Real Clients.
Real Results.
Don’t take our word for it. Hear directly from trade and service business owners across Australia who committed to doing things differently and changed their lives.
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STANDOUT RESULTS
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
VIDEO TESTIMONIALS
Hear Directly from Clients
Over 20 business owners from trades, services and beyond in their own words.
Client: Alistair Nichol
Business: Linkfire
Industry: Essential Services
I started as a one man show, not really knowing how to run a business. I was actually a control freak and thought nobody would know how to do it better than I could! In the early years I was working 60 – 80 hours a week – I seemed to spend all day doing the work, and all night doing the “other stuff”. I was never “off”, I worked at night and worked all weekends, with very little family time.
I learnt from Action Centre how to let go… how to let your staff grow.
Recently as a family we went to Bali for a week, and we are able to do that. When we got home I went motorbike riding for 2 weeks, which I really enjoy. So that’s the biggest benefit for me, giving me more me time.
When I first started out we were turning over less than $1million, now we have 40 full time staff and turn over more than $8million.
Client: Brett Hardiman
Business: Punch Digital
Industry: Digital Marketing Industry
The biggest headache in our business was time…getting organized, and bringing profitability into the business. It comes down to having alignment and doing all the right things at the right time, and not having to learn it all yourself.
The Action Centre coaches have been there and done it before, and working with people who have grown a business is a big help. Through them we have a 90 play down to the daily tasks, which sometimes you have to delegate, or sometimes make a decision to not do things, but they are conscious decisions.
Having an Action Centre coach has made me more accountable, making sure that as an individual and as a business we are continually growing. With Action the systems and processes are easy to follow, and it made life a lot simpler for me to be able to implement them straight away.
Client: Russell Pearson
Business: Crimson Fox Studios
Industry: Marketing industry
We’ve had the pleasure of using Brett Burden and the ActionCoach business coaching program for 9 months now. In that time we have had well over 200% growth in our business and have seen significant improvements within the business, including additional processes, better staff management and larger profits.These improvements have largely been the result of Brett’s advice regarding implementation of measurement criteria and a strategic focus on business activities to ensure we are placing our attention on the right activities at the right time. Other than tangible results, I have also been greatly impressed with Brett’s professionalism and friendly manner when dealing with not only myself, but also with my staff.
I would recommend Brett’s coaching services to any business owner who is ready to do some hard strategic work and focus their attention on developing a successful business.
Thanks Brett. The results speak for themselves.
Client: George Toth
Business: MLight
Industry: Lighting Industry
We approached Action Centre because the business was a bit of a mess at the time – staffing was a major dilemma, recruiting was a major dilemma, and that is really the backbone of any business.
Not many businesses devote enough time to training their teams, and we do 90 Day Planning sessions with our top team of 10 people. It’s a very costly exercise, to have 10 people devoted for an entire day just for planning sessions, but Action Centre have made me realise the importance of that.
Our results from working with our Action Centre coach is that we have gone from a turnover of less than $1 million each year to over $5 million.
Action has taught me that you need to have a well-balanced life in order to be successful.
Client: Wayne McDermott
Business: Better Living Group
Industry: Home products
Lack of clarity in the roles was the biggest issue we had initially – nobody had specific job roles and there was a lot of cross over. In addition to that we didn’t know our numbers properly. Now we have a well-established team of mature people who all have a job description, they all have KPI’s, and they’re judged against them.
The most important thing we have got from our coach is confidence… Confidence to make the big decisions. It can be too easy to procrastinate when you are doing things on your own.
Sales wise we have grown the business over 600%… we’ve actually created a business now that I could pass onto my kids, or sell.
Getting an Action Centre coach was the best decision I ever made. To have that professional advice around numbers, about staff, about direction in the business, opportunities for growth… and having somebody stand beside you… is just awesome.
Client: Kim Mizzi
Business: Ringwood Vet
Industry: Veterinary Industry
When I first met Brett I wasn’t convinced that there was anything he could do for me as I already had a reasonably good business and didn’t really feel like he was going to tell me anything I didn’t already know (now recognised as arrogance and resignation).
