Sports Fundamentals
Operating: 7 years
Leaders: Ben Carlyon and Jamie Carlyon
Location: Sydney – Australia
Seven years ago, former elite athlete and human movement graduate, Ben Carlyon, was managing gyms for other people. Now, he and his brother Jamie are managing a company that is positively bursting at the seams... and the company is all theirs. The sports loving brothers saw the opportunity to turn their passion into a pay packet when they identified a need for someone to teach young children the physical skills they needed to play a range of sports. They now offer programs through schools, kindergartens, clubs and they run public courses at local venues.
“Sports Fundamentals” was initially just an opportunity for the boys to work in an area which they loved while doing some useful community work and making a few dollars at the same time. Things have changed. Now Ben and Jamie see themselves as business managers... business managers who are leading a rapidly growing organization that is increasing in value every day because of the changes they have implemented.
Burnt Out
How did it all happen?
While much of the credit must go to Ben and Jamie whose passion, talent and enthusiasm are the backbone of the company, according to them, things were not always this rosy. A couple of years into the new venture the boys were doing pretty well financially but almost burnt out form the amount of work that they were doing and feeling quite unable to find a way to ease their burden. Their accountant suggested that they look into business coaching.
Jon Dale of Small Fish Business Coaching had been recommended to the boys as a potential coach and quite early in the first meeting Ben and Jamie realized that Jon not only had a great understanding of where they were at but he was asking all of the right questions that would enable them to figure out where to go from here.
Get over yourselves
After a period of business analysis, involving a combination of on-line assessment tools and Dale’s probing questions, the boys began to clearly identify a path ahead. Dale played an important role of continuing to ask questions, making suggestions, helping the boys review progress and also holding them accountable for getting done what that they said would be done.
The key areas targeted for work by the boys were marketing, documentation of processes, staff selection and training and most critical of all, Jon Dale convinced the boys that they had to get over themselves.
The businesses biggest problem was that the boys considered themselves indispensable and were therefore working themselves into the ground in an attempt to do everything!
Maybe we can even take a holiday
Now the business is substantially transformed. Through a whole raft of business changes (discussed in more detail in the attached report) the brothers identify the following as tangible outcomes of their work. Ben and Jamie told me that...
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More kids are coming to our programs and we are generating more revenue
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We now have more staff to do more programs
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Staff are measurably more effective and are clearer on what is expected of them and how they should go about their roles
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We, as business leaders, are more focused on important management issues
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Marketing initiatives are no longer dependant on our time availability and we are consistently generating new business as a result
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We are much happier in our leadership roles and happy with the direction the business is heading in
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We no longer feel indispensible and believe that the business can now operate without us (maybe we can even take a holiday)
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We believe that our business has increased in value exponentially and that with our increased management skills we would be more personally valuable if we were to ever re-enter the job market
It is exciting to meet two business owners who are simply buzzing with enthusiasm
While Ben and Jamie still love what they do (coaching kids) they also love their new found business management roles and are very excited about the fact that they are creating a company that is not only growing quickly but is increasing in value and has enormous potential for further growth.
As a business observer it is exciting to meet two business owners who are simply buzzing with enthusiasm for what they have created... and for what is happening with their creation. It is also exciting to meet two managers who have obviously grown considerably in skill and knowledge as they took on the challenges that opened up in front of them because of the steps they chose to take. These guys have come a long way. You can see it in the sparkle in their eyes. I have a suspicion that they will go a lot further, too!
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