These case studies represent true accounts of business owners, managers and leaders who have undertaken Enterprise Coaching.
* Names have been changed by request.
Case study 1
*Gareth Townsend
Gareth runs his own business as a specialist corporate taxation adviser. He has vast experience in the commercial world and decided to from his own enterprise in 2003.
Prior to that Gareth had held senior executive posts in one of the high street banks. His main responsibilities revolved around the provision of advice to the executive management group on all matters relating to corporation tax, including the accounting treatment for both customers and the bank of funded assets.
Whilst he had many years experience working within an organisation and managing a team of specialists, Gareth wanted to be running his own show. He chose Enterprise Coaching to support him as he set out to achieve this goal.
The Enterprise Coaching process helped him in a number of ways.
- He was able to develop a clearly defined proposition for his service
- He identified his target market and his means of approaching it
- He developed his business development skills including prospect letter writing, telephone technique and proposal preparation
- He established how he could make best use of the technology he had available and identified additional requirements for the future
- During the first few weeks after he formed the business, he defined his priorities fro maintaining a good work-life balance, making sure he was not overtaken by the needs of the business.
- He identified his key strengths and some development areas and through this developed his plans for building strategic alliances with other technical finance advisers.
Gareth has built a sound business with a small number of key clients, none of whom take up more than 15% of his time. He is therefore not reliant on any one client.
Along the way, there have been some challenging moments, times when he doubted whether or not he was going to be able to achieve his goal. Yet as he looks back now, he would choose exactly the same route to building his business.
Case Study 2
*Nigel Murray
Nigel had always been a very keen computer user. He was undertaking commercial systems developments for paying clients while he was still at school. When he left school he started working for a high street computer sales and service supplier providing advice and guidance to customers acquiring new computer equipment.
Some of his clients asked him for further technical advice and support in installing their systems and helping them make the most of them. Eventually Nigel decided to set up his own business providing technical guidance and support for computer installations.
The business grew well as new customers were brought in through the relationships developed with the suppliers of the hardware and over time, the range of services was developed in response to the requests from customers. Requests came for integrated systems and telephony installations, systems maintenance contracts, complex systems design and extensive software design. As each of the new services were developed, Nigel brought in people with the specialist skills to support him in delivering the services. Eventually he had a team of eight people around him. Whilst his business was growing well, Nigel was not particularly happy with what he was doing.
It was at this stage that Nigel turned to Enterprise Coaching. His business had grown rapidly and he had responsibilities for people, premises and customers that he had not expected and for which he was not prepared.
Through Enterprise Coaching he was able to develop:
- His recruitment skills and interview technique
- A ‘people policy’ for his team
- A framework for performance appraisal for his people
- A longer term business strategy
- His presentation skills and his general level of personal confidence
- His handling of his financial arrangements, this included a change of bankers and increased facilities
Nigel progressed further by identifying a retail outlet he wished to acquire to gain a wider market for his computer services. This incorporated an internet café.
He took the opportunity to use the coaching sessions to work through the planning for the acquisition and the move that involved a complete re-decoration of the premises.
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