The owner who is the sales team
Every serious quote goes out under your name and the pipeline lives in your phone. The company grows exactly as fast as the hours you can spend on the road, and not one hour faster.
Renata Halloran · Columbus, Ohio
Your company runs. It just doesn't run without you yet.
I coach owners of service and trade companies with five to forty people, the ones where every quote, every hire and every hard conversation still ends up on your desk. One coach, no course, no workbook. We work on the week you actually have.
Owner-operators. Not founders, not managers. Owners.
You started it or you bought it, your name is on the loan, and you are still the most experienced person in the building at three different jobs.
The owner who is the dispatcher
Schedules, callbacks, the truck that will not start, the customer who wants you personally. Your day starts at six with other people's problems and the business gets whatever is left of you.
The owner who is the bank
You know the balance but not the margin. Bills get paid from memory, the prices were set three years ago, and the number you check each morning is the one that frightens you least.
Not for: startups raising money, solo consultants, or anyone who needs a bookkeeper more than a coach. If that is you, I will say so in the first hour and there is nothing further to pay.
What the work is for.
An owner's week, the way it usually arrives, and the way we aim to leave it. By month six, what is still on your calendar should be the work only the owner can do.
MonQuotes over $5,000YouSales lead
MonTruck 3 will not startYouOps lead
TueTwo interviewsYouOps lead
TueCollections callsYouOffice
WedPrice reviewYouStill you
Wed"Can I speak to the owner?"YouAccount lead
ThuPayroll questionsYouOffice
ThuHiring the ops leadYouStill you
FriThe Friday fireYouOps lead
FriReading the numbersYouStill you
Three of ten stay with you. Pricing, the key hire, the numbers. That is the point, not the exception.Illustrative. Your week will have different names on it.
Three ways to work. Each has a price and an end.
Every price on this page is the whole price. There is nothing to upgrade to and no package behind the package.
The first hour
For an owner who is not sure coaching is the answer, and would like to find out for the price of a nice dinner.
$250once
One hour · in person or by video
Bring last month's P&L and this week's calendar. You leave with the three things I would change first and a straight answer on whether I am the right person. Credited to the engagement if we go on.
Book the first hourSix months, one to one
For an owner ready to get out of the middle of the company and stay out.
$1,900per month
Six months, then it ends · two seats open each quarter
Ninety minutes every other week. One number we both watch. A phone call between sessions when something is on fire. I meet your second-in-command once a month, because the work is theirs too.
I do not take two clients in the same trade in the same city.
Ask about six monthsThe owners' table
For an owner who has nobody to say the number out loud to.
$400per month
Twelve months · six owners · three hours a month
Six owners of companies your size, none of them your competitor. One owner's problem on the table each month, and you present your numbers to five people who do not work for you. The next table forms in January.
Ask about the tableWhat I will not do.
So you do not spend the first hour finding out.
- Run your company.If you need someone to make the decisions, that is a general manager, and I will help you hire one.
- Promise a number.A coach who tells you what your revenue will be in twelve months is guessing with your money.
- Sell you a system.There is no workbook, no trademark and no certification. There is your business and the week in front of you.
- Stay forever.Six months has an end date because the aim is a company that does not need either of us in the middle of it.
How it goes
Nothing changes in the first month. That is deliberate.
The same four moves for every owner. You know what is coming each month, and nothing leaves your desk until we know where it will land.
1
Week one
The first hour
Calendar and P&L on the table. I ask the seven questions. You get the three things I would change first, and a yes or a no on working together.
2
Month one
Thirty days of looking
I ride along. I sit in the office on a Monday, listen to the quotes go out, and read the numbers as they are rather than as the bookkeeper tidied them. Nothing changes yet. We are finding which knot to untie first.
3
Months two to five
One thing a month, off your desk
Each month we pick one thing that lands on you, decide who it belongs to, and move it there in a way that holds: the person, the rule they follow, and the number that tells us if it has slipped back to you.
4
Month six
The handover, including from me
By month five your second-in-command is in the sessions. By month six the calendar looks different and the aim is that it stays that way with no coach in the room. My exit is planned like every other handover.
One coach,
and why it is me.
RH
Renata Halloran
Owner, 2008 to 2018 · Coach since 2019
I ran a commercial cleaning company in Columbus for ten years. Three people when I started, thirty-eight when I sold it. For the first six of those years I was the bottleneck and could not see it: every quote, every hire and every unhappy customer came to me, and I called that being hands-on.
The two years after I got out of the middle were the only ones in which the company grew without me working more. That is the whole reason I do this. I coach owners of the kind of company I owned, because I know what the Tuesday looks like.
Three things I believe
- Being the bottleneck is a stage, not a character flaw.Every company under fifty people passes through it. Most owners just stay there, because nobody tells them it is a stage.
- Your second-in-command is the real client.If they are not in the room by month five, I have not done the job, whatever the calendar says.
- A coach without an exit is a subscription.Six months, then you run it. If something new needs untangling in a year, you know where I am.
Bring the calendar. We will read Tuesday together.
One hour, $250, in person on North Fourth Street or by video. Tell me what your company does and what lands on your desk, and I will tell you what I would change first and whether I am the right person. I reply within one business day.
Office
884 North Fourth Street, Suite 2
Columbus, OH 43201
Hours
Monday to Thursday, 8 to 5 Eastern. Fridays are for ride-alongs.
Availability
Two one-to-one seats open in January. The next owners' table forms in January.