In this compelling case study, Heather from Withernay Ltd, an animal feed manufacturing business, shares how working with Matthew transformed her approach to business management. Initially sceptical, Heather soon realised the value of strategic coaching, gaining the confidence to expand her business and implementing effective organisational changes.

Over the course of six months, Heather shifted from being overwhelmed and stressed to strategically managing her company, resulting in a 100% increase in turnover and profit. Watch the video to see how expert coaching can provide clarity, enhance productivity, and drive significant business growth.

Video Transcript

Most valuable thing that I’ve got working with Action Coach is the confidence to expand the business.

I was very involved in the business and rather than standing out and looking from where we could go and what we could do, it was happening and just growing because it did, not because it was necessarily the best way to grow it. I was spending a lot of time on the factory floor and coming home totally exhausted, not having time to think about things.

And it also gave me, certainly when I started talking with Matthew, a time to reflect about what I did want and where I wanted to go in the future. Yes, I was definitely stressed and I would take it home all the time and that does have an impact on home life because weekends became, oh, I’ll just fit in a bit of work at a weekend. I was approached by Matthew to have an interview with him if he could come and tell me about Action Coach, I was very sceptical about it.

Then I realised he actually had some quite good ideas that made me think about doing things and he wasn’t going to just sit there and tell me what to do. He started to make me think on that very first interview by saying, well, where do you want to be? What is it that you want? Making sure the business has a proper structural organisation so everyone knows what they’re doing so we can make the most of the roles and also we can get the right people in the right roles and also to help identify, as Matthew put it, the rocks, because we could make rocks into pebbles and overcome problems that we had, once we sat down and analysed and gave ourselves time to do that.

Changes in the business. It was probably about six months, but changes in the way I thought about the business was probably in the first two to three months. Yeah, our turnover has increased 100% since we first started with Matthew and the profit has gone. Yes, that’s gone up 100% too.

It became very apparent that I needed somebody to take over more of the financial planning. So rather than me having to do all that, I now have somebody in the business. Although when we first looked at doing it, I was thinking, gosh, that’s an expensive role. But Matthew pointed out if I was then allowed to be free to go off and do the business of the business, it would be a much more effective use of my time.

I wouldn’t be in the position I am today without the help of Matthew to show us the way, basically to say, this is how you need to look at your business, but I want you to do it. I’m not going to tell you how to do it. I just need you to look at the business and where is you want to go and how are you going to achieve that?