To Whom It May Concern,

Music Mountain Water is a family owned business of 90+ employees. We have been in business for 31 years, and have recently started adding new members to our family of long time employees. We were going through the pains of transition to a new Company culture. Our group of young but talented managers were pulling hard, but in different directions.

Six months ago I heard about Strengths Finder Coaching from a fellow CEO at an Industry “best practices” group that I participate in. He stated that it was the best thing he had ever done for his Minneapolis based company. I have always been skeptical of “consultants” or someone from the outside telling me how to manage my business, but on the testimony of my respected colleague, I decided to give it a closer look.

In search of finding out more about this tool and a possible coach/consultant, I Googled Strengths Finder and found Brent O’Bannon at StrengthsFinderCoaching.com .

After speaking with Brent, I liked what I heard and contracted with him to help me bring cohesion to a diverse but loyal team of Senior Managers.

We utilized Brent in monthly individual and Leadership team (group) coaching sessions where we focused on creating better communication, growing leadership, getting the right people, with the right strengths in the right positions, and delegating tasks that were not our strong points to allow us to accomplish more in areas of our individual strengths.

I was quickly amazed at the things we were all learning about, not only our fellow managers, but also about ourselves. The most common expression from the group was “Ahaaaa! Now I understand”.

I have never been a part of an exercise that seemed to get people more excited and willing to commit than Brent’s Strengths Finder Coaching program.

We implemented the program at a time when my whole team had more on their plates than ever before. Even in these trying circumstances, there was 100% buy-in from the group. They all got engaged, and momentum increased as we all discovered our own strengths and better understood those of our team members.

Some of the successes we have achieved since we started coaching with Brent are;

• My whole team and I are focused on a unified set of goals.
• I have hired an assistant to delegate time consuming tasks to increasing my productivity.
• Communication and understanding between team members is better than it has ever been and still improving.
• I have rearranged assignments and staffed strategic positions based on the strengths of individual managers.
• The transition of our “Customer Service” department into a “Customer Relationship Management” mindset is starting to gel after struggling before implementation of Brent’s Strengths Finder coaching.
• Employee engagement and morale has increased greatly due to programs started when my production coordinator learned to leverage a dormant Relator strength.

I, like my colleague that introduced me to Strengths Finder Coaching, have to say that this has been one of, if not the best, investment I have made in the 31 years that I have been in business.

It takes time, energy, and other resources, but it has already made a huge difference, and we have just scratched the surface. Getting two managers to start working in concert with one another is often difficult. Through this initiative, I now have eight working together better than any two did before.

We are well on our way to reaching the goal, that I had related to Brent when we first met, of building a strengths-based company that runs like a well oiled machine with more productivity and profitability.

If you have any questions on Brent’s Strength Finders Coaching program I would be glad to talk with you.

Sincerely,

Marcus Wren, CEO
Music Mountain Water Company
305 Stoner Avenue
Shreveport, LA71101
www.MusicMountain.com
318-425-4400<