> All Out Coaching
All Out Coaching
| With over 25 years of business experience, Windsor resident Jerry Wistrom started the company early in 2002. He set out to create a firm that specializes in helping company owners and sales professionals take their business to the next level. His clients span from Windsor, Connecticut to Vancouver, British Colombia. Most are professionals with advanced degrees, running businesses in their own specialties. “Consulting and Coaching are often considered to be like oil and water,” Wistrom explains, noting that his job blends the two professions. “A consultant is usually brought into a company to specifically fix a well-defined problem. A coach, on the other hand, is hired to personally help a client in areas like planning, strategizing, and personal growth. Coaches help clients to actually do the work themselves, and to grow in the process.” Using Wistrom’s approach, new clients first spend time defining two things: their current situation, and a description of how their business should look in a “perfect world.” The consultant side of the relationship helps the clients take that very critical look at the current situation and define the immediate problem very well. The coaching relationship then kicks in, helping the business owners to strategize, plan, and get the appropriate skills and resources into place, so they can fix the problem themselves. “Business owners often share a couple of distinct problems,” Wistrom says. “They are The Lone Ranger Syndrome, and the Empty Mirror Syndrome. The Lone Ranger Syndrome is the belief that many small business owners have that they must ‘Go It Alone’ and that asking for help is a sign of weakness. That problem is compounded by the question of who can you go to, to talk about your business? The ‘Empty Mirror Syndrome’ is the fact that it’s very hard to see your business from a third party’s point of view, and still be able to effectively evaluate your own business – they just can’t see themselves anymore.” All Out Coaching provides services in a number of ways. In ongoing private and group consultation, clients work directly with Wistrom on a specific problem. He has taught an adult education course in Windsor called “Planning and Launching Your Small Business.” Two businesses that completed this spring’s offering successfully opened their doors, and are doing very well. Wistrom also has spoken at workshops in the area, and will be speaking at this Fall’s New England Business Service Association’s annual meeting in Boston. He’s currently working on his first book, which he hopes to publish by the end of the year. Does Wistrom take his own advice on hiring a coach for himself? “Absolutely yes! When I decided to open this business, the very first thing I did was to hire a great coach,” he says. “As a matter of fact, I now have two coaches that help me: a personal coach and a marketing coach. I’m not quite up to Tiger Woods’ level yet, though. Tiger has four coaches: a golf coach to help him with his swing, a personal coach, a business coach, and a relationship coach. But anyone who has played golf with me knows that the golf coach is probably the one I need the most!” Wistrom’s training for this career came from a number of sources. His father was a branch manager of Hartford National Bank and a strong proponent of small business owners. “I remember Dad’s respect and admiration for small businesses and the people who ran them,” he recalls. “He stuck his neck out to get loans for the business owners that he knew and trusted.” Wistrom’s business degree and 25 years of experience with companies that ranged from Fortune 100 corporations to municipalities to small “Dot-Coms” have given him a wealth of experience to draw from. Wistrom is also an avid reader, whose office is filled with books on Customer Service, Marketing, Business Planning, and Self-Improvement. Finally, he’s taken over 100 hours of advanced credits with Coach U (university), the leading global provider of coach training programs. Wistrom was born and raised in Goshen, CT. He attended the University of Connecticut and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance. He was hired as an assistant comptroller of a manufacturing company after college, and then worked for Aetna Life and Casualty for the next 18 years. After another 6 years working for a consulting firm, and traveling far and wide to work with clients, Wistrom decided to open All Out Coaching, LLC to provide both business consulting and business coaching for his clients. Get in touch with All Out Coaching by phone at (860) 298-8820, on the web at www.alloutcoaching.com or email at jerry@alloutcoaching.com. |