Jake Smolarek
Business Coach London
For founders and business owners who want to make better decisions
and build businesses that depend less on them.
As featured in The Times, Business Insider & Yahoo
How Business Coaching Helps You Scale & Succeed
Running a business changes you. You learn to carry pressure, make difficult calls and solve problems before anyone else even sees them. Then the company grows, the stakes rise and even small blind spots become expensive.
I work with founders and business owners to challenge their thinking, expose the bottlenecks and build the leadership and structure their next stage of growth demands.
The Hard Truth
The habits that built your business may now be holding it back. When every important decision still comes through you, your team waits, problems pile up and your time becomes the company’s most expensive constraint. Growth demands clear ownership, processes people actually follow and systems that keep the business moving without your constant involvement. If you’re the bottleneck, that’s where the work begins.
The One Question That Matters
I ask every client the same question: “Do you want reassurance, or do you want the truth?” I’ve spent more than 22 years building businesses and 18 years coaching the people behind them. I’ve seen how much time and money business owners and entrepreneurs waste solving the wrong problem. If I think you’re making a mistake, I’ll tell you. I’ll listen to your side, then we’ll look at the whole picture together and work through what needs to change. I’ll support you when it gets difficult, and I’ll expect you to follow through.
The Repeated Pattern
I’ve worked with people who hadn’t yet started a business and owners running companies turning over tens of millions. The names change, the numbers change, but familiar patterns keep showing up.
From £0 to £3M Turnover. One client had a full-time job and wanted to start his own business. We tested ideas and found a viable niche, but scaling meant learning to delegate instead of doing everything himself. He built systems and processes, and within four years his online business reached £3M in turnover.
From £6M to Eight-Figure Turnover. Another client ran a £6M company where almost every important decision needed his approval. He was the bottleneck. His employees were doing the same work in different ways, so we introduced common procedures, delegated decisions and made the standards non-negotiable. Some adapted, others left. The business went on to reach eight figures without depending on his constant supervision.
From £12M to £27M Turnover. I also worked with a business owner running a company turning over around £12M. He kept adding products, services, people and equipment. As the business became more complicated, he kept taking on more responsibility himself. Revenue was growing, but where was the money? We discovered that some of his supposedly most profitable products and services were actually losing money, while higher-margin offerings were being ignored. We cut what wasn’t working, focused on what made money and accepted a temporary drop in turnover. Over roughly three years, the business grew to around £27M.
Each client needed a different approach. My job is to see what others overlook, challenge the thinking behind the decisions and help my clients turn those decisions into results.
Success Stories
Egis came to coaching looking for clarity about his career. Within six months, he secured a well-paid role beyond his expectations. Today, he works for himself as a business consultant.
“Jake is not afraid to say what he thinks, and sometimes that’s the truth that we need to hear. […]
He leverages his coaching experience to guide you and help you find your own answers.”
Egis | Business Consultant | Former Business Change Manager at a Leading London Law Firm
Let’s get serious
Start with a complimentary consultation to see if we’re the right fit
Drive Your Business. Don’t Become a Passenger
Running a business works until it doesn’t. There comes a point where effort, instinct and late nights stop moving the needle because your business has outgrown the way you run it. That’s where I come in. I call out the decisions, habits and assumptions that keep you stuck, then help you put a more effective way of working in place.
The Frameworks Behind My Coaching
If you want motivation, read a book. If you want to scale, install a better operating system. These are the frameworks I use with clients to make better decisions, develop stronger leadership and take greater control of how their businesses run.
Vision GPS: Clarity that kills hesitation
Vision sets the destination, goals mark the milestones, planning maps the route and systems turn plans into action. Together, they give you a practical way to assess opportunities, set priorities and make better decisions. One question cuts through the noise: does this move you closer to where you want to go? If not, why are you spending time and money on it?
Learn → Practice → Master → Become a F*cking Legend: The Correct Sequence
This is a sequence, and skipping steps usually costs you. Learn the fundamentals, practise until you can execute consistently, then master the skill through repetition. People fail because they try to “change the recipe” before they even know how to cook. In business, that often means chasing new strategies and introducing new systems before you’ve properly mastered what you’re already doing. Get good at the basics first. Then earn the right to do things your own way.
No 0% Days: Progress every day, discipline over drama
You don’t need big wins. You need movement. Even 1% counts; 0% doesn’t. On bad days, you bend the streak, you don’t break it. Some days that means having a conversation you’ve been avoiding, making one difficult decision or finally dealing with a task you’ve been putting off. Those small steps add up over time, especially on the days when motivation is nowhere to be found.
The 10–80–10 Rule: The grind is where legends are built
Everyone loves the beginning and fantasises about the finish. The real test is the middle 80%. The repetitive work, the slow progress and those days when you wonder whether it’s all worth it. That’s when people start looking for shortcuts or something new to chase. Keep doing the work. Pay attention to what’s working and change what isn’t. When you reach the final 10%, some will call it an “overnight success”. You’ll know what it took.
The Human Pattern Matrix: Spot the patterns behind team friction
Four core energies: Commander, Firestarter, Stabilizer, Architect. I use this matrix to understand how people behave under pressure, make decisions and work with others. It helps identify where teams clash, where strengths are being wasted and why certain working relationships struggle. Particularly useful when you’re hiring, delegating responsibilities or trying to get the right people into the right roles.
Binary Decomposition: Turn complex problems into clear decisions
When a problem feels too big, break it down until you’re facing one clear choice. What’s actually holding things up? What needs a yes or no? Make that call and deal with what comes next. I use Binary Decomposition with founders who spend so long weighing every possible outcome that their teams are left waiting.
