Waterman IT
How targeted, fortnightly business coaching helped Waterman IT gain clarity, confidence, and measurable business growth.
Turnover and profit increase, new team members, and a new proactive marketing strategy for accelerated growth in 2026.
The relationship between a business owner and their coach is built on trust, honesty, and a shared commitment to growth.
Most people come to coaching with a vision of what they want their business — and their life — to look like. My role, as their coach, is to help them turn that vision into something real, practical, and achievable. That’s exactly what happened when I started working with Tom Waterman, founder of Waterman IT.
Tom had been running his business for around 15 years, growing it from a one-man operation at his kitchen table to a team of 10 staff, working from a dedicated business unit in Swallowfield in Reading. His company had built a strong reputation in the education sector and was beginning to expand into supporting small businesses. But like many business owners, Tom had reached a point where he needed more than just ‘ad-hoc advice’ — he needed business goals, structure, strategy, processes and someone to hold him accountable without taking over.
As Tom put it:“I’d worked with people before, but it was all very ad hoc. What I really needed was someone who could help me build a meaningful strategy and keep me accountable to the goals that we set — not someone to dictate, but someone to guide. That’s what had been missing.”
Tom was introduced to me through his HR consultant, Amanda Fielding. We met for a coffee, and from that first conversation, he knew we could make real progress together.“Lisa listened, asked the right questions, and made suggestions that immediately made sense. I knew straight away she could help both me and the business.”
We smashed our growth target last year and we’re on track to do the same again. And these were targets designed to stretch us.
Once we began working together, we focused on strengthening the foundations of the business — improving structure, designing processes, and creating clarity around roles and responsibilities. This wasn’t just about Tom; it was about empowering the whole team.
One of the biggest breakthroughs came when Tom and his wife, Anne, celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary with an eighteen-day holiday.“Before working with Lisa, I would never have felt comfortable stepping away for that long. But I only called the office once. Lisa had been working with the whole team, helping them understand each other’s strengths and how to work together. They ran the business smoothly without me — and that was a huge moment.”
Using DISC profiling, team development sessions, and support with recruitment, we built a stronger, more confident team who could operate proactively rather than reactively. The results spoke for themselves:“We smashed our growth target last year and we’re on track to do the same again. And these were targets designed to stretch us.”
For Tom, the biggest shift has been accountability and consistency.“I always recommend Lisa to other business owners — especially those who start projects but get pulled back into day-to-day firefighting. That was me. Lisa keeps me focused on working on the business, not just in it. I always leave our sessions feeling energised and ready to move forward. And our latest project has been a complete overhaul of our company website which we are very proud of.”