Even if you have many years of experience, running a small business or organisation can feel like an ordeal at times - and can be a lonely place to be. 

How do you keep all your ‘plates’ spinning?  Are they even the right plates?  Are you spinning them in the right way?  What are you overlooking?  What key piece of advice would make all the difference? 

In my experience, the biggest mistakes that great people with great ideas make when running a small business or organisation are:

• Not knowing what you don’t know - failing to realise some vital things you should be focussing on, doing or avoiding

• Making poor decisions and choices – rushing into decisions without taking advice or thinking through the consequences   

• Failing to review, plan, analyse and simply be thoughtful about your market, your products and services, your finances and who would be the best fit to work for you

• Making rushed recruitment decisions you later regret – there are so many pitfalls here, yet some simple steps to take that can help you avoid them all

• Failing to see your situation clearly enough – some people are too pessimistic and make their decisions in a well of negativity, while others are too optimistic and leap into decisions without thinking through the consequences properly.  A third group simply view their world in a very narrow way, missing a lot of important parts of the picture. 

• Avoiding critical aspects of your busines because it’s ‘not you’ – perhaps you think you don’t have a head for figures, or think you’re useless at managing people, or can’t imagine having the courage to make sales calls? 

Not just for-profit

And if you’re running a charity or not-for-profit, almost all of the same things apply.  Your organisation – and the cause you exist to help – deserves your organisation to be just as efficient and effective at what you do as any commercial business. 

“Your support has been really beneficial to me over the past several months. You have helped me and the firm to develop across a wide range of areas including: managing client relationships, streamlining processes, and strategic marketing.

I have been impressed by the way you can move very fluidly from one topic to another.

I have particularly valued too your encouragement, motivation and reassurance”

Owen Mason, Solicitor

Vermeylan Law

Let me help you

I bring decades of business experience to my Business Mentoring clients and am confident that I can help in many ways.  I’ve surfed the highs and the lows of running small organisations, both busy commercial businesses and charities.  Sometimes I’ve learned things the hard way. 

I’ve ended up with an award-winning business, financial comfort, enormous satisfaction - and it still excites me, every day.  But it was hard won and there were many experiences that I would love to share with you so you don’t have to experience them too. 

I can help you:

• with strategic planning and business plans

• understand your finances, insurance, business structure and which legal status may work best for your business

• create and maintain great relationships with business partners

• become more effective and able at sales & marketing

• confidently handle recruitment and the employing and managing of staff

• develop a strong network of referrals and associates

• focus on ensuring you know what your customers/clients want, and how to give it to them in ways they will love

• and generally develop a strategic, commercially savvy, business-oriented outlook that will last you a lifetime and lead to you becoming more prosperous and fulfilled in all sorts of ways. 

All these topics focus on how you run your business, more than on you personally.  If you’d also appreciate spending some time thinking about you too, as a person - someone who wishes to improve and develop, then please see the coaching pages of this website.

“I can warmly recommend Luke for help with your marketing strategy. 

He is full of ideas and guidance and is happy to share his considerable knowledge of what does and what doesn’t work in marketing legal services.” 

Rupert Scrase, Solicitor and past President, Sole Practitioners Group

Scrase Employment Solicitors

Wide experience  

I have extensive knowledge of professional practices (e.g. lawyers, doctors, health professionals, HR professionals, therapists, coaches, financial advisers, bookkeepers, accountants, etc.).  For 25 years I’ve worked with clients in the education, manufacturing, retail, heritage, media and charity sectors, and in several other sectors too. 

My experience is that, while each of these areas of course have their differences, the reality is the challenges faced by business owners and leaders tend to be almost identical.  So even if I’ve not worked with a client in your area before, I’m confident that I can still provide a great deal of valuable advice and support. 

Why me?

Working with me, you get a very personal service.  I don’t put you into a programme or force a standard package upon you.  You and I will focus on your organisation’s precise needs, and do as much or as little work on each area of it as may be required. 

I don’t just come with one focus in the same way as other business mentors often do.  I bring into the mentoring relationship my experience across a really wide range: business structure, shareholder agreements, directorships, legal issues, insurance, HR, recruitment & staffing, commercial contracts, products & services, sales & marketing, pricing structures, websites, client/customer relations, bookkeeping & accounts, payroll, suppliers, associates, partnerships and so on. 

“Luke has been a fantastic mentor. As I have transitioned to my first CEO role in the third sector, he has provided unwavering support and encouragement as well as invaluable advice and guidance. He has supported me to be bold, take risks and to lead authentically, even in the face of adversity.  Luke draws on his own professional experience and combines this effortless with an extensive knowledge of theory and literature. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.”

Charity CEO, Bristol

The mechanics

I provide Business Mentoring face-to-face, via video call (e.g. Zoom or Skype) or on the phone.  Our sessions will usually last 2 hours.

Business Mentoring tends to work best if they take place once a fortnight, allowing you to process the contents of the last session and take action on the steps we agreed, while maintaining forward momentum.  However, they can be more frequent, or less frequent, if you prefer. 

Investment

I offer my Business Mentoring in a number of differently priced packages depending on your situation and who is funding our work.

Further details of the available packages, together with my terms of business, are available upon request and will be provided as standard when you agree to a chemistry session. 

Risk-free and guaranteed

In order to remove any worry you might have about financial risk, there are two significant things that I offer.

Chemistry Session

First, I provide you with a chemistry session (see below) in which you can try me out, entirely free of charge and with absolutely no strings attached. We will spend around 30 minutes together, leaving you with lots of information with which to decide whether to sign up to some further sessions.

‘Money back’ Guarantee

I also go much further than that, by additionally offering you the following guarantee of the quality of my coaching work:

If you don’t feel you’ve had good value for money after 3 paid Business Mentor sessions with me, I will give you all your money back for the sessions you’ve already had, and you may cancel any further sessions without penalty.

Next step… or simply to find out more

If you wish to try some Business Mentoring with me - or even if you aren’t sure but would like to know more - the next step is to contact me to book a free 30-minute chemistry session.

In our chemistry session, as the name suggests, you can try me out and see if we get on with each another, entirely free of charge or commitment.