DONALD COOPER’S ‘STRAIGHT TALK’…

ACCELERATE YOUR BUSINESS
MANAGEMENT COACHING PROGRAM

(to download this document, Click Here)

Managing any business today is tough…and getting tougher. Every market is over-served and under-differentiated and every industry faces disruption from new technologies and new competitors.

We’re all faced with more demanding customers, increased complexity and shrinking margins.  On top of that, great staff are hard to find and keep…and that problem won’t go away any time soon.  So, mediocrity is no longer an option in any part of our business.

In addition to speaking at 30 to 40 business management Conferences around the world each year, Donald accepts a limited number of Business Coaching assignments with business owners who are committed to achieving extraordinary outcomes in 5 key areas:

1. Create and deliver compelling customer value and experiences that give them a clear competitive advantage, increased sales and increased profitability.
2. Market and promote more effectively on a tight budget in a cynical and over-served market.  There’s no point being the ‘best’ if you’re also the best kept
3. Attract, engage and retain a dedicated, top-performing team. Every business needs to become a ‘talent magnet’.   Also, how to deal effectively with non-performers.
4. Improve management effectiveness, develop world-class operating efficiency, and improve profitability now and for the long term. How to delegate and grow without losing control.
5. Create a clear Vision for the future of their business, a specific Action Plan to get there, and a culture of commitment, urgency and accountability to make sure that they do. When required, this also includes developing a clear ‘succession plan and exit strategy’.

In addition to delivering the 5 key outcomes listed above, clients typically bring Donald in to help with one or more of these challenges:

1. Businesses that are already good…and want to get better by improving clarity, commitment and accountability. Businesses that want ‘to get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet’.    
2. Businesses that are struggling with issues of focus, management effectiveness, value differentiation, the customer experience, talent retention, accountability, sales and profitability.
3. Businesses that need to rethink and reinvent themselves in the face of new and disruptive competition, or major changes in their market dynamics.
4. Family businesses or partnerships that need help sorting out issues regarding partner disagreements or generational differences in business goals, expectations, capabilities or management style.

Warning:   This program is not for wimps!  It’s for business owners and leaders who want to acknowledge reality, embrace a clearer and more extraordinary future …and do the work to grow the business and the bottom line.   

Donald’s extensive research, homework and prep:

Step 1:  As soon as you officially book your time with Donald, you’ll receive our set of ‘Business Assessment Tools’ for you and your Team to complete and return to Donald, electronically.  Two of these ‘Biz Tools’ take just 5 minutes.  A few of them take longer.

These Assessment Tools will give Donald clear insight into your challenges and opportunities and how you define ‘success’ in your business and your life.  These ‘Biz Tools’ will also deliver a clear understanding of whether or not your managers and supervisors are all ‘on the same page’.  (Hint:  They usually are not).

You’ll also receive our 34 page Vision Critical Guide to help get you focused on where you want the business to be in 3 to 5 years…and where it must be to be a more profitable and sustainable market leader. This Guide, 7 years in the making, gently asks important questions that need to be asked…but often are not.

You will send Donald your current Statements of Vision, Mission, Values or Company Purpose, an Org Chart and the last 3 years of financial statements.

You will have an extensive telephone or Zoom info-sharing session with Donald to provide more background information and to create clarity about the priorities and urgencies to be addressed, the medium-term and longer-term opportunities to be embraced…and the specific outcomes you wish to achieve from our time together.

Step 2:   Donald then spends 3 days analyzing all the information sent by you and your Team and planning the priorities, focus and structure of our time together…for your approval.

Your Coaching time with Donald:

Your coaching with Donald will take place over a 4-month period.  Through weekly telephone or Zoom ‘Coaching Calls’ (plus any ‘emergency calls’ you require), follow-up emails and Donald’s transformational ‘Management Implementation Tools’, Donald will guide and challenge you and your Team through a series of powerful bottom-line business insights and interactive discussions to address specific challenges and opportunities to arrive at our agreed outcomes in the areas of:

• sales & marketing (creating, delivering and effectively communicating clear & compelling value),
• improved management effectiveness through effective delegation and by creating a culture of clarity, commitment, urgency and accountability…along with respect, passion and joy,
• profitability and profit improvement,
• staffing, talent attraction, staff engagement & accountability, building a ‘Talent Pipeline’…and dealing with non-performance,
• operations, process, systems and internal communication,
• organizational structure and the growing of leaders,
• clarity of Purpose and Vision for the future of the business and ‘Business Model’ assessment,
• family and partnership opportunities and challenges…succession planning and exit strategy.

