BUSINESS MENTOR FOR

ENTREPRENEURSSTARTUPSOWNER-MANAGED BUSINESSES
Philippa Seal

FOCUSSED, PRACTICAL BUSINESS ADVICE TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Based in London, with global outlook and experience, I’m here to support your owner managed business with organisational growth and development. I mentor and coach organisations and individuals, whether established enterprises or those just starting a business.

With me, you will grow key skills, identify your strengths and develop business plans and strategies for growth and success. Business Mentoring does make a difference. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) acknowledges that businesses using external support are more likely to survive and succeed.

MAXIMISE POTENTIAL

I help owners, founders and directors of owner led businesses to reach their potential and achieve maximum growth through my programmes of proactive and solution-led business mentoring and coaching. I always mentor by offering practical solutions that you can implement.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

You’ll find me a real people person – interested in building professional, friendly and flexible relationships through mentoring and coaching with businesses that give me the opportunity to motivate and inspire.

ACHIEVE SUCCESS

Whatever stage your business is at I’ll help you find the right path to achieve your success. I can provide the catalyst for improvements across all business areas. You’ll find me somebody you can trust; who’s on your side but always there to challenge your assumptions and help you progress.

BUSINESS MENTORING & COACHING

Using my years of entrepreneurial business experience I am skilled at identifying, harnessing and developing your business’ potential to ensure you develop a sustainable and profitable enterprise.

Established small business?

Are you a small business, with a turnover of up to £5million? Is your business not growing as fast as you would like? Have external factors impacted on the way you do business? Are your current products and services no longer relevant for global markets? I mentor businesses like yours to make the difficult organisational changes to continue to grow.

High-growth small business?

Did your business start with a bang? Is your turnover growing, but your profitability slowing? High growth small businesses often struggle to manage their growth and find themselves losing focus, time and money. I help shape your vision and encourage you to think big. At the same time I will tackle your action plans, coach you in how to prioritise and help you mentor and nurture your colleagues, helping you become a true leader within your business.

Funded and self-funded start-ups

As a highly-driven, ambitious, often highly educated and experienced individual you have a clear vision of where you want your business to be. You run a lean operation but lack the business skills, experience, and contacts to grow. Working with me you will gain cutting edge knowledge in how to access new leads, customers and markets. My mentoring helps you bridge your own skills gaps so that your business has the best chance of not only surviving but thriving.

Established micro-businesses

It isn’t easy to change the direction of your business as a micro operation. As your own boss, you know more about your industry then I ever will. What I will do is provide constructive feedback on what is working and what needs improving. I encourage you to plan for the future, to smooth out the peaks and troughs of a micro-business. I have mentored a number of successful micro- entrepreneurs into having a steady sales pipeline.

Client Feedback

WHAT MY CLIENTS THINK ABOUT ME

Philippa was a mentor to my luxury chess business during its first year of operation. We were introduced through the UCL Advances scheme and I have been delighted with her commitment and input. Philippa takes a considered and insightful approach in challenging my assumptions, making relevant suggestions and offering assistance. Taking an independent /non chess player’s view, Philippa has helped me define my market more precisely, identifying key sub-segments and how to best approach each of them. I would highly recommend her to any growing business.

Simon Purkis
Founder and Director, Purling London Ltd. (Luxury Chess Business) www.purlinglondon.com

Philippa is very good on focussing on key goals and has helped me to create a realistic and achievable marketing plan for my small business. She is personable and creative. Her expert experience in business and marketing together with her mentoring skills and clear thinking are a very powerful mix.

Sarah Saunders
Owner, Electric Lane (digital asset consultancy) www.electriclane.co.uk

Philippa is a fantastic business mentor who provides a penetrating insight into both the day to day struggles of getting your business working and the broader issues of branding and marketing strategy. Her advice has been invaluable to us in clarifying our route to market, and structuring our goals and KPIs.

Robert Tucker
Co-founder, and COO, Readwave (Short Story reading platform) www.readwave.com

Philippa came in at a difficult time when we tragically lost a key member of our business strategy team. She helped us to quickly identify how and where we should be applying our focus and helped us get back on track. We are grateful for the help we received and believe we are are in a stronger position for her support.

Martin Spencer
Co-Managing Director, Syon Creative (digital agency) www.syon.com

Philippa is a personable, very talented mentor and business advisor. Her ability to focus and prioritise coupled with a sense of humour is hugely appealing. She draws on her considerable experience to help your business grow and is generous about sharing her knowledge. Philippa is a strategic and disciplined thinker who has achieved great results for my business. I highly recommend her.

Sophie Toumaris
Owner, Tpr Media (TV PR agency) www.tpr-media.com
A comprehensive and wide range of services

MENTORING AND COACHING SERVICES

As an accredited and experienced Business Mentor I offer real value for money through the guidance, support and advice I bring to your organisation and professional career. Mentors and their approaches do differ, so make sure you choose one that offers you a trusted, completely independent outside view, in a style that works for you. I always give prospective clients a complimentary session. Working with me is low risk and I always give a money back guarantee if you are not 100% satisfied.

Strategic Oversight

I help build a realistic strategy, drawing on my extensive, cross-sector, business experience. Many clients use me as a sounding board for their business strategy. I ask difficult questions which result in better business planning and realistic long term sustainable business goals. I help owners and their boards consider growth strategies including growth through acquisitions, partnerships, and organic growth. I provide external oversight like a non-executive Director. As a critical friend I am an extra pairs of eyes and ears in your business. I develop board directors to become authentic leaders, helping them to gel around a common goal.

Marketing & Sales

As a Chartered marketer I am qualified and experienced to help build a 12 month marketing plan with realistic, practical action points. Using cutting edge marketing frameworks and processes, I help develop an understanding of what is unique and different about your products and/or services. Who is your customer? Why do they buy? Why are they not buying? How can they be encouraged to buy more? This forensic focus results is more and larger sales. By segmenting your market and and targeting discrete segments, I can identify sales opportunities.

Branding and Social Media

What is your brand? Can you describe it? Can your customers describe your brand? If your business’ brand were a car, what would it be? Is your brand communicated at each and every touch point? Are you using social media to ‘tell’ followers about your brand or to engage in a conversation with them?

By critiquing your brand and external marketing communications such as your website and social media platforms, I help ensure that your business strategy is aligned to your branding, your products and services and ultimately your customers.

People and Resources

With increasing task automisation, digital and the internet of things (IOT) every person working for you needs to add value to your business. I can help to ensure the right people are engaged for company growth. I can identify how to look for the right people and retain them with the correct incentives. For existing key staff, I can help them develop the confidence to be creative and innovate so that the business continues to evolve and grow adapting to the ever changing business environment.

Financials

I have considerable experience in showing non financially minded business owners how understanding your business’ numbers gives you, the owner, control over the business. Truly understanding cash flow, profit and loss and the balance sheet is essential and not something to leave for the accountants. Using numbers and other metrics as business indicators enables potential partners, investors, employees to quickly understand business performance across different products, services and customers.

Risks Analysis

One of the greatest small business risks is cash flow. Do you have enough money in the bank every month to operate, to pay wages, rent and other business essentials? I can help create product and services that are cash flow positive ensuring your business does not fail before it has started. Have you assessed you business for risk? How large is your largest client? What if you lost them? Do you and your business partners share a common goal for the business in the next 5 years? I can coach you to think about risk and how to mitigate it.