The five stages
Every client engagement follows the same structure, adapted to the specifics of your business. Here is what happens from the moment you get in touch to the point where you are running your next quarter with a plan you trust.
Free discovery call (30 minutes)
We start with a short phone or video call. The purpose is simple: you tell us what is going on in your business, and we tell you honestly whether coaching is the right fit. There is no pitch deck, no pressure. About half of these calls end with us suggesting a different resource because coaching is not what the person needs right now. That is fine. For the other half, we book a diagnostic session.
Before that session, we send you a short questionnaire covering revenue, team size, your biggest frustration, and the one thing you would change if you could snap your fingers. This saves time and means we arrive prepared.
Diagnostic session (2 hours)
This is a deep-dive conversation, usually face to face or over video. We go through your financials, your team structure, your customer acquisition process, and your personal working week. We are looking for the gap between where you are and where you want to be, and we are looking for the two or three things causing the biggest drag.
Most owners find this session illuminating on its own. One client told us she had never sat down and described her entire business to another person before. Saying it out loud made problems visible that she had been stepping around for months.
90-day action plan
After the diagnostic, we write up a plan. It is typically two pages. The first page lists the priorities we agreed on, the specific actions required, who is responsible, and the deadline for each. The second page sets out the metrics we will use to judge whether the plan worked.
We deliberately keep the number of priorities small. Three at most. Trying to fix everything at once is how plans end up in a drawer. We pick the changes that will have the largest effect on profit, time, or stress, and we focus there.
Fortnightly coaching sessions
Over the next 90 days, we meet every two weeks for 75 minutes. Each session follows a loose structure: we review what happened since the last session, troubleshoot anything that went sideways, and plan the next two weeks. Between sessions, you can email us with quick questions and expect a reply within 24 hours on weekdays.
These sessions are not lectures. We ask questions, challenge assumptions, and occasionally push back when you are avoiding a decision. The goal is to keep momentum. Most business owners are good at starting things; the hard part is finishing them. That is where accountability matters.
Quarterly review and reset
At the end of the 90 days, we sit down together and review the numbers. Did revenue move? Did the owner reduce their working hours? Did the new hire settle in? We compare the results against the targets we set at the start.
If the cycle went well, we set new priorities for the next quarter. If something did not land, we figure out why and adjust. Some clients work with us for a single quarter. Others stay for a year or more. There is no lock-in contract, and we do not charge cancellation fees. You stay because it is working, or you stop.
What makes this different
A lot of coaching programmes are built around motivation. Ours is built around arithmetic. We care about your profit and loss statement more than your vision board.
That does not mean we ignore the human side. Running a business is lonely, and the emotional weight of decisions is real. But we have found that most of the stress business owners feel comes from a lack of clarity, not a lack of willpower. When you know your numbers, understand your options, and have a plan written down, the anxiety drops.
We also do not pretend to be experts in your industry. You know your market better than we do. What we bring is a structured way of thinking through problems, a set of tools that work across industries, and the discipline of regular check-ins that stop things drifting.
Our typical client sees a 15-25% improvement in net profit within two quarters. Not because we have a magic formula, but because most small businesses have obvious inefficiencies that nobody has taken the time to address.
Questions we hear often
A 90-day coaching cycle costs £2,400 plus VAT, paid monthly. That covers the diagnostic session, six fortnightly coaching sessions, the written action plan, and email support between sessions. The discovery call is free.
We work best with businesses that have been trading for at least 18 months and have some revenue coming in. Pre-revenue startups usually need a mentor or an accelerator programme rather than a business coach. If that is your situation, we are happy to point you in the right direction.
Yes. About 70% of our sessions happen over video call. The diagnostic session is more effective in person when geography allows, but we have run entirely remote engagements with excellent results.
You can stop at the end of any calendar month with 14 days' notice. We do not charge exit fees. If coaching is not delivering value, we would rather you spent the money elsewhere.
We run a small peer group programme twice a year for owners of businesses in the £500k-£2m revenue range. Groups of six meet monthly for half a day. Details are on our services page.