Case Study: Business/Executive Coaching

Business/Executive Coaching

A Bookstore Owner rediscovers her business’ reason for existence and resurrects a 3-year dream.

CHALLENGE:

A one-person retail outlet has been in operation in Trinidad for 9 years. In recent years the owner (who operates as a sole proprietorship) had become overwhelmed with paperwork and the monotony of her role. As the store’s only employee she spent all of her working hours there from Monday – Saturday, sometimes working late into the night if an after-work seminar was being held. Her personal and professional lives had become unhealthily entangled.

When she approached me she no longer remembered why she had opened her store, lacked clarity on how to move forward, and was feeling more and more like she should ‘close shop’ but a part of her felt that she ‘just needed help’.

MY APPROACH:

I asked the owner to focus on up to 3 areas that she wanted to work on. Using our planning form she chose Growing Your Business, Process Re-engineering and Strategic Planning. From these areas we created a 3 month coaching program that included:

• Analyzing her and her business’ ‘tarotlogical’ challenges and opportunities for the coming year
• Creating a series of long term goals and corresponding short term goals
• Discussing (and re-framing) her mental ‘blocks’ and areas of resistance
• Guided meditations
• Dream mapping
• Revising her business plan
• Creating an updated business image and collateral
• Disentangling her personal and business finances and creating strategies for passive income creation and long term financial planning
• Creating an ongoing customer outreach program
• Bringing her financial records up-to-date

OUTCOME:

As a result of our 3 months together her goals are now a lot clearer and she no longer feels stuck. More importantly she rediscovered her passion and reason for being in business! Closing shop is now the furthest thing from her mind!

Within the first 6 weeks of coaching she developed the confidence to resurrect a formerly discarded dream of expanding her business into a holistic center. A few days after doing this she learnt about an Omega Workshop on Creating A Holistic Center that was being held -that weekend- and flew to New York to attend it! A classic example of the Law of Attraction in operation!

Upon returning from New York she created a MasterMind Advisory group that meets fortnightly with the aim of bringing the center to life. An upgraded computer system has been installed and software is being purchased to monitor her offline and online sales, inventory, and newly implemented Preferred Customer program.

Several new income streams also entered her business during this time. These streams have allowed her to pay herself a salary, take on a full-time assistant and to spend more time away from her business’ physical location. She is almost up-to-date on her bookkeeping and upon completion intends to finally undergo the process of incorporation.

And, as if this weren’t already impressive enough, she is also working with an interior decorator and web and graphic designer to finalize the process of recreating her business’ online and offline presence in time for her 10th anniversary ‘re-launch’ in 2006!

Update: One year later the bookstore owner did close her store. However I was happy that she did it on her own terms. She had now parlayed her skill sets into a late in life corporate career and was excited about the new challenges and sides of herself that it brought into focus. Her decision to close the store was a sign of commitment to her life’s new direction and come from a position of power rather than one of defeat.