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  • Report: #341126

Complaint Review: Brad Sugars - ActionCoach - Action International

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  • Submitted: Tuesday, June 17, 2008
  • Last Posting: Sunday, October 31, 2010
  • Reported By: — Las Vegas Nevada
Brad Sugars - ActionCoach - Action International
5781 S. Fort Apache Las Vegas Nevada 89148 U.S.A.

Brad Sugars - ActionCoach - Action International Con Man Extraordinaire ActionCoach Deceit Dishonest Corrupt Liars and Manipulators Fraudulent misrepresentations Fake and Artificial Las Vegas Nevada

*UPDATE EX-employee responds: ActionCoach Awards


1Author 2Consumer 7Employee/Owner

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Brad Sugars and ActionCoach aka: Action International

Known perpetrators of fraud see California State Securities Dept Sold Franchises and Master Licensees illegally Action International warned and fined. Misrepresentation total # of franchisees claimed these false franchisees include former employees, former Franchises not removed, names of individuals who have never owned or paid for a franchise, including names of individuals who has never actually ever performed the duties of a franchise. Ask for a list of the over the 1000 franchisees claimed you will not receive it.

Used deceit to solicit new Franchisees based on incorrect and fraudulent information in marketing materials.

Sued by many former Franchisees and Master licensees and settled out of court and has paid restitution in the millions to cover up past fraudulent behavior.
Have sued and persecuted wrongfully former Franchise owners to purposely inflict harm these charges were dismissed and Action found guilty of malicious prosecution.

Brad Sugars plagiarizes and flagrantly uses other Authors materials to write his own books. Self publishes most of his own works as he cannot find a reputable publisher to do so. Most other professionals in his industry shun him for his reputation of stealing others intellectual property.

Constantly overstates his net worth calls himself millionaire many times over as well as a (Billionaire in Training) ActionCoach in their own financials claim a balance in the bank of under 25,000. Brad Sugars in almost every partnership whether in be in Action or any other businesses have broken up with Brad taking advantage or outright stealing from his partners. He has left his home country in Australia due to bad reputation and negative publicity as well as changed company name and image numerous times to try and leave his reputation behind.

Most franchisees are not making a living and are scared to tell the truth as to not being singled out and punished financially by Brad. Brad has taken back numerous territories and has not paid the amount agreed upon with the other party. If you see Brad at a large gathering of his own organization you can easily spot him he will be the one sitting at a table by himself after boring everyone with stories of his greed and self promotion everyone around him soon leaves his table.

If you ask anyone in his organization what they think about him the only thing you will ever here is he is smart. No one will say they like him, trust him , or feel he is honest, no one can really stand the man as everyone knows he is corrupt and immoral and will take advantage of you the first chance he can. His main object in life is to take your money at any cost. This has resulted in threats to him and his family severe enough he has had to leave his home country and family.

He cant keep his staff as he is rude, condescending and obnoxious. His senior management turns over constantly when they become aware of his poor management style and corrupt nature. He is exceptionally immature for his age and unfortunately posses no people skills. He likes to write about these skills but continues to prove he doesnt have them this based on the fact that he cannot maintain his own staff in any of the countries he operates due to his human incompetence. Would you like to have this self professed trainer who cant keep his staff try to help train you to keep yours.

If you are considering doing any business with this man see the other ripoff reports as well as other sites that will list his crooked background and his previous frauds. He and his flunkies will try to dissuade you that these things arent true and like any Con Man his greatest skill is sounding genuine dont be fooled ask these questions of his franchisees and employees some will have the courage to tell the truth others will not but in the end search the facts see the government sites and other documents available on the web dont be swayed by the smooth talk or you will be the next victim.

Former franchise
Las Vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 6/17/2008 12:32:42 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/franchisors/brad-sugars-actionco/brad-sugars-actioncoach-ac-yf669.htm.

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author 2Consumer 7Employee/Owner
Updates & Rebuttals

#1 Consumer Comment

WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH OUR ACTIONCOACH FRANCHISE

AUTHOR: Franchise Owner - Miami (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Saturday, June 21, 2008

We have never been mislead by anyone at ActionCOACH. The information provided is not correct. Anyone that wants to know about ActionCOACH should contact any of its 1,000 franchises, dozens of Master Licensees or read the UFOC. ActionCOACH has hardly any litigation on record as the UFOC shows.

