Award-winning business coach Zac de Silva has set himself a goal for 2015: scale.
But with a coaching model built around regular catch-ups and in-depth questioning, de Silva realises he can share what's in his head with only a finite number of people.
Intent on personally imparting his secrets for business success with hundreds, if not thousands of business people, de Silva is turning to technology to clone his business "secret sauce".
His inspiration comes from software-as-a-service companies such as Xero and Orion Health, which have successfully created globally scaleable businesses from New Zealand.
De Silva, 43, says the result is virtual coaching software which allows him to replicate his coaching programme and regularly stay in contact with his 100 or so clients.
The software - www.accme.co - allows de Silva to catch up with his clients every week through automatically generated questions primed to get them thinking about business growth.
He says business advisers should be able to add ideas for creating business success "but most people actually have a lot of the ideas themselves - they just need to be asked the right questions so I'm happy I've built up a good IP of questions to ask".
His solution is available to other coaches - everyone from personal trainers, dieticians and professional sports coaches through to training organisations, psychologists and other business coaches - who want to keep their clients on track with regular communication.
"To be successful you've got to have discipline and that means walking the talk." De Silva says you not only need to have incredible accountability to yourself but also hold others to account, traits that don't come naturally to many people.
He says he gives people the mechanisms to become more self-disciplined.
His methods force business people to remove themselves from the day-to-day running of the business and take time out to focus on growth.
"Plenty of people have good ideas but there's no carry through; they don't do anything," says de Silva.
It's a challenge he's seen consistently among his clients, which manifests in them doing "crap things" rather than the stuff that really counts, he says.
He also sees a tendency to get bogged down in hundreds of tasks, doing things randomly rather than working through in priority order, which can stand in the way of business success.
De Silva says his dream clients are SMEs with either an owner-operator or general manager running the business.
"The reason they're my dream client is because you can really make an impact; they've got huge scope to go massive."
He says those smaller businesses have an eagerness and open mind for new ideas that can be missing among the bosses of bigger firms.
"There's a difference between a general manager/CEO earning $200,000 or $300,000 a year, whatever the figure might be, and just getting [the salary] compared to an owner/operator who, if they don't do a good job they will make zero; so I actually think the skin in the game is a huge thing."
In the year to last March, his average long-term client more than doubled their profitability.
Having become a business coach after a career in financial leadership roles at Flight Centre, House of Travel and Barkers Menswear, de Silva ensures he practises what he preaches.
"I can say all sorts but if my business was a piece of crap people will say 'whatever, you're not doing it yourself'."
His accounting training - de Silva began his career as an auditor for Deloitte before realising he wasn't cut out for the traditional chartered accounting path - gives him a head for numbers, which combines with an entrepreneurial streak and an appreciation for getting company culture and customer service right.
He won workplace and customer service awards as a corporate boss and the winning streak continued last year when de Silva was named International Coach of the Year by the America-based Coaching Institute.
Business growth is set to step up a notch this year with the introduction of three new coaching programmes aimed at taking his message to a wider audience, including the advisers who SMEs turn to for guidance.
Delivered through one-on-one contact, webinars and the accme.co software, the business changer course is aimed at SME executives, plus programmes for chartered accountants and business bankers.
De Silva says the new Business Changer programmes he has developed aim to equip these professionals with the skills needed to become more valuable as advisers and sounding boards.
"This is the way for me to help businesses in a mass-market, mass-scale way."
