Business coach Heather Yakes teaches executives a variety of skills
LANCASTER — Business owners and executives who need a little coaching may want to contact Heather Yakes.
Yakes is the franchise owner and business/executive coach for the local ActionCOACH Central Ohio branch at 132 E. Main St.
“We work with small to medium-sized businesses,” she said. “We work primarily with their owners, but also with their key executives or leaders. Our primary goal is to help them build a commercially profitable business that can work without them. So we’re not only helping them grow financially, but we’re also helping leverage the business owner so that they do not have to be in the business day-to-day.”
Among the variety of services Yakes and her company offer is coaching business owners how to plan and set goals, how to manage their time, how to make financial decisions and how to market themselves, among other things.
“And then ultimately, working with the business owner on building their own personal wealth and personal growth,” Yakes said. “That may be once they get that first business up and running very well we may work with them on investing in other businesses, investing in real estate, opening up multiple locations.”
She works with a mix of businesses, but a company usually has to be in business at least a couple of years. As such, Yakes said her company may not be the best choice for a start-up business.
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“We work with businesses that are doing well and just really want to scale it to get to the next level,” she said. “They kind of hit a wall at a certain point in time and that’s where we help go alongside them as their coach.”
ActionCoach clients are primarily based in central Ohio but also have clients as far away as California. On average Yakes works with a client for about five years.
“Because we’re helping them with that first business, then their next business, and their next business or their next adventure,” she said. “Because true entrepreneurs never stop being entrepreneurs. And we are their trusted coach and partner for the tough decisions that they have to make.”
Yakes worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years and has a supply chain and logistics background.
“The second half of that career I was really focused on corporate strategy helping businesses get from Point A to Point B and working with very large publicly-traded companies $1 billion and above,” Yakes said.
But eight years ago on Valentine’s Day she decided to go off on her own.
‘I really had a passion for coming back to my community,” Yakes said. “I’m from here and I graduated from Fairfield Union High School. I really had a passion to come back here and work with the businesses in my community. Because I really believe they are what makes the heartbeat of the community.”
Away from work, Yakes likes to spend time with her family.
“I have a daughter that’ll be graduating from the University of South Carolina,” she said. “We go visit her a lot. And our son is a freshman at Ohio State, so we go visit him a lot. And my husband (Jeff) and I love to travel. Traveling to different parts of the world and the country is something that we really enjoy.”
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