Brad Sugars tells all about ActionCOACH results.

Brad Sugars Says …

From the start, it was clear that Mary Sue had a strong belief in her service and product, and that she was knowledgeable and professional. And the business had great potential to grow, develop and meet her needs, personally and financially.

So, why was it so difficult?

When she came to ActionCOACH, everything was “too hard” - clients were being difficult, not paying and not treating her with any respect. They were being openly disrespectful to her.

From a coach’s viewpoint, we recognized that to move beyond these issues we had to look inside, rather than focus on the results we were seeing outside.

Significant growth would come when she created a new and stronger identity that would support Mary Sue. When she had as much respect for herself as others did, then her business would grow and develop in the ways she was looking for.

ActionCOACH identified a number of areas to work in first, including:

•   Creating a new identity.

•   Sacking a client she no longer wanted to deal with.

•   Changing her billing philosophy - and actually billing for work done.

•   Increasing turnover and profits.

From the outset, Mary Sue listened, questioned, learned and did as she was told! As a client she’s a pleasure to work with. When we began working on her identity, ActionCOACH made a few suggestions, and helped determine the direction she could work on, and even suggested other people to talk to.

She simply went off and did it. Because of the insights she received then, and because of how valuable it was for her, she was willing to trust ActionCOACH fairly quickly, so that when it became necessary to do some things that really frightened her, she just trusted me and went ahead and did them.

We started by realigning Mary Sue’s belief in herself and correctly valuing her professional services. She learned that it was realistic and critical to charge a fair and profitable rate, and to charge it for all the work she does for a client. We put her rate up, and we ensured that all her work was charged. With that in place and turnover responding to the increased focus on sales, we decided to deal with a client who was causing her a great deal of concern.

The client was (unfairly) blaming her for their situation, which also involved a third party, and rather than working towards a solution, the situation was heading for a breakdown. With the help of ActionCOACH, Mary Sue took leadership and facilitated an opportunity to resolve the issue, and once that was under way she advised the client that they were sacked - she did not wish to work with them anymore.

Although it was hard for her to do, she did what was required and as a result, professionally extracted herself from a difficult and potentially costly situation. And, she learned that she could choose her clients, as well as sack them if they were not willing to play nicely.

With the personal growth and the increasing performance of the business, we started looking at creating leverage for her, so she could do more without having to work longer or harder. Soon after she identified the characteristics of the person she wanted to work with, an excellent candidate turned up.

He had years of ACT! experience, and was personable, presentable and professional. Although he was living in the US, he wanted to come to New Zealand to live, so it seemed too good to be true. Mary Sue made a decision to trust her instincts, and ActionCOACH coached her in developing an offer, a contract, and securing the new team member’s services. Over the past month, since he has been on board, every week has been a record of increasing sales. And, he has also earned great feedback from clients, so Achieve! is now being seen as the supplier of choice, with technical support and service being the best available locally.

Although we’ve surpassed all of the original goals, Mary Sue continues to work with ActionCOACH. Our coaching goals have changed and now we are looking at how to create an asset from the business. And, how we can further leverage the business so that she can focus on doing just the things she wants to do and do them well. She now has vision and clarity around where she is going, along with the knowledge that she is already getting there. That’s one of those things that have made it such a great experience for ActionCOACH working with Mary Sue.

Being part of the growth and development of the business and also personally, and now taking all that to a new level. The next year will be even more exciting than this year, and I know that Achieve! will become more and more the business Mary Sue wants.