The Great Franchisee: Cal Carrera, Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching, Utah

Cal Carrera has spent nearly 40 years guiding leaders to success as a mentor and management consultant. Now, the expert coach is leveraging that experience to start a new chapter in his career as one of the newest franchise owners with Intelligent Leadership and Executive Coaching (ILEC), the 15-plus-unit executive coaching franchise.

We spoke to Carrera to learn more about his career in coaching and his experience with ILEC.

1851 Franchise: Tell us your story – what did you do before franchising?

Cal Carrera: The first organization I created was when I was nine years old. I formed a 4th-grade baseball team, and we were able to beat the 5th graders. I have always enjoyed putting together successful teams, even from a young age.  

I got my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and mathematics at the University of Utah. I then went on to get my master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California. For 14 years I worked for Veda Inc as a general manager and grew the division by 1000% via strong marketing and strategic use of joint ventures. After that, I was on various panels and boards. In 2001, I formed The Carrera Group. The Carrera Group was a boutique consulting firm focused on providing day-to-day vision and executive leadership to small-to-medium-sized progressive clients who want to create organizations with increasing value and predictable growth. 

I am now a Master Certified Executive Leadership Coach who combines John Mattone's coaching systems with my extensive leadership experience to give my clients a measurable path to leadership excellence. I’m an experienced entrepreneur who has founded five successful start-ups. I co-founded a healthcare technology company and sold it 13 months later for $48M. I grew a professional services company from 12 to 125 people, and I founded a SaaS company, developed high-end SaaS products and sold them in the United States and internationally.

I’m an expert in forging C-level strategic commercial business partnerships and business development within commercial organizations, federal government agencies and healthcare industries. I’m a collaborative manager, recruiter and supportive leader who synthesizes ideas and envisions the big picture to achieve results. I build high-performance organizations and cultures, and I’m a trusted advisor to business and government entities. I’m an expert in organization value assessment, growth strategies, setting operations from the ground up, defining performance metrics, improving bottom-line profitability and elevating business to market leadership. I have spent more than 12 years on boards of directors and in building new organizations. 

1851: How did you initially find out about franchising and what was your perception of franchising before becoming a franchise owner?

Carrera: I started looking at niches within the business coaching world. I knew that with franchising I was still going to have to work hard, but the plan was already set up for me. I read some of John Mattones' books, and they resonated with what I valued. Mattone is a prolific author and has had four best-selling books focused on leadership development. After a request from Steve Jobs, John coached him on intelligent leadership with profound impact. John has expanded his leadership influence globally and is now in the top three management coaches on the planet. After reading John's books, I was fortunate to spend time with him on Zoom and was truly impressed.

1851: How did you decide you wanted to be a franchisee?

Carrera: I have joined the Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching group to answer a calling I have had for years to coach leaders to become their absolute best. I have always enjoyed coaching my team members to help them progress in their careers, and now I have the opportunity to work in John Mattone's exclusive team. 

1851: How did you perform your research?

Carrera: I looked at one that was focused on STEM learning for children. That was really intriguing to me because it was educational and would help kids. I like the imagination that went behind that. I was looking at that right before the pandemic hit, and I ended up not going in with that franchise. I looked at The Dog Stop as well because I love dogs. It was a dog daycare, overnight and grooming franchise. They seemed well structured and came in a close second to ILEC. ILEC was a very hands-on deal, and you get very involved with the leadership coaching. I decided to go with ILEC because I wanted to be more hands-on.  

1851: Why did you pick Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching? What excited you most about the potential?

Carrera: Since I am an engineer-turned-CXO, I am skeptical about "coaches" that don't have a way to accurately measure the progress of their coaching results. All successful systems need metrics to see if they are working. Mattone invented LeaderWatch(TM), a validated measurement tool to score a leader's progress toward their leadership goals, and that tool is used during the Executive Leadership development process. 

1851: What are your dreams with the business? What does the future look like?

Carrera: I would like to grow into a multi-member franchise. I want to be known as THE leadership coaching expert in my area and hopefully, someday, nationally. I want to hire four to five leadership coaches in the future to grow the business. 

1851: What advice would you have for others looking at buying a franchise?

Carrera: Do a ton of research and spend time to make sure that it is a good fit. Franchising is not as easy a business as many may think. It is still a start-up and will have many of the same challenges.  Ask a ton of questions and take a course on how to start a business before you sign onto a franchise. 

1851: What do you do in your personal time?

Carrera: My wife and I love our two dogs. I spend a lot of time cooking with my wife. 

About Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching (ILEC)

Established in 2010, Co-Founder John Mattone is globally recognized as the world’s #1 authority on Intelligent Leadership (IL), the world’s top executive coach, and the pioneer of the unique, powerful and game-changing Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching® blueprint for success. Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching® (ILEC) is the world’s top executive coaching franchise dedicated to growing leaders, building cultures, and driving results. The ILEC unique coaching methodology provides a proven philosophy, system and tools to empower leaders and future leaders to unlock and unleash their potential. ILEC clients benefit from a high ROI that delivers real results.