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Wendyl Nissen – Charging forward

Business Coaching, Business Strategy

It has been my absolute pleasure to work as a Business Coach for Wendyl Nissen & Daniel Ellison of Wendyl’s through The Icehouse. Wendyl & Dan have an amazing philosophy to help people live a healthy eco life and you won’t find people more passionate about it!

They started their business a few years ago and as Wendyl puts it, “tended to organically grow from one crisis to the other.”

We’ve spent the last few months business coaching, undertaking strategic analysis and planning to understand where Wendyl & Dan want to take the business and then what they and the business needs to do to achieve that goal.

It’s been an interesting journey and we’re not there yet… but it’s great to see Wendyl’s charging forward 🙂

Debra Chantry – Business Coach & EiR at The icehouse.

For the original article – click here – http://www.theicehouse.co.nz/wendyl-nissen-and-the-icehouse-part-2-moving-forward/

Wendyl Nissen and The Icehouse Part 2: Charging Forward

Written by Wendyl Nissen
At Wendyl’s we’ve been very busy implementing the first part of our business plan. We are six months into our work with The Icehouse and we have successfully re-branded. We have changed from Wendyl’s Green Goddess to simply Wendyl’s and we have a much more simple, easy to navigate website – check it out at www.wendyls.co.nz. And most importantly we have changed the design of all our labels to take them from their heritage, brown paper, Whole Earth look to a more colourful, simple, younger look.Our all-natural cleaning and beauty products now look capable of growing into a bigger, younger market and finally have a website to support it. Yet we have still retained the essence of our brand which is honesty and trust. We have added the tagline to all our products which says: “Handmade by us, for you, since 2009, Wendyl and Daniel.” And we still provide the recipe for all our products- the only difference is they are now on the website rather than on the label!My son Daniel and I would not have had the confidence to do this monumental change if it hadn’t been for our Icehouse mentor Debra Chantry who has met with us every two weeks and gently pushed us to meet our own deadlines which we would have stretched had it been up to us. She also encouraged us to take some risks (getting a bank loan to do the re-brand). But most importantly she was there to listen when we said: “This is all too much, it’s doing our head in!”Because the thing about changing your business for the better is that a) it is hard relentless work and b) it is just plain scary.So Debra’s role expanded ever so subtly from giver of information, common sense and advice, to supportive social worker, giving me and Daniel much needed hugs and pats on the back when we were lacking confidence.
We look forward to our fortnightly meetings with Debra because she can help us see ourselves from the outside when we are so involved with the inside day to day workings. We’re not business analysts and have tended to organically grow from one crisis to the other. Now we have data to analyse and can see trends and good news on the horizon.Now, we need to take our new look and find the new customers it was intended for.We know we have a secure, loyal customer base in my age group which is women 40 and older. Now we need to target customers in the younger age group of 18-30 to which my son Daniel belongs.These are the young professionals who care more about the environment than any other generation before them. They don’t mind paying a bit extra for a product which is trusted and will help the planet. They regard the extra expense as something they should pay for as responsible citizens.So now, with Debra’s help, we’ll be hiring a marketing coach.

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Debra Chantry-Taylor
Debra Chantry-Taylor
Debra Chantry-Taylor
With an MBA and a career spanning senior management, leadership, business consulting, and governance roles, Debra has a mix of academic knowledge and a depth of real world business experience. Today, she is focused on delivering real change through EOS. Debra is now a trained, certified EOS management consultant. She combines her real world experience with the tools, training and backup of the worldwide EOS network, to take entrepreneurial leadership teams to the next level.