STRATEGIC PLANNING & BUSINESS COACHING SERVICES
Strong, sustainable growth and a business where your values and purpose are the strategic driving force. A faraway dream?
Not when you have a former CEO by your side.
Hi, I’m Denyse Whillier, founder of We Are Mimosa, a purpose-led business consultancy specialising in female entrepreneurship. My purpose is simple. It’s to close the gender gap in business.
I do this by leveraging my experience as a former Chief Executive to equip female founders with the strategic know-how, skills and confidence to build a thriving business where purpose and values are the driving force.
On this page, you’ll find some information about why I made the move from CEO to strategic business coach, how I work and who I work with. You’ll also find lots of useful advice and information about starting, growing and scaling a business on my award winning blog, CEO Secrets.
It was a big step to leave my CEO role to start a new chapter; running my own business.
As a CEO, I had a challenging but rewarding career and I was fortunate to live a lovely, albeit stressful life. But like so many women with a corporate career, I worked round the clock, and found myself on the brink of serious burnout. The toll on my relationships, health, and overall quality of life was unsustainable and I decided something had to change.
For several years, I’d dreamt about being my own boss and building a purpose-led business. I was curious to find out whether the skills I’d spent honing over two decades would help the women-led small businesses I was drawn to work with. So I took a (very) deep breath and headed to Spain for a year long sabbatical to figure out how to make the transition from CEO to strategic business coach.
Most women I spoke with during that year had started their business as a way of connecting with their purpose and values; often their business stemmed from personal passions, innovative ideas or a drive to make a difference. Many had taken the time to educate themselves about running a small business. But what they’d learned was often generic advice and the information was not tailored to them or their business.
As a result, they were not prepared for the complexities of running a business and growth stalled. They became one of the 87% of women entrepreneurs stuck at a low-income level, trying to keep their head and revenue above water, turning over £99,999 a year or less (and usually closer to £50,000 a year).
I realised that my experience as a Chief Executive - setting the company's strategic direction, reviewing the numbers and profitability, building a team and managing the overall operations - was a perfect fit for what these business owners were lacking. So I set about figuring out how I could take my strategic know-how, experience and expertise and make it relevant to the growing pains experienced by so many small business owners.
The outcome, Built To Succeed, is a strategy first approach to business growth.
MY STRATEGY FIRST APPROACH TO BUSINESS
What’s a strategy first approach and why is this effective?
It’s pretty simple, really. I draw on my skills and experience in strategic planning to take you through a process where you define your vision for the future and figure out the roadmap which is most likely to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.
In essence, my strategy first approach to business coaching helps you to answer four seemingly simple questions:
Where are you now?
Where are you going?
How will you get there?
What are the important milestones along the way?
These questions may sound straightforward. But creating a strategic roadmap can be tricky because the process forces you to make a set of clear choices and focus on what’s most important in your business. What you decide not to do is just as important as what you do decide to do.
The end result? Steady, sustainable growth and a purposeful, profitable brand that’s aligned with your values and feels good. (And once you’re profitable, a regular pay rise so that you can support you and your family and treat yourself to something from the latest Sézane drop).
How I Work
It’s pretty simple, really. I work collaboratively with you to define your goals and vision for the future and figure out the roadmap which is most likely to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.
To create this roadmap, I follow a similar strategic planning process to the one I used as a Chief Executive: a process which aims to answer the following four seemingly simple questions:
Where are you now?
Where are you going?
How can I support you in bridging the gap?
How will you measure progress towards that envisioned future?
These questions sound straightforward but creating and implementing a strategic roadmap means making a set of clear choices and focusing all your resources on a few important activities.
The end result is a purposeful, profitable business that’s aligned with your values. A thriving business which can comfortably support you and your family.
One which feels good – purposeful, successful and enjoyable - and which doesn’t include sacrificing your personal priorities or hitting burnout.
Who I Work With
My clients range from kitchen table start-ups to established business owners who are either building back after COVID-19 or in the process of expanding and scaling. You’ll see from my case studies and testimonials that they come from the UK as well as abroad. What they all share in common is an ambition and determination to build brilliant businesses rooted in purpose and passion, together with a desire to balance their business success with their personal life.
You can read some of their stories in my portfolio.
Typically, they seek my help because:
They know what they want to achieve in terms of business goals but just can't seem to bring it all together.
They feel like they’ve 'hit the ceiling' in terms of growth and don't quite know how to break through it.
They got lost down the online rabbit hole, downloading the free trainings and lead magnets thinking they would find the answers they were seeking there, only to find themselves feeling confused and overwhelmed.
They need just that 'bit of extra help' to guide them in the right direction or to fine tune their systems and processes and ways of doing things.
Or it’s all gone a bit wrong and they’re in trouble and don’t know what to do about it. Maybe sales have slowed down, or profits have disappeared and cash flow is difficult or they’re struggling with business growing pains like team building and delegation.
Why the focus on female entrepreneurship?
We live in a world that’s very unbalanced when it comes to women and money.
Women run 40% of small businesses but generate only 4% of the revenue.
Women-led businesses are 44% the size of their male counterparts.
Only 6% of women earn six figures per year, compared to 13% of men.
For Black women and other people of colour, the situation is even worse.
I want to help fix this. Diversity and inclusion is a thread which runs through my career. So when I read the 2019 Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship and learnt that women-owned businesses are 44% the size of their male-owned counterparts and face barriers at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey, it was natural that my purpose would be to support UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 - gender equality and women’s empowerment.
WHAT’S NEXT?