Mandy B. Anderson and Raychel Perman – Co-Hosts of the Fearless Feminine Leadership Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Mandy B. Anderson and Raychel Perman first met during a summer Bible camp in fifth grade. As their friendship grew over the years, they always talked about how they would love to write a book together. Later in life, they found themselves in different areas of the coaching industry.
After coming together, they’re providing a new form of leadership curriculum to offer a unique program to business leaders and those looking to be inspired. I sat down with Anderson and Perman to discuss what led them to form RAYMA Team™, LLC, their ambitions with the company, and much more.
Perman and Anderson began working together in the coaching industry in 2014, alongside some others, under the brand Big Blue Couch Coaching. In 2019, they decided to pivot and conduct a rebranding. By 2020, they became a 100% women-owned company, focused on leadership development and life coaching, titled RAYMA Team™, LLC.
“We’re focused on revolutionizing how leadership development is done and bringing soft skills and humanity back into the fold. It’s not entirely about productivity, it’s about growing as a whole person,” Anderson said.
"At RAYMA Team™, we're on a mission to revolutionize the world of leadership development by bringing a feminine perspective to an industry that has been mostly curated by men—because all perspectives matter when it comes to leadership development."
Under Big Blue Couch Coaching, Anderson and Perman were continuously asked by their clients if they would do training at corporate events. When they tried to sell that service under the former brand, they realized that their Big Blue Couch Coaching brand was standing in their way.
“It didn’t scream ‘leadership’ to us and was very female-identified. We weren’t afraid to ask the hard questions. We were willing to listen and learn from clients to get a good understanding of what image we were putting out there. We took some time and decided to rebrand our name to RAYMA Team™, LLC. Now, we’ve finished the branding and have been getting it out to our corporate clients and people that really care about leadership,” Anderson said.
“The name itself, RAYMA, couples together our names, Raychel and Mandy. In a spiritual context, Rhema means ‘any spoken word.’ We care about writing our own content and speaking from our own experiences and lessons learned, so we thought that it would be cool to blend the two meanings together.”
With the new brand up and running, RAYMA Team™, LLC launched their inaugural coach certification program this last March.
Meet Mandy B. Anderson, Co-Founder of RAYMA Team™, LLC
- Certified L.E.A.N. Health Coach from Dr. Sears Wellness Institute (2012)
- Certified Life Coach from Light University (2014)
- Certified Executive Coach from IAP Career College (2022)
- TEDx Speaker (2021)
- Top 25 Women in Business for 2020 by Prairie Business Magazine
- Co-Host of the Fearless Feminine Leadership
- Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
- Best-Selling, Award-Winning Author
“With over a decade of experience in the coaching industry, I specialize in helping leaders become Rockstar Leaders of strong teams and businesses. Meaning, I help you navigate hard choices and team issues, speak up, get noticed, unleash your creativity, and, ultimately, accomplish your goals.
When I’m not working you can find me reading a good book, running or biking while rocking out to Taylor Swift, or going on outside adventures with my husband, Nate, and our furbaby, Indigo—a petite Goldendoodle with a big personality. I love to sip my coffee every morning and watch the sunrise, while most likely searching for the next perfect pair of stilettos.
I was born with a life-threatening disease called Cystic Fibrosis, and have spent my life turning disappointments into meaningful experiences and overcoming the obstacles life throws at me. Because of this, I’m passionate about helping leaders and entrepreneurs become more confident, with a fierce belief in themselves and the future they want to create.”
– Mandy B. Anderson
“We’re so excited to be doing more in corporate environments. We wanted to not only revolutionize leadership development but also revolutionize how coaching is done. We want to see more business leadership development and actually teach people how to coach,” Perman said.
“By spring of 2024, we’ll have our very first class of RAYMA Foundations™ certified coaches. They’ll be able to take the leadership curriculum that we’ve developed over years to not only start their own coaching companies, but also bring it back into their own corporations, businesses, and teams to teach our principles.”
When crafting the RAYMA Team™, LLC curriculum, Anderson and Perman spent a great deal of time determining what they wanted the core RAYMA Foundations™ to be. They crafted 35 principles, with each principle falling under 1 of the program’s 5 foundations in total. The RAYMA Foundations™, appropriately, follow the acronym RAYMA (Resilience, Authenticity, a Yes attitude, Motivation, and Assertiveness).
“Our entire RAYMA Foundations™ curriculum consists of five different modules. Each one is a book and the theme is stepping into the shoes of each of these RAYMA Foundations™. These include stepping into the shoes of a resilient leader, an authentic leader, a 'yes-minded' leader, a motivated leader, and an assertive leader. You can't get these books in a store or on Amazon, as they're only available through the programs that we offer. For those who like to go through things on their own and do it themselves, we do offer a podcast that goes with each of the books, which can be received when purchasing our podcast program.”
Did You Know?
RAYMA Team™ was recently voted Best Women-Owned Corporate Coaching Company 2023— Midwest-USA by Acquisition International (United Kingdom, 2023—Acquisition International Magazine has announced the winners of the eighth Influential Businesswoman Awards.)
