A little bit of background
If you were to look at Geoff Tarr’s career path, as Geoff says “there’s definitely no straight lines”. In fact to say variety is the spice of life would be putting it more aptly. Business Owner, Pilot, Property Developer & Investor and more recently a Childcare Centre Owner, Geoff has turned his entrepreneurial hand to the opportunity ahead of him.
Geoff began his career in the farming and horticulture sector and began investing in residential property in his early 20’s. Heading to Auckland he worked in the commercial sector and became interested in aviation. Geoff turned his passion for flying into hisnext career move leaving the farming sector and eventually becoming a commercial helicopter pilot.
Due to a family tragedy, Geoff returned to Tauranga in the early 90’s and joined the family business which was Awnings & Covers Limited. Turning his hand to his family’s owner/ operator business Geoff soon began to develop and grow the company into a successful entity within the marketplace.
Geoff states that identifying strong life and business mentors in all aspects of his life has been integral in helping him achieve success, from his step father Brydon Craig, along with various successful property and businessmen, including his long standing business relationship with Grace Team Accounting.
How does Grace Team fit in to the picture?
“I first met Lindsay Grace and quickly realised he wasn’t your stereo-typical accountant. He was open and approachable and took more interest in the actual business operation, always looking at the big picture” says Geoff.
“Over the years, I think it’s almost 26 now, I worked with Lindsay initially and then was introduced to Michael as my business interests and needs grew”.
Having sold Awnings & Covers Geoff moved on from his initial residential property portfolio eventually turning to commercial property development and investment. These days Geoff’s
commercial property portfolio spans the North Island.
“Grace Team are very much part of my business operation, from picking up the phone to talk with Michael about the best way to structure a property investment from a tax position through to running the numbers to scale an idea or vision for a development”.
A few years ago Geoff made the decision to develop two of his properties in central Tauranga with the vision to establish a Childcare Centre, with the potential to eventually sell the business as a going concern or if the business model proved effective and successful to apply the established development model and brand to further centres.
“For the Childcare Centre we’ve been utilising the Quarterly Coaching with our Management team for the last couple of years and this is proving invaluable” says Geoff.
Geoff’s philosophy of calling on the skills you need rather than battling away at it applies to the level of coaching he has obtained for the childcare operation Elm Tree Early Learning Centre in Mission Street.
His open minded approach means that the coaching is for his senior management team and this has helped with the Centre’s growth and development into what is now a successful and profitable Childcare operation.
How does quarterly coaching help your team?
The Management team includes Jo Taute who has a successful background in marketing and business. She oversees the Management team. Donna Williams heads Human resources, Marketing and Finance. “The coaching has given me a much better understanding of how the finances work. It holds us accountable and means we focus on implementing the tasks needed to meet our targets. We’re always lifting our game and the coaching allows us to branch out”.
Sarah Garrett heads Admin and Education. “It empowers a growth mindset. We reflect on our goals, set new ones put timelines in place and then set off to implement them. Sometimes what seemed important in the last quarter on reflection isn’t quite so important so we re-align our goals to keep the focus on moving forward”.
“Donna and I round each others skill set off nicely. And with Jo’s involvement we are always enthused and looking at the potential of what we are doing” says Sarah.
Picture from left: Donna Williams, Sarah Garrett, Jo Taute and Geoff Tarr.
Join Grace Team Accounting Business Coaching programme which consists of quarterly meetings with one of our senior team members, as well as phone and email support. At each meeting together we will review actual results, clarify areas where you can improve your business performance, set 90 day goals and identify strategies to achieve them.
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