Business coaching for perfectionists; boost productivity | Phil Drinkwater
Free session

Business coaching for pefectionists

Available online throughout London, the UK and internationally.

I help business owners and entrepreneurs who are reducing their own performance by giving more than is necessary

In interviews, candidates often say they’re perfectionist, as if it’s an acceptable weakness; a high standard is OK right?

The truth is that perfectionism can cripple a business, and business owners who struggle with disappointing others give way too much just to avoid confrontation and conflict with customers and even their own employees.

My unique process allows you to move past perfectionism and be OK with giving just the right amount in any situation.

Book your free discovery session

As Seen In

What Business Coaching for perfectionists isn't...

Business coaching isn't just for large corporations

60% of the business owners I work with employ only a few handfuls of people, and 20% are startups and entrepreneurs. Only 20% are larger. And perfectionists are found everywhere in business and life.

Business coaching isn't stuffy

We're here to help you recover from perfectionism, so we'll have an honest and friendly conversation about what's causing you to feel you have to give more than your competitors.

Business coaching isn't pushy

The last thing a perfectionist needs is to be made to feel more shame and embarrassment, so I'll be kind with my all of my questioning, and totally non-judgemental with anything you reveal.
"But I'm really nervous!"

Be honest .. does any of this seem familiar?

You're extremely focused and motivated and willing to work long hours

You know you're a good worker; that's not in question. In fact, in jobs, you were often given more and more because you were so good, and you might feel a sense of pride in this.

Yet you rework simple emails and documents time and again in order to make them perfect

But you know you waste time on changes that won't really make any difference to the outcome.

You've tried to push yourself harder, but that doesn't seem to solve the issue

Working harder doesn't seem to get you anywhere, even though you think it should balance out your perfectionism.

You're generally afraid of failure, and that increases the stress in your life

Even though you're proud of your high standards, you also notice that you're stressed and others don't seem to be.

You're sometimes becoming tired and jealously see those who work less but achieve more

So, at times, you wish you could let go of this and focus on what really matters in growing your business.

This is negatively affecting your business, and you don't even know why you're like this

Your (sometimes impossible) high standards cause you to work hard without achieving success and it's started to frustrate you.

You're aware of business coaching, but don't know how it helps perfectionists

You're interested to understand how this is really affecting you and your business, and you're willing to try something new in the hope that it will deliver a positive improvement to your business and life.

What they say..

“I’m doing really well. Probably the best I’ve been. I have to thank you for the tools you’ve given me to deal with issues.”

— BEA, MARKETING AGENCY OWNER

Perfectionism case study:

Business coaching uncovers the real issue, and provides the lifelong solution

A new online marketing agency was finding growth incredibly difficult

They were new to the market but had everything they needed to succeed.

They were aware that others were being successful, but they couldn't achieve the same

Other people they were aware of in the industry were "crushing it", but they didn't feel good about where they were and couldn't make it pay.

Through conversations, it was clear that they were very scared of failure, and this caused huge procrastination

Every day was a mess of stress and nerves as they were focused on everything that could go wrong, so they avoided everything they could in order to cope with the amount of stress they had. They had very extreme perfectionism and it was ruining their business.

Due to this, they would only take on very exacting types of client with certain challenges

Only those with virtually guaranteed success were entertained as customers.

During those campaigns, they gave more and more for free, because they were afraid of not succeeding

Profits were low because there was a huge amount of "Oh, don't worry, I'll throw it in for free". Perfectionism was cause their hour rate to reduce hugely. Even very constructive criticism from customers was seen as blame and unhappiness.

Even though they were extremely proficient at their job, they couldn't let go of this feeling

They were clearly very effective and worked at a consistently high level, but were struggling with fear of failure and set themselves up for business problems with completely unrealistic expectations given the cost of their service.

This caused them to never be able to outsource tasks, even with clear processes

If they weren't good enough to do the work, there's no way they could accept the mistakes that others would make, so they kept all of the work to themselves. This meant they really had a stressful job, not a fun and enjoyable business.

All of this together, meant that their business couldn't grow and was struggling

Clearly, put together, all of these issues were causing the marketing agency to almost completely fail.

We worked together on confidence, changing to a growth mindset and focusing on today instead of constantly avoiding future challenges

Over a number of sessions, we looked at the fears they had and their common perfectionist thoughts, and changed their mindset to see failure as positive, as well as focus less on the future. We also worked to calm their inner critic, which was aiming to keep them safe, but was incredibly unkind.

Through time, the client transformed their business and were able to grow

During the months of personal growth, the client finally allowed themselves to accept failure and set realistic goals that would bring just enough success. They lost most of their stress, became more productive and started to outsource tasks and grow. Imperfection was now seen as growth, rather avoided at all costs.

Why is this perfectionism happening?

