Andy describes how coaching has helped clear the mists of uncertainty to produce clarity of thinking and planning to avoid the dangers of overextension and the risk of crash and burn. He now has clear plans, a developing team, continuing growth and enhanced profits to enable further investment in a sustainable future. So often, coaching has unlocked and contextualised that which Andy and Anna already knew but couldn’t apply so that they now control and run the business, rather than it controlling them.

Video Transcript

Our engagement with Matthew and action coach has been something that’s totally like lifted the lid, it’s kind of expanded our horizons, it’s cleared and created a lot more clarity to our thoughts and how we now outwork the strategy in the business.

When we started the business, I think we found fairly quickly that we reached our own limit, our own kind of capacity. I think worst case scenario we probably would have crashed and burned trying our best to expand and to grow but ultimately realising that we didn’t necessarily have the learning or some of the skills maybe bedded into our own practise to kind of achieve that growth sustainably.

Not just Action Coach but coaching in general. I think there’s always a degree of by being a bit sceptical and so sometimes you question how much value a coach can add. I think it’s probably only now more recently since we’ve engaged Matthew that we found that it’s just incredible, like what it can do for us in terms of our leadership, in terms of our ability to manage people.

Fairly early on in the coaching process Matthew kind of was exploring, I guess, what work we do in the business and what work we do on the know and I think that has really impacted our thinking and so recently we’ve employed a PA for ourselves but we’ve also employed or we’ve promoted people into better positions to lead and guide and manage the business so we don’t have to be involved in those areas anymore.

Our turnover has always been increasing. I’d say the rate of increase has definitely improved since we’ve engaged with Matthew but whether like every year we would typically aim for about £150,000 increase in turnover we’re expecting maybe another 30-40% increase on the increase that we’re already expecting.

I’m almost guaranteed that we’ll have a significant increase in profitability this year. I’d like to think it’s an additional 20% to 30%. Already the team are those certainly on management are excited about the changes that we’ve implemented, the clarity that we’ve created even further down the organisation, our practitioners, they’re starting to sense those changes.

Our leaders in the rooms are excited about some of the new things that we’re already introducing into the business and how we work and how we operate.

I think one of the most valuable things we’ve got from Matthew and Action Coach is someone who, even though they’ve not worked in our industry, they’ve not necessarily got a detailed understanding of childcare in our context. There is someone who definitely understands the breadth of problems and challenges and issues that we face, and also not just has the answers, but has the ability to almost coax out of ourselves some of the solutions that perhaps are kind of a bit latent or under the surface, that we’ve not really been able to consciously discover ourselves.

It’s been incredible, I guess, that ability to kind of realize things have that aha moment, that penny dropping. And it isn’t always some brand new sparkly thing. In fact, usually it’s something that we’ve known all along, but we’ve just not been able to put our finger on it. And that has been probably one of the most valuable things that Matthew’s been able to bring to us in our journey of business.