CHALLENGE

I was introduced to a small business owner at a networking event in NYC, and we hit it off by chatting about his industry, successes, and obstacles. At the end of our conversation, I handed him my card and told him to ring me up for a deeper discussion.

He was experiencing what most business owners run into — lack of product focus, customer acquisition issues, and cash flow/accounts receivable interruptions. He knew his business and how to deliver products/services — it was all the other things we business owners must do to succeed. He engaged my 12-month retainer immediately.

ACTION

We began by understanding who his best/average/worst customers were and defined rules and behaviors to handle each persona. I helped him re-evaluate his pricing structure and increased his fees by 15-35% in many instances. We also re-vamped his AR process and eliminated the payments backlog within two months.

We then streamlined his entire service process from end to end to ensure we could get many small (and large) time and material efficiencies previously wasted. We cut down on wasteful and inefficient social media that made virtually NO impact on client acquisition and focused his energies on targeting key referral sources who would enjoy sending their clients to his business. Finally, we developed a public speaking/webinar schedule to get him out interacting with his audience.

RESULT

The first few months were painful — he subtlety rebelled against our new changes. But when he saw the results (money) flowing in, he saw the light. He wasn’t an overnight success — it took eight months of hard work, focused change, and constant direction shifts — but now his business brings in over $3.5M annually, and he has a working team of five associates keeping him on track.

We’ve been coaching together for over six years.