue was not the technology itself. It was the structure.
Five strong “pillar” themes give you a foundation you can build on for months. It’s easier to stay consistent when you’re not guessing what you’re going to discuss each week.
The main topic of the OPEX method: systems and frameworks
If there was a recurring theme in coaching, training, recruiting and marketing, it was systems and frameworks.
Not because coaching has to be robotic, but because structure creates freedom.
When your foundation is practiced and specific, you can relax into the moment. You can pay attention to the person in front of you instead of running through mental checklists throughout the session.
This applies to almost everything a coach does:
The goal is to create repeatable processes so you can “flow” when it’s time to train live.
“Programmed spontaneity” is real (and shows up in coaching)
This idea came up in a conversation with the client just as I was finishing the program. Most of the work we do as coaches happens between sessions, not during them.
This behind-the-scenes work includes things like:
Controlling consultation calls
Looking at recruitment results
Create a 1 to 2 year macro plan
Breaking this plan down into seasons (midcycles), blocks, weeks and sessions
It also appears in business planning:
What is my goal for 1 to 2 years?
What are my quarterly goals?
What actions support those goals this month?
What needs to be done this week?
What piece of content am I publishing today that fits the big picture?
At first, this may sound like excessive planning. But it is similar to real life. Schedules are busy and if you don’t plan for free time, you usually don’t get it. In coaching, if you don’t plan your systems, you don’t have a presence. You’re distracting yourself.
Without a structure you trust, your brain is stuck trying to predict every possible turn:
What is the next exercise? What patterns did we hit today? Will they hurt too much tomorrow? What if they ask to speak to their spouse? What if they dispute the price?
If you already know how to manage these moments, you stay present. If you don’t, you spend the session half in the future and half in the past and miss what’s happening right now.
Because experienced coaches are still learning a lot in programs like this
A fair question arose after the ten weeks were up: “Did you really learn a lot? Haven’t you already heard most of it?”
That was not my experience. Even when the subject is familiar, a new perspective can change what you notice. The same concept may look different when explained by another coach, another business owner, or another educator who has solved similar problems in a different way.
Gathering these perspectives helps you clarify your own vision and language. It also helps you communicate with more types of clients and even work with more types of coaches.
If you want resources to continue building
OPEX also has free materials that support coaches outside of coaching. If you’re the type who likes tools you can implement right away, these are worth saving: free coaching guides from OPEX. There are also additional resources available through CoachRx here: free CoachRx training resources.
Conclusion
The biggest lesson from ten weeks was simple: strength training becomes easier when you build systems you can repeat. Marketing feels better when your message does the heavy lifting, and sessions feel better when you’re not mentally scrambling. The OPEX method provided frameworks for training, business and communication, and this structure created more peace of mind, not more work. If you want to get better as a coach, that kind of guided learning is hard to replace.