Note:  Donald is comfortable and experienced in dealing with difficult issues and finding effective solutions…but he doesn’t go looking for ‘tough issues’ that aren’t there.  His commitment is to make a significant difference in a short time.  He will ensure that progress is being made and action commitments are being met.  He’ll answer questions, clarify dilemmas, discuss strategy, facilitate, remove roadblocks and be a sounding board.

The Coaching day typically runs from 8 AM to 5 PM followed by an evening ‘debrief and next steps session’ over dinner with the President, the partners, and perhaps a few of the top managers, if it’s beneficial for them to be included.

Note:  If the business is a partnership or family business, Donald will often spend the first few hours of the day with that group and then spend the rest of the day with the larger management group, including the department or function managers.  We tailor each project to the client’s specific challenges, opportunities, realities and desired outcomes, so the flow and structure of the day will be what it needs to be to get the job done.

Who should be invited to participate in the initial and ongoing coaching conversations?  The initial conversations will be with the owner(s) of the business and from there it will be mutually determined who will be included in some of the subsequent sessions.  Every client is different.  One size does not fit all.

While it’s important to think ‘inclusively’, we should not invite managers, supervisors or family members to sessions in front of whom important and frank conversations can’t be had on subjects such as managerial or departmental non-performance, management changes, profitability, succession or ownership changes.

When there are a number of partners or family members in the business, it is often necessary to schedule separate conversations with them, but it must always remain clear who my main contact point and key decision maker will be.

The all-important follow up:

The next step is that Donald makes himself available for regular telephone follow-up coaching for 4 months after your day together.  These sessions are to answer questions, clarify, discuss strategy, facilitate, to be a sounding board and ensure that implementation is taking place, commitments are being met and progress is being made.

About Donald Cooper, MBA, CSP, HoF:

Donald doesn’t just talk about it; he has actually done it…and done it well!  He has been both a world-class manufacturer and an award-winning retailer.

Donald started his business career at the age of 6, sweeping the floor in the family business for 5 cents a day.  Long days and low pay…excellent early training for an entrepreneur.

He earned an MBA from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario, followed by 18 years at Cooper Canada, the family business.  From humble beginnings with just 11 employees, in just two generations, Cooper Canada became the world’s leading maker of hockey equipment and a Canadian Brand icon, with over 2,800 employees.

As a growing family business, Cooper Canada bought competitors, went public, became unionized, imported from and exported to 30 countries and opened an offshore factory in Barbados…and eventually sold to the wrong people.

At age 43 Donald ‘fired’ himself from the family business to do something less ‘corporate’ and reinvented himself as a visionary fashion retailer.  In just a few years he fundamentally redefined the customer experience, for which he received 7 Awards of Excellence for marketing, service and business innovation, including being voted Canada’s Outstanding Innovative Retailer.  Donald has been in the trenches.

For the past 20 years he has worked with business owners and managers in over 40 industries throughout the world to improve clarity of purpose, create compelling customer value, market more effectively, manage more efficiently, deal with difficult issues, generate long-term profitability …and, in some cases, to exit the business gracefully and profitability.

What clients say about Donald’s  Boot Camps and Biz Coaching programs:

• Donald, the impact you’ve had on our business and our life over these past 4 months is incredible. We continue to grow our knowledge, our customer base, our Team and our bottom line with all the amazing ‘seeds’ you are planting.  To think that just a year ago I was ready to walk away from the business.   Thank you!
• Every business owner needs to spend time with Donald Cooper. It changes everything.
• I can honestly say that your Management Boot Camp was the most eye-opening, forward-thinking and helpful business event that I’ve attended.  I really appreciate your honest, real and straight-forward approach to management, marketing and profitability.  An awesome reality-check for business leaders.
• Donald has been in the ‘trenches’.  He speaks clearly, honestly and with such integrity about how to be extraordinary in business. He has given us the tools to create even more compelling value, a clear Vision for our future and a process to make it happen.  With the help of Donald’s proven, simple and do-able approach to effective management…and his ongoing follow-up and support, I’m proactively moving our business forward.”

The investment:

Your investment in this 4-month Management Coaching Program, including all analysis, preparation and the 4 months of on-going telephone / Zoom and email coaching (typically 100 hours of Donald’s time), tailored to your specific challenges and opportunities, ranges from $9,800 to $24,000 (plus any applicable tax),  depending on the size and complexity of the business. Payment is due before the coaching process begins.

For more info, or to book your time with Donald, contact us at donald@donaldcooper.com, or by phone in Toronto, Canada at  1-416-252-3703.