A coffee with a Boost coach: Wendy Bowers

The fully funded Boost Bespoke Programme provides tailored support delivered by professionals who are experts in their field, to owners and managers of established businesses. So grab a coffee and read about business and finance specialist Wendy Bowers.

What do you see as your role as a Boost Bespoke coach?

To enable business owners and their senior people to bring the whole of themselves to their roles, thereby ensuring that they are fulfilled and compassionate leaders who understand their businesses but also understand their people.

What is your area of expertise and how do business leaders benefit from Bespoke coaching?

My clients and I work together to determine their business and personal vision for success. If they need practical help with raising or understanding finance, I can do that, but it’s much more about knowing they can trust me with their deepest hopes and fears and understanding that I ‘get it’ because I really have been there and done it.

How do you make a real difference to Lancashire businesses?

I mentor, I coach and I teach, moving seamlessly from one to another as required. I work one to one and in peer group and workshop settings, giving leaders time to think deeply about challenging and vexing issues and to discover their own solutions.

What has been your most inspirational moment as a coach?

There have been so many, but for me it’s when I see a leader who has been so stressed that they are talking at 100 mph and cannot physically make decisions, to a place where they are thinking clearly again, feeling creative again and understanding that their business is a vehicle which can take them and their teams to a place of promise beyond profit.

What are the key challenges for Lancashire businesses at the moment?

Their people are jaded, there is a shortage of skilled workers, there is a myriad of new trade rules and regulations, against a backdrop of continuous change and uncertainty. This is a time to take stock, to spend some time understanding what their employees need, what their customers need and to amend business plans to reflect new times and new ways of doing business.

As a coach, what are your three business tips to accelerate growth?

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN. Like the old green cross code. This is what a good coach does. A coach makes a leader stop and take the time to look at what still works and what doesn’t. This knowledge comes from the people who can tell him/her that about their staff, customers and suppliers. Armed with this information, the business owner can work together with employees from across the organisation to a build stronger, better and happier working environment. Wendy Bower - Boost Bespoke Coach After a lifetime in business and finance, building her own businesses and representing Chambers of Commerce at local and national board level, Wendy has fused her business expertise with resilience and courage work, bringing an interesting perspective to business coaching for senior leaders.