Mastering Business Management
Meet Toby, the SmallBiz Academy Coach
How it all began...
Who the hell is this Toby guy? Do I really want to work with him ?
Well, let me tell you a bit about myself so you know if you should run away or jump on the train!
The best way for me to do that is to tell you a bit about my life and why that led me to do what I love: coaching and consulting business owners.
As your business coach, my mission is to serve as a catalyst for your success.
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It All Started at School
Like a lot of business owners, I didn’t do too well at school. I’m dyslexic (I just had to look that word up. Thank God for spellchecking!). In the late 80s, schools weren’t like they are today.
I was thrown into special classes, for the special kids. Luckily my classmates were very supportive and didn’t laugh at me at all – not! It was very hard and frustrating, so I decided to hide it.
I stopped doing the work and started playing the class clown instead. It was fun making people laugh and giving teachers a hard time (I feel for them now).
Here’s a quote from my final school report that sums it up nicely:
This guy had a good grasp of the English language. He found a polite way to say, Toby is stupid and lazy! At this point, though, I believed I was stupid and took it on as my identity.
I did manage to pass one exam at school, though. And guess what it was. Business Studies, of all things! Even then I had a flair for business. But I gave up on education. I took a dead-end job in a cardboard box factory with my best friend.
Losing My Mum
Then about two weeks before my 18th birthday, my mum died of cancer. It hit me hard. I felt lost and depressed. I blamed everyone and everything for how messed up my life was.
I had no education, I could barely read or write, I was working in a boring job that I hated, I wasn’t close to my dad and now my mum was gone, and I was still just 17!
I thought life sucked, and I was just waiting for the next bad thing to happen – which didn’t take too long.
It Just Got Worse
Just a few short years after that, I found out I was going blind! Everyone in my family knew but had chosen not to tell me.
I went to the doctor because I was struggling to see at night, and he asked me if anyone in my family had problems with their eyesight. That’s when it hit me. My grandad was blind. Oh no, I had his eye condition. I was going to go blind too!
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Break through
This news was hard to take, as you can imagine! It completely changed my outlook on life, though. I switched from being a victim to being responsible for my life. I thought to myself:
“I can’t wait for life to give me a break, I need to get out there and do it myself!”
My mindset shifted from that of being a victim to taking responsibility.
- I quit my job at the cardboard box factory after five years and went back to studying.
- I went to a residential college where I started studying accounting and at night took classes in English to improve my reading and writing.
- This was the start of changing my belief in my ability to learn as I passed all my exams, including (believe it or not) an English exam!
- I then got a job in an office (no more cardboard boxes) in the accounts department.
- I spent the next five years working during the day while studying in the evenings, until I became a fully qualified accountant.
- I managed to pass all my exams first time, and even came second in the country for one of them.
By the end of this my whole belief system had been rewired. I’d smashed my belief that I was stupid and proved my teachers wrong (although, my spelling is still terrible).
I came to understand that the limiting beliefs that I had about my own ability and the identity I took on as a child were far more disabling than any physical disability, like losing my eyesight!
I became fascinated with limiting beliefs and how they hold people back. I wanted to help other people smash their limiting beliefs.
Helping Business Owners
I ended up working in an accounting practice. I really enjoyed working with business owners, and really enjoyed learning. Then I went to my first business seminar.
Emily Greene
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20 Years of Coaching and Still Going Strong
During my career, I have become an NLP Practitioner and continued to study business success, devouring hundreds of business and personal development books and spending thousands of dollars on personal development courses.
- Helping grow Clarke’s Design & Construct, a commercial builder, from completing 2 or 3 projects a year to completing over 15 projects, and developing a management team to run the business which allows the owner to take time away.
- Working with Prana On, a business that manufactures and distributes plant-based nutrition supplements, to manage and continue their rapid growth and develop their management structures, sales team, supervisors and leadership team.
- Working with Natures Farmer Sea that lead the way in manufacturing and distributing Sea Moss Gel in Australia, helping them go from 2 employees to 25 employees and helping them to get in control of their money, manage and continue their rapid growth and build their team.
The 21-Step E-Com Business Success Checklist
Download the 21-step checklist that includes the fundamental steps to significantly improve your odds of being successful.
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Book Your Discovery Call
The best way to find out if business Coaching could help your e-com business is to start with a quick discovery call. During the call, we’ll see IF and HOW I could help you with your e-com business and answer your questions about coaching. If we both agree there’s a good fit, we’ll then book a free introductory business coaching session where you can take coaching for a test drive to see if it could help you. Click below to book your 10-minute chat to get started.
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Hi, my name is Toby, and I am the founder and your coach at The SmallBiz Academy. I specialise in helping business owners implement the tried-and-tested business principles that can transform your business.
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