One-on-One Business Coaching for Business Owners Ready to Scale

It’s easy to fall in love with the idea of business growth: a more profitable company, a stronger team and more freedom. But are you ready for the work that makes it possible, and is your leadership team ready to scale with you?

For an entrepreneur, that can mean uncomfortable changes: letting go of decisions, tackling weaknesses you’ve avoided and giving other people real responsibility.

Whether you’re ready to scale or feeling stuck, I work closely with you to turn your business goals into clear priorities, strengthen your leadership and hold you accountable for following through.

Your business is a reflection of you. If you want it to change, you have to be willing to change too.

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What Is One-on-One Business Coaching?

One-to-one coaching helps you develop the skills, judgement and discipline to run your business more effectively. Think of personal training: the right workout depends on your fitness level. I teach, question and challenge you at a level you can understand and put into practice.

I tailor the work to your business knowledge, experience and ability to get things done. If you’re a beginner, we work on the fundamentals at a pace you can understand and apply. At an intermediate level, we build on what you already know. For experienced business leaders, the work becomes an expert-to-expert conversation. We meet weekly because progress depends on the habits you build. At every session, we review what you’ve put into practice and make small adjustments.

Who Is One on One Business Coaching For?

I work with founders, managing directors and members of leadership teams who want to become more capable leaders and move their organisations forward.

You may be growing steadily and want your team to develop with you. But if you keep learning while the people around you stand still, a gap opens up. You become frustrated that they cannot see what you see. They struggle to understand what you want.

That’s why development needs to extend beyond the founder. With one client, I started by working with the owner. As he grew the business and built a leadership team, I began working with members of that team too.

In a partnership, I strongly recommend that both partners take part. I explore this in Your Business Sucks, in the chapter “When Partners Become Strangers”. When one partner develops and the other doesn’t, they can stop seeing things in the same way. The person you built the business with can begin to feel like someone you no longer understand.

Best Fit

My best-fit clients are willing to do the work and be the change, even when it gets difficult.

The first year can be hell. You’re still running the business while changing how you lead it. You’ll have to question familiar habits, make uncomfortable decisions and put new learning into practice when you already feel busy.

You don’t need to arrive knowing all the answers. You do need to keep showing up, follow through and accept that lasting change takes time. The pace of progress depends on what you’re willing to put into action between sessions.

This May Not Be Right For You If

If you want a quick fix without changing how you work, this isn’t for you. Knowing something needs to change means little if you push it aside every week because you’re too busy running the business.

What will be different next week? And if this carries on for another year, what will it cost you in time, relationships and the life you keep putting off?

Having a good idea and working hard got you this far. Moving forward means looking honestly at your own habits, decisions and gaps in knowledge. If you expect your team to change while you carry on exactly as you are, we won’t be a good fit.

You also need the money and time to commit to the process. If you’re coming in undercapitalised and expecting an immediate rescue, I cannot promise you that.

“I had a busy week” cannot keep being the reason nothing gets done. Your team sees what you follow through on, as well as what you ask of them.

My Proven One to One Business Coaching Services

My approach centres on my own Hamster Wheel Trap® framework and the thinking behind Your Business Sucks. We identify what keeps the business dependent on you and develop the skills and structure to change it. Since 2005, I’ve studied and applied tools from ActionCOACH, Scaling Up, Metronomics, Gravitas Impact and The Coaching Habit. That experience has informed my own system. I choose what helps the person and the business in front of me, rather than trying to fit everyone into one model.

When you start a business on your own, you become head of sales, marketing, finance and operations overnight. You’re even the head of HR, in case you need to discipline yourself. But taking on those responsibilities doesn’t give you the skills to fulfil them. Hard work keeps you going, but eventually the business reaches the limits of what you know. You cannot act on possibilities you don’t yet know exist. You wanted freedom, but you’ve built something that cannot function without you.

One on One Executive Coaching

A senior title doesn’t automatically give someone the skills or the space to lead at that level.

In privately owned businesses, people often get promoted after years of working hard as managers. Yet much of that work involved compensating for their team: stepping in and doing jobs others should have learned to handle.

Without proper training and development beneath them, promotion leaves a gap. They take on executive responsibilities while still carrying their previous management role.

