Having been in a service business for over 20 years, the model was getting a little tiresome for the client. Working over 70 hours per week, come rain or shine, making good money, but wondering why?

With the impact of the Pandemic still lingering, it was time to look at what the future had to hold. There was a tangible sense of resentment towards the business and what it now meant to him in our first coaching session. After 20 years and a brutal past two years, the question was – how does he move forward?

It’s a simple question, but I think we all need to be asked now and then. What do you want from your business? This is a bit of a trick question as it inevitably depends on the trust you have developed if they tell you the truth.

The answer, by the way, is never the money! The money is what the business generates to create choices. So, what are the options he wanted to make?

A lover of the ocean, he wanted to buy a yacht and travel the world with his family with a particular residual income to enable him to live his life exactly how he wanted to.

Once we had this anchor for our thinking, we looked at what the business had to do to enable his vision for himself and his family.

It’s pretty simple when you have the endpoint in mind. We understood the costs of the adventure when it was realistic to aim for and set about re-engineering the business model to work harder for us.

But we didn’t get it the right first time. After a couple of strategic angles didn’t quite work out for reasons outside his control, we went back to the drawing board same goal, exact timeline, but a different approach.

This time we landed on the perfect strategy. The previous challenge we had tripped up on became an opportunity to reinvent the business entirely. And to give 100% flexibility to operate it from anywhere in the world to ensure he could deliver a high income without the baggage of the previous model and the costs.

At the start of this process, the main challenge was detaching his identity from the business and the business from him. It is a common issue for business owners that are the IP and value in their business. There isn’t anything to sell apart from yourself, and when you have fallen out of love with the company, that can bring about some substantial personal challenges.

By understanding why he wanted to make a change, we could work together on how we make the change, all in a couple of months.

Business is not about being tied to doing the same thing for the rest of your life but building something that gives you more choices than you had before.

Are you still in business for the right reasons?

(Our case studies are anonymous due to the impact the changes make on the business, those involved and how the market responds. We pride ourselves on our confidentiality and integrity when developing life-changing business strategies through our strategic coaching).