Business Growth (SME) - Mandie Holgate

Situation

The owners of a PR Marketing company turnover circa £150K had had a very successful first year. After investing in an office and new staff they could not understand how the same actions that they had taking in the first year, were failing to produce the results that they wanted in the second. Overal profit had fallen close to zero. In addition sales were actually starting to decline which was leading to serious tension within the management team, and a feeling of unease within the organisation.

The relationship between the owners was becoming close to breaking point.

Objectives

To enable the individuals to work as a team, raise profiltability initially back to original levels and then further, and finally to  increase sales.

Actions

1) Initial analysis of the situation

Basically the company didn't have any operating framework with the resultant confusion in who was responsible for what, and everybody attempting to do everyones job.

2) Agreement with the business owners to create a revised business plan and administrative framework for the business

3) Providing coaching support for the owners to develop the plan and for the owners and staff to implement and further develop the plan on an ongoing basis


The owners commited to an initial 1.5 hours face to face coaching session plus and additional four x hour coaching sessions

Mandie has developed her own process to enable company owners to agree and allocate responsibilities between new business development, business fullfilment and essential administration, which she used effectively with this business.


Results

The owners created a vision for the future of the company and shared this with all staff, and asked for their input. It led to an understanding between staff, senior staff and the owners and created a greatly improved environment to work in, because staff knew their opinions were appreciated and would be considered.

The Owners appreciated the untapped skills their staff had and came up with ideas that the owners had not considered.

However the greatest result was that the owners time was freed up to concentrate on what they enjoyed most, developing and fullfilling their customers business rquirements.

In addition the more effecient working had reduced the need for freelances and overtime, improving company profitablily within weeks. Within three months profitabiliy was back to what it had been.

And So?

Realising their staff’s potential helped the Owners appreciate that the possibilities for the future of the company were endless. Instead of feeling like their company had lost its direction and purpose they realised that with the support of their great team of people it could far exceed their earlier expectations. And needless to say sales increased. New opportunities and new directions for the company to expand into were established because the Owners took a more proactive attitude to the input and the development of their staff.

The bottom line is that the company is now able to find, bid and win larger and more profitable opportunities putting their initial growth rate back on track and the owners have regained their enthusiasm and passion for the business.

Mandie Holgate is a key member of the Executive and Business Coaching Network (EBCN)

Mandie Holgate's Website

Improving Staff Retention in a Start Up Hedge Fund - Jo Geraghty

Situation


The client was CEO of a start up hedge fund. The fund had rapidly achieved a turnover of £40m pa, however in the previous 12 months there had been a staff turnover of 32%, and revenues were on track to be down 20%, which was putting the survival of the fund at risk.

In addition the CEO had been making a significant investment with head-hunters, which didn't appear to show any signs of giving a return.

The Objective

The time critical objective was for the CEO to be able to recruit and continually motivate the people with the right skills and behavioural competencies to ensure the current and future success of the fund.

Action

The CEO and executive coach agreed a way forward which included:

1) An analysis of the current situation. This included face to face and phone interviews with a cross section of staff

2) A workshop session to identify, develop and articulate the vision and strategic plan, together with the key values that would support their achievement

3) Develop a communication plan for the above which included face to face sessions by the CEO and inclusion in all relevant written material including job descriptions, objectives and appraisals, to ensure they supported achieving the plan, vision and values

4) The CEO was coached to recruit and appraise individuals against the new job decriptions and objectives

5) A soft audit to check that the above had actually impacted company behaviour. Feedback processes were put in place to address anything that didn’t appear to be working.



Result

1) Within 9 months staff turnover was on track to have been reduced from 30% to 5% by the end of the year

2) During the period none of the ‘high performers’ had left

3) The impact of having a clear articulation of vision, strategy and values had significantly improved staff motivation scores as demonstrated by the confidential staff six month survey.



So What

The improving revenue and profit situation meant that the CEO was able to recruit additional senior management resource to compliment his strengths, so he was now able to concentrate on the funds next stage of growth.