They finish another busy week knowing that the strategic work barely moved. They’re expected to lead at a higher level, yet the business still relies on them to hold things together below.

I help them understand why that gap exists and address it on two fronts: strengthening their team’s capability while developing their own strategic thinking and leadership skills.

One on One Business Coaching

If every quote, spending decision and team problem comes back to you, growing the business can simply give you more work.

We work on the gaps between the business you can run today and the one you want to build. The priorities depend on your knowledge, the demands ahead and your capacity to put changes into practice.

That could mean developing your understanding of financial management so you can make better decisions, or improving sales processes so more of the knowledge lives in the business rather than in your head.

With business coaching, you will develop business-building skills while dealing with real decisions. Apply what you learn, see what happens and adjust. As your capability grows, we can tackle more demanding work.

One on One Management Coaching

“I told them what to do” doesn’t mean the job got done. If you keep chasing people, correcting their work or finishing it yourself, we need to understand where the management process is breaking down. My approach draws on the management training I received at McDonald’s and centres on three stages:

Delegate to someone capable. Make sure they have the training, understanding and skills to carry out the task.
Follow up. Check progress and address problems while there is time to act.
Follow through. Make sure the work gets completed. You can delegate the task, but you still own the outcome.

Sometimes you have to step in. But we then examine what was missing, so you aren’t repeatedly rescuing the same situation. For managers who need a structured grounding, I also offer a 12-Week Management Training programme. Managers learn to organise daily and weekly priorities, run productive meetings, set goals and measure performance. The programme also covers 90-day planning, performance reviews and people development. We strengthen communication skills and management systems, then explore the transition from manager to leader.

THE PROOF IS IN THE RESULTS

Winner of over 44 major coaching awards

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Coach of the Year · UK 2026

UK Coach of the Year Issued by ActionCOACH UK · Jan 2025

Global Coach of The Year Issued by ActionCOACH · Jul 2024

EMEA Coach of the Year Issued by ActionCOACH · Apr 2024

Regional Coach of the Year Issued by ActionCOACH UK · Jan 2024

Global Coach of The Year Issued by ActionCOACH · Jul 2023

EMEA Coach of the Year Issued by ActionCOACH · Apr 2023

EMEA Most Community Impact 2022 Issued by ActionCOACH · Apr 2022

The Problems One on One Coaching Helps Solve

You have more customers, more people and more responsibility. But has any of that brought you closer to the life you wanted when you started? Your family is by the pool while you’re on the phone. You’ve hired people to take work off your plate, yet more questions keep landing on your desk. The business may be making money, but you’re afraid of what would happen if you stopped.

If you couldn’t work for a month, what would break first? Who would win the next customer, deliver the work and make the decisions?

We work on those dependencies in the context of your personal goals. You cannot keep scaling the same problems and expect more freedom. Then there’s the loneliness of carrying it all. When things aren’t going right, you can start questioning yourself. Have I made the wrong decision? Am I missing something obvious? Everyone expects you to know what comes next, and you’re no longer sure you do.

You may not feel able to share those doubts with your staff when they’re looking to you for direction. Your mate down the pub might have plenty of opinions, but that doesn’t mean they understand business or the consequences you’re weighing up. So you keep it to yourself. You turn the same decision over in your head, imagining what could go wrong. The longer it waits, the heavier it feels. That isolation can leave you paralysed by indecision, carrying the stress into another evening while everyone assumes you’ve got it handled.

Working together gives you somewhere to say, “I don’t know what to do next.” We can examine the options, challenge the assumptions and work out your next step. You can be bloody good at what you do and still need someone experienced to think it through with. The decision remains yours; you don’t have to carry the whole conversation in your own head.

You Are Stuck Working In the Business

You start the day intending to work on something that will move the business forward. Then someone needs a decision, a customer needs your attention, and a manager brings you a problem. By the evening, your own priorities haven’t moved.

We separate the work that needs your involvement from the work someone else should handle. Then we identify what prevents that handover: missing knowledge, unclear responsibilities or a gap in training.

The aim is to create time you can consistently use to work on the business, without spending your evenings catching up on everything you planned to do that morning.

