We’ve got options now

Matt Sears, and his 2 co-directors at Prodose, first spoke to ActionCOACH as a result of a call they received from the team. The call was made to identify whether Prodose were facing any challenges that ActionCOACH would be able to help with.

It quickly became clear to Prodose that the challenges that ActionCOACH helps businesses to overcome included the ones that they were facing themselves. Speaking to Rugby based ActionCOACH, Matt Ewer, to find out a bit more about how he might be able to help them, seemed like a sensible idea.

“When we first spoke to Matt, as business directors we were all focussed on the immediate workload, and concentrating on delivery. We were all very involved with resolving issues all around the business. We all knew that we needed to step back and put better planned processes and direction in to the business, and the way PlanningCLUB was described to us, it seemed like a good and solid way of doing this.

We’d felt like we had everything in place because we knew our numbers inside out, but PlanningCLUB highlighted areas we needed more clarity on. The vision for the business was strengthened by adding detail that gave it real direction. We identified a specific target of driving efficiency and undertook an in-depth review of roles and procedures to identify where we could make improvements. This highlighted areas for improvement such as how to share key data to speed up communication. This resulted in a streamlining of responsibilities and processes, with improvements quickly devised, documented, and implemented. The clarity everyone now has around responsibilities and processes has had a really positive impact. Making lots of small changes have added up to big results.

Because we did the 1 year planning exercise, we also have all of the business growth tasks planned in as specific deliverables in the same way as we would plan in, and execute, the deliverables for customer orders etc. Everyone is very aware of what needs to be done to drive the business and because business growth has been broken down into those deliverables, the required actions get completed.

What was so brilliant about PlanningCLUB for us was looking at how simple changes to the business model could improve our numbers dramatically. We’ve now got lots of tangible KPIs, bigger goals, one vision that all of the directors agree on, and a clear understanding of the steps that we each need to take to get there.

We had already achieved good success, but we’ve been able to put in additional systems, processes and procedures that have made the business, and everyone in it, much more efficient. We’ve also changed our focus to make it easier for customers to buy from us, and for us to deliver. These changes alone have helped to free up so much of our time, and that’s taken away a lot of stress. We’re all working together more effectively and efficiently, and it’s much more enjoyable.

Our employees are feeling better because their roles are more clearly defined, and one of our shareholders has even said it’s the best money we’ve ever spent on the business. We would certainly recommend it to other business owners. There are so many things that need to be done within a business to make sure it’s as successful as it can be, and PlanningCLUB really highlights how to get there. Our goals are bigger, but also seem more achievable because of the way we’ve broken them down, and we’re already working differently and focussing on different things. In five years’ time we’re going to be in a very different place than we would have been. We feel like we’ve got more choices ahead of us, and that’s a really great position to be in. I’d say that everybody needs a Matt.”