02/06/2026
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The Questions That Changed Everything
About two years ago, a contact introduced me to Rico Swan over a coffee.
He’d actually come to talk about something completely different. But as the conversation developed, I started asking him questions about the business. Not complicated questions. Fairly simple ones really.
What do you actually want this business to look like in five years?
What’s your monthly margin right now?
If you disappeared for a week, what would break first?
Rico told me later that was the moment he decided to work with me.
Not because the questions were particularly clever, but because he realised he didn’t really have the answers. And deep down, he knew he probably should.
Rico runs No More Stumps. At the time, the business was growing. He had ambition, energy and a good reputation. Nothing was collapsing. There was no major crisis. But underneath the surface there were gaps in clarity around where the business was actually heading, how it was performing and how dependent it still was on him personally.
That is far more common than most owners would admit.
The businesses I work with are rarely “bad” businesses. More often they are run by capable people who are working hard, staying optimistic and quietly avoiding questions they haven’t really stopped to think about properly.
What do I actually want from this business?
Am I building profit or just turnover?
Is this business genuinely structured — or is it still relying on me for almost everything?
Most owners are busy enough to avoid sitting with those questions for too long. Activity becomes a distraction from clarity.
Positive thinking has its place. Belief matters. Optimism matters. But optimism without honest answers to honest questions is just hope wearing a business suit.
Over the last couple of years, Rico and I have worked on the business properly. We clarified the philosophy behind it, defined guiding principles, improved the marketing, strengthened sales processes, tightened operations and built better systems around how the business runs day-to-day.
The difference now is noticeable.
The business operates with far more structure and far less chaos. Decisions are clearer. The direction is clearer. And importantly, Rico is building towards goals that, when we first met, hadn’t even really been defined.
We still speak regularly, and I’m sure we’ll work together again in the future.
What interests me most is that none of it started with a dramatic intervention. It started with a coffee and a few questions that forced some honest thinking.
That is often where meaningful change begins.
Not with motivation.
Not with pressure.
But with clarity.
And if you’re reading this quietly wondering how confidently you could answer those same questions about your own business, that’s probably worth paying attention to.
Andy Walter — making it easier to build a better business, with less pressure and less stress.
https://waltergroup.co.uk/the-questions-that-changed-everything/