Growth Has Started to Plateau

You’re working harder than ever, but revenue barely moves. Another month closes with much the same result. You’re tired, your team is busy, and you’re starting to wonder how much more effort this business can take.

In the Scaling Up methodology, slowing revenue growth is a signal to examine your strategy. If every day disappears into firefighting, you never get the distance to see where the direction needs to change.

Has your target market changed? Why should customers choose you now? Are your marketing strategies still taking the company where you want it to go?

We make time to confront those questions and turn the answers into clear decisions and priorities.

Your Team Needs Stronger Direction

You’re tired of being asked about everything. Yet when someone joins, what do you tell them? “Anything you need, come to me.”

Your team is a reflection of how you lead. They aren’t mind readers, and they cannot take ownership if expectations are unclear or if you keep taking control.

Stronger direction starts with making the outcomes, standards and responsibilities clear. Then you need to give capable people room to act.

We work on transferring knowledge, agreeing on who owns decisions and developing an interdependent team: people who use their own judgement, support one another and solve problems together without routing everything through you.

That also means recognising when your instinct to help is keeping someone dependent. Sometimes your job is to ask the question, let them think and resist supplying the answer.

You Need Better Numbers and Better Decisions

You’re responsible for the business, but looking at the numbers makes you uncomfortable. You glance at the reports, put them aside and get back to something you feel more confident doing.

Learning algebra at school doesn’t automatically prepare you to understand margins, cash flow or what your business can afford. Yet you’re expected to make decisions that affect your income, your employees and your family.

Avoiding the figures doesn’t remove that responsibility. It leaves you guessing, sometimes until a problem becomes too urgent to ignore.

We work on developing your understanding, so you can recognise what the numbers are telling you and decide what needs to change. Your business plan and long-term goals need to be grounded in that understanding.

You Have Ambition but No Clear Execution Rhythm

You finish a planning session, determined that this quarter will be different. Then Monday arrives, something urgent takes over, and the plan slips down the list. Three months later, you’re having the same conversation. You still want the result, but you’re beginning to doubt whether you’ll ever get beyond talking about it.

In founder-led businesses, meetings often happen on the fly, whenever the owner has time or something goes wrong. Everyone ends up working inside the founder’s chaos. Priorities shift, follow-up becomes unpredictable, and commitments drift. That’s one reason we meet weekly, at a set point each week. We establish a rhythm you can carry into the way you run the business.

It’s why James Clear’s Atomic Habits and Sir Dave Brailsford’s emphasis on marginal gains at British Cycling resonate with me: consistency gives small improvements time to compound. We apply that principle to your business: a clearer commitment, a better-run meeting, a decision that no longer needs your approval. We review what happened, make adjustments and build on what works, step-by-step.

Time mastery starts with protecting space for that work. Your team learns that priorities matter because you consistently follow through.

How the One-on-One Coaching Process Works

You finally stop working, but your head doesn’t. You’re sitting with your family thinking about the decision you haven’t made, the person you need to speak to and everything waiting for you tomorrow. Someone asks you a question. You realise you haven’t heard a word.

Even getting help feels difficult. If getting help means another list of things to do, where are you supposed to find the time?

The discovery call helps us decide whether we can work together. Preparation and a deeper alignment session will then give us the starting point for your coaching programme. We agree on what needs attention first and why.

I personalise the work around your experience, your ability to implement and the unique challenges we uncover. Weekly sessions turn that plan into practical decisions and action.

1
Step

Discovery Call

You might be afraid to take two weeks off. You might be excited about an opportunity and want an experienced perspective before committing. Either is a reason to talk.

Tell me what’s happening, how you got here and why you’re looking for help now. You don’t need to put a positive spin on it.

We explore how the business operates and your business goals alongside your personal goals. The issue you describe may lead us to something deeper: a missing skill, unclear responsibilities or a business that has outgrown the way you run it.

You’ll also have room to question me about how I work, the commitment involved and whether my approach suits you.

If working together makes sense, I’ll explain the next steps and the investment involved. You should leave knowing what you would be committing to.

2
Step

Business Alignment and Diagnostic Review

You can spend years working alongside someone and assume you’re building towards the same future. Then you finally have the conversation. One wants to grow. The other wants a way out. Suddenly, the frustration between you starts to make sense.

