After working for several of Australia’s largest corporates in various operational, planning, management and consulting roles, driving process efficiency, identifying areas of waste and opportunity, improving productivity and general business optimisation, I now offer those principles and experience to small/medium businesses to help them achieve the business they set out to build.
When working together, I start by getting a view of where you are with your business, where you want to go and what you think are the barriers to achieving this. From this we determine the areas we need to work on and what strengths we have to build on, and devise a plan based on the Framework to create a successful business. We then shift to coaching you and any key members of your team to improve results. Once the business starts to shift, we then look at what behaviours and leadership changes may be required to drive the business to its best.
What's my Story?
Growing up in a house where my dad worked for himself, always on the lookout for the next job and working 7 days a week to complete what he had on the go, the challenges a small business owner faces are familiar. Dad was always working, taking calls at dinner time, being chased by debtors, missing out on sports events and concerts and often the family outing on a Sunday was to visit a job site and do a few things.
Watching dad working with his team, he was involved in everything, being called for every little incident, and distracted from one task to the next as the team weren’t stepping up. And the jobs he took on – or to be more accurate, the clients he worked for – they thought they knew more than him, thought the price was too high, complained about small details, paid their invoices slowly. He would often be beaten on price for work, so he would sometimes have to offer discounts to win business or take those ugly jobs to keep the work flowing. Not the ideal base from which to build a business and not particularly something I wanted to duplicate. Yet, enter the internet, smart phones and email and guess what? Yep, I duplicated it, involved in everything, distracted, checking emails at all hours, making and taking calls 7 days, dealing with difficult people, just doing a few things after dinner. I thought that was just how it was but over time I realised it didn’t have to be that way and there were ways to work smarter, not harder.