However, in a very short space of time, he was able to identify the critical areas of the business that needed attention and then supported me in taking action, even though I had been dragging my feet for years in those areas.
The most important was employing a new vet so that I could spend more time working on the business (rather than in it), and spending more time with my son. Recruitment is not one of my strong points… I’d tried to do this in the past and after a weak response to my ad and attracting the wrong applicants, I had given up. However, within in days of Brett identifying this and with his help, we had placed an ad, received a number of applications and 4 weeks later, the fantastic, perfect for the job, new vet started.
This has been priceless to me, as I know that I can now move the business forward with confidence without having to compromise on precious family time. Brett is a wealth of knowledge and valuable resources and I will be forever grateful for the impact Brett has made not only on my business, but my quality of life.
Client: Matthew Kent
Business: Mariljohn
Industry: Design & Manufacturing
We’re a design construction company in the hospitality space. We haven’t been taught in the business sense of running a business, to maximum profitabilities, on how to know our numbers and that sort of things.
Experience with Action [Victoria] I believe has been really beneficial for the overall company. As in the Director’s getting their heads around business development. We’ve now been able to identify what our strengths are, and target those strengths and now we’re looking at bringing key personnel to replace where we are weak and that allows us to be even stronger in those separate fields. And that’s probably been the biggest shift in the business is to start getting the right people in the right spots.
Before we were across everything. You just can’t do it. You don’t have enough hours in the day. It’s tough to implement everything but without someone structuring it, making you and keeping you on course, we tend to drift straight into operations and day-to-day issues you have with the business, and not really spending enough time dedicating to developing a business.
In the last three years we’ve able to take our company from about a seven-odd million dollar company to 12 million dollars. We have a goal to get to twenty million dollar turnover by 2020. That’s our goal at the moment, but we want to do it the right way.
Probably the biggest benefit we’ve seen from having coaching involved for a number of years now, is the fact, we are still flat out, we still have to do a lot of hours in the business and we don’t want to change that, but when we do have our time of either a golf day or going away with family we have back-up and resources built into the business now that you can handle the issues of day-to-day through using your team. And that wasn’t there before, if you went away, it was your job, and basically you had to get back on the phone with the builder and solve that.
Now we have great project managers and we’ve put infrastructure in place that we can at least cover any of those holidays and that allows us all, between the team, to be able to have some time away and catch up with family.
Client: Scott Stafford
Business: KATANA
Industry: Building and Construction
Katana’s been around for 12 years now. We specialise in architectural extensions and renovations in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. I started as carpenter over 20 years ago, and from there I progressed to becoming a builder. I’ve been with Action Centre now for 10 months. I do a weekly session with them and I go to all the business seminars. Some of the issues that I was having before Action Centre was lead conversion and being confident talking with clients during the interview process.
Prior to starting with Action Centre Katana was turning over five to seven hundred thousand dollars a year. In the last four month we’ve signed up $AUD2.5 million worth of work and I attribute a fair majority of that to being with Action Centre.
[Coaching] allowed me to more time to work on my business rather than in my business, which is one of their key phrases. I’ve got more time to have with the kids and the wife and to be able to plan holidays and just have a bit more freedom in my life. [Action Centre] have given me confidence in what I can do and my potential as a builder and a businessman. It’s been important to have a mentor to tell me I’m doing the right things, and to reinforce that or to show me other ways of doing things that are better or more efficient.
The 90 Day plans good, it gives you an ability to step back and really focus on what you’re gonna do move forward rather than putting out fires. You’re not as nervous as talking to people because you need the work. More referrals are coming through. It’s just confidence.
[Coaching] is something I’d wished I’d done 12 years ago when I first started to show me how to conduct a business the right way rather than feel my way in the dark.
Client: Jeff Speak
Business: Safe Play Systems
Industry: Playground Equipment Industry
The biggest headache in my business was trying to be all things to all people – doing the sales, doing the accounts,
The main benefit of working with Action Centre has been that we now have systems and structures in place, they have helped us identify how to get the best out of our people, and not to cross over roles.
It all comes back to having clarity.
