When I ran my store, I never thought of myself as a business person.

I was just the person who took the orders, made and installed the drapes, and did the alterations. I was always in comfy clothes, choosing leggings and a t-shirt rather than slacks and a blouse. Looking back, all these places I should have put myself in the role of business owner, I didn't. Not until I met Jeff.

Those days, I was always working in the business, but never on the business. Why would I make a business plan or financial statements? It was just me running things. It didn’t seem that important. Besides, I had a family to take care of, two teenage daughters and a baby - there simply wasn’t time.

I was working 24/7, praying I was doing enough to make ends meet. Even when I got a $10,000 order, I celebrated as if I were taking home all $10,000. It didn’t cross my mind to calculate the expenses, the fabric costs, or the time it took me to do all these things. I wasn’t in business mode.

I have known Jeff for over 22 years now. We met back around 2005 when he would come in for alterations, and eventually, we started chatting about business.

We became close friends, and he eventually started coaching me behind the scenes. It wasn’t even formal, he just started sharing advice out of the goodness of his heart. He saw where I was struggling and wanted to help.

“I haven’t got the time to do all that,” I remember saying over and over. I didn’t believe in business coaching or consulting. I didn’t think I needed the help, and I didn’t want it.

Back then, I was too busy to understand the concept, and I thought that by working hard, I would solve my money problems, the business problems, and everything in between. “I just need to work harder,” I’d tell myself. Well, eventually you run out of time working seven days a week. I put everything into that business, and it just wasn’t working the way I had hoped.

At one point, I was ready to throw in the towel and retire. I had tried everything, and the last thing I hadn’t tried was working with Jeff. He really came to the rescue, despite all my push-back.

Now, I tell people that everyone needs the support of a coach. It’s that much of a game-changer. If I had just listened to him back then, I can only imagine where I’d be now in that business. And if I can encourage people to start working with a coach sooner, I’ll do everything in my power to promote that.

The first thing Jeff taught me was to start tracking my finances. He introduced me to the world of spreadsheets and how much information they really give you as a business owner. It changed my entire perspective. I sewed for a living. What good would a spreadsheet really be?

Let me tell you, I wasn’t celebrating the $10,000 orders the same way anymore. Slowly, I learned to track every dollar coming in and every dollar going out. I saw the reality, and reality hits hard.

I was earning less money for my time than I ever thought, and I had to figure out how to optimize what little time I had left to find more clients.

Then we started delegating.

“Why don’t you get someone to do the drapery installations for you?” Jeff asked me. Well, that would mean I would have to pay them. Wouldn’t that cost me money? And what if they can’t do as good a job as me?

Jeff soothed these concerns and explained that paying someone to free up your time makes you more in the long run, because once they’re trained, you get all that time back to make more connections and find more clients.

That was a game-changer. Sure, no one could do as great a job as me, but I could be happy with the work being 95% perfect rather than 100% perfect. It made a big enough difference to open my eyes to the consulting world. I started to realize what freedom I had when I had somebody else doing the work making money for me.

Nearly six months later, I knew that Jeff was right all along. I was about to retire, but when I put the pedal to the metal in my business, I jumped from 0 to six figures in just one full year.

I would never have made anything close to that level of success on my own. It took seeing the hard numbers, making the changes, and delegating to buy back my time for me to succeed. And he cheered me on every step of the way. He soothed the fears every step of the way. We pushed through together, as a team.

It was the results that made the difference. I wouldn’t have gone on working with him if I couldn’t see the incredible results in black and white when he taught me how to use spreadsheets. I wouldn’t have trusted that I could give up certain roles and responsibilities if I didn’t see the direct impact it was making on me and my business. I found that with his help, I found more strength and confidence in myself than I ever had before.

In the beginning, I thought I could do everything myself. I could sew really well, and I figured that was enough to be successful. I didn't understand the other parts of the business that you need to know to make it work.

You can work really hard, but at the end of the day, if all your time and effort is going out to pay other people, all you're doing is coming home exhausted. There's no point, really.

Seeing that six-figure revenue at the end of the year left me gobsmacked. I knew my life had shifted. I knew my thinking in terms of business leadership had shifted. And I knew that coaching and consulting is what can bring a vision to life.

I was probably one of the most resistant, pain-in-the-ass clients Jeff has ever worked with. He would always tell me, “If you do the work, it will pay off.” It’s true. I’ve seen it happen first-hand.

Now, I will tell every business leader I know to go find an advisor. So many people think that if they're good at something, they can do it, right? But you still need outside eyes.

If business leaders would start with an advisor at the beginning of their journey, or even partway through their journey, they would get to where they’re going faster. You don’t have to wait until you’re in trouble to find the support.

I want other people to experience the freedom and financial abundance that I have. And I will keep sharing my story every chance I get.