In the early stages, business owners try to fix their own issues with more knowledge

If you're here, you probably think you need more knowledge to combat your fear of failure, but there will often never be enough.

But you already have most or all of the knowledge you need; the challenge isn't there

You likely already know what you need, but you are terrified of failure. This is the path to solving the challenges you have.

How does business coaching with me help?

I am an expert at recognising your patterns based on your behaviours and speech

You will not yet be aware of these, which is why you will continue to take the same unsuccessful paths, in this case focusing on unsuccessful solutions.

You will eventually recognise your perfectionism before it occurs

As we work together, you will learn how to break your dependence on this pattern of behaviour.

You can then select to test out alternative routes that may be more fruitful

You can then keep yourself from picking the same unsuccessful paths automatically and repeatedly, allowing you to discover more productive paths that don't require perfection.

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey ​

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.​
Begin with your free discovery session

5 questions to ask your perfectionist self

1. What will happen to your business if you stopped being a perfectionist?

How will your future prospects change?

2. Think of a time you were a perfectionist recently. What would it feel like if you had given just enough instead?

It's likely there will be both positive and negative emotions.

3. What does perfectionism protect you from?

What is the positive intention behind perfectionism? Do you know?

4. What would it feel like to let go of the stress need to work hard and feel too responsible for the outcomes of others?

How would you change?

5. Are you willing to continue being a perfectionist?

The choice remains yours.
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“The difference from my first session to now is life changing for me. The growth is so wonderful”.

— SARA,ENTREPRENEUR

Who am I?​

I'm Phil Drinkwater, a leading transformational business and life coach who supports clients in discovering how to maximise their potential, by reducing patterns like perfectionism.

I'm a Certified Coach with a totally unique approach that will help you understand your perfectionist tendencies, and why that leads to the challenges you're facing with your business.

I'll support you in your business journey as you move on, and also include elements of life coaching to help you appreciate how it impacts your wider life too.

I’ve run my own successful online non-coaching business with up to 20 employees for 22 years

My own perfectionism helped me become a high achiever, while gaining a great deal of knowledge about how it affects business, from reducing productivity to stunting business growth.

I always consider myself a recovering perfectionist, because I have to keep my thoughts in check.

I'm also psychology trained

I'm aware that our needs, thoughts and emotions determine whether we succeed or fail, and how we can change these to produce a more success-oriented mindset.

How will we begin coaching?

What will happen in our Free Discovery Session?

We'll become acquainted and gain a grasp of what is occurring for you and how perfectionism is affecting you.

If you're nervous, I'm incredibly kind

We will move at your pace. You'll feel more confident after a brief period of time with me, because I am a very understanding person. But if you prefer a more gentle introduction to coaching, we can do that as well.
"I'm really am nervous!"

All coaching is done online to keep costs accessible to all

Since lockdown, people are more used to working remotely in different ways. I can coach you from afar just as well as in person.

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.​
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“Before business coaching, I didn’t believe I could have what I really wanted, and I settled for second, third and fourth best. Now I’m moving forward with what I really want.”

— CHELSEA, EVENTS BUSINESS OWNER

How will we continue?

Pricing for one to one coaching services, and discounted packages

Single sessions for business owners and entrepreneurs are £189 - with a 15% discount in your first year of business. Single sessions for executives are £300. Discounted packages are available.

In coaching we'll discuss challenges, resistance and how to design an amazing life and business

We can discuss anything you find valuable, but we'll focus on what's difficult and why you're resistive to particular courses, such as those that could result in failure. We will also evaluate your optimal working style and how this fits into the life you desire.

We'll meet every 2 to 3 weeks, usually

I suggest we meet every few weeks, depending on schedules. This allows you to take actions so we can evaluate the effectiveness for you.

How does your future look?

What have you tried so far to solve your perfectionism?

Perfectionism can reduce productivity hugely. You've likely tried to solve this already. How successful have you been?

Are you serious about improving your situation?

Out of ten, how much do you want success in your business?
Out ten, how certain are that you will achieve success?

What will happen if you continue on as you are?

If you consider the following 5 to 10 years, will you be able to satisfy your need for perfection? What steps will you take to improve your chances?

If there was "writing on the wall" about your future, what would it say?

Close your eyes for a second and let this come naturally to you; what's the "writing on the wall" for you?

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“In just one session, Phil took me from a place of apprehension to one of clarity and confidence. We spent time working out what things I need in order to achieve job satisfaction”.

— MARA, NEW MANAGER

Phil Drinkwater is a successful business owner. Now a business coach, he supports amazing clients with practical guidance and coaching support, focusing on startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

He has successfully completed coach training with The Coach House, a course accredited by the Association for Coaching in the UK.

PHIL@PHILDRINKWATER.COACH
83 DUCIE STREET, MANCHESTER, M1 2JQ

KEY PAGES

If you're nervous about coaching, let's chat on email a bit first, before booking a discovery call.

Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of coaching, and, if that's you, maybe you'd like to know a bit more about the process before booking an online call.
That's OK!
Let's chat a bit on email before taking the next step. And, honestly, you'll be fine since I'm incredibly kind.
Email me now
Or email phil@phildrinkwater.coach

Business coaching for pefectionists

Available online throughout London, the UK and internationally.

I help business owners and entrepreneurs who are reducing their own performance by giving more than is necessary

In interviews, candidates often say they’re perfectionist, as if it’s an acceptable weakness; a high standard is OK right?

The truth is that perfectionism can cripple a business, and business owners who struggle with disappointing others give way too much just to avoid confrontation and conflict with customers and even their own employees.

My unique process allows you to move past perfectionism and be OK with giving just the right amount in any situation.

Book your free discovery session

As Seen In

What Business Coaching for perfectionists isn't...

Business coaching isn't just for large corporations

60% of the business owners I work with employ only a few handfuls of people, and 20% are startups and entrepreneurs. Only 20% are larger. And perfectionists are found everywhere in business and life.

Business coaching isn't stuffy

We're here to help you recover from perfectionism, so we'll have an honest and friendly conversation about what's causing you to feel you have to give more than your competitors.

Business coaching isn't pushy

The last thing a perfectionist needs is to be made to feel more shame and embarrassment, so I'll be kind with my all of my questioning, and totally non-judgemental with anything you reveal.
"But I'm really nervous!"

Be honest .. does any of this seem familiar?

You're extremely focused and motivated and willing to work long hours

You know you're a good worker; that's not in question. In fact, in jobs, you were often given more and more because you were so good, and you might feel a sense of pride in this.

Yet you rework simple emails and documents time and again in order to make them perfect

But you know you waste time on changes that won't really make any difference to the outcome.

You've tried to push yourself harder, but that doesn't seem to solve the issue

Working harder doesn't seem to get you anywhere, even though you think it should balance out your perfectionism.

You're generally afraid of failure, and that increases the stress in your life

Even though you're proud of your high standards, you also notice that you're stressed and others don't seem to be.

You're sometimes becoming tired and jealously see those who work less but achieve more

So, at times, you wish you could let go of this and focus on what really matters in growing your business.

This is negatively affecting your business, and you don't even know why you're like this

Your (sometimes impossible) high standards cause you to work hard without achieving success and it's started to frustrate you.

You're aware of business coaching, but don't know how it helps perfectionists

You're interested to understand how this is really affecting you and your business, and you're willing to try something new in the hope that it will deliver a positive improvement to your business and life.

What they say..

“I’m doing really well. Probably the best I’ve been. I have to thank you for the tools you’ve given me to deal with issues.”

— BEA, MARKETING AGENCY OWNER

Perfectionism case study:

Business coaching uncovers the real issue, and provides the lifelong solution

A new online marketing agency was finding growth incredibly difficult

They were new to the market but had everything they needed to succeed.

They were aware that others were being successful, but they couldn't achieve the same

Other people they were aware of in the industry were "crushing it", but they didn't feel good about where they were and couldn't make it pay.

Through conversations, it was clear that they were very scared of failure, and this caused huge procrastination

Every day was a mess of stress and nerves as they were focused on everything that could go wrong, so they avoided everything they could in order to cope with the amount of stress they had. They had very extreme perfectionism and it was ruining their business.

Due to this, they would only take on very exacting types of client with certain challenges

Only those with virtually guaranteed success were entertained as customers.

During those campaigns, they gave more and more for free, because they were afraid of not succeeding

Profits were low because there was a huge amount of "Oh, don't worry, I'll throw it in for free". Perfectionism was cause their hour rate to reduce hugely. Even very constructive criticism from customers was seen as blame and unhappiness.

Even though they were extremely proficient at their job, they couldn't let go of this feeling

They were clearly very effective and worked at a consistently high level, but were struggling with fear of failure and set themselves up for business problems with completely unrealistic expectations given the cost of their service.

This caused them to never be able to outsource tasks, even with clear processes

If they weren't good enough to do the work, there's no way they could accept the mistakes that others would make, so they kept all of the work to themselves. This meant they really had a stressful job, not a fun and enjoyable business.

All of this together, meant that their business couldn't grow and was struggling

Clearly, put together, all of these issues were causing the marketing agency to almost completely fail.

We worked together on confidence, changing to a growth mindset and focusing on today instead of constantly avoiding future challenges

Over a number of sessions, we looked at the fears they had and their common perfectionist thoughts, and changed their mindset to see failure as positive, as well as focus less on the future. We also worked to calm their inner critic, which was aiming to keep them safe, but was incredibly unkind.

Through time, the client transformed their business and were able to grow

During the months of personal growth, the client finally allowed themselves to accept failure and set realistic goals that would bring just enough success. They lost most of their stress, became more productive and started to outsource tasks and grow. Imperfection was now seen as growth, rather avoided at all costs.