Jo Geraghty is a leading member of the Executive and Business Coaching Network (ECBN)

Jo's Website: beyond the ladder

Executive Coaching – Changing Conflict into Collaboration

Situation

An Organisational Development manager of an UK based global broadcasting organisation sought coaching support for a senior manager who needed help in managing a technical team.

The senior manager had been recently recruited to improve a range of internal technical services.

The culture of the organisation was more aggressive and confrontational than she had been used to.

Her direct-reports were directly challenging some of her decisions and had complained that she wasn’t creative enough, was defensive when they made positive suggestions as to how the department could be run, and interfered with their ways of working.

Her boss was getting dragged into some of the issues and was frustrated that she didn’t appear to be leading and managing her team effectively.

Objectives

1) To identify the issues which were stopping the manager perform effectively

2) To coach the manager so that she had the skills and capabilities to enable her to perform effectively

3) To coach the manager so she could use these skills with different teams in the future

Action

The coach interviewed the manager, manager’s boss and one of her key direct reports to get a multiple perspective of the situation

The manager agreed a programme of six monthly face to face 1:1 sessions with the manager, with telephone support as required

A framework agenda for the face to face meetings was agreed which included the manager reviewing previous interactions with her team, exploring and role playing new behaviours and committing to put into action when appropriate – and reviewing the results at the next meeting

Bi-monthly telephone review meetings with the manager’s boss and direct report were also arranged to confirm progress

Results

The first discussions with the manager, manager’s boss and direct-report enabled those involved to ‘offload’ a certain amount of built up emotional baggage and created the space to move forward. The manager took this as an opportunity to both focus on team and company goals and explore her personal communication

Over the next six months everyone became focused on achieving the team’s goals, to express their views passionately but at an appropriate time and in an appropriate way

The manager expressed the view that his team meetings took 20% less time, were more productive and more stimulating for the attendees

Both the manager’s boss and the direct-reports reported that they had moved on from the initial issues and were working as a team. Positive feedback was now being received from the team’s internal customers and the team manager had garnered greater respect from the team

And So?

The manager’s reputation had risen to such an extent that she was asked, in addition to her current role, to care take of an additional team who which wasn’t working effectively. Using the skills she’d learnt enabled her to turn this team round within the next six months.

Julian Shreeve - 12 Jan 2010.

Julian Schreeve is a leading coach on the Executive and Business Coaching Network (EBCN)

New Business Developmemt: Website and Social Media

Website and Social Media Case Study - By Peter Barnett

Situation

A Director of a maintenance company, turnover £25m was experiencing a 10-15% decline in sales and was struggling to generate any new enquiries. The business had spent money on a photo shoot and new brochures and had tried a number a mailing campaigns with very little success. At this stage the company had no budget for lead development

The Objective

We needed to find the right strategy to help them generate qualified enquires, to stop the decline of the business

Action

We coached the Director to help him to fully understand the new media marketing opportunities. We then assisted with the creation of an effective web site that was conveying the right message backed my an pay per click and search engine optimisation internet marketing campaign to ensure that people were finding the site

Result

The strategy beat everybody's expectations and produced 70 to 80 enquiries a week. The business was overwhelmed with enquiries and needed to employ and additional sales person. This generated another £200K pa for a total investment or £50K (including salary of salesperson)

And So
The business was now growing rather than being in decline. The new revenues enabled the business to invest in training and new systems to handles current and future increases in turnover without further costs.


Peter Barnett is a leading member of the Executive and Business Coaching Network (EBCN) you can see more: Peter Barnett

Peter's Website: Business Development

New Business Developmemt: Start Up Coaching

New Business Development Case Study- By David Regler

Situation

CEO of startup new media company with offices in US & India. Needed to secure C-level meetings with strategic marquee accounts in the US. He had identified the companies but did not know how to reach the senior executives.

Objective

The CEO needed to refine his proposition, identify key individuals, influencers, gatekeepers, and develop an outreach strategy to engage and secure a meeting.

Action

Coaching session online to develop his proposition, agree strategies which identifed the key people and coached tactics for engagement. Individuals were identified through LinkedIn, using both the CEO’s and my network. For each individual we agreed the appropriate tactics to engage, ie: through referral, direct , etc. In each instance we rehearsed and refine the pitch.