Meet Raychel Perman,
Co-Founder of RAYMA Team™, LLC
- Certified Life Coach from Light University (2012)
- Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Christian Counseling from Liberty University (2012)
- Co-Host of the Fearless Feminine Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
- Licensed Esthetician (2002-current)
- Board Certified Biblical Counselor (2012-2014)
- Amazon Best-Selling Author
“I have worked in the counseling and coaching space for over 10 years and I specialize in helping people become confident leaders of healthy teams and businesses. I want to help you make positive change and leave a legacy—no matter your title! Meaning, we can work on anything from communication and conflict resolution skills to managing stress and overwhelm and creating boundaries. When I’m not working you can find me playing mom taxi to our three busy kids, reading a good novel, digging in my flower beds, watching Netflix with hubby, or playing with my two fur babies. We are a blended family. So, sometimes our house is full and sometimes it’s just me, hubs, and the dogs when the kids spend time with their Dad.
I’m an INFP, Enneagram 4w5, LGBTQIA2S+ ally, and incredibly proud of my Indigenous roots. I’m an advocate and involved in my community and the causes I care about. I love coffee, gemstone jewelry, Britain’s royal families and history, and a big fan of rocking the boat. Especially when it comes to empowering people to become confident world-changing leaders.”
– Raychel Perman
Tips from Raychel Perman
Don’t take it personally.
From a small business perspective, when you’re willing to ask both your clients and yourself the hard questions, you have to have a thick skin. There’s nothing sacred when going through a rebrand. Everything should be looked at with a fine tooth comb and seen from your client’s perspective because if you want to stay in business, you’re going to have to make sales. It’s important not to take anything personally.
When a rebrand goes live, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rebrand is over.
It took so much longer than we expected, and I don’t think it was just because of the pandemic. There’s a lot of internal, behind-the-scenes work leading up to a rebrand. Then, there’s another rebrand when it goes public, and you almost need a mini-rebrand a year later, just to keep reexamining and fine-tuning your operation. There are always going to be better processes in any business, so it’s important to always be open to pivoting with new concepts.
The duo currently holds up to 10 people per class, as they prefer to keep the class size small to provide more customized training. The first half of the year-long program focuses on those enrolled learning and living out the leadership curriculum for themselves before they learn how to teach it to others. There, they will observe how to work in a group coaching atmosphere before diving into leading themselves.
“That hardly ever happens in our industry. Much of the coaching industry is filled with 12-week courses to get a certification, but none of it truly prepares you to handle working with clients or growing a business. By the time they’re certified, they’ll already have significant experience with coaching and leading others in larger organizations. They’ll be able to use this experience with their team and in other parts of their life,” Anderson said
The second half of the course focuses on the hands-on experience where Perman and Anderson assist them in developing their story, keynotes, and the opportunity to practice both one-on-one and group coaching sessions. We teach them to shift on a dime and adapt quickly, especially with technology.
“Mandy and I do our entire program virtually via Zoom. We have people enrolled in the course from Bismarck, but part of it is teaching our clients that using technology is a great way to stay on top of your time and continue evolving forward. These people are building their own internal leadership trainers in their own corporations,” Perman said
“Once they get certified, they don’t have to become a coach. They can take these leadership skills anywhere. We’ve noticed that the more a coach or a leader actively implements what they learned into their lives, it eventually becomes a part of them. The more they actively train and practice, the better they can handle the ups and downs in both of those industries.”
Looking ahead, Anderson and Perman have the goal of training and influencing 10,000 leaders within the next 5 years. While it is a daunting number (and task), the duo found an attainable method of reaching their goal number of people impacted.
“We realized that we needed to train other people so they could go out and train others. Mandy and I have used that one-to-many model to do business successfully in the past. When there are only two people in a small business, the capacity will be whatever we can handle and the company will only grow as much as we can, so we’re really trying to train our own workforce,” Perman said.
In May of this year they expanded to a new physical office and hope to add more coaches to their team in the next 12 months. From the beginning, however, Anderson and Perman have had the long-term goal to be on a level of success similar to brands such as John C. Maxwell and Dale Carnegie within the next 10 to 15 years.
“We focus on helping staff with handling life, whether it be mental or emotional health, stress management, or any other workplace stressor. We want to eventually be able to offer training credits for all kinds of things like Dale Carnegie does, so that any employee that needs continuing education can use our program and get credits,” Anderson said
Stay Tuned!
Check out the website for upcoming fall leadership program dates or reach out to bring one, or all, of the programs to your organization!
Perman and Anderson have set up various price points and methods to consume the program’s content. Whether it’s through hiring them for Corporate Mentor Groups (via Zoom or in-person), designated one-on-one coaching, or doing it at a pace that’s comfortable for the leader-in-training.
What are Corporate Mentor Groups?
Corporate Mentor Groups are monthly or seven-week groups focused on an individual module, rather than all five modules at hand. Furthermore, they receive a copy of the book and podcast access for supplemental learning.
"We just launched our first coach certification class in March, which will be graduating and certified next spring. The next coaching certification class opens Spring 2024."
