Posted:13-January-2021
Entrepreneur Learns the True Meaning of Business Ownership
Stuart Wright started his first business at the age of 21 with just £26, selling his basket of sandwiches around local offices in Harrogate. Six years later his business had grown to £1.5 million turnover 40 staff. By most people’s standards, Stuart was in a winning position.
Common frustration
Stuart’s business plateaued, he was a young man with a new daughter working lots of hours for very little rewards – a common picture of a UK business owner. His frustration led to him selling his business for much less than it was worth in 2003.His next business saw him importing silver jewellery from Mexico and showcasing it in hotels across the North of England. Yet again the business grew and yet again he became frustrated. Stuart explains, “I understood I had reached a ceiling in what I knew about running a business. I began reading all sorts of business books and attending seminars and things improved but it was slow progress. So, I decided to get some help. In 2007 I hired Action Coach Chris Fordy.
“Under the guidance of my Action Coach, my jewellery business flourished. I bought an EnviroVent franchise, a domestic ventilation business and with ActionCOACH’s help, this grew to generate an annual six-figure profit and double digit growth year-on year. I ended up with five EnviroVent franchise territories and only had to do half a day a week in my business owner role!”
Planting a seed
“I found myself wondering what to do next. My initial thought was to spread the word about ActionCOACH, it seemed mad to me that more business owners weren’t using an Action Coach. I offered to host a seminar and thought it would be a great way for Chris to win more clients. I really enjoyed the seminar and, sure enough, people showed interest in being coached and that’s when the seed was planted.“Later on, Chris told me about the option to build a firm of coaches with the ActionCOACH franchise, not just become a self-employed Action Coach and this really appealed to me. My goal is to build a firm of 50 Action Coaches supporting 1,000 businesses a year and the first step of this was starting my ActionCOACH business in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on 1st August 2016.”
Growing the business
“Before I started the initial training, I had spoken about ActionCOACH at my BNI networking group and this has proven to be a fantastic client generation activity for me. In only four months I secured 12 one-to-one coaching clients (an average one-to-one ActionCOACH client invests £1,500 per month) and seven group coaching clients.“It’s a testament to ActionCOACH - I’ve been able to leverage the power of the franchise system very quickly having been coached myself. Twenty years ago, no one knew what business coaching was and our Action Coaches have represented and grown the business coaching profession in the UK almost single-handedly.”
Interested and want to know more about ActionCOACH?
The ActionCOACH basic profile outlines aspects of their franchise opportunity
