By Jamie Goral | London's #1 ActionCOACH Business Coach
When most business owners hit a plateau, their instinct is to look outward.
A new marketing campaign. A rebrand. A bigger ad spend. A different product mix.
But in my experience coaching businesses across London and beyond, the answer is almost never out there.
It's already inside your business — sitting in your team, waiting to be unleashed.
Let me share two stories that I recently presented to 150 of my fellow ActionCOACH business coaches — some of the most experienced and accomplished business minds in the world.
Story one. A retail business that tripled its turnover to £33 million in just three years.
Story two. An ecommerce business that tripled to £90 million in just 18 months.
Neither business achieved this by working harder. Neither owner burned themselves out chasing growth.
They achieved it by doing something most business owners never do.
They stopped being the bottleneck — and they started unleashing the brilliance of the people already around them.
It's a phrase that might sound like corporate speak, but the reality is very practical.
Every business has people in it who are capable of far more than they are currently being asked to deliver. They have ideas that never get heard. Skills that never get used. Drive that never gets directed.
As business owners, we often — unintentionally — suppress that brilliance.
We micromanage because we care about quality. We make every decision because we feel responsible. We become the hub that every wheel depends on. And in doing so, we cap the potential of everyone around us.
Unleashing brilliance means building the environment, the culture, and the systems that allow your people to think, perform, and lead like owners.
And when that happens? Everything changes.
The strategies I shared with my ActionCOACH peers — and that I use every day with my clients — are not industry-specific. They are not reserved for retail or ecommerce.
They work in any business where there are people.
Hospitality. Professional services. Construction and trades. Technology. Healthcare. Finance. Manufacturing. If you have a team, these strategies apply to you.
Here is the framework at the heart of both transformations:
1. Clarity Over Control
Most teams underperform not because they lack ability, but because they lack clarity. They don't know what winning looks like. They don't know how their role connects to the bigger picture. When you give people genuine clarity — on vision, on goals, on their own contribution — performance follows naturally.
2. Culture as a Growth Strategy
Culture is not a set of values on a wall. It is what happens in your business when you are not in the room. In both the retail and ecommerce businesses I worked with, we rebuilt the culture deliberately — making it one where people felt trusted, valued, and motivated to give their best. That shift alone was transformational.
3. Leadership at Every Level
Sustainable growth cannot rest on the shoulders of one person. We developed leadership capability throughout both organisations — creating teams where people at every level were empowered to make decisions, solve problems, and drive results. This is what freed the business owners to work on the business rather than constantly in it.
4. Accountability Without Fear
High-performing teams hold each other accountable — not because they are forced to, but because they care about the outcome. We built accountability structures that were supportive rather than punitive, creating teams that pushed each other forward rather than waiting to be told what to do.
5. Recognition and Momentum
People perform at their best when they feel seen. In both businesses, we introduced simple but powerful systems for recognising contribution, celebrating progress, and maintaining momentum. The energy this created was extraordinary — and it showed up directly in the numbers.
Whether you are turning over £500,000 or £50 million, the principle is the same.
Your next stage of growth is not waiting in a new marketing channel or a better product. It is waiting in your team.
The question is: are you creating the conditions for them to give you everything they've got?
Because when you do — when you genuinely unleash the brilliance around you — the results can be extraordinary. I've seen it happen. I've helped make it happen. And I know it can happen in your business too.
I recently presented this in full to 150 of my ActionCOACH peers — and I'm now sharing that presentation with you.
Every strategy. Every framework. Every insight from both business transformations. Nothing held back.
🎥 Watch the full video presentation below:
If you'd like the full slide deck from this presentation, I'm happy to send it over.
📩 Simply send me a direct message or get in touch via the contact form below and I'll get them to you straight away.