You can face that conflict within yourself, too: proud of what you’ve built, but dreading another five years of running it this way.

Before our alignment session, you will complete preparation and assessments to help me understand you and the business. The Hamster Wheel Trap® Assessment helps identify where you’re trapped. We then examine why the business operates as it does, where it depends on you and which gaps in skills, people or structure need attention.

Where partners or family members share responsibility for its future, we need their expectations out in the open. Handing over responsibility means little if one person expects freedom while the other feels abandoned with the workload.

We connect your long-term goals with what you actually want from your life. I can see potential in a business, but it’s your business. The direction has to mean something to you.

You may need to confront decisions you’ve avoided and habits you’ve defended. We agree on the priorities for your business plan and why they come first.

3
Step

90-Day Strategic Plan

The next 90 days might be about entering a new market, strengthening a growing team or regaining control of a business that takes too much from you. The plan needs to reflect where you are and what you want to build.

Together, we turn the direction agreed in your alignment session into a practical 90-day business plan. We set goals for what you want to achieve, then identify the priorities that will move you towards them.

That means making choices. When you can see opportunity everywhere, deciding what to leave alone can be harder than deciding what to pursue. We focus your time, money and energy on the work that matters most at this stage.

Each action has an owner, a deadline and a clear outcome. We check what your team can deliver, which capabilities need developing and what needs testing before you commit further. Business growth needs capacity behind it.

Your first planning period may be shorter to bring you into a quarterly rhythm. We adjust as you learn and the business develops.

4
Step

Weekly or Biweekly One-on-One Coaching Sessions

My 1-on-1 coaching sessions take place weekly. That shorter cycle gives us more opportunities to learn, act and review.

You develop skills and techniques, put them into practice and bring the results back. We might work on testing an opportunity, preparing someone for greater responsibility or removing an obstacle to progress.

For businesses already experiencing steady growth, this rhythm helps you build the team and structure to support what comes next. When things are difficult, it helps us make adjustments before the same obstacle consumes another week.

In my experience, meeting fortnightly often takes twice as long to get results when people need this pace of implementation. If commitments get left until the day before a session, the longer gap means more delay and fewer opportunities to learn. Weekly sessions help us make the small adjustments while they still matter.

5
Step

Implementation and Accountability

You don’t get a beach body by joining a gym, talking to a personal trainer and leaving the workout on a sheet of paper. You have to turn up, do the work and keep doing it after the initial enthusiasm wears off.

Between sessions, you and your team carry out the agreed work. We review the results honestly. If something hasn’t moved, why? Was the commitment unrealistic? Was a skill missing? Or did you avoid something uncomfortable? Accountability means answering those questions and acting on the answers.

The same applies to your team. We develop the interpersonal skills to set expectations, give useful feedback and address missed commitments. Let people do their own lifting. Taking the work back every time they struggle won’t make them stronger. Consistency is what turns learning into real growth.

6
Step

Review, Refine, and Scale

There’s real excitement in seeing your ambition take shape. Customers respond, the team develops, and opportunities open up. But as the business gets bigger, are you gaining more freedom or building yourself a bigger prison?

That question runs through Your Business Sucks and my Hamster Wheel Trap® framework. Revenue can rise while you lose control over more of your own life. We need to measure both.

At each quarterly review, we examine both the results and how they were achieved. Which priorities worked? What did customers teach us? Can the team sustain that progress without you stepping in everywhere?

We use that evidence to refine the plan. Some ideas need changing or stopping. Others deserve more investment because you’ve demonstrated that they work.

Taking your business to the next level also means involving the people who will help you get there. We bring them into planning and review, using their diverse perspectives and giving them responsibility for delivery.

We also check your progress against the life you wanted this business to support. Can you pursue a new opportunity, take a proper holiday or prepare for an eventual exit with greater confidence?

REAL RESULTS FROM COACHING ONE ON ONE BUSINESS CLIENTS

From Stuck To Scaling

Explore All

My experience with Peter Boolkah’s one-to-one coaching shows how you need guidance if you are growing your business.

Steve Tolton, Founder of Fuel Integrated

As the founder of 'Sales Made Easy,' I can confidently say that my business wouldn't exist without Peter Boolkah's Mastermind Group.

