Building a More Structured Approach to Business Growth

How mentoring helped Tree Assist make more deliberate decisions, approach risk with greater confidence, and build stronger accountability.

Running a growing tree surgery business involves constant decisions. New ideas, investments, changes to the way you operate and opportunities to grow all come with their own risks.

For Michael, Managing Director of Tree Assist, one of the biggest benefits of GrowUp mentoring has been having an experienced perspective to challenge plans, identify potential issues, and provide confidence when making important decisions.

Rather than every session following a rigid agenda, conversations could focus on the challenges, ideas and opportunities that were most relevant at the time.

"I personally found that the value we had was in your experience, being able to highlight issues that would arise from certain actions or plans that we were looking to implement."

– Michael, Managing Director, Tree Assist

What They Needed

As Tree Assist continued to develop, Michael wanted to make sure decisions were being made deliberately rather than simply reacting to whatever came up.

The focus was on:

Making more structured decisions
Understanding potential risks
Planning ahead
Building confidence when taking calculated risks
Creating greater accountability

"We found that in the sessions where nothing was planned and we just discussed different topics, there was some great information you passed to us which we can implement in the future when these issues arise and to prevent them from arising."
– Michael, Managing Director, Tree Assist

Our Approach

GrowUp mentoring gave Tree Assist an experienced perspective to test ideas and plans before putting them into action.

Sessions could cover:

Strategy
Looking at potential actions and their wider implications.

Risk & Decision-Making
Identifying potential issues and helping Michael approach risk with greater confidence.

Planning
Discussing future challenges before they became immediate problems.

Accountability
Creating structure around actions and keeping progress moving forward.

Importantly, not every session needed a set agenda.

Sometimes the most valuable conversations came from simply discussing different topics and exploring situations that could arise in the future.

The Outcome

The biggest change has been the way Tree Assist approaches decisions and actions.

More Structured

A more structured approach to planning and making business decisions.
Greater Confidence

More confidence when taking risks as part of building the business.
More Deliberate

Greater consideration of actions before putting plans into practice.
Ongoing Accountability

The accountability tracker has continued beyond the mentoring sessions, with Tree Assist creating their own version for future use.