Dear WLBN Member
Meeting 19th November 2009: Drayton Court Hotel

Over the last six months I see that you have had speakers helping you with sales, marketing and other promotional activity. As a business and executive coach I find that many of my clients, whether business owners or employees, are busy with the ‘here and now’ and have lost sight of where they want to be. Often the future is obscured by the need to get the job done by the end of the day or the week. The closest they come to planning is the annual budget or a cash flow forecast for the bank. How up to date is your business plan? Do you know what you want to be doing in five or ten years time? Is it in line with your company?

Change

This decade, in particular the last two years, has seen a huge shift in the economy, in market sentiment and in technological change. Now, as another year is closing, is an opportunity to think about some of these, possibly incremental, changes and how they are effecting your business. Are they taking you in the direction you want to go? Being clear on what you want to achieve can help you see where you are currently are so that you can the plan better.

Questions to ask yourself

With our time together, I hope we can explore some of these questions, get you asking ones that are more useful and give you some new areas to explore for 2010. Over the next two weeks I am going to ask you to think about the future, where you want to be in five years time. What are your ambitions? Do you want to have more staff so that you can concentrate on what you enjoy? Do you want to be a leading company in your sector? Do you want to be international? Think of where you are in life and what your aspirations are there. Do you want a bigger house, children’s education or retired?

Is what you are doing in your business, at the moment, going to take you to where you want?

Of course, you are all going to have different answers and we have only a short period together but my aim is that by the end you will be in a place to make better plans.

James Talbot – A Brief Introduction

I have been a coach since 1997 working predominately with the financial sector and SMEs and I have worked with over 1,000 people. My practice covers both business and personal development disciplines. Areas that I regularly bring insight to on a business level include leadership, strategy and planning, and marketing. On an individual level I support with team and relationship building, motivation and time management.

My initial career was as a stockbroker, I am a Fellow of the Securities & Investment Institute, before setting up ICI in Hungary on the collapse of communism and turning around a packaging business. I have an MBA and am a trustee for some almshouses in Spitalfields in the East End.