Our story
Resourceful Biz Guide was founded in 2017 by two people who had spent a combined twenty-two years inside corporate strategy teams and got tired of watching good advice die in slide decks.
The trigger was a conversation with a plumber in Bristol who had grown his team to eight, was turning over £1.2 million a year, and still couldn't take a week off because nobody else knew how to quote a job. He didn't need a strategy document. He needed someone to sit with him, build a quoting template, train his team on it, and follow up until it stuck.
That became our model. We work closely with the owner, on the actual problems, in real time. No frameworks named after Greek gods. No 80-page reports. Just focused sessions, clear actions, and honest feedback.
Since then we have coached owners across trades, retail, hospitality, professional services, and e-commerce. Our office is at 9 Mary Street in Old Gulgowski, but most sessions happen over video because our clients are busy running their businesses.
What we believe
These aren't slogans on a poster. They are the rules we use to decide what to say yes to and how to run each engagement.
- Clarity first. Before we change anything, we make sure the owner can explain the problem in one sentence and put a number on it. Fuzzy problems get fuzzy solutions.
- Small changes compound. A 2% improvement in conversion rate, repeated every quarter, is worth more than a dramatic pivot that never gets executed. We bias toward actions you can finish this week.
- The owner's time is the scarcest resource. Every recommendation we make passes a simple test: does this free up the owner's hours or consume them? If it adds to the pile, we find another way.
- Honesty over comfort. We will tell you when your idea won't work, when you are the bottleneck, or when the numbers don't support your plan. You are paying us for perspective, not agreement.
- Finish things. Half-built systems cause more chaos than no systems at all. We would rather you complete two initiatives well than start six and abandon four.
The team
We keep the team small on purpose. Every client works directly with a senior coach, not a junior associate reading from a playbook.
Diana Hale
Lead coach and co-founder. Diana spent twelve years at a Big Four firm advising mid-market companies before switching to owner-level coaching. She specialises in pricing, cash flow, and financial clarity. ILM Level 7 in Executive Coaching.
Tom Ashford
Co-founder and operations coach. Tom ran his own logistics company for seven years before selling it in 2016. He focuses on systems, delegation, and getting owners out of the day-to-day. Certified in Lean Six Sigma (Green Belt).
Priya Kaur
Client coordinator and scheduling manager. Priya keeps everything running behind the scenes: session bookings, follow-up emails, resource sharing, and progress tracking. She is usually the first person you speak to when you contact us.
Credentials and experience
Between us, Diana and Tom hold qualifications from the Institute of Leadership and Management, the Association for Coaching, and the Chartered Management Institute. Tom's Lean Six Sigma certification informs how we approach process improvement with clients.
We have worked with 143 owner-managed businesses to date. The median engagement lasts nine months. Roughly 60% of our clients come from referrals by previous clients, which tells us more than any certificate on a wall.
Industries we have coached in include construction, dental practices, independent retail, SaaS startups, recruitment agencies, and food manufacturing. The common thread is that the owner is the primary decision-maker and wants to build something that works without them being involved in every detail.
We carry professional indemnity insurance and are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office for data protection purposes.
Get in touch
Address: United Kingdom, England, Old Gulgowski, KL38 1JL, 9 Mary Street
Phone: +44 1409 508529
Email: [email protected]
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