BECOME A SMARTER COACH
Build a practice that achieves what you want it to.
Coach the whole business, not just the part you know.
One structured system for the whole business, depth behind every area, and a way to win the clients it is built for. You keep your independence, your name and your clients. SMARTer gives you the depth and the engine.
WHY SMARTER
Your clients bring you the whole business. Are you ready for all of it?
Once an owner trusts you, the questions widen. You were brought in for one thing, and soon you are being asked about pricing, people, cash and delivery. Meanwhile you are winning your own work, building your own materials and doing it all on your own.
Clients ask about areas outside your experience. Established practice behind every one of the ten key areas, with a Coach version that carries you through the ones you have not worked in.
A full diary one quarter, an empty one the next. A client engine, not just a method: the free review, the Discovery Call process, sector pages and free quick cards that bring the right owners to you.
Years spent building a method of your own. A complete, structured system from day one: the diagnostic, the engagement models, published guide prices and the practice library.
No one to call when it gets difficult. A bench of specialists and fellow SMARTer coaches, with peer support and supervision.
Good work that fades once you leave. Capability that stays: goals measured from the first session, and a Mentoring tier that keeps the changes in place.
Paid for hours when your judgement is what counts. Simple tools between sessions handle the tracking, so your time goes on judgement, challenge and experience.
THE SMARTER SYSTEM
One structured system for the whole business, with established practice behind every part of it.
Every SMARTer engagement uses the same map: ten key areas, each broken down into specific topics such as pricing, utilisation, delegation and cash flow. You and the client always know exactly where the work is.
Direction
Direction and leadership
Where the business is going, what success means to the owner, and how it is led.
Creating revenue
Marketing
Who the business is for, what it is known for, and how it stays visible.
Creating revenue
Sales
Turning opportunities into profitable work, without it all resting on the owner.
Creating revenue
Clients
Keeping clients, doing more for them, and being recommended.
Delivering value
Service delivery
Where the promise becomes reality: quality, capacity and margin.
Delivering value
People
Roles, managers, delegation and succession.
Delivering value
Systems and technology
Whether the way the business works has kept pace with its growth.
A healthy business
Finance and commercial management
Understanding the economics of the business, and using them to decide.
Protecting and improving it
Risk and resilience
What could seriously disrupt the business, kept practical.
Protecting and improving it
Continuous improvement
Whether the business learns, and gets better on purpose.
The ten key areas are the map. The owner's goals decide the journey. Every engagement works on the two or three areas that would make the biggest difference, never all ten, so you never have to be an expert in everything at once.
HOW IT WORKS
Coach by default. Mentor where you have been there. Established practice in between.
Three ways of working, and you always name the source, so the client knows which they are getting. Your own mode map records where you mentor, where you coach, and where the practice library carries you.
Coach
"What do you think?" The default in every area. The answers lie with the owner.
Mentor
"Here's what I've seen." Your own experience, offered as one perspective to test, never as the answer.
Established practice
"Here's what good looks like." Practice with the evidence behind it, in every one of the ten key areas, and you tell the client how strong that evidence is.
Your own mode map
You map, topic by topic, where you mentor from experience and where you coach from proven practice. Honest about your background, credible across all ten areas.
The practice library
Each practice card is two documents in one: a Client version in plain English for the owner, and a Coach version that carries you through an area outside your own experience.
Inside every Coach version
The evidence and its limits, a worked example with numbers, how to read the owner's figures, a session design, patterns to listen for, warning signs and a way to measure progress.
Evidence graded honestly
Every card states how strong its evidence is. A card is released only when a competent coach with no background in the area could run a good session from it alone.
The Engagement Standard
One quality bar for every engagement: diagnose before proposing, goals measured from the first session, visible progress by day 90, and a clear end point.
A specialist when one is needed
Clear hand-over rules for tax, legal and employment questions, so you keep honest limits without losing the client.
READY NOW, OR BEING BUILT
What you get as a SMARTer coach
Some of this is ready now. Some of it is being built, and founding coaches will help shape it. I would rather tell you which is which than oversell it.
A ready-made client offer. Ready now. A clear route from a free first step to a lasting relationship, with published guide prices, so you never have to invent the next step.
The system and practice library. Ready now, growing. The ten key areas, the diagnostic, the Engagement Standard and the practice cards with their Client and Coach versions. The library grows area by area, and you only claim depth where it already exists.
Training and supervision. Being built. An introduction to the system and the practice library, building your own mode map, and peer supervision with other SMARTer coaches.
