Nick D has grown significantly as the leader of two of four family businesses during his five years working with Hayden
I was a charter member of Hayden’s Vistage CEO Group in mid 2007. The CEO Group and monthly 121s were valuable. When the recession forced me to drop out of Vistage, I asked Hayden to continue coaching me in monthly 121s.
Our family business is actually four different businesses. I have two businesses – both installation and service businesses for consumer equipment and industrial equipment. My parents run one other business and my brother a fourth business.
My two businesses have recently become three with the startup of a spare parts business. This results in a crazy variety of activities and challenges every day. Hayden’s monthly 121s help me to refocus on the priorities by sorting out what needs to get done short-term and what is important to pursue in the longer term.
I often draw on Hayden’s experiences running smaller businesses and the expertise he has developed through his consulting experience and working for much larger companies in the past. He has been most helpful improving my hiring process which had been far too much “trial and error” in the past.
Hayden’s coaching has me working to manage the businesses more by the numbers – not just my emotional reactions to the activities I enjoy and procrastinating on what is less appealing to me.
Most importantly, Hayden has helped me to look at my business “as a business” and not just a family activity with many family dynamics adding to the challenge. I came into this business with no business training. Hayden is also my cheerleader and strong motivator to help me make my own decisions and move forward. I have learned that in a family business it is often better to ask for forgiveness afterwards, rather than ask for permission up front.”
— Nick D., President, Consumer & Industrial Equipment Installation/Serivce
Return to Client Testimonials