People who fail as coaches only have to blame themselves for their incompentence. Its called being responsible as opposed to blaming others.

Here is the evidence.

#1 Business Coaching Franchise in the World
Entrepreneur Magazine, 2008-2005

#76 Franchise in the World
Entrepreneur Magazine, 2008 (Ranked #96 in 2007)

Best Overall Company in North America
Stevie Winner 2007-2006

Best of the Best-Top Franchise Award
Indonesia Info Franchise Magazine 2008

Rank #1 Top Franchise Award
Indonesia Info Franchise Magazine 2008

ActionCOACH is currently ranked, and has been so for the past three years, the #1 Business Consulting Franchise in the World. Entrepreneur Magazine has also awarded ActionCOACH the following ranks:

Franchise 500 rank:
#76 (2008); #96 (2007); #80 (2006); #98 (2005); #69 (2004);

Fastest-Growing Franchises:
#46 (2008); #55 (2006); #16 (2004);

Top Home Based Franchises:
#17 (2008); #25 (2007); #15 (2006); #18 (2005); #13 (2004);

America's Top Global Franchises:
#49 (2008); #43 (2007); #49 (2006); #53 (2005); #39 (2004);

Press Release | Visit the Online Listing

Best Overall Company in North America
ActionCOACH was named a Stevie Winner in the prestigious 2007 International Business Awards, Best Overall Company category. The Stevie awards are the World's Premier Business Awards and recognizes the accomplishments and positive contributions of companies.

Press Release | Visit the Online Listing

2005 Franchise of the Year Award in Ireland
ActionCOACH was the winner of the prestigious 2005 Franchise of the Year Award in Ireland. The award is presented to the company that has demonstrated outstanding growth and development in the service sector of the franchise industry. Winning the Franchise of the Year Award is a major achievement for a company that was introduced to Ireland just three years prior.

2006 UK Franchise Provide of the Year, Business Britain magazine
In 2006, ActionCOACH was awarded UK Franchise Provider of the Year by Business Britain magazine. The award, which is the first ever to be made by Business Britain, was presented to ActionCOACH after a panel of journalists and managers from the magazine judged it to have excelled across a wide range of criteria including reputation, franchise return on investment, profit growth potential, and quality of franchisee support.

Australian Business Award
ActionCOACH won the prestigious Australian Business Award for Enterprise. The Australian Business Awards is an independent program recognizing success, innovation and ethics across all industry sectors embracing businesses of all sizes. The program is supported by forward-thinking organizations that are committed to business excellence and innovative business processes.

#34 in Franchisee Satisfaction
In 2006, we made the Top 50 Franchises in the 2006 Franchisee Satisfaction Awards conducted by the Franchise Business Review. Out of the nearly 250 companies entered, and representing over 45,000 franchisees around the globe ActionCOACH was ranked 34.
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#2 Consumer Comment

ActionCoach - A Great Help

AUTHOR: Guy - Blackrock, Co. Dublin. (Ireland)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, April 09, 2009

I am posting this comment to say that whatever accusations may be levelled at the main principle in ActionCoach, Brad Sugars, whether they be true or not, the article posted may have unfair repercussions on the Coaches them selves.

I have been with ActionCoach for some time now and both myself and my business partner have found our mentor to be professional, interested and knowledgeable. He is generous with his time and has been a real asset to our growth. He has helped us to review how we manage our company and has enabled us to set achievable goals and milestones for the growth of our company. I cannot recommend our coach highly enough.

The posted article does not take in to account the many coaches that are assigned to the franchise that genuinely care and are good at what they do.
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#3 Employee

ActionCOACH Solid Business System - Not Magic or Guaranteed!

AUTHOR: Tim Roberts - Layton (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Tuesday, May 05, 2009

I am writing this rebuttal to all the report authors who complain that they were misled as to the money they could make or success they could gain from owning and operating an ActionCOACH franchise. I am an ActionCOACH in Utah -- a tough market to find success in -- and I have found success. That success was due to the ActionCOACH array of systems, strategies and processes, COMBINED with my abilities, experience, knowledge, and HARD WORK.

Many reports have said things like they get no support from ActionCOACH. I cannot conceive of this! I get way way more opportunities to receive support than I could possibly use. I can choose which of these opportunities best suits me in my unique business circumstances. I have video based training, countless scripts to guide me through a wide array of situations, and multi-media tools to assist me in marketing to prospects and in coaching.