Why is this perfectionism happening?

In the early stages, business owners try to fix their own issues with more knowledge

If you're here, you probably think you need more knowledge to combat your fear of failure, but there will often never be enough.

But you already have most or all of the knowledge you need; the challenge isn't there

You likely already know what you need, but you are terrified of failure. This is the path to solving the challenges you have.

How does business coaching with me help?

I am an expert at recognising your patterns based on your behaviours and speech

You will not yet be aware of these, which is why you will continue to take the same unsuccessful paths, in this case focusing on unsuccessful solutions.

You will eventually recognise your perfectionism before it occurs

As we work together, you will learn how to break your dependence on this pattern of behaviour.

You can then select to test out alternative routes that may be more fruitful

You can then keep yourself from picking the same unsuccessful paths automatically and repeatedly, allowing you to discover more productive paths that don't require perfection.

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey ​

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.​
Begin with your free discovery session

5 questions to ask your perfectionist self

1. What will happen to your business if you stopped being a perfectionist?

How will your future prospects change?

2. Think of a time you were a perfectionist recently. What would it feel like if you had given just enough instead?

It's likely there will be both positive and negative emotions.

3. What does perfectionism protect you from?

What is the positive intention behind perfectionism? Do you know?

4. What would it feel like to let go of the stress need to work hard and feel too responsible for the outcomes of others?

How would you change?

5. Are you willing to continue being a perfectionist?

The choice remains yours.
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“The difference from my first session to now is life changing for me. The growth is so wonderful”.

— SARA,ENTREPRENEUR

Who am I?​

I'm Phil Drinkwater, a leading transformational business and life coach who supports clients in discovering how to maximise their potential, by reducing patterns like perfectionism.

I'm a Certified Coach with a totally unique approach that will help you understand your perfectionist tendencies, and why that leads to the challenges you're facing with your business.

I'll support you in your business journey as you move on, and also include elements of life coaching to help you appreciate how it impacts your wider life too.

I’ve run my own successful online non-coaching business with up to 20 employees for 22 years

My own perfectionism helped me become a high achiever, while gaining a great deal of knowledge about how it affects business, from reducing productivity to stunting business growth.

I always consider myself a recovering perfectionist, because I have to keep my thoughts in check.

I'm also psychology trained

I'm aware that our needs, thoughts and emotions determine whether we succeed or fail, and how we can change these to produce a more success-oriented mindset.

How will we begin coaching?

What will happen in our Free Discovery Session?

We'll become acquainted and gain a grasp of what is occurring for you and how perfectionism is affecting you.

If you're nervous, I'm incredibly kind

We will move at your pace. You'll feel more confident after a brief period of time with me, because I am a very understanding person. But if you prefer a more gentle introduction to coaching, we can do that as well.
"I'm really am nervous!"

All coaching is done online to keep costs accessible to all

Since lockdown, people are more used to working remotely in different ways. I can coach you from afar just as well as in person.

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.​
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“Before business coaching, I didn’t believe I could have what I really wanted, and I settled for second, third and fourth best. Now I’m moving forward with what I really want.”

— CHELSEA, EVENTS BUSINESS OWNER

How will we continue?

Pricing for one to one coaching services, and discounted packages

Single sessions for business owners and entrepreneurs are £189 - with a 15% discount in your first year of business. Single sessions for executives are £300. Discounted packages are available.

In coaching we'll discuss challenges, resistance and how to design an amazing life and business

We can discuss anything you find valuable, but we'll focus on what's difficult and why you're resistive to particular courses, such as those that could result in failure. We will also evaluate your optimal working style and how this fits into the life you desire.

We'll meet every 2 to 3 weeks, usually

I suggest we meet every few weeks, depending on schedules. This allows you to take actions so we can evaluate the effectiveness for you.

How does your future look?

What have you tried so far to solve your perfectionism?

Perfectionism can reduce productivity hugely. You've likely tried to solve this already. How successful have you been?

Are you serious about improving your situation?

Out of ten, how much do you want success in your business?
Out ten, how certain are that you will achieve success?

What will happen if you continue on as you are?

If you consider the following 5 to 10 years, will you be able to satisfy your need for perfection? What steps will you take to improve your chances?

If there was "writing on the wall" about your future, what would it say?

Close your eyes for a second and let this come naturally to you; what's the "writing on the wall" for you?

Get FREE access to my online video course "17 lessons to $20million" - my own journey

By booking your free discovery session, I'll give you access to my course which details key elements of my own journey, worth £300.
Begin with your free discovery session

What they say..

“In just one session, Phil took me from a place of apprehension to one of clarity and confidence. We spent time working out what things I need in order to achieve job satisfaction”.

— MARA, NEW MANAGER