Let’s Get On With It - with a boost from the Group 2 Grow Peer Network Programme
Jo Hall, from Chelmsford, gained expert support and guidance for her new resilience coaching business Let’s Get On With It through the free Group2Grow Peer Network programme from Backing Essex Business, which enabled her to develop her own confidence and business mindset
Having worked in the NHS for more than 30 years, Jo Hall from Chelmsford had a passion for personal development – and she’d gained a wealth of experience in the area helping the teams she worked with organisation wide to develop professionally and personally as a programme director and lead consultant.
She’d developed and implemented culture change programmes, working with leadership teams to improve employee resilience and wellbeing to create meaningful change and value – and in gaining these skills in everything from coaching, mentoring, consultancy, project and relationship management, she’d dreamt of taking the skills she’d developed and making a go of it alone one day to help even more people. Not yet with the confidence to take the leap, Jo had registered the company ‘Let’s Get on With It’ on Companies House years ago, and she put the thought to the back of her mind for the meantime.
“Alongside a series of demanding roles, I’ve had my own personal setbacks to deal with, too, including redundancy and a breast cancer diagnosis. So, I understand how tricky life can be at times, and I can very much relate to my clients’ struggles on a personal level, whether they are related to their performance at work or have been brought about by difficult circumstances at home.”
Come the summer of 2023, when her NHS Trust was undergoing a restructuring, Jo found herself made redundant – and although apprehensive of what the future might hold, felt it was finally the time to turn her passion for helping others develop into her own business.
Let’s Get on With It, gets off the ground
Given the push by her redundancy, Jo now had the time and the means to invest into building her own resilience coaching business. Backed by her years of experience, she knew how to create programmes and courses that could have a real impact – creating the Thrive Programme, and a framework and idea for how individual coaching and consulting services would work now that she was working for herself.
Coined an ‘Executive Coach’, her aim is to help individuals rewrite their own narrative – taking back control, owning and recognising their setbacks, and reaching their goals. With her own business, Jo is able to offer her coaching either in a teambuilding or corporate environment, or on a one-to-one basis. Whatever format her coaching is in, Jo has developed a unique style – helping her clients and listeners take a step back, take a look at themselves, and to really think about what they want out of life.
“I might call myself an executive coach, but I don’t just work with the C-suite. I can offer my coaching and consultancy services to anyone who feels called to do things differently. I’m here to support professionals at all levels who don’t want to be passive bystanders in their own lives; the people who have simply woken up one day and thought to themselves: there’s more to this, and I’m ready to find out what ‘more’ means to me.”
Jo’s coaching is based on positive psychology – a style that focusses on what makes you function and perform at your best. Paired with her enthusiastic, fun and approachable coaching style, her programmes from Let’s Get On With It have kept her busy since she left the NHS – with a steady and constant flow of bookings.
Overcoming her own barriers to success
Despite her successful programmes and the business getting off to a flying start since operations began, Jo struggled with her own setbacks – largely, her skills gaps when it came to running her own business. Though in her element with creating and delivering coaching programmes and sessions, Jo found herself lost when thinking about how to put herself and her new business out there – and recognised that she had lots to learn.
“I was stuck on how to sell and upsell my services, and needed to get smarter about the business mindset, but I had no idea how.”
Wanting to find answers and support to help her work on this, Jo began to ask other business owners what her options were, and got to searching online for any local programmes that could help. Seeing the Group2Grow Peer Network Programme advertised, she felt that she had nothing to lose by signing up – and shortly after was accepted onto an all-female cohort of the programme, which would commence soon after.
The Group2Grow Programme, a free Peer Network programme delivered by Backing Essex Business, brings together business leaders from across Essex to learn new skills, make connections, and find the way forward for their business. Led by expert business coaches from The Consortium, the Group2Grow Programme also included all-female cohorts, to bring together female business owners that could relate to each other’s challenges and create an added level of support and understanding.
““The programme was really good, and it came at exactly the right time for me. I found it hugely helpful – it went right from the basics, all the way up. It was with a group of other women, and we were all in the position where we were a bit stuck and needed to move forward with our businesses. It was helpful, really supportive and informative, and the 1:1 coaching sessions meant that I could go right to real basics and talk it through with my coach Sarah.” ”
Ran over 8 x 2 hour online sessions, Group 2 Grow is different to other programmes – participants can decide what skills and issues are the most important to their business, and so can shape what they will learn throughout. This leads to participants and cohort members getting more value and support out of each session, with their challenges being heard and overcome.
Each session gave Jo the boost she needed, with ideas of things to implement in her own business. She learnt how to upsell and market her business both in person and online, and gained the confidence in doing so through the support of her mentor Sarah Brockwell and other group members, which has made a huge difference since – helping her to find the value in her services, and thinking outside the box of how to create awareness of Let’s Get On With It.
““Each time I’d come away with things to think about for my business, and there was always a structure around it which was good.””
The Group 2 Grow programme also included expert speakers on certain topics to inspire participants and creative valuable connections. One such speaker for Jo was a content writer – who showed Jo the value in writing about yourself and your strengths when advertising yourself and your services. Since being connected through the programme, Jo was able to commission this same content writer to create the wording and basis for her brand new website!
Helping her to now think from the perspective of a business owner, the Group 2 Grow Programme also helped Jo to explore other avenues for her business – from speaking events and getting comfortable with networking, to even developing a new media pack.
“From that, I’ve been attending speaking events, and have even done some work with Sport England, doing a session on action learning. I’ve been able to grow my confidence and it’s really helped me think about how I can market and upsell myself from opportunities I’ve got, and even look for more”
What’s next for Let’s Get On With It?
Since taking part in the Group2Grow Peer Network Programme, Let’s Get On With It has been flying – with Jo attending networking events, and more events and appearances in the calendar. She’s even co-written a degree in Health, Wellbeing & Community for Anglia Ruskin University – which Jo thinks the Group 2 Grow Programme helped her in writing, due to her being able to relate some content to her new business mindset.
Jo has got a plan for the future for the business – she’d like to continue to build a name for the business and her coaching, and capture the attention of some bigger clients to run her programmes for. She has also joined onto the Blueprint for Business Programme from Let’s Do Business Group and the North Essex Economic Board, where she can continue to build on the skills she gained during her Group 2 Grow sessions as her business flourishes.
“I’ve got a plan of all the things I need to do, and it’s good. I feel far more equipped than before, there’s loads I don’t know because I don’t know what I don’t know, but I know where to go and ask now”