We’ve been an Action Centre client for over 6 years, and our business has increased over 50% in that time. Whilst that isn’t a staggering figure, our profitability has been much greater and the choice of client that we want has been vastly improved. We’ve also started up a second business after identifying a gap in our market and going for that.
Client: Brett Dashwood
Business: The Document Institute
Industry: Document Management
I’m Brett Dashwood, and I run The Document Institute. It’s all been around high volume transaction documents – your bills, your invoices, your statements etc. As I think that many small business owners are at least initially, I was I think, a great level of arrogance at the start. “If I built it they will come” kind of approach. I hated the fact, but I got to the stage where I was [saying] “should I go and get a job”.
Mike is an advisor to me. I see Mike almost as a part-time General Manager. He will [push me] when necessary. He will help me with strategy and I guess give me clarity and I think one of the big things that I have got through this entire process with Action Centre so far and I expect to continue to do so, is clarity. And clarity and focus around what I think that I need to do. I had general ideas, but it just wasn’t happening. So through the process with Mike I’ve been able to get budgets happening, get quarterly targets happening, get monthly targets happening and all of the sudden actually achieve them.
With the 90 Day Planning it’s so important to me to help structure my next 90 Days so that it not only focuses you on your business but it focuses you on all of your life. Your family life, your other personal life, your interests etc, outside of business. Having that person that I’m able to strategically plan with and has gone through that process already is paramount in importance to my business.
So for anybody who I meet who might be contemplating their future around their small business whether they’re starting or they’re already in, and contemplating getting out I think they need to speak to someone like Action Centre. The [Action Centre] Business Coach was integral to what has become the success of my business.
Client: Casey Henwood
Business: KC Roof Plumbing
Industry: Roof Plumbing Industry
I started KC Roof Plumbing a little over three years ago. Basically I had to fill the gap in the market for quality and execution. My weaknesses were in all areas. I was just a “fitter” at the start I was just a “roof plumber”. And with Action Centre I obviously didn’t know anything about business so that’s why I was there.
Since then, I’ve pretty much started with one labourer and now a few years later, I’ve got six guys on the tools and one on-site manager, an office manager and myself that works in the company from day-to-day. Prior to seeing Action Centre I worked all the time with not much social life. And it was not so much of a ceiling I just couldn’t grow with the knowledge that I had.
I started the company to be a helicopter pilot, thinking that it would somehow free up my schedule. I would have heaps of time to be a helicopter pilot if I had my own business but it’s quite the opposite, so that’s obviously why I was with Action Centre.
Since then, I’ve actually been able to turn the business right around and I’m actually able to take for instance, 11 weeks off at a time and go try and do my helicopter theory as a component of getting my helicopter license. Or take [time] away for a trip overseas and be a touchpoint a couple of times on emails but overall come back to a completely normal business, if not better. So I haven’t had to be on the tools for a really long time.
I’m probably up to 1.7 million in three years, and not only that, my profits have quardrupled as well, 400%. It’s so far to come I would never have done it without Action Centre.
The 90 Day Planning session sets up your 90 days and brings everything into perspective. It shows you how much you’ve really got to do in those 90 days. Because if you leave it two weeks, three weeks, four weeks…it’s a month gone and you’re 90 days is pretty much blown out.
The only thing that drives me is having that goal or the dream, being dedicated to what you do, having enough money to support you to get into it.
Client: Paul Watson
Business: Espire IT
Industry: IT Managed Services
“Our company has been going for 14 years, and the life I had before working with Action Centre was very stressed and under the pump. I didn’t have any work-life balance. Now I can really appreciate what is important in my personal life and what is important in business.”
“Since working with Mike Rady at we’ve been able to reduce our costs and increase our sales, which has meant putting on more staff. If anyone is thinking about getting a business coach, I’d encourage them to move forward and give it a go.”
Client: Karen Walter
Business: Extra Ed
Industry: Speech Pathology
“At Extra Ed we work with children with learning difficulties, however, I’ve discovered that being good at what you do doesn’t necessarily translate to being good at running a business. So I was killing myself working, and not getting particularly well paid for the joy of it.”
