Case Studies
Setting sail for a business that works without me
First Class Sailing (FCS) is a company based in Southampton that runs sailing training courses to enable its customers to experience the freedom and excitement of sailing in an effortless way. However, for the business owner Charlie Tulloch, running the business was far from effortless before he became a client of ActionCOACH.
Case Study – Sandra’s Florist
Background
Having spent almost forty years in the sector, Sandra Griffin set up Sandra’s Florist in Holbury, Southampton, four and a half years ago. She runs it with her daughter Tracie who looks after the marketing side of the business.
All was going well, but in April 2009, with the recession taking hold, Sandra feared that selling a luxury product like flowers made her vulnerable to a sudden drop in sales. She was particularly concerned as she didn’t have any practical plans in place to protect her business against a downturn.
Case study – Double H
Background
Neil Stevenson joined his father’s business in 1991 and took over the family business in the late 1990s.
“I followed an engineering career straight from university but, after completing my graduate scheme, I decided to join the family business. My father was running several ventures and so we had a somewhat unstructured handover of the reins over a 7-year period.
Case study – Aqua Cooling
Background
Kevin Lancaster is one of the company’s founders and he explains why, even though they maintained business during the recent economic downturn, they chose to bring in an ActionCOACH business coach.
“My business partner, Simon, and I had a great combination of experience in both cooling engineering management and sales when we first started the company. Growth was good and this just plateaued during the recession. We weren’t worried about the business and were confidently holding our head above water.
“By most standards £400k profit a year is great but there were other issues that were taking the enjoyment out of running the business. In particular, the people management had started to become a headache and we felt less enthused to go in to work each day.”