Coaching excellence: Freeman Academy Founder Genique Freeman reflects on her past, present and plans for growth and expansion in the future
By Faith Hatton, posted Mar 28, 2024 on BizFayetteville.com
Fayetteville resident, business owner and entrepreneur Genique Freeman has spent over 17 years in service to others as an advocate and entrepreneur providing education and training globally to individuals and groups from all walks of life and industries to include military, nonprofit, mental health providers, emerging leaders, executives and more.
Starting as a mental health supervisor in 2003, Freeman has continued to grow and develop her skills helping people in different capacities. She has been a social worker with economic services, director of community engagement and a victim advocate with the military population along with successfully owning and running her own business in Haymount, G’nique’s Spa Services. However, that development didn’t stop and along with their experiences from the public sector, she’s now utilizing those skills in the private sector after founding the Freeman Coaching Academy in 2016.
“I always knew that I wanted to be a business owner. I’ve been an esthetician for 20 years and over the last 14 years, I’ve had my spa business. I started to pursue coaching because I have a background in mental health, human service and advocacy. I love working with people, I love engaging people, empowering them in different capacities and I feel like it's a natural thing for me,” shared Freeman.
Owner/Founder
Freeman Coaching Academy
For Freeman, education is vital and it all started with the proper certifications and meeting every requirement necessary, achieving her MBA in Management and Entrepreneurship and undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Marketing as a start.
“I researched to find out what type of coaching I wanted to do, how I can be held accountable. There’s some people that just say, ‘Oh, I'm a coach’ and they just go online and get a certificate. I wanted to be held accountable for that. And so I researched it and then started pursuing my coaching business within the last seven years,” shared Freeman.
That need for accountability led to Freeman acquiring coaching credentials as a Professional Certified Coach and Assessor (PCC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF), a Board-Certified Coach (BCC) anda National Board-Certified Health
and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC).
“For me, coming from an education background I wanted it to be something where there’s a code of ethics, there’s certain protocols that you have to do in order to be credentialed. So I have over 2700 hours of personal coaching. I have over 250 hours of coaching education and then I also had to be mentored for over 20 hours. And then I had to submit tapes to say, ‘Hey, this is my coaching style’ and it had to be evaluated by master coaches that
are already a part of the ICF to say, ‘Yes, she is following protocol’ and then I'm held accountable with those certifications,” shared Freeman.
All of those certifications come together in the Freeman Coaching Academy where her expertise as a coach, facilitator and leader excels through all the coaching, education and training services it provides. Services offered include corporate training, mentoring to meet ICF requirements, business consultations, health coaching, coaching certifications, continued education and more.
Freeman works with three independent contractors who are also credentialed and following the same accountability measures held by ICF. These contractors work with Freeman to meet the needs and demand of the Academy’s coaching classes and continuing education training. Freeman Coaching Academy has a growing list of clientele which includes notable names such as Google, Dell, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. She shares that she continues to grow as more companies find out about the Academy.
“Some people have reached out to me on LinkedIn, some people have reached out to me just from me working with other clients, but I would have to say mostly through LinkedIn and from referrals and just approaching different businesses myself,” shared Freeman.”
While Freeman Coaching Academy provides a majority of services online following the COVID-19 pandemic, the goal is to start leaning into more in person local appearances whether it be training, courses or motivational speaking engagements with local organizations.
“This year, I really want to be intentional about doing a lot more things locally. I do work virtually with people that are in different countries in different cities and states, but I want to work more locally with different businesses that may be able to utilize my services,” shared Freeman.
“I really love speaking engagements. People will ask me to come in and be a guest speaker and it's customized based off of whatever the organization is looking for.”
Freeman shared that no matter what the need may be of the local business community, she is more than ready to step up to provide her
services and lend a hand.
“Knowing that I’m able to have a unique opportunity to be part of people’s progress and a part of their journey in their life, I consider it an honor. It’s rewarding to see that I'm effective in something that I enjoy doing and I’m able to do it in the capacity that I want to do it in. I’m able to help people and to see their growth and there's no limits to it,” concluded Freeman.
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