Kevin Hayler, Founder of Sales Made Easy

Being part of ActionCLUB means you’re never facing challenges alone.

Brett Smallcombe, Directors of LG Networks

One-on-One Coaching vs Group Coaching: What is the Difference

The right format depends on your stage of development, the depth of support you need and how you learn best.

Group coaching builds business foundations alongside other owners. If you run a small business and want to strengthen your knowledge, ActionCLUB offers structured learning, practical application and accountability in fortnightly sessions. You work on areas such as attracting customers, managing cash flow, developing people and planning for growth.

There’s value in being around like-minded people who understand the responsibility of running a company. Someone else’s question can reveal something you hadn’t considered. Sharing your own experience can remind you how much you already know.

Individual sessions give your business dedicated attention each week. We can explore sensitive decisions in depth and adapt the work to your experience, pace and circumstances, whether you’re building a venture, developing leaders or preparing for succession.

They also provide a private setting where confidentiality matters, especially for conversations about ownership, relationships or your own future.

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FAQs

How much does 1 on 1 coaching cost?

Fees vary widely. You may pay per session, through monthly programmes or for a longer engagement. Experience, the support included and the complexity of the work all affect the price.

Working with me starts from £3,000 per month plus VAT, with weekly virtual sessions. The initial business alignment session is a separate investment, agreed before we begin. Elsewhere, you may pay considerably less or more.

I work internationally, including with clients in Europe and the US. We operate in multiple currencies, including USD, and confirm the currency and applicable fees in your proposal. My pricing page gives the published GBP starting prices.

Choose support you can afford to sustain. Experienced judgement has value, but price alone doesn’t establish quality. Ask whether the person has helped businesses at your stage, understands your challenges and offers the depth of support you need.

Why is 1 to 1 coaching important?

You can be surrounded by people and still have nobody you can speak to honestly about the biggest decisions. An impartial coach gives you space to question your assumptions and see what you’re missing, without having to pretend you’ve got everything worked out.

Effective coaching sessions connect that thinking to action. We work on the knowledge, judgement and habits you need to build the business, strengthen your team and address the problems that hold you back.

That matters when things are going well, too. Growth brings new demands, and your capability needs to develop alongside your ambition.

Your development can be the catalyst for changes the business needs. There are decisions your team cannot make, and habits they cannot change, on your behalf.

Can I receive one-to-one coaching remotely?

Yes. The majority of my coaching is remote via Zoom. I work with clients internationally, including across Europe and the US.

We agree on a regular weekly time that works across our time zones. We review progress, challenge your thinking and decide what you’ll put into practice next.

Choose somewhere quiet and private where you can speak openly. Give the session your full attention; trying to fit it around interruptions defeats the purpose.

How much time do I need to commit between sessions?

There isn’t one fixed number of hours that suits every business owner. It depends on what needs to change and your ability to put it into practice. We agree on realistic commitments, and you need to protect time each week to carry them out.

If you’re waiting for a quiet week, you could be waiting forever. Some of the work means changing how you handle decisions, meetings and people during your working day. The aim is to stop the same problems eating your time, but you have to make room to change what causes them.

How soon should I expect to see progress?

That depends on your starting point and what you put into action. An early win might be making a decision you’ve avoided or handing over a responsibility you’ve held onto for years. Building a team that can sustain those changes takes longer.

We use your 90-day plan to judge progress and weekly sessions to make small adjustments. Some weeks will feel harder than others. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Look at what you and your team can now do consistently, rather than how motivated you feel after a conversation. There’s no magic deadline for lasting change.

Is 1-on-1 Business Coaching Worth It?

It can be, when the support fits your business, and you’re prepared to apply what you learn. Coaching alone cannot ensure success. Your decisions, consistency and willingness to change matter.

Entrepreneurship asks a lot of you. The return might be a more profitable venture, a leadership team you trust or the ability to take a holiday without spending it on the phone.

We make those ambitions specific enough to judge progress. Look at what changes: profitability, the quality of your decisions, your team’s capability and how much the business depends on you. Weigh that progress against the money and time you invest.

To unlock the business’s full potential, you need to develop your own capability and give others room to contribute. The investment is worthwhile when that work produces changes that matter to you.