BUSINESS COACHING
By Mind Strengths
Mind Strengths specialises in business coaching, training, and consultancy services for all types of companies. Our clients are drawn from many diverse sectors, including Accountancy, Education, Financial, Grounds Maintenance, Healthcare, Insurance, Law, Motorsport (F1) & Automotive Products, NHS, Public Sector, Retail, Social Housing, Waste Management & Recycling.
Our main areas of business coaching and training include Employee Wellbeing, Stress Resilience, Mental Toughness, Managing Remote Working, Leadership, Team and Personal Development, Customer Service Excellence, Managing Conflict, Coaching for Managers, and Time Management.
WHO We Coach
Providing business coaching to all types of organisations...
Entrepreneur & Startup Coaching
Mind Strengths have coached many aspiring and established entrepreneurs with their business plans and project concepts. For example, establishing a new start-up business can be very challenging and requires many different skill sets and knowledge to get underway successfully.
Mind Strengths is there to support you every step of the way.
Small Medium Business Coaching
Tailored coaching programmes personalised for your business needs.
There is never a one size fits all approach towards coaching as each organisation, team, and individual is different. We also invite clients to mix and match coaching subjects from the wide range available in our library. Just ask and we will provide everything you require.
Executive Business Coaching
A good coach will be a reliable sounding board, a great listener, and add some impartiality to your company. We’ve been told that we bring fresh and new ideas to businesses and that we evaluate challenges and opportunities in a different light. It’s very easy to be involved in the day-to-day running of the business and lose sight of the growth potential.
Personnel Careers Support Coaching
Mind Strengths have coached many individual clients who are looking to move roles, change companies and even change industries using their unique skill set. We have been used to provide CV and interview skills where talent has decided to move on, normally as a result of restructuring. Focusing on skills and attributes, Mind Strengths will get the best out of everyone, to help push them on to another position.
17 Years+
Coaching & Training Success
5,000+
Satisfied Learners
100's+
Of Companies Supported
50+
Training & Coaching Workshops Developed
80% OF OUR NEW BUSINESS
COMES BY WAY OF REFERRALS FROM SATISFIED CUSTOMERS...
CLIENT Testimonials
At Hidden Hearing we continue to work with Ian of Mind Strengths for a range of outsourced services including group training and individual coaching, that operate in parallel to our internal employee services. We value the external insights and fresh perspectives that Ian brings to our business and continue to benefit from his involvement in our employee assistance programme. I would have no hesitation in recommending Ian Barratt’s work to other HR professionals or in considering his involvement with future Hidden Hearing initiatives.
David Rist, Head of Development and Training,
Hidden Hearing Limited
Ian has supported leadership development in the educational world to great effect. He has worked alongside young leaders, improving their understanding of leadership over management, helping challenge and support them to grow as people and professionals. A very valuable resource in our fast changing world.
Karen White, Principal, Delce Academy
I have used Ian Barratt’s services for a number of years and he has also coached and worked with a family member. Ian is excellent at gaining the trust of employees and maintaining that difficult balance of client and individual confidentiality and working with the employer to find solutions.
Fintan O'Toole, Director, The HR Dept Ltd
MEET Our Expert Business Coaches
Ian Barratt
Founder & Business Coach
Ian Barratt is the founder and Director of Mind Strengths Business Coaching and specialises in leadership development and organisational and employee wellbeing. Ian is a qualified stress management consultant and an NLP Business Practitioner. He is also an ILM accredited trainer and assessor, an IOEE Mentor, a member of the Institute of Enterprise & Entrepreneurs, and a member of the Association for Coaching, recognising the diversity of services offered to his clients. Ian has been described as “an inspiring coach & mentor” and is someone who will get measurable results for your employees and your business.
Rosie Millen
Nutritionist
Rosie Millen founded Miss Nutritionist after completing her training at the renowned Institute of Optimum Nutrition. Graduating with a Diploma in Nutritional Therapy, she is a fully qualified nutritionist therapist and a qualified Functional Medicine practitioner. She is also a member of the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy (BANT) which is the professional body for nutritional therapists.
Tim Hurst
Business Coach
Tim Hurst is a director of HBS Talentflow which offers services in personal and team development, psychometric profiling, senior management coaching, and career management. Tim’s HR employment background was with Cadbury Schweppes, INCO Europe, Rank Xerox International, and Coopers & Lybrand Management Consultancy.
Sandie Dennis
Business Coach
Sandie Dennis is a coach who helps people find the Confidence to Return after an absence from work. Working with employers, her tailor-made programs include Parental Coaching, suitable for all genders and family formats. Her approach focuses on the employee, to get the best result for them and the business.
