Privacy Policy

Geoff Nicholson, GN Coaching and UK Business IQ

Last updated: 29 September 2026

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

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 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

- enquire about, book or receive coaching

- 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.

2. The personal data we collect

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

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, exhibition 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, such as your expertise, topics to discuss or avoid, and your call to action for listeners.

Consultation and coaching: what you tell us about your business, goals, challenges, timescales and budget when you enquire about or receive coaching.

Recordings and content: audio and video recordings of interviews and coaching sessions, transcripts, edited episodes, show notes and written reviews of episodes.

Communications: emails, portal messages and notes of our conversations with you, including copies of emails held in our systems.

Email engagement: whether our emails were delivered, opened or bounced, which links were clicked, and the device or email client used.

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 for publication.

Referral and affiliate: referral codes, the page you arrived from, and commission records for partners.

Website and portal usage: IP address, browser type, pages visited and how you arrived, collected through cookies and similar technology (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 (see section 4). We do not ask for this information in our podcast or prospecting processes.

3. Where your data comes from

From you directly. When you fill in one of our forms, 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. If you have not given us your details yourself, we will have obtained them from one of the following:

- business event organisers, including Hashtag Events and other networking groups and exhibitions, where attendee or exhibitor details are shared with speakers, ambassadors or exhibitors 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 and passed on your details

- 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.

4. How we use your data and our lawful basis

We only use your personal data where the law allows us to. Each purpose and the lawful basis we rely on is set out below.

Reviewing your guest application and deciding whether the show is a good fit: 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, about appearing on the podcast or working with us: legitimate interests (see below).

Sending email newsletters and marketing to people who have signed up: consent.

Measuring whether our emails are opened and which links are clicked: legitimate interests (see below).

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 getting in touch to tell you about appearing on the podcast. We have assessed this against your interests and rights. 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 to receive them, or if you have previously bought from us or asked about our services and have not opted out. We may still contact you through LinkedIn or reply to you where you have contacted us first.

You can object to this 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 so you are not contacted again.

Email tracking

Some of our emails contain small tracking images and tracked links. These tell us whether an email was opened and which links were clicked, so that we can follow up sensibly and avoid sending messages that are not wanted. You can prevent this by setting your email program to block images, and it stops when you unsubscribe.

Use of AI tools

We use AI tools to help us run the business efficiently. This includes transcribing recordings, drafting show notes and written reviews of episodes, drafting and improving emails, and summarising our notes. 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 any 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.

5. Podcast recordings and publication

If you appear as a guest, your interview is recorded so that 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 and Spotify, on our websites and on our social media channels. Published episodes are public and can be downloaded or shared by listeners, so we cannot fully control copies once they are released.

Published episodes remain available for as long as the podcast is online. 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 by listeners 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.

6. Who we share your data with

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

We may also share data with our professional advisers, such as our accountant, lawyers and insurers, 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 so their commission can be paid.

Our service providers

Lovable and Supabase: host our guest management 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): email, file storage, scheduling and research of published podcast episodes.

Notion: project management and production tracking.

Slack: internal messaging about guests and episodes.

Salesflare: sales CRM and email sequences.

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.

PLAUD.ai: voice recording and transcription.

Descript: audio and video editing, including AI transcription of recordings.

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.

7. International transfers

Some of our providers, including Google, Notion, Stripe, Anthropic and Supabase, 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 at least one of the following: 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.

8. How we keep your data secure

We use access controls, individual logins with role-based permissions, secure links for the guest portal, 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 occurs that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify the ICO and, where required, you.

9. How long we keep your data

Prospects we have contacted but who have not engaged: 24 months from our last contact, then deleted.

Guest applications and consultation enquiries that do not go ahead: 24 months from the application or enquiry, then deleted.

Guest and client records, orders and invoices: 6 years after the end of the tax year of your last transaction, as required by UK tax law.

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 (see section 5).

Email engagement data: 24 months.

Do-not-contact list: indefinitely, limited to your email address and the date, so we can honour your request.

10. Your rights

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 to deal with your request, we will ask, and the one month will run from when we receive it.

11. Cookies

Our websites, booking pages and guest portal use cookies and similar technology. Some are essential for the site to work, for example keeping you logged in to the portal. Others help us understand how visitors use the site. We will only use non-essential cookies where the law allows, and where consent is needed we will ask for it through the cookie banner, where you can change your choice at any time.

12. Complaints

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 with details of your concern. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, keep you updated and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

13. Changes to this policy

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.