In particular, my ML has supplied me with an incredible amount of useful material to use in selling as well as in coaching. I am very satisfied with the support I have received. In the last few months, Brad Sugars himself has devoted much more time to personally coaching his coaches on reaching their financial and client goals. I have been very impressed with is commitment in this regard.

But .... there are a number of things that an ActionCOACH franchise will not do for you. It will not cure your laziness. It won't make you smart when you are not. It won't make you have integrity when you don't. It won't give you good judgment and relational tact when you don't have it. I get the feeling that many of the ROR complainers are expecting that their ActionCOACH Franchise will guarantee their success. There are NO guarantees for anyone's success. All success depends upon the efforts, and capabilities of the individual.

Selling is hard. It takes a building of capability over time. Coaching takes capabilities like judgment, empathy, insight, and discipline.

ActionCOACH is a supportive community. It is a great, robust system with which to approach business improvement. The ActionCOACH system is NOT primary research. Of course ActionCOACH has borrowed from the best business developments out there in the marketplace. This practice is very well accepted in the business world, so the accusations of Brad's plagarizing are puzzling.

If anyone is doing their due diligence on ActionCOACH they are welcome to call or contact me.

Tim Roberts
ActionCOACH
www.actioncoach.com/timroberts
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#4 Employee

ActionCOACH Solid Business System - Not Magic or Guaranteed!

AUTHOR: Tim Roberts - Layton (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Tuesday, May 05, 2009

I am writing this rebuttal to all the report authors who complain that they were misled as to the money they could make or success they could gain from owning and operating an ActionCOACH franchise. I am an ActionCOACH in Utah -- a tough market to find success in -- and I have found success. That success was due to the ActionCOACH array of systems, strategies and processes, COMBINED with my abilities, experience, knowledge, and HARD WORK.

Many reports have said things like they get no support from ActionCOACH. I cannot conceive of this! I get way way more opportunities to receive support than I could possibly use. I can choose which of these opportunities best suits me in my unique business circumstances. I have video based training, countless scripts to guide me through a wide array of situations, and multi-media tools to assist me in marketing to prospects and in coaching.

In particular, my ML has supplied me with an incredible amount of useful material to use in selling as well as in coaching. I am very satisfied with the support I have received. In the last few months, Brad Sugars himself has devoted much more time to personally coaching his coaches on reaching their financial and client goals. I have been very impressed with is commitment in this regard.

But .... there are a number of things that an ActionCOACH franchise will not do for you. It will not cure your laziness. It won't make you smart when you are not. It won't make you have integrity when you don't. It won't give you good judgment and relational tact when you don't have it. I get the feeling that many of the ROR complainers are expecting that their ActionCOACH Franchise will guarantee their success. There are NO guarantees for anyone's success. All success depends upon the efforts, and capabilities of the individual.

Selling is hard. It takes a building of capability over time. Coaching takes capabilities like judgment, empathy, insight, and discipline.

ActionCOACH is a supportive community. It is a great, robust system with which to approach business improvement. The ActionCOACH system is NOT primary research. Of course ActionCOACH has borrowed from the best business developments out there in the marketplace. This practice is very well accepted in the business world, so the accusations of Brad's plagarizing are puzzling.

If anyone is doing their due diligence on ActionCOACH they are welcome to call or contact me.

Tim Roberts
ActionCOACH
www.actioncoach.com/timroberts
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#5 Employee

One of the survivors

AUTHOR: Craig - Columbus (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Monday, June 22, 2009

Hi Tim.
From your post it sounds like you are one of the minority of people who is doing OK with the Action franchise and I am really very happy for you. However, if you are up to it, I suggest you get on to www.actionmembers.com , go to the Directory and look up Kevin Alft your M.L.

You will find the list of coachs who are part of Kevins team. At the end of May there were 25 coachs and 7 Firm owners based in California, New Mexico, Utah, Southern Texas and Idaho. There is even one person in Hawaii. Kevin himself has an address in Albuquerque so I guess most of his team don't see him very often.
Most important is what you will see if you look at the performance level for all of these people. End of May, 23 of the 25 coaches listed were Bronze level which means they were grossing less than 6k per month out of which they have to pay a 1.8k monthly royalty, a 5% marketing fee and their business expenses. How much do you think they had left to provide for themselves and their families?