For example, when approaching the CEO of one of the target organisations, we referenced his recent keynote speech and illustrated how our proposition was a solution for the strategic issues of the executive’s company.

Result

Using the engagement strategies we developed, the CEO made contact and facilitated three meetings within his target companies, one of which secured a deal for the start-up valued in excess of $140,000 within 12 months, which exceeded his first year business plan.

And So…

With the initial deal in place with a marquee account within the industry, the CEO was able to secure additional seed funding from investors and global exposure through PR surrounding the deal.


David Regler is a key coach in the 'Executive and Coaching Business Network'. David Regler on the 'Executive and Business Coaching Network.'

More David Regler on Business Development Coaching

Executive Coaching: Growing Fear of Presenting

Solving Fear of Presentations Case Study - By Michael Beale


Situation

The principal of a successful £0.5M turnover consultancy and coaching business had a number of senior lawyer clients. She had to present to groups of senior law partners on an ongoing basis and while her presentations led to successful business she was beginnining to feel itimidated and anxious several days before the presentations.

She enjoyed working wih senior lawyers and wanted to further devolop the business, however this fear of presenting was beginning to interfere with both her career and her general state of mind.

Objective

The principal was the client and she wanted to overcome this fear.

Action

The coach took the client through a number of visualisation exercises, which included imaging the lawyers in various stages of dress, which significantly reduced the intensity of the fear but didn't reduce it completely.

After further discussion the coach asked the client whether she had any past experienced of succefully dealing with similar siuations. She confided that when she was actively dating she had had a slighly mischevious attitude that men had to prove themselves to her before she would go out with them.

The coach built on that and suggested that maybe it would be useful for her to reverse her current attitude. It wasn't she that had to convince the laywers that she was good enough for them, it was the laywers that had to convince her that they were worth working for.

She immediatly relaxed and smiled, she had realised that she knew exactly how to act.


Result

The client approached future meetings with a different mindset. She now does occassionaly decide that she isn't prepared to work with a particular group of lawyers and often quite surprises them (and herself) by saying so directly.

She now enjoys her work even more.

And So?

As well as enjoying her work more, the client now realises she has other mental resoures within her, which she is now developing,  to deal with not only similar situations, but new and different ones  as well.

The coach continued to be amazed that as in this case what appeared to be a straightforward two hour discussion (and sometimes a lot less) can significantly change a clients apparent problem.


Michael Beale - Executive Coaching Network

Michael Beale on the Executive Coaching Network

Executive Coaching - Career Development

Director Career Development Case Study - By Michael Beale


Situation

A senior director of a major ICT company was considering a career change. He had a very good reputation, was making his number and had a good relationship with his boss. He had worked for his boss for twelve  years in a variety of countries and regions. However he was not happy with work life balance and while he could see a career path, was not  inspired by what he saw.

Objectives

The senior director was the client and his objective was to create some pragmatic career options.

Actions

After discussion the coach suggested the client take a business focused NLP practitioner and master practitioner which involved 17 days intensive training and coaching, in this case over 18 months. In addition the client was to develop a draft business plan for running his own business, and a networking strategy to identify and develop possible new opportunities in his own company.

Results

The client became a very good NLP practitioner and master practitioner and in the process further rounded and developed his thinking, communication and motivational skills. He developed a business plan and  found two genuine potential clients for his proposed business.

However while he was networking internally in his company he was able to suggest the creation of a new vice president role, to which he was ideally suited. After some fairly tough negotiation between him and the company he was offered the job, and it was set up in such a way that he felt would protect his work life balance.

He accepted the vice presidents role as the challenge genuinely excited him and at this stage he did not really want to take the risk of starting a new business because of his familly and financial commitments.

And So?

The client really was genuinely excited by his new role, and in the process had significantly developed his confidence in being able to booth be  able to perform in the new role and start and run his own business if the need or desire arose in the future.


Michael Beale - Executive Coaching Network

Michael Beale on the Executive Coaching Network