We.
“I’ve never thought about it like that before.”
It’s usually a pretty good sign in a session that we’re on the right track. We’re no longer going round the same ground you’ve already covered in your own head.
And when you run a decent-sized business, thinking about the wrong thing can get expensive fast. Six months going round the same problem is expensive. A hire you never needed is expensive. So are the weeks spent dealing with whatever shouts the loudest while the thing that actually matters gets pushed again.
And the money isn’t even the whole cost. There’s the time you don’t get back, the opportunity you could have pursued six months ago, and the momentum you could have built by now.
Change how you see the problem and you change what you do next. And in a business like yours, that can be worth a lot.
Which is very different from me telling you I know exactly what you should do.
I don’t have all the answers.
Nor am I going to tell you that I have exited 15 businesses and discovered a perfect framework which, faithfully followed, will double your profits while you sip piña coladas somewhere exotic. Mainly because I haven’t.
What I have done is led and scaled a consultancy to around £15m in revenue, run a team spread across Europe, worked with some very large companies and kept both my clients and my team remarkably happy. Nobody on my team left on my watch. So I know a bit about business.
But frankly, you know your business better than I probably ever will.
Then what the bloody hell are you paying me for?
Not answers, necessarily.
Sometimes the answer is in the business. Perhaps there’s a route to growth you haven’t fully explored, demand has created a new constraint, or the business has simply grown to the point where what it needs from you has changed.
Sometimes the business answer is perfectly obvious and the interesting question is why you still haven’t done what you know you need to.
Quite often, of course, it is a bit of both.
| In the business | The person running it |
|---|---|
| Delegate real ownership | "It's quicker if I do it myself." |
| Let the leadership team make more decisions | “What if they make the wrong call?” |
| Step further out of the day-to-day | “Nobody can do it to my standard.” |
| Become more selective about the work you take on | “What if the enquiries stop?” |
| Say no to an opportunity | “What if this is the one that changes everything?” |
I have an uncanny knack for listening to you and hearing the bits that don’t quite add up and the things you say in passing that might matter more than you realise.
We break things down into their simplest parts. And from there I might question something you have taken for granted for years, pick up on something you almost dismissed, tell a story that makes you look at the problem another way, or bring in something I have seen work somewhere completely different.
And you will challenge me, at least I hope you will. The point of this isn’t to agree with each other. It’s to pressure-test your thinking.
Then, of course, you have to do something with it. Otherwise, all of this would be fairly pointless. I often ask for the smallest thing you can do that gets you moving in the right direction. Because once you take that step, we have something real to react to rather than another theory going round in your head.
And once you begin to make those changes, you can usually see a little further. Something else becomes possible, and perhaps a question that wasn’t worth asking before suddenly is.
There is often a joke played on people who build successful businesses. Everybody starts asking them what they think.
Their suppliers ask, their customers ask, and their team certainly asks. And after a while, the owner becomes the person who is meant to know everything.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many people you can turn to when you’re unsure what the right call is.
Your team is useful, obviously, but you still sign their pay cheques. Your partner may adore you, but there is a limit to how much they want to hear about your hiring problem over dinner.
So you do what most founders do. You talk to yourself. This works surprisingly well, right up until it doesn’t.
That is where I come in.
What You Get
Ongoing 1:1 coaching
We work together over a period of months, usually speaking every two weeks
Direct access to me
Text or send me a voice note between conversations when something comes up
30-minute laser sessions
If something important comes up that shouldn’t wait until our next conversation, we can jump on a shorter call.
Partner or spouse sessions
If what we’re working through would benefit from involving your partner, we can bring them into a conversation too.
This won’t work for you if you…
- Want me to hand you a playbook and tell you exactly what to do.
- Think your team, your market or everyone else needs to change, but you don’t.
- Enjoy talking about problems more than doing something about them.
But if you…
- Have already built something good and know it could be a hell of a lot better.
- Are willing to be honest about what’s actually happening, including the bits that are uncomfortable to admit.
- Are willing to challenge me just as much as I challenge you.
- Can say, “I might be wrong about this,” even when you’ve believed it for years.
- Are prepared to test what we discuss in the real world.
But don’t take my word for it.
Watch my strategy sessions with business owners I’ve never met before. We start from scratch with one real problem, and you can watch how I work through it with them.
If you’d rather bring me yours: Book A 30-Minute Call →