You might also be interesting in knowing that since the beginning of the year Kevin has lost 6 franchisees from his team. Lucky for him he has found 7 new people, mostly in California, to replace those he lost elsewhere. You don't get to hear much about these people but since you seem to know the story you will probably agree that they have lost a bundle.

So, based on these average figures which you can check yourself, do you still believe that this franchise is being straight with prospects about their chances of succeeding in this business?

If you want to see a few more figures I suggest you also have a look at this forum: http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/actioncoach-brad-sugars-overview-discussion/

All the best.
Craig
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#6 Ex-Employee

Misrepresentation

AUTHOR: Misrepresentation - (USA)

SUBMITTED: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The first post in this thread goes back to June 2008 and doing a little research on ActionCoach (formerly Action International) you can easily dig up posts going back a lot further, at least back to June 2006. What all of these posts have in common is they accuse ActionCoach of fraud and misrepresentation. Unfortunately many of these posts are bit short on detail but this post should help fill the gap.

On one of the leading U.S. franchise sites, entrepreneur.com, ActionCoach presently claims it has 1089 franchisees worldwide, including 445 franchisees in the U.S. (see image below)

However when you do a verification on the ActionCoach corporate website, http://www.actioncoach.com/coachfinder.php the worldwide total comes to only 834, with only 292 in the U.S.!

This means ActionCoach overstates its worldwide franchise numbers by 30% and its U.S. franchise numbers by 52% !!!!!

ActionCoach has been challenged on these numbers on many internet blogs over the last couple of years but, rather than put the record straight, this franchisor has preferred to hack the blogs and generally insure that any third party views are eliminated from the Google rankings.

Almost 2 years on, the advice given in the first post here is as relevant as ever. Beware of these people and try doing a Google search with the words ActionCoach Fraud or ActionCoach scam before making any decision to do business with them. You will be amazed with what you find. 

Given the attacks that some of the older blogs like soulcast and unhappyfranchisee have been subjected to, I would recommend http://www.bluemaumau.org/brad_sugars_come_down_0  to anyone researching ActionCoach today.

  

 

 


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#7 Ex-Employee

ActionCoach franchises by Country

AUTHOR: Misrepresentation - (USA)

SUBMITTED: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

For those that are curious to know some more, the actual breakdown in ActionCoach franchise numbers per country on http://www.actioncoach.com/coachfinder.php was as follows:

United States -292

Canada -28

Foreign Franchisees 515  of whom

Mexico/61

Brazil/8

Colombia/1

Suriname/2

Dominican Republic/1

Ireland/21

United Kingdom/142

Portugal/14

Spain/14

France/32

Hungary/1

Australia/126

New Zealand/34

Indonesia/24

Malaysia/14

Singapore/3

South Africa/18

Kenya/1

 

This total of 835 in 20 countries should be compared with the claim of 1089 on entrepreneur.com and the claim

“ We work with every types of business imaginable, and with more than 1000 offices in 26 countries, it’s easy to see how ActionCOACH can help you find a Business Coach in your area”.

you can find in all of the ActionCoach marketing materials.

If the figures on the ActionCoach.com web site are not accurate, maybe they would like to do a detailed rebuttal telling us where we are getting it wrong? That would be far more convincing than spamming and hacking the blogs where these sorts of questions have been asked for quite some time.

 

P.S. A complete list of franchisees by country can be downloaded from the bluemaumau site referenced in the preceded post.

                             

    

 


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#8 Employee

Current Franchise Owner

AUTHOR: Anonymous - Theywill Knowme (U.S.A.)

