Business coaching
Advice from someone who has actually done it.
Running a business is lonely. Your staff cannot be your confidants, your family gets the worry rather than the detail, and the decisions that matter most get made at eleven at night by one person. This is a standing monthly session with someone who runs businesses himself and has read the actual numbers of hundreds of others. Not theory, and not a framework. Someone who has been where you are sitting.
The actual problem
It is not that you lack advice. It is that you lack a second opinion.
Owners are not short of people telling them things. What they are short of is one person who knows the business well enough to disagree usefully, and who has no stake in the answer. Your accountant sees the year after it happened. Your bank sees an application. Your staff see a boss who is supposed to know.
So most decisions get made alone, on instinct, and the good ones and the bad ones feel exactly the same at the time. That is the gap this fills, and it is a well-documented one: roughly half of entrepreneurs report loneliness in the role, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found two in five Australians feeling lonely at least some of the time in 2025.
How it works
What a month actually looks like.
The standing session.
An hour a month in the diary, so it happens whether or not there is a crisis. You bring what is on your mind. We look at what the numbers say about it, and you leave having decided something rather than having discussed it.
The line between sessions.
Most of the value is not in the meeting. It is in the twenty-minute call on a Tuesday, before you sign the lease or make the offer or agree the discount. Those calls are included and they are not counted.
Your numbers, kept current.
We work from your actual figures, not from a framework. Over a few months that builds into something most owners have never had: someone outside the business who genuinely knows how it is going.
Why this is different
Advice is worth more from someone who has paid for the lesson.
Most business coaching is delivered from a methodology: a framework, a set of sessions, a planning cycle. Frameworks are not useless, but they are the same for every business, and plenty of the people delivering them have never had to make payroll in a month when the money was not there.
Nicholas runs three businesses of his own. He has made payroll in a bad month, priced work wrong and had to fix it, and carried the decisions nobody else could make. Alongside that, eight years in commercial and acquisition finance, a Commercial Broker of the Year finalist, reading the actual profit and loss of hundreds of other Australian businesses and watching which ones came good.
That combination is the point. Running your own businesses teaches you what the decisions actually feel like from the inside. Reading hundreds of other people's accounts teaches you which of those decisions tend to work out, because you watched what happened next. Neither on its own is enough. Nothing identifiable from any client file is ever discussed; what carries across is the pattern, not the client.
What we work on
- Where the margin actually is, and where it is quietly leaking
- Pricing, and whether yours is costing you customers or costing you profit
- The cash cycle: why a profitable month can still be a frightening one
- Debt, what it is doing to you, and what the numbers support next
- Hiring, and whether the role pays for itself
- The decision you keep putting off because there is nobody to test it on
What we never touch
- Anything about your personal money: super, investments, insurance, wealth
- Tax advice, BAS agent services and bookkeeping
- Management reporting and financial statement preparation
- Arranging credit, or recommending any particular facility
- Legal advice, employment law and contracts
The first line matters most. This is coaching on the business you run, never on your personal money. We are not licensed to advise on superannuation, investments or insurance and we will not stray into it. Those questions go to a licensed adviser and we will say so plainly.
Two different things
This, or The Owner's Desk?
Both are ongoing and both are about your numbers, so it is worth being clear about the difference. Plenty of owners only ever need the other one.
| The Owner's Desk | The Sounding Board | |
|---|---|---|
| What it works on | The business's numbers | The person running the business |
| What you get | A workbook and a written read | A conversation and a decision |
| When you want it | A capital decision is coming up | Ongoing, whether or not anything is happening |
| The question it answers | Can the business carry this? | Should I be doing this at all? |
| Fee | From $850 a quarter | $2,450 a month |
What it works on
- The Owner's Desk
- The business's numbers
- The Sounding Board
- The person running the business
What you get
- The Owner's Desk
- A workbook and a written read
- The Sounding Board
- A conversation and a decision
When you want it
- The Owner's Desk
- A capital decision is coming up
- The Sounding Board
- Ongoing, whether or not anything is happening
The question it answers
- The Owner's Desk
- Can the business carry this?
- The Sounding Board
- Should I be doing this at all?
Fee
- The Owner's Desk
- From $850 a quarter
- The Sounding Board
- $2,450 a month
The Sounding Board
$2,450
a month, $29,400 a year
Book a callA conversation first. If it is not the right fit we will say so.
All fees exclude GST.
The terms
- No lock-in. Cancel with 30 days' notice.
- One standing session a month, plus the line between sessions. Calls are not metered.
- Fixed-fee work ordered alongside it is quoted separately and in writing, as always.
- Places are limited. This is one person's time, and it is capped so the clients who have it get it.
Australian business coaching commonly runs between $2,500 and $5,000 a month. This sits at the bottom of that range, and the difference is that the person on the other end has read the accounts of hundreds of businesses rather than the books about them.
Want a straight read on your deal?
Book a free call with Nicholas. Bring the numbers you have, and we will tell you the right service level and the fixed fee. No obligation.
Common questions
The Owner's Desk works on the business's numbers and hands you a workbook and a written read, on a set cadence, usually because a capital decision is coming up. The Sounding Board works on the person running the business. It is a standing conversation about whatever is actually in front of you this month, and it exists whether or not anything is happening. Plenty of owners only ever need the first one. If your problem is that you have nobody to think out loud with, that is this.
No, and it never touches your personal money. We do not advise on superannuation, investments, insurance or personal wealth, and we are not licensed to. What we talk about is your business: its margin, its pricing, its cash cycle, its debt and the decisions in front of it. Anything to do with your own finances goes to a licensed adviser, and we will say so.
No. We do not prepare management reports, accounts or financial statements, we do not do tax, BAS or bookkeeping, and we never will. A business coach and an accountant are not the same job and never have been. In practice these conversations generate work for your accountant rather than taking it, because an owner who is actually thinking about their numbers asks their accountant better questions.
You bring what is on your mind and we look at the numbers behind it together. Some months that is a decision, a hire, a price rise, a supplier, a site. Some months it is that something feels off and you cannot say what. The work is finding the answer in your own figures, which is usually where it is. There is no framework and no workbook to fill in.
The line is open, and the calls are not metered. Most of the value is not in the standing session, it is in the twenty-minute call before you commit to something. If you are calling constantly we will tell you honestly that something else fits better.
Two reasons, and the combination is the point. Nicholas runs three businesses of his own, so he has made payroll in a bad month and carried decisions nobody else could make. And arranging finance means reading a business's actual profit and loss, bank statements and lodgements, then watching what happened next. Do that for eight years across hundreds of businesses and you learn which decisions tend to work out, which is not something a framework can teach you. Advice is worth more from someone who has paid for the lesson.
Businesses in real distress, which need an insolvency practitioner rather than a coach. Anyone wanting help with their personal finances. And anyone looking for someone to agree with them, because that is not what this is. If you are in one of those situations we will tell you on the first call rather than take the engagement.
No. Thirty days' notice, no minimum term. Places are capped because this is one person's time, so if it is not useful we would rather you stopped and the place went to someone it helps.
The Sounding Board is commercial coaching on a business you own and run. It is not financial product advice, tax advice or legal advice, and it does not extend to personal finances, superannuation, investments or insurance. Andorra Advisory Group does not arrange credit and is not a credit representative. Nothing discussed from any other client engagement is ever identifiable.