Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Geoffrey Nicholson, trading as Geoff Nicholson, GN Coaching and UK Business IQ ("we", "us", "our"), collects and uses personal data. We are the data controller for the personal data described here and are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Contact: info@geoffnicholson.co.uk

This policy applies when you:

• visit our websites, including ukbusinessiq.app, speaktogeoff.co.uk, geoffnicholson.co.uk, justcallgeoff.com, kickmediocrity.com and successiqpodcast.com
• apply to be a guest on, or appear as a guest on, the UK Business IQ or Success IQ podcasts
• use our guest portal, booking pages or online forms, including booking a call with Geoff
• enquire about, book or receive coaching, speaking or training
• meet us at a business event or connect with us on LinkedIn, and we contact you afterwards
• act as a referral or affiliate partner

We work with business owners, founders, directors and professionals. Our services are not intended for anyone under 18.

This policy is written to meet the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

We only collect what we need for the purposes set out in section 4. Depending on how you deal with us, this may include:

• Identity and professional: name, job title, company name, website, LinkedIn profile, professional biography and headshot.
• Contact: email addresses, phone, mobile, WhatsApp and landline numbers, and business or billing address.
• Event and source: which event we met you at or which list your details came from, attendee type, stand number, whether we spoke in person, and who referred you.
• Application and preparation: answers you give when applying to be a guest or preparing for an interview.
• Call bookings: the time you choose, the reason for the call and anything you tell us about what you would like to discuss.
• Consultation and coaching: what you tell us about your business, goals, challenges, timescales and budget.
• Recordings and content: audio and video recordings, transcripts, edited episodes, show notes, written reviews and promotional graphics.
• Communications: emails, portal messages and notes of our conversations with you.
• Email engagement: whether our emails were delivered, opened or bounced, and which links were clicked.
• Transaction: orders, prices, discount codes, invoices, payment status and receipt numbers. Card details are handled by Stripe and are never seen or stored by us.
• Agreements: the version of our terms you accepted and when, and your typed signature when you approve an episode.
• Referral and affiliate: referral codes, the page you arrived from, and commission records for partners.
• Testimonials: your words, name, photo and consent, where you choose to give us a testimonial.
• Website and portal usage: IP address, browser type, pages visited and how you arrived (see section 11).
• Marketing preferences: whether you have agreed to or opted out of marketing, and any request not to be contacted.

Special category data. Coaching conversations can sometimes touch on health, including stress, burnout or mental wellbeing. We only record this where it is needed for your coaching and where you have given explicit consent. We do not ask for this information in our podcast or prospecting processes.

From you directly: when you fill in a form, apply to be a guest, book a call, use the guest portal, make a payment, email or message us, or speak to us at an event.

From other sources:

• business event organisers, including Hashtag Events and other networking groups and exhibitions, under the organiser's own terms
• LinkedIn, where you have connected with us or your professional profile is publicly visible
• publicly available business sources, such as your company website or Companies House
• referrals, where someone who knows you has recommended you
• affiliate and referral partners, where you arrived through a partner's link or code

Where we obtain your details from someone other than you, we will tell you where they came from in our first message to you, and no later than one month after we receive them.

• Reviewing your guest application: steps before entering a contract, at your request.
• Arranging and holding a call you have booked with Geoff: steps before entering a contract, at your request.
• Scheduling, recording, editing, approving and publishing your episode, and delivering what you have bought: contract.
• Delivering coaching and keeping session notes: contract.
• Recording health information shared during coaching: your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Taking payment, issuing invoices and keeping financial records: contract and legal obligation.
• Contacting business people we have met at events, connected with on LinkedIn or been referred to: legitimate interests.
• Sending newsletters and marketing to people who have signed up: consent.
• Measuring whether our emails are opened and which links are clicked: legitimate interests.
• Publishing testimonials: your consent.
• Paying commission to referral and affiliate partners: legitimate interests and contract with the partner.
• Running, securing and improving our websites, portal and systems: legitimate interests.
• Keeping a record of people who have asked not to be contacted: legal obligation and legitimate interests.
• Responding to complaints, rights requests and legal claims: legal obligation and legitimate interests.

Contacting people we have met or been introduced to. UK Business IQ exists to give credible UK business owners a platform. When we meet you at an event, connect on LinkedIn or are introduced to you, we have a legitimate interest in telling you about appearing on the podcast. We only contact you in a business capacity, about things relevant to your work, and every message tells you how to stop hearing from us.

If you are a sole trader or in a partnership, the law treats you as an individual for email marketing. We will only send you marketing emails if you have agreed, or if you have previously bought from us or asked about our services and have not opted out.