SUBMITTED: Thursday, September 09, 2010

I currently own an ActionCOACH franchise.  I've seen a lot of the "stuff" described in this post.  Although the author has terrible grammar and is obviously bitter, there is a lot of truth in a lot of his comments.  One of the things I've become acutely aware of in this franchise is the enormous failure rate.  Almost everyone that bought this franchise at the same time I did has failed.  Going to the conferences every year is like going to a new company every single year.  They're not bigger because of all those failing, but just everyone is new.  ActionCOACH, in my opinion, is a decent company that misrepresents itself, horribly, to those looking to buy the franchise.  Brad and the Master Licensees NEVER talk about the incredibly high failure rate with prospects and they instead focus on how much money you CAN make.  ActionCOACH's success is 100% due to the fact that Brad has created a franchise selling machine that is full of huge monetary incentives for his ML's to sell franchises. The truth is this: THEY (mostly Brad) DON'T REALLY CARE IF FRANCHISEES FAIL OR SUCCEED.  They make SO much money from selling the franchise that the monthly royalty is chump change to them.  Consider this: from April 2006- April 2010 ONE THOUSAND franchisees bought this franchise and FAILED.  That's $75,000,000 (yes that's MILLION) to them from people's pockets who failed within a very short amount of time and probably spent the majority of their life savings or are greatly in debt from it.  THIS is why i'm writing this post.  I don't really care about Brad Sugars and all his escapades to make money and waste his life.  I do care about all the people who are losing their life savings and/or going into huge debt to get into this business. A lot of them are friends of mine who joined this franchise with me.  If you're considering purchasing this franchise, just know that you shouldn't ever base your decision on what Brad or any of his Master Licensees tell you.  Base it all on what other coaches tell you (and by the way this author is correct that there is a HUGE amount of fear in franchisees regarding speaking out against Brad Sugars/Actioncoach.  It's actually really weird.  It feels a little cult-like sometimes.  Or people think he can hear them and has the ability to sue people for speaking about him in a way that does not glorify him.  Also, when speaking to franchisees you can test the water by seeing if they'll say ANYTHING negative about the company.  If they wont'- they're probably a little brain washed and you shouldn't trust them.  There is no fault-free company in the world).  Also base your decision on your abilities and talents.  This is a very hard business to be successful at for 95% of people (actually I don't know of any coaches, even the most successful, who it isn't hard for.  They have to work VERY hard to be very successful, as is the case with most things).  I see people buy this franchise all the time who i can tell in 5 minutes are not going to make it becuase of their personality.  If you've never been in selling/sales before, BE CAREFUL.  This is a very sales intense business.  If you can't sell really well, you will not make it.  I know several coaches who are not that great as coaches but who do decently well because they're very good at sales.  But i don't know even one who does well because they're a great coach but can't sell well.  
I hope this helps any of you thinking about buying a franchise.  Also, I do believe that since I bought this franchise the world has changed a lot.  There are a lot more resources that cost WAY less than this franchise that I think are even better.  Do a search for a coaches coach or the ICF or many other sources to compare with buying a franchise.  A huge problem with buying a franchise, which is why a lot of my friends are gone, is that you spend $100,000 getting going and you have little to no time before you need to be making a considerable amount of money to support yourself because all of your savings or borrowings is gone already.  You can do much lower cost option that will allow you to keep all of that and just pay for some help from someone who is an experienced business coach or coaching organization that will teach you all the same stuff actioncoach does (and what i've seen in some of these organizations it's actually even better because actioncoach is WAY outdated in a lot of it's ways of operating!).  
If you don't believe how many franchisees have left action from 2006-2010, check this out.  I know A LOT of the names on this list and i know they're all real: http://www.bluemaumau.org/files/Action%20Coach%20Franchise%20Exits%20Aug06%20-%20Feb10-1.pdf

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#9 Ex-Employee

ActionCoach Awards

AUTHOR: Honesty pays! - Irvine (United States of America)

SUBMITTED: Sunday, October 31, 2010

This is an answer to the 2nd post in this thread:

"We have never been mislead by anyone at ActionCOACH. The information provided is not correct. Anyone that wants to know about ActionCOACH should contact any of its 1,000 franchises, dozens of Master Licensees or read the UFOC. ActionCOACH has hardly any litigation on record as the UFOC shows. People who fail as coaches only have to blame themselves for their incompentence. Its called being responsible as opposed to blaming others..."

1) If ActionCOACH has hardly any litigation on record it is because the ActionCoach franchise contracts are written up in such a manner that it makes litigation extremely difficult. For example Class Actions are forbidden.

2) Most of the vast majority of the people who quit the franchise well before the end of their 1st contract are totally broke and simply can't afford to go into litigation.

3) With turnover of franchisees running at about 30% a year, how can you possibly say that the franchisees are the only ones to blame for their "incompetence". If ActionCoach was a normal business with employees it couldn't possibily survive with that sort of turnover of personnel and a lot of questions would be asked about recruitment and management methods. Futhermore, given all they have invested, it is hard to imagine that the franchisees are not motivated at the outset so the problem must lie with the franchise.  

4) The awards received by ActionCoach over the years should be treated with a lot of scepticism. To see some very enlightening material on this subject use the following link:

http://actransparency.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/actioncoach-entrepreneur-com-the-franchise-500-ranking/


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