I have been with ActionCOACH for around a year and I love the experience so far. It has changed my attitude towards business and even home-life in so many ways. I will try and summaries the experiences in a few paragraphs.
Before Nin approached me, I wasn’t thinking about coaching at all. I started my business in 2008. At that time, I was a good packaging salesman that was lucky enough to get a shot at starting my own business. I was coming up to 10 years since I incorporated business, when I received a call. The timing of Nin’s call was perfect. I had been recently reflecting on how I had managed to get a business from £0-£1,000,000 in the first 2 years, then £1M – 2M in a few years after that. Since hitting £2M growth had been slow, we increased profit margin a little but made mistakes elsewhere. It was frustrating. The truth is, I was still a good at being a packaging salesman, but I had also become many other things that I wasn’t so good at. Manager, Marketing, HR, QC, Finance, Purchasing, Stock Planner, Event coordinator, IT….etc. Oh, and control freak, I believed I could do everything as good or better than anyone else, so I tried too.
After I got the call from Nin and she gave me a taster of what ActionCOACH was all about, I was immediately excited. I could see that they were not going to give me a golden bullet for what makes a packaging supplies business thrive, however I could see that they had lots of tools in the bag that are applicable to any business. When applied, these basic fundamentals will help you understand your business, identify areas for improvement, and grow. We all think our business is special and unique. To a certain extent that is true, but the same core fundamentals apply to us all. When applied with conviction I believe they will improve any business.
I was sceptical at first that a coach would just tell me to invest money in marketing or staff (things that we all know we need to do to grow but dread). ActionCOACH didn’t do this at all, they helped to unlock the untapped potential within the existing business. Now in 2019 I have a clear marketing budget for the first time. I also have a recruitment budget and a training budget for the existing staff. This was made possible by truly understanding the numbers within the business. I also have an exciting 10 year vision that I recently shared with everyone in the organisation. We are now all committed to make that vision come true.
I would say biggest change in the first year has been to time management. Nin helped me to unlock my time. In turn I have cascaded this into my senior management team (which also didn’t exist before ActionCOACH). I was always busy, however. I was doing a lot of tasks on a daily basis that could/should have been delegated to people within the organisation. When I was able to let go of certain tasks and empower the people I had around me, that is when I really started to see the potential. I remember the lightbulb moment when I realised, the sum of what your team can achieve is many times more than what you can possibly achieve on your own.
In 2019 I am planning everything, including time with the wife and kids. I was one of those guys that always said I was working hard for the family, for my son’s future. The reality is, I didn’t see him as often as I would have liked, and when I did I was often in a bad mood due to work pressure. ActionCOACH has helped me prioritise my time, change my attitude and unlock potential. I genuinely believe they can do this for anyone that is open and willing to admit to themselves they do not know it all.
I am looking forward to the next year with ActionCOACH to see what else we can uncover between us.