VALUED By Our Clients
































Supporting Any Departmental Development
Invest in your executives, mid level management and core workforce. Our goal is to help them succeed and to support the commercial success of your business.
What is Business Coaching?
Business coaching can be best described as having your own impartial business partner who is not part of your company. A business coach is an experienced advisor, an external individual who brings expertise and knowledge to your boardroom. Business coaching can help executives to open their mind to other possibilities, perhaps something that may not have been explored before.
By developing and enhancing soft skills during a coaching programme, a coach will unlock the potential that exists and then help to drive the business towards its new goals and objectives.
Retaining a business coach will mean that you gain a very experienced partner to your company and the value and experience that they offer to business owners is invaluable.
Your business doesn’t have to be struggling to warrant the need for a business coach either. Many businesses bring in the services of a coach to help them reach a new level, or to work on a specific project to enhance the success of the brand.
Consider that a business coach could also become a non-executive director of your business too, thereby having the opportunity to attend Board meetings to report and advise. An NED then becomes an integral part of your business and almost provides two roles, one as a coach and the other as a director. Still retaining the impartiality whilst holding the executive team accountable.
However you choose to use the services of a business coach, select the coach that best suits your goals and objectives and one that you can work with on a personal level.
Why Business Coaching is so important
Business coaching is booming. Many companies are now recognising the value in hiring a coach and are benefitting from having an experiencing person join their team. Think of a business coach as an outsider looking in, someone who may not yet know your business well, but who will provide impartial advice and soundbites as your business relationship grows.
The focus of coaching is to align common goals and objectives with the company vision. How we get there is the grey matter in-between that a coach will tease out over time. The success of the business becomes the coach’s success too, a measurable path that is always visible to the business owner. If there are tough questions along the way or the business comes up against some barriers to success, the coach will be able to help navigate through using the best routes available.
Everyone can benefit from business coaching, from the top down. We can highlight many success stories where employees from all levels and grades have benefitted from our coaching programmes. In most cases, it’s a mindset shift, a change of parameters and those all too often limiting thoughts, the way you have been working for years.
With the emphasis on skills and knowledge, individuals will see how important they are to the bigger picture and strategic vision of the business, raising confidence and boosting morale. We cannot emphasise enough how important it is to keep everyone on board during a period of business coaching and the new focus will be very noticeable.
What to look for in a Business Coach
Great business coaches will usually have an excellent track record in big business or blue-chip companies. Generally, they will have held senior positions and managed key strategic projects with a solid team supporting them. They may also be experienced entrepreneurs and business owners themselves. There is nothing finer than choosing a coach who has experienced what it is really like to start a business and see it through to its conclusion. Experience in this field is everything.
A business coach will work alongside your senior executives and help them define their goals and objectives, ensuring that their vision for the business is clear and concise and strategies are solid. Therefore, choose a coach who can work with anyone, across all levels. The personal chemistry has to be present for this to succeed.
Finally, attitude and drive. A good coach should possess these qualities as standard or you will be wasting your investment. Ask for references from previous and existing clients to see the scope and nature of their involvement if you are not sure.
The Business Case for Coaching
The business case for coaching can be interpreted in different ways. By way of an example, let’s assume that Company X has a vision to achieve double digit growth inside three years. But with the resources and expertise that have internally, they cannot see how to reach their ambition. A fresh pair of eyes with a different mindset is required, without bringing a full-time position into the business. It can be very easy to be too close to your business sometimes, running the normal day to day practices and not focusing on the future growth.
A business coach will work from the floor up, understanding the objectives and vision every step of the way. This will be someone who is not afraid to hold people accountable for their part in the project in order to make it a success and someone who can take the weight of others.
To build an impressive business case for coaching is all about linking the programme with the strategic objectives of the business and being able to prove a return on investment. No two business cases will be alike but the coach’s skills and experience required remain the same.
There is one last thing to consider. Your chosen coach will have all the experience that you need to achieve success and the other element that they will bring is connections. These contacts could be of vital importance to your business as the strategic goals and objectives emerge. It’s not about how many LinkedIn connections you have, more the quality. If your coach has been in business for 30 years, that’s potentially a significant amount of quality associates that they have worked alongside or know well. Great recommendations can be everything.
Finally, coaching should be positioned as an important cog in a much larger wheel, therefore being a fully integrated part of the mechanics of the business. Take the cog away and the machine may not operate in the way it was designed.
FOR ALL YOUR BUSINESS COACHING
INVEST IN A MINDSTRENGTH'S COACH
GET In Touch...
To arrange a consultation or workshop, send us a message.