Canberra Business Accelerators

Working with established Canberra businesses turning over $1M or more to unlock profit, reclaim time, and build teams that don’t rely on the owner to function.

About the Business

Canberra Business Accelerators is a coaching and advisory practice run by Natalie Sammons from Fyshwick. She works with established Canberra businesses, typically turning over $1M or more with existing teams, to improve profitability, reclaim the owner’s time, and build leadership that doesn’t depend on one person carrying everything.

“A business is a direct reflection of the owner. So you’ve got to grow the owner to grow the business.”

~ Natalie Sammons

Her approach works across four areas: Time, Team, Customers, and Money. Individual engagements are fully bespoke, with a peer-to-peer group coaching option available for owners who want a cohort structure. Wherever possible, coaching is conducted face-to-face. 

Natalie is a CPA with more than 25 years across accounting, finance, tax, and senior management. Apart from her work at Canberra Business Accelerators, she serves as Treasurer on the UnitingCare Kippax Board. Before her corporate career, she spent six years as an elite netball player at the AIS and still coaches at the representative level today.

In Conversation with Natalie

Where did it all start for you?

Canberra born and bred. An accountant by background, a CPA in the tax space for 15 years. I was in the public service for three years at Defence Housing Australia as their tax manager, then moved to financial controller, then took up a property investment fund manager role and helped set up a $50 million property fund. 

I’d worked under two business coaches in my previous roles, and I thought, I love what they do, and I was motivated to start a coaching consultancy of my own. In my previous work as an account, I felt we were looking too far behind what was happening in the business right now. What I love about business coaching is that we’re helping people directly with what the business needs right now. 

In broad brush terms, what does your process look like when you first work with a business?

Every single client’s different. That’s one thing I don’t do, which is just have a cookie-cutter program I run through. There are a few things that are similar for each client though. We start with planning, personal and business, because we’ve got to get direction, and give you that ‘north star’ you are working towards. Then I always look at how to get you some more time back and how to get you a bit more money in your pocket first. I do quarterly planning with my clients and a monthly KPI check-in. The KPIs we set together. Some may be financial, others may be things like five coffee meetings a week.

What advice would you give someone looking for a good business coach?

Look at what their process is around how they bring you on and help you make that decision. They should be teaching you something in that process. And it’s also a personality fit. You get very personal with your coach. If there’s a gut feel that it’s not the right person for you, trust your instincts. You’ve got to feel that you’re not locking yourself into anything and that you’re able to trust the person you’re dealing with.

A way in which we differentiate ourselves as coaches is that we coach on leadership in addition to business strategy and optimization. Other coaches often only focus on one or another, which often doesn’t give the complete picture of what you need to success in business.

What feedback do I get from your clients?

That I changed their life. A lot of business owners work too hard for too little money. They’re stressed, they don’t see their family, they don’t see their kids. I’ve just lost a client I worked with for 15, 16 months. He’s gone from not ever having a holiday to taking a three-week holiday without checking in with his office once. He’s gone from breaking even to $500,000 profit, and from $3,000 to $4,000 a month to $28,000 or $29,000 in the space of three months. To me, that’s changing lives.

What do you focus on outside of work?

I’m very much into fitness and health. Healthy mind, healthy body, healthy life. I was a netballer, Australian level, at the AIS on scholarship when I was younger. I made Australian underage squads and also tried out for the Australian handball team just before the Sydney Olympics. Coming from that high-performance coaching background in sports has influenced how I coach my business clients.

Wholistic Business Coaching for Canberra Businesses

If you’re an established Canberra business owner who has hit a ceiling and is ready to move past managing chaos to leading a sustainable, profitable team, Natalie Sammons offers a proven path forward. By combining the financial discipline of a CPA with the accountability of a high-performance athlete, she provides a bespoke framework that focuses on the owner’s growth to unlock the business’s full potential,

Interested in working with Natalie? Canberra Business Accelerators offers a free 15-minute strategy call. Book at canberraba.com.au.