This page will continuously evolve as more and more of you ask great questions, so please, ask away! You can leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your questions, 0r email admin@theexpatcoachassociation.com
Who is Your Target Audience?
We are here to serve the needs of the Expat Community. This means anyone who is, was, or will become a “nomad” travelling to and living in a country other than the one they are currently familiar with or call home. Whether working there, studying there, or accompanying someone else, you are the wonderful people we serve. We welcome anyone who coaches or provides cross cultural training to the Expat community. And, we welcome businesses or corporations who send employees to work in different countries.
Why Are You Providing These Services?
This Association stemmed from a few sources. Heather Markel, one of the many Expat Coaches, got a little tired of networking, and hearing the same phrase from potential clients, “Wow, I love your niche! I’ve never heard of anyone else who does this.” Heather knew there were many other people who do this great work, and wanted to increase knowledge about our industry and exposure for all our businesses. Then in March of 2010, she attended a conference by FIGT (Families in Global Transition) where she met Sarah DeHayes and Andrew Miser. The 3 got together and decided to “start a revolution” and the Association was born! In March of 2010, Heather created a Ning forum to try and find everyone out there in the community. We started with about 4 coaches, and as of January, 2011 we have almost 120 members!
Why Are You Charging Membership Fees?
We are evolving very quickly, and it has become necessary for our community to take the next steps to increase exposure. Specifically, we need to increase the search components on our Expat Coach Directory which has gotten very big, we need to be able to provide a more robust platform to exhibit our businesses and products, and we need help with the administration of everything we are providing! This all costs money – even this very website, and we need to cover our costs, and we hope to raise enough money to be able to hire additional resources desperately needed to help us grow even bigger. So, your investment in membership is actually an investment in the success of all our businesses and we thank you!
We plan to use the money to hire people to help us re-design the searchability of our Expat Coach Directory and make it more robust, handle admin work, and to have a budget to be able to hire speakers, and more.
Instead of paying for a Directory listing, can I just do a link exchange with your business?
The simple answer is, no. In order for us to move forward and meet our objectives, we need funding. Our former model was a Directory offering link exchanges. All the costs, and all the work were handled by one person, though it was of benefit to all, and that model was not helping us grow, nor did it cover costs. In addition, we need to be consistent with everyone, and it wouldn’t be fair to offer link exchanges for some while other people are paying for their listings. Your investment in a Directory listing is what will help us make that Directory more robust, more eye catching, and quite frankly, more easy to use. Right now, if you are at the bottom of the list, people may not take the time to find your business. Our plans for the new Directory are to make it searchable by location and specialty allowing those that are looking for us to find exactly what they need.
HELP! PayPal is Driving Me Crazy! What Am I Doing Wrong?
One hurdle we have is PayPal. Sorry for the frustrations some of you have endured. Here is some information I hope will help you. Yes, you do need a PayPal account to pay your membership dues. If you do not have one, you will be prompted to create one when you use your credit card. If you DO have a PayPal account, you must know your email address and password for said account. If you forgot it, try to reset it before you try signing up as a member with us, it will make your life easier!
Here are the steps to follow to sign up:
- go to the homepage at www.theexpatcoachassociation.com
- scroll down and, on the right side, just above our Visitor Map icon, you will see where members sign in. WAIT – just below the “sign in” button, there is a link called “Register” – click that!
- Now, CREATE a new user name and password – this will be what you will use to access your special Member pages going forward. Pick your Membership level and whether you want a monthly or annual subscription. Fill out the other requested information, and then submit. HINT – write down your user name and password, you will need it later!
- Choose the PayPal icon to get over to PayPal
- You will then see a page requesting payment, and probably see the email address heather@spiceupwork.com – yes, that is me!
- Log in to your PayPal account, or, if you don’t have one yet, enter your credit card details, and later in the process, PayPal will ask you to create an account password.
- After your payment is approved, you can hit the button that says “Return to heather@spiceupwork.com” and it will return you to the ECA login page, where you will need to enter that User Name and Password I referred to in Step 3 above
I paid my membership fee but I can’t seem to access anything new.
Viewing the additional pages that your membership entitles you to is completely dependent upon your payment completing. If you pay with an eCheck, it will take approximately 7 days for that transaction to complete. (This is PayPal’s processing time.) Your membership is not active until the payment goes through. If you prefer immediate access, choose a payment method such as credit card, or checking account. If, however, your eCheck has cleared, or you feel you did pay with credit card or checking account and that your transaction is complete, email admin@theexpatcoachassociation.com to let us know, and we’ll look into it for you.
My payment has processed, how do I access everything?
Once you return to our homepage after paying and creating a login and password, you should login. You do this on the lower right corner of any page on the site. Once you login, the content for whatever level you have signed up for will appear as a new page/tab. For example, Gold Members will now see “Gold Members” and “Resources” as available tabs that were previously not visible. There is also a user guide available for download on the Gold Member tab.
I forgot my password, what do I do?
If you forgot your password, right below the space for you to enter your password, hit the link that says “Lost Your Password?” You will be guided through steps that will result in a message telling you that you will receive an email with a new temporary password. PLEASE BE PATIENT. It may take several minutes, or longer, to receive this email. Also CHECK YOUR JUNK MAIL FOLDER for this email message. Try to AVOID resetting your password more than once at a time, or you will confuse the system. Once you receive the email, you will be given a random password and a link to login. After you do this, you will be guided to choose a new password of your choice.
What if I am New and Do Not Want to Pay for a Membership?
Then you do not have to! We don’t want to turn anyone away, so non-paying members are welcome to browse our public content, leave comments, and sign up for our free newsletter. If at some point in the future you would like to become a member, simply click here to learn about the features and benefits that membership provides.
I have a suggestion for improvement, who do I contact?
Any comments, questions, complaints, etc should be directed to admin@theexpatcoachassociation.com
What if I want to cancel my membership?
We understand that the desire to cancel your membership may arise. We hope, before that happens, you will contact admin@theexpatcoachassociation.com to let us know what we need to do to keep you as a member. We do aim to satisfy! However, if you you decide to cancel your membership at any time, and are unable to do so from within your membership dashboard, simply email admin@theexpatcoachassociation.com with the subject line “CANCELLATION REQUEST” and we will stop future charges from occuring. Note, your cancellation will also mean you will no longer have access to private areas of this site, or to our Member Forum and content.
If I become a member, will I get clients or product sales?
It is definitely our hope that you will! We are doing everything we can to help showcase the businesses and products and people that are a part of our membership. Gold Level offers the most amount of exposure possible. However, there are no guarantees that your membership will earn you clients or product sales. Of course, the more people you tell about our Association, the more likely we will attract more people which means helping them, and helping us!