You can object at any time by replying to any message, using the unsubscribe link, or emailing info@geoffnicholson.co.uk. We will stop straight away and add your email address to our do-not-contact list.

Email tracking. Some of our emails contain small tracking images and tracked links, so we can follow up sensibly and avoid unwanted messages. You can prevent this by blocking images in your email program, and it stops when you unsubscribe.

Use of AI tools. We use AI tools to help with transcription, show notes, episode reviews, social post drafts, email drafts and summaries. A person always reviews AI-generated content before it is published or sent to you. We only use providers who do not use your data to train their models under the terms we have with them, and we do not put coaching session content into AI tools unless you have agreed.

Automated decisions. We use automation to schedule emails, send reminders and move records between our systems. We do not make decisions about you using solely automated processing that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Decisions about whether to feature a guest are always made by Geoff.

If you appear as a guest, your interview is recorded so it can be edited and published. Before publication we send you the episode to approve, and we record your approval and typed signature.

Once approved, your episode, name, business name, biography, headshot and links are published on podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, on our websites and on our social media channels. Published episodes are public and can be downloaded or shared, so we cannot fully control copies once released.

If you later want your episode removed, contact us and we will consider your request fairly. We will take it down from the platforms we control where there is good reason to, although copies already downloaded or shared by others may remain.

Raw recordings and files are only released to you where you have bought a repurposing licence, as set out in our terms.

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with the service providers who help us run the business, for the purposes in this policy. They act on our instructions under written contracts.

We may also share data with our professional advisers, with HM Revenue & Customs and other authorities where the law requires it, and with a referral or affiliate partner to confirm that someone they introduced has become a customer.

Our service providers:

• Lovable and Supabase: host our guest management, booking and outreach system and its database.
• AI model providers accessed through Lovable, and Anthropic (Claude): AI drafting, transcription support, summaries and episode reviews.
• Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive, Calendar, NotebookLM) and YouTube: email, file storage, scheduling, research and video publishing.
• Notion: project management and production tracking.
• Slack: internal messaging about guests and episodes.
• Salesflare: sales CRM.
• LeadDelta: LinkedIn connection management.
• Dubb: personalised video messages.
• MailSuite: email templates and tracking.
• Zapier: connecting our software systems.
• Paperform: application and order forms.
• Stripe: payment processing.
• SuiteDash: client portal and invoicing.
• Book Like a Boss: call scheduling.
• Endorsal: collecting and displaying testimonials.
• SocialBee: scheduling approved social media posts.
• PLAUD.ai: voice recording and transcription.
• Descript and SquadCast: recording, editing and transcription.
• Captivate: podcast hosting and distribution.
• Canva: design of promotional graphics.
• Skool: community platform for The Best Kept Secret Club.
• Brizy: website hosting.
• Heights Platform: online courses.
• Lemlist: email outreach.

Some of our providers store or process data outside the UK, mainly in the United States and the European Economic Area. Where this happens we make sure your data is protected by a UK adequacy decision (including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified), or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.

We use access controls, individual logins with role-based permissions, private time-limited links for the guest portal and documents, encrypted connections and reputable providers with strong security standards. Only people who need access to your data for their work can see it, and they are bound by confidentiality. If a data breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify the ICO and, where required, you.

• Prospects we have contacted but who have not engaged: 24 months from our last contact, then deleted.
• Call bookings, guest applications and enquiries that do not go ahead: 24 months, then deleted.
• Guest and client records, orders and invoices: 6 years after the end of the tax year of your last transaction.
• Coaching session notes: 6 years after coaching ends.
• Health information recorded with your consent: until coaching ends or you withdraw consent, whichever is sooner.
• Unedited recordings and working files: 24 months after the episode is published, unless you have bought a repurposing licence.
• Published episodes and show notes: for as long as the podcast is online.
• Testimonials: until you withdraw your consent.
• Email engagement data: 24 months.
• Do-not-contact list: indefinitely, limited to your email address and the date, so we can honour your request.

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of your personal data
• ask us to correct data that is wrong or incomplete
• ask us to delete your data
• object to us using your data, including for direct marketing, which we will always stop
• ask us to restrict how we use your data
• ask us to transfer your data to you or another organisation
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent

To use any of these rights, email info@geoffnicholson.co.uk. We will respond within one month. If we need more information, we will ask, and the month will run from when we receive it.

Our websites, booking pages and guest portal use cookies and similar technology. Some are essential, for example keeping you signed in to the portal. Others help us understand how visitors use the site. We only use non-essential cookies where the law allows, and where consent is needed we will ask for it.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we can put it right. Email info@geoffnicholson.co.uk. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

We review this policy regularly and whenever we change how we handle personal data. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. Where a change significantly affects you, we will let you know.