We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mike Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mike, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a customer success story with us?
This is why I love doing what I do – the customer success stories! Watching a client gain confidence and speed throughout the day is incredibly rewarding, as we are a team at that point, with each person contributing a significant amount to achieve the goal – one without the other won’t make any progress. As a high performance driving coach, I’ve lost count of the number of drivers I’ve helped lower their lap times – if that was their goal – or simply enjoy their day as they check off a bucket-list item to drive safely on a race track.
Yet even with all those clients over the years, I have a clear and favorite success story, when I spent the day at Sebring International Raceway with a young woman that had just recently turned 16 years old. Her father came to the track regularly, and she was following in his footsteps – something I can appreciate greatly as the father of identical twin girls. Her goal was to continue to improve, with the hopes of lowering lap times and getting approved to start driving solo – a significant milestone for any driver, let alone one that had only been driving on the track for about six months.
Since she was relatively inexperienced at the time, her previous instructor had rightfully taught her the safe way around a race track. But the safest path isn’t the fastest path, and it quickly became apparent to me that she had the skills to push the envelope a bit more. So throughout the day we slowly transitioned from the safe line around the track to the fast line, and with each passing coaching session, her lap times were dropping (she had a lap timer running that was visible only to me in the passenger seat) as she set a new personal best over and over again. She was gaining confidence with every lap, and occasionally when she hit a corner just perfect, I could detect a slight chuckle coming from her over my headset; one that said “oh this is fun, I’ve got this!” without actually speaking a word.
The next-to-last session it really all came together, and she was putting down blistering laps – crushing her previous best time from just an hour before. I use wireless headsets to communicate in the car, and usually after each coaching session I simply turn it off, as there is about an hour between sessions, then turn it back on when we get back in the car for the next time out. The way the schedule worked out, there was only about a 15 minute break before we were going back out, so when the session was over and she had once again crushed her previous best lap time, I told her just to leave the headset on, and I got out of the car and started walking off.
About 10 seconds after I got out of the car, just about enough time for her to unbuckle her seat belt, lean over and grab the lap timer and review what she had just done – and while not even thinking about the fact that I could still hear what she was saying as I hadn’t yet taken off my helmet – her voice came over my headset and in a soft-spoken teenage girl voice simply said “Oh. My. God.” – amazed at herself at what she had just accomplished versus where we had started earlier in the day.
I still see her from time to time, an accomplished solo driver now perhaps in her early 20s – and I beam with pride each time I’m out with another client and she skillfully passes us by on track, on her way to bigger and better things.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Like many people who own their own business, it started much by accident. Many years ago I was at a race track, before I ever had thoughts about being a coach. I happened to be there with my brother and my car had broken down, so instead of packing up early and heading home, I decided I might as well ride around with him in the passenger seat of his car. What I quickly realized was that I could actually help him driver faster – so began giving him tips of where to position the car on the track, where and how to properly apply the brakes, etc. As we drove around, lap after lap his times were improving – and I had been bitten by the instructor bug.
A few weeks later, my car was repaired and I was back at the track at the next event. While registering the morning of, the driver in front of me asked for an instructor, but the organizer of the event didn’t have anyone extra to help. After apologizing for eavesdropping on the conversation, I volunteered to provide coaching, the driver and I both had a great day, I found it an incredibly rewarding experience, and my new path in the hobby had been set.
Over the course of the next few years, working predominately with Chin Track Days, I continued to gain knowledge, received training from professional coaches, served as a mentor to beginning instructors, developed classroom material for beginners, ran the operational side of track events, and was recently asked to take on the role of Chief Instructor for FARA’s HPDE Academy. It was about that same time that I found myself unemployed, after over 15 years at the same company, so I decided to turn my passion into my profession, and start Tower Turn Coaching – named after my favorite corner at Sebring International Raceway.
The goal of my company is to help drivers achieve their goals on the race track, the primary goal is usually to run faster laps – but to do so safely. I offer three main services for drivers participating in High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) events: pre-track meeting where I discuss car dynamics, driving techniques and review each corner of the track to properly prepare the driver; in-car coaching to give real-time instruction and feedback while we are out on the track; and post-track review of data and video, looking at comparisons to optimal laps and share suggestions for what to do the next time the driver goes out on track.
I’ve been told by numerous clients that I have a unique ability to break down something complex and done at a very high rate of speed into small, simple to understand concepts. I provide a great deal of detail with my pre-track services, and then back it up with clear and concise communication in real-time in the car to accomplish the client’s goals. Then again after the coaching session, reviewing in detail subtle data points and changes that can be made to yield impressive results. Most of my clients have received some level of instruction prior to meeting with me – and often times from professional racing drivers with highly-decorated careers – yet they frequently tell me I was the best and most influential coach they’ve had. But don’t take it from me, you can review my client testimonials at https://towerturncoaching.com/#Testimonials
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know – right? I’ll add to that – and more important in this case than in most – is how effective you are at communicating what you know. Proving myself almost entirely through volunteering initially allowed me to get my foot in the door with multiple organizations. I slowly built my reputation over the course of a few years while coaching wasn’t even a side hustle – it was a barter model where I donated my coaching for discounted track time for myself.
Chin Track Days, the organization I have done most of my coaching with in the past, requested feedback from customers, and based on the positive feedback I was receiving, I was rewarded with a growing list of responsibilities. As time went on, my role evolved from coaching one driver for 3.5 hours a day to coaching 4-5 drivers for 30 minutes throughout the day. That allowed me to reach a wider audience more quickly, and since many of those coaching sessions were with drivers that had just come from having a different coach earlier in the day – those drivers could see the difference in the quality that I was able to offer. The thought occurred to them – if I was able to help them so much in just 30 minutes, what could I do if we spent all day together? And after they had been approved to drive solo, would they be willing to pay for an effective coach that could help them lower lap times versus just trying to figure it out themselves?
That is not to suggest their other instructors weren’t good – it takes bravery and a tremendous amount of passion to get into a car with someone you’ve never met before and go barreling towards a concrete wall at 140 mph. But as with most things in life, there is a degree of variance in the quality of any line of products, services and skills, and I regularly hear from my clients that I have been the best coach they’ve had riding in the right seat.
When FARA (Formula Automotive Racing Association) tapped a new Director to run their High Performance Driving Education events, they chose someone that I had coached alongside with, and someone that had seen my classroom presentation in the past. He reached out to me about being the Chief Instructor for the new venture – which further elevated my audience from 4-5 drivers a day to as many as 50, so the momentum has been building from there.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth, by a wide margin. There’s a fairly small pool of consumers in the market for my service, so broad-scale advertising isn’t a terribly effective means for reaching my clients. With virtually all of my business coming from word of mouth, spending money on marketing doesn’t make much sense, so my focus is more in organic social media marketing, attending networking events, volunteering some degree of my knowledge, and making sure I’m visible at track events where I coach with logo apparel and signage on my own car.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without the management at Chin Track Days and FARA HPDE Academy having faith in me, or without my countless past clients, many of whom I now consider my friends, telling every driver they know about how much I helped them. I have a long list of people to thank, and for that I will be eternally grateful.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://towerturncoaching.com
- Instagram: towerturncoaching
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/towerturncoaching
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@towerturncoaching