The Origins of RAYMA Team™, LLC
“We originally decided to create our leadership curriculum because of a personal experience in 2018, when I was in a six-month leadership program for women in Bismarck. The assigned books were out of touch and few people there could truly identify with them. I told Raychel that there’s an opportunity to fill a need in leadership development training for women. We wanted to create our own curriculum because we didn’t see others getting the depth of leadership training that we’ve hoped for in the past.”
– Mandy B. Anderson
“We invite you to take our free quiz to get the most up-to-date picture of what you’re struggling with right now as a leader, what you’re doing well, and where you might need some accountability to lead better.”
raymateam.com/leaderquiz
– RAYMA Team™, LLC
“Our coach certification program is perfect for anybody that has ever dreamed of becoming a coach and wants to have a solid set of curriculum. We figure out what the best possible way is for people to learn and stay sharpened, which won’t always be attending training seminars a handful of times throughout the year to stay certified like other companies,” Perman said.
“We noticed, especially with millennial women and men, that they weren’t training in the fastest or most economical way possible. We want to make sure that each client is getting the most effective training for their needs.”
Tailoring a leadership development experience to the client at hand is one of the most important ways for Perman and Anderson to ensure that their information and experience are being shared secondhand effectively to pass down to others. As they hope for information to be passed on after receiving the certification, the duo provides continuous education and monthly for continuing personal growth and mentorship.
“You can stay with us for as long as you want to, even though it’s not necessarily required. We provide a supplemental way to not only stay connected to your own coaches, but a way to ask questions if needed. Technology has advanced enough for us to be able to work from home, but it’s also increased loneliness as we do things on our own and be our own leaders. Having access to your coaches after after your program is finished can make a world of difference,” Perman said.
A Sample of RAYMA Team™ Media’s Book Selection
Perman and Anderson made the bold decision to launch their own media company, RAYMA Team™ Media. Self-publishing keeps their publishing process very internal and has given them significant experience to assist others interested in sharing their story. Now having navigated the self-publishing space and selling their personal books on Amazon, our certified coaches will have an easier path to take should they want to write and publish books, too.
Dear Female Leader: 30 Days of Encouragement for Female Leaders (and the Women Who Think They Aren’t)
By Mandy B. Anderson and Raychel Perman
“Whether you proudly step into a leadership role, or you struggle to see yourself as a leader without an official title, this book is the encouragement you didn’t know you needed. To put it simply: Dear Female Leader is a timely book for women. Inside this book are 30 letters written for women by Certified Life Coaches and Best-Selling Authors, Mandy B. Anderson and Raychel Perman. Each letter includes a journal page and is designed to help you rise up as the leader you can be and already are. When a woman defines leadership for herself, and overcomes the obstacles keeping her stuck, she can become unstoppable.”
– RAYMA Team™ Media Description
“Being a women-owned business sets us apart from other leadership development programs on the market currently, as we offer a very different perspective of leadership training.”
“It's really important to Mandy and I that the content we teach stands the test of time. It’s important that we learned it and passed it on to our certified coaches, and they’ve passed it on to others just as they were taught.”
Dangerous Hope: Planting Something Meaningful in the Soil of Disappointment
By Mandy B. Anderson
“Our first best-selling book since we launched RAYMA Team™ Media, ‘Dangerous Hope,’ is my story of overcoming cystic fibrosis and learning how to plant something meaningful in the soil of disappointment. There are a lot of leadership principles in there that we’ve drawn into our leadership curriculum.”
– Mandy B. Anderson
Unbroken: Embracing the Cracks that are Making You Whole
By Raychel Perman
“We both wrote books that were more Bible studies when we were Big Blue Couch Coaching and did some spiritual faith coaching. We decided to release the second edition with a surprise, new ending, which has since become an Amazon bestseller.”
– Raychel Perman
She Who Overcomes: Rising Out of the Ashes of Your Circumstances
By Mandy B. Anderson
“Tragedy sweeps through like wildfire. When the dust settles, it’s hard to focus on anything but the pain. Believing that one can rise up from the ashes is nearly impossible. But what if this is the best time to stand up? What if this is the best time to fight back? And the best time to believe that there will be goodness on the other side of tragedy? ‘She Who Overcomes’ is for any woman who wants to live the authentic life of an overcomer. Using Biblical truths from the book of Revelation, and personal stories of overcoming painful circumstances, ‘She Who Overcomes’ equips those who want to stand firm when others crumble, persist and find purpose in their lives, and embrace the hope that only God provides. This second edition includes a foreword written by Raychel Perman, CEO of RAYMA Team™, LLC.”
– RAYMA Team™ Media Description
Do you have any plans for upcoming books?
“Currently, I’m living out what my next book will be. My next book will probably be released in 2024, as I’m in an active creative process for that one. It’ll still be quite a while, but things are happening for it. We don’t have many plans for more books immediately, as we want to remain focused on helping our clients.”
– Raychel Perman
Contact RAYMA Team™, LLC
701.516.8323
raymateam.com
[email protected]
Facebook: /RAYMAteam
Instagram: @RAYMAteam
LinkedIn: /Company/RAYMAteam
418 E Rosser Ave, Ste 203 Bismarck, ND 58501