A client engine. Being built. The review, sector pages, content and free quick cards that bring the right owners to you, plus the Discovery Call process to turn interest into conversations.
The bench. Being built. Named specialists for tax, legal and employment questions today. Over time, SMARTer coaches with depth in different areas, available to each other's clients.
THE CLIENT OFFER
The offer you take to clients
Every SMARTer client gets the same: the SMARTer System, coaching and mentoring with the source always named, goals they set, and a short written agreement before any paid work starts. The review and the Discovery Call are free.
Start free
£0
The ten key areas review and a Discovery Call.
No pitch, no pressure.
SMARTer Business Review
From £750
A proper look at the whole business, and a clear view of what to do first.
If you don't think it was worth the fee, you don't pay it.
SMARTer Programme
From £1,500/m
Six months of focused work on the areas that matter most to you.
A 90-day exit if you are not seeing progress.
SMARTer Mentoring
From £400/m
An experienced person to think with, once a month.
Reviewed every three months.
Current guide prices, with no VAT to add.
The engagement is designed to end. The capability is designed to stay.
IS THIS FOR YOU?
A good fit, and a poor one
This suits you if
✓
You already coach or mentor business owners, or are ready to.
✓
You hold, or are working towards, a coaching or mentoring qualification.
✓
You like working systematically, to a shared standard, with supervision.
✓
You would rather spend your time coaching than reinventing materials.
Not the right fit if
✕
You are looking for a business in a box with guaranteed income. Nobody honest can promise that.
✕
You prefer to work without structure.
✕
You want to do the work for clients rather than build their capability.
DO YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED?
Founding coaches and mentors
I am looking for a small number of founding coaches to work with the system alongside me, test the materials with real clients and shape how the network runs. Founding coaches join on founding terms, agreed individually and confirmed in writing.
QUESTIONS
Questions coaches ask
If yours isn't here, ask it when we talk.
Do I have to be an expert in all ten key areas?
No. Every engagement works on two or three areas. Where your own experience runs out, the Coach version of the practice card carries you, and where that runs out, a specialist takes over. You build your own mode map so you are always honest about which is which.
Do I keep my own clients and my own name?
Yes. You stay independent. Your clients are your clients, and you work under your own name as a SMARTer coach.
What if a client asks about something I don't know?
That is what the system is for. Each practice card's Coach version gives you the practice, its evidence, a worked example and the questions owners ask. For tax, legal and employment questions, there are clear hand-over rules to a named specialist.
Is income guaranteed?
No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. SMARTer gives you a system, a client offer and a growing client engine. The work of building a practice is still yours.
What standards do SMARTer coaches work to?
The Global Code of Ethics, signed by the ABM and the EMCC, plus the SMARTer Engagement Standard. Every coach has a written agreement with each client, regular supervision, professional indemnity insurance and takes no referral fees.
Is this ready now?
The system, the client offer and the practice library are ready, and the library is growing area by area. Training, the client engine and the bench are being built with founding coaches. I will always tell you which is which.
What happens on the first conversation?
Half an hour on Zoom. We talk about your practice, what you want from it and whether SMARTer fits. No pitch, no pressure.
FOUNDER
Simon Hale
Thirty years in frontline commercial roles, including Oracle, Infor and Lawson, and three businesses built from scratch. I built the SMARTer System because I wanted one way of working that holds up in every area an owner brings to the table, including the ones outside my own career.
ILM Level 5 qualified in coaching and mentoring
Approved mentor on Help to Grow: Management
Member of the Association of Business Mentors
Working towards EMCC accreditation at Practitioner level
WHY SMARTER
Your clients bring you the whole business. Are you ready for all of it?
Once an owner trusts you, the questions widen. You were brought in for one thing, and soon you are being asked about pricing, people, cash and delivery. Meanwhile you are winning your own work, building your own materials and doing it all on your own.
Clients ask about areas outside your experience.
Established practice behind every one of the ten key areas, with a Coach version that carries you through the ones you have not worked in.
A full diary one quarter, an empty one the next.
A client engine, not just a method: the free review, the Discovery Call process, sector pages and free quick cards that bring the right owners to you.
Years spent building a method of your own.
A complete, structured system from day one: the diagnostic, the engagement models, published guide prices and the practice library.
No one to call when it gets difficult.
A bench of specialists and fellow SMARTer coaches, with peer support and supervision.
Good work that fades once you leave.
Capability that stays: goals measured from the first session, and a Mentoring tier that keeps the changes in place.
Paid for hours when your judgement is what counts.
Simple tools between sessions handle the tracking, so your time goes on judgement, challenge and experience.