And that’s just one year on! Our revenue is likely to be more than double last year’s
I had been running my governance advisory business – largely as a sole trader – for several years, but the business was not growing or developing the way I wanted. I realised that the biggest problem I had faced was that I was not accountable to anybody else for building the business.
I cannot put my finger on what actually changed, but Gai forced me to do some hard, and at times personally challenging, thinking. She did not allow me to put things off or to avoid hard decisions. The toughest phone-calls in my month were when Gai would ring and I had failed to fulfill some of the tasks that she and I had agreed at our previous session! At the time of writing, we have four significant projects, in addition to continuing work from repeat customers; I have six other people working in my business, two of them currently overseas on an assignment.
And that’s just one year on! Our revenue is likely to be more than double last year’s, with a large part of that coming from overseas. And I’m more excited about the potential than I have been since I set up the company.
I have recently begun a new round of coaching sessions with Gai to help me set some new professional and personal goals – now that I know some of what we can achieve – and to make sure that we are managing the growth in a way we can sustain.
Richard Westlake
Director, Westlake Governance