Success stories / MegAnne Ford
MegAnne Ford · Be Kind Coaching · Richmond, VA
She stumbled into a parenting business. Now hundreds of thousands of parents follow her lead.
Meet the CEO
A former teacher turned parenting coach who built her business in conversation with her community.
MegAnne Ford is the founder of Be Kind Coaching, where she teaches positive parenting, especially for parents of strong-willed children. She came from a teaching background, launched her business in 2016, and met Racheal a few months later as one of the Richmond business owners who came by for live coaching during the very first Plan Your Best Year Ever.
She went through Sweet Spot Strategy in 2017 and joined The CEO Collective® at the end of 2020. Along the way she has grown a community of hundreds of thousands of parents across Instagram, TikTok, her podcast and her Facebook group, with a paying community that calls itself The Kind Squad.
The goal
Give a fast-growing audience a clear way in: a community journey and a client journey simple enough for every parent to find the right next step, with enough structure and support behind the scenes that she feels safe in her business.
Before The CEO Collective®
Throwing all the spaghetti at the wall.
01
A one-on-one model at capacity
Her first vision was in-home coaching. She was soon over capacity and dropping plates, once referring a family back to a lesson on bedtime routines she hadn’t covered with them yet.
02
Visibility with a dark side
She was one of the first to experiment with Instagram Stories, and growing visibility brought backlash and a bully. She kept showing up, with a lot of mindset work behind it.
03
A costly detour
In 2020 she spent a year in a large, high-priced program where no one ever looked directly at her business. She came out of it knowing she needed support from people who actually knew her.
“No, we’re a community. We’re finding safety in community here. It’s not just MegAnne has the answer, we’re all learning from each other.”
The 90 Day CEO Operating System® at work
What the system actually built for MegAnne.
MegAnne came back to Racheal’s world at the end of 2020 because she wanted a place that already knew her and her business. The CEO Collective® gave her the structure, the container and the systems, the part of the business she says was missing.
Phase 01
Listening as market research
She asks her Facebook group the same questions month after month, and has interviewed close to 50 parents: what have you tried, what worked, what stopped you, what would your dream solution be. Her frameworks come from what parents say, not what she assumes.
“I would think this and then I’d be like, “Oh, wait, nope, they’re saying that.””
Phase 02
From one-on-one to a client journey
She moved out of one-on-one work and built a path for parents: the Understanding Us series, then Positive Parenting Class Pass, then her VIP offer, Clear and Kind Parents.
“Now I know my bowl of spaghetti and I feel confident with my bowl of spaghetti. I’m finding order in my bowl of spaghetti.”
Phase 03
Support, and a quarterly rhythm
Her word for the year was support: a team member handling SEO, a weekly mastermind with two other members, and a return to quarterly launches, with every launch planned out ahead.
“If it’s not in my lane, I need to get out of it. When I’m in someone else’s lane in my business, I clog up traffic real fast.”
In her own words
What it looks like when you attach to the vision, not the journey.
I feel like I stumbled into it. I had an idea of what I thought it was going to be, and learned very quickly to attach to the vision and don’t attach to the journey. Be present in the journey, but always attach to the vision.
People aren’t going to see it how you see it. People are going to be like, “What are you doing? That doesn’t make any sense.” And you’ll be like, “Yeah, I know it makes no sense to you, but I know that it makes sense to others who have walked this journey too.”
For a long time I felt chaos, but now I’m feeling safe, and that feels really good.
I remember asking Racheal, “What questions do I say to find my blind spots?” And she said, “MegAnne, they’re blind spots. When was the last time you rested?” That was such a huge wake-up call. The better I am, the better I can show up.
That’s something I always get whenever I work with Racheal: the structure, the container and the systems. It just feels like the part of my business that was missing for me.
What’s different now
MegAnne’s biggest wins.
Result 01
A paying community that named itself
“They call themselves The Kind Squad and they’re like, “Yeah, come in The Kind Squad. It’s unlike anything else.””
Result 02
A clear path for every parent
“When I start to feel a certain way, I know what program to go to, I know what space to curate. It’s been allowing me to add clarity to something that feels very nebulous, not only for me, but to them as well.”
Result 03
Visibility on her own terms
“Taking that mindset of play, play, play. There have been highs and lows, and just really being able to connect again to the vision.”
Result 04
Every launch planned for the year
“I have all of my launches planned out, going back to the quarterly launch. That quarterly rhythm feels so good to get back to.”
Featured episode · Promote Yourself to CEO®
CEO Confession Take Two: From Bullied to Vibrant Business Community with MegAnne Ford
MegAnne joins Racheal for a Where Are They Now conversation: stumbling into business, building frameworks from what parents actually say, growing on Instagram and TikTok through real backlash, and finally feeling safe in her business.
Listen to the episode Listen to her first interview: The Dark Side of Visibility ↗
More member stories.
50% of clients from TikTokMegan Gersch“The structure gives me the baseline to come back to.”Read her story ↗
Built a community that looks like RichmondMichelle Mercurio“If you are just constantly hustling to that next thing, you’re going to miss your whole life.”Read her story ↗
Revenue nearly doubledMia HenryShe teaches organizations how to share power. The CEO Collective® taught her how to use her time.Read her story ↗Attach to the vision. Build the structure that holds it.
If your audience is growing faster than your business can hold it, The CEO Collective® is where you build the client journey, the support and the quarterly rhythm that let you keep showing up, and feel safe doing it.