The Moment Of Truth
We stagnated for the next 6 to 8 months. We weren’t doing any better, but we weren’t doing any worse either.

Something kept worrying me as we had grown fairly fast until then. To go from a rapid growth-rate rate to suddenly standing still scared me. I began to wonder whether the company was actually in decline and started thinking that we should sell before it was too late. I began to think about looking for another job again, and wondered when I should start firing people.

I didn’t know where to go for help, whom to turn to, or where to get advice, because I didn’t have the business skills myself to answer the questions that I needed answered.

I was travelling home from work late one night, listening to the radio and thinking about the company, when I heard an ActionCOACH advertisement. It said they could help companies or businesses reach their next level, achieve their goals and provide financial freedom. This made me take notice, so I wrote down the number and thought I’d give them a call the next day.

The next morning I gave ActionCOACH a call. I spoke to one of the Business Coaches and told him of our situation. I said we felt as if we had stagnated and didn’t know which direction to take. I wanted to get his advice and find out what he could actually do for our company.

The Business Coach said he would start by sending us some testimonial tapes of other companies that had been successful with ActionCOACH and I thought, “Oh yeah, here we go, bring out the tapes.”

I was fairly skeptical, but asked for the tapes anyway, as I was in dire straits and clutching at straws.

After receiving the tapes, I listened to them and read the literature that was sent. I must admit I was quite intrigued and hyped up after listening to these tapes. I thought they were very good. I actually rang ActionCOACH and told them had listened to them and was quite impressed and wanted to meet.

During that meeting, the ActionCOACH Business Coach sat and listened to our story, where we were going and what we actually did. I didn’t realize until after the interview that what he was actually doing was just sitting back and taking it all in to find out where we were at and where our interests lay.

The Business Coach then suggested we draw up a business plan.

This involved looking at modules over a 3, 6, 9, 12, and 18-month period (or however long it took to find out exactly where we were at in our own company). From marketing to our personal stuff, from business structures to administration – in fact, everything from start to finish, including where we should be achieving results, where we had been achieving results, where we hadn’t, and what we should actually be doing.

Even though I didn’t realize it during the first interview, I actually had a great rapport with ActionCOACH. You feel a certain bond or something with that other person and you feel they can help you achieve certain results.

We signed up with ActionCOACH, and started our first module. At the end of each week, John, Heather and I would sit down together and work through the material, page-by-page, question-by-question. After going through each one, we pooled our answers to come up with the best result. That proved successful, as we often came up with similar answers.

After completing the modules, a process that took about 9-months, we received our draft plan. We noticed that many of our goals had actually changed from the time we originally began writing them down. We had actually grown so much during those 9 months it was incredible. Our attitude had actually changed and we had a clearer picture of where we should be heading.

We were quite happy and I thought this was a bit of a success for us.

We were sent our final business plan leather-bound with a priority listing of what we needed to do. We needed to pay immediate attention to our marketing strategies – to target more private customers. That’s when our Business Coach suggested that, seeing we had completed our business plan, we should start weekly 1-hour coaching sessions whereby we’d talk over on the phone what we had actually done during the week.

Each time we talked, ActionCOACH would suggest work we needed to do to complete our goals (in our business plan) and I would ask questions.

We went through this procedure every week, and our Business Coach would come out to see us whenever he needed to. He also would come to our staff training days and spend a couple hours talking to the team. Not asking for anything extra, he truly just wanted us to succeed and to push us forward.

I’d just like to add that the Business Coach doesn’t actually do the work for you. They don’t even tell you what to do. You have to work out the answers for yourself. They’ll guide you and push you, but you’ve got to do the work. I truly believe that this way you gain a lot more knowledge than if the coach were to simply tell you what was to be done.

We had to learn to think for ourselves and work out how to do things we wouldn’t normally do.