“Action Centre have helped me by finding the way to get to where I want to go. I can see where I’m headed now and am quite certain that I can make money out of it. Our turnover has doubled in two years, and the goal for 2018 is to employ a practice manager to take care of the day to day running of the business.”
Client: Clint Wolf
Business: Innovative Security
Industry: Security & Data
My name’s Clinton Wolff at Innovative Security and Data. The business that we’re in is CCTV, alarms, 24 hour monitoring, guard response. I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. The business was getting to the next level and I needed a bit of guidance and support. One of the main reasons why I wanted to get a coach was to free myself up. The business has definitely grown a lot in the last 12 months since having Keith. I interviewed a few coaches and I liked Keith for the simple fact that he’s a [straight forward] guy, “this is how it is” [personality], he knows his stuff. I felt confident with him. To have that support to and know that I have someone that I can bounce ideas off, that I can call at anytime.
Since we’ve had Keith we’ve had well over 100% growth in 12 months. What he has been really good at is helping us grow internally. The example is putting the people and managers in the right position. Guiding me in the right direction saying “this is where you’re lacking… go and do this, come to this seminar”. He coaches everyone in the business. If you’re young and you’re in business and you haven’t got a coach, you’re doing it wrong. You train at school, then all the sudden we leave school and we go “I know how to install an alarm system”, we know nothing about running a business. I wish I got a coach, ten, fifteen years ago. I would be in a completely different space right now. And I’m comfortable where we are, but I know that we would be at where I would like to be at my goal where I’d want to be. And the reason is I didn’t have a coach, because I thought I knew everything. “Nah I’ll be right” and you’re not and then you get a coach and all the sudden it’s “this is great”.
Client: Brian Cross
Business: Twin Electrics
Industry: Electrical
My name’s Brian Cross and my company is Twin Electrics and Plumbing. My brother and I started the business 38 years ago, from our backyard at home and now we’ve turned into a company with 38 people working here full time. I’ve been working with Action Centre for about 18 months – my brother and I, my two sons and my brother’s son. There’s five of us in total who work with them [Action Centre]. Construction area was very tough, wasn’t much margins though we worked on actually get out of the construction area and going to service/maintenance oriented with better margins.
Action Centre helped us make those decisions and we’re slowly seeing the benefits, right now, of what our decisions were 12 to 18 months ago. I just done our figures for the last four month and we’ve got a gross profit higher than we’ve for the whole year last year. So it has changed, and a few decisions of putting a rep on and instead of having estimators which cost me a lot of money we’ve got a rep and we’re getting our face in different companies and it’s working very well.
Our next goal is to push more into the refrigeration and carpentry. My brother and I were having a day a week off and now we’re back to two days a week [off], we only work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. It’s helped us get that extra time off, obviously we want to retire in the next few years so we try and slowly work down to it. And the boys have taken on more responsibility.
Having a coach is good. Obviously, coaching you’re paying for it, it comes as a cost, it’s tax deductible, but you get out of it a lot. I believe you get a lot out of it. I was quite surprised. I’m happy we’ve done it. I’m happy for my sons to have done it. It’s forced us to have time off. Next year they want us to have a month [off] periods, at a time, and try to have more time off. I think the boys would be happy for us to have more time off as well. Get rid of Dad.
Client: Adam DiFlorio
Business: Total Trade Management
Industry: Trade Services
Adam Di Florio from Total Trade Management talks about his experience with Action Centre Business Coaching
“Brett was fairly straight-forward in that he was not here just to sign you up”
“Brett had me implement new roles and responsibilities, their job descriptions are all detailed they were given KPI’s and it’s just given everyone so much more direction.
What Brett’s opened my eyes up to is the business side, what it actually takes to manage a business, to own a business, but a successful business – not a job.
The biggest benefit is the consistency – we’ve now got a lot of consistency in our turnover, in our workload, whereas before we were more, couldn’t keep up one month, not knowing what to do the next.
I very rarely work weekends, I play golf once a week on a Thursday now so it’s freed up there and I also get home at a far more reasonable time so I get more time to spend with the family so the results are definitely there.”
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