How I Work With Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
The problem a business owner brings to our first conversation is often only part of the picture.
The Person Behind the Decisions
Before we touch strategy, I want to understand the person making the decisions: how you think, where the pressure is coming from and what may be affecting your judgement. Together, we work out what really needs attention and what to do about it.
The Experience Behind My Approach
I started a construction business the same day my mentor told me to stop overthinking and get moving. Business cards the next morning. My first contractor and client by the end of the week. That lesson stayed with me: Success Loves Speed.
I built a non-profit that grew from two volunteers to a team of more than 600. My business partner and I stepped away, leaving behind a thriving organisation. Under the leadership that followed, it eventually collapsed. I’ve seen what happens when the wrong people end up in charge of a good organisation.
Today, coaching is my main business. I also own a performance marketing agency specialising in SEO, paid media and AI visibility, and a lead-generation business serving the construction industry. Running these businesses keeps me close to the commercial reality my clients deal with every day.
The Principles I Work By
In 2008, the credit crunch wiped out the construction business I’d started years earlier. It was brutal. Years of work disappeared. I rebuilt it. That experience gave me a rule I still live by: bounce, don’t break.
I often tell clients they’re using the wrong F-word. It’s not “failure”, it’s “feedback”. You can spend months replaying what went wrong, or you can face it, learn from it and decide what to do next. I’ve had to make that choice myself.
When something goes wrong, I want to understand why. If the same problem keeps coming back, I want to know what’s allowing it to happen. Then we deal with the cause.
Comfort creates passengers. Pressure creates drivers. I create Formula One drivers. Decide which one you want to be.
What’s Your Next Move?
Tell me what you’re aiming for. We’ll start with a complimentary consultation
The Results That Built My Reputation. Read the Receipts
Results don’t come from hope, hustle or inspirational noise. They come from systems, decisions made at the right speed, and the discipline to execute the plan even when it stops being fun. People don’t burn out because they work too hard; they burn out because they work hard on the wrong things. The cases below show what happens when clarity, structure and the right operating system replace chaos, heroism and guesswork.
£80M → £140M: The Family Business That Stopped Fighting Itself
This wasn’t a strategy; this was a civil war. William didn’t come to me with a strategy problem. He came ready to call the lawyers. Youngest in a family-run business, brilliant in front of clients, terrible at navigating the politics at home. The company was stuck because the people running it were stuck in old roles, old grudges and old power games. Everyone wanted a say. Nobody wanted responsibility. And the person with the most potential was the one being drowned out.
He wasn’t just stuck in a business deadlock, he was stuck in a family dynamic that treated him like the kid even though he was the only adult in the room. My job was to sharpen him, not the company. He didn’t need more force, but clarity, structure and the confidence to take the seat he’d earned but never claimed. Once he understood that leadership isn’t about age but about direction, everything shifted. He stepped up, reorganised the chain of command, cleaned up the chaos, set boundaries his family had avoided for years and started making decisions nobody else was willing to make.
Then we rebuilt the machine around him: cut duplicated roles, removed emotional decision-making, installed automation where people had been replacing systems with effort, and aligned every department behind a single direction. The moment he led, the business stopped fighting itself and started scaling. Twelve months later: £80M became £140M, not because the business changed, but because the right person finally took control.
£6M → Eight Figures: When the Founder Realised He Was the Bottleneck
Michael came to me asking where the bottleneck was. He expected an answer like “operations” or “marketing”. He didn’t expect the truth: him. Superman Syndrome. The belief that nobody can do anything as well as you, so you try to do everything, until everything slows down. No delegation. No systems. Just heroic effort and exhaustion.
My job was to show him the cost of his thinking. We decomposed everything he touched. We installed processes that didn’t rely on him. Hired an EA and a VA. Removed him from tasks he confused with “leadership.” Once he stopped trying to be the hero and started being the architect, the company exploded. Eight figures wasn’t luck; it was the first time the business was allowed to run at full capacity.
The Unicorn CEO Who Finally Heard the Truth
A founder who built a billion-dollar company but reached a point where everyone around him just nodded. Success insulated him from honesty; the higher he climbed, the softer the room became. Nobody challenged him. Nobody told him when he was drifting into delusion. That’s the danger of scale: the room gets quieter exactly when the stakes get higher.
He didn’t need a strategy. He needed reality. I told him the truth others were too scared to say. Not to be provocative, but because the company depended on someone finally piercing the bubble. Once the truth landed, the fog lifted. Decisions got cleaner. Delegation got sharper. He stopped running on momentum and started running on intention again. Even unicorns need a reset, but someone has to have the spine to give it.
From Near Collapse to a Controlled Turnaround
This one was simple: wrong people in the wrong seats. Loyalty had replaced competence. Chaos had replaced leadership. Everyone was “busy”, nobody was productive. Crisis after crisis landed on the founder’s desk because the team wasn’t built to carry weight.
We dismantled the structure, rebuilt the org chart, removed the wrong operators, placed the right ones, and brought the entire company back into alignment. The moment the founder stopped managing chaos and started managing the system, everything stabilised. Margins doubled in a quarter. Not magic. Just replacing wishful thinking with execution and accountability.
Fix the Human. Scale the Business.
Every result above came from the same foundation: working on the person making the decisions and the business those decisions shape. Different companies. Different industries. Different personalities. Same truth. Fix the operator, and the business scales. Avoid the truth, and the business suffocates.
If you want to understand where my business coaching style comes from and why it works, here’s the full story behind my philosophy and strategic background.
You won’t find a FAQ section here. I’ve already written a 54,000-word Business Coaching Bible called What Is Business Coaching. If you want answers, read that. If you want results, we start when you’re ready.
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