Betty Hasker and Glorie Averbach coach small businesses on how to grow big

When Betty Hasker decided to become a business coach in 2014, she was working off the side of her desk. She didn’t know where the road would lead, but she had 20 years of C-suite experience in her rearview.  

“I spent a lot of time in director roles for other organizations (director of sales, director of operations, director of marketing), helping them grow,” says the Manitoba native. 

In love with “the good, the bad and the ugly of business,” starting a coaching and consulting firm seemed like the natural next step for her. Thus, myCEO was born.

The endeavour attracted Glorie Averbach—a tech entrepreneur in the custom home automation sector—to come on board as a co-founder in 2016. By then, the coaching firm had an office space in Vancouver. And Averbach, who grew up in Winnipeg, had just sold the last of her two businesses. 

With 50 years of combined experience, the duo built myCEO to coach and consult small-to-medium sized businesses on growth strategies with a focus on sales, customer service training and process and training. The co-founders also develop and execute digital strategies to attract clients online. 

“We know what keeps these people up at three o’clock in the morning, because we’ve been up at three o’clock in the morning with exactly the same thoughts and concerns,” Averbach maintains. 

They work with a host of local businesses, including BCBusiness 30 Under 30 Alicia Close’s nonprofit advocacy group, Women in Tech World. The four-year partnership gave rise to the Women in Tech Mastermind Series, a six-month program targeted towards helping women-led businesses network with others in the industry as well as access essential resources.

During the pandemic, myCEO also collaborated with Small Business BC and Laura Sukorokoff of C-Change Learning to deliver a webinar called the Sales Hat Series, which spills the beans on navigating sales during and after COVID.  

After a lean few years of operations, Hasker saw her business double in 2017. A year later, the company grew another 60 percent. With a stable growth rate of 50 percent a year, the two co-founders are now thinking of outsourcing some of their services.  

“Both Glorie and I have been on the other side of coaching conversations,” notes Hasker. “As a business owner, you’re often very stuck ‘in the business’ and working with a coach allows you to get out of the day-to-day and take a larger view. That outside perspective, especially as a small business owner, is so valuable in being able to think ideas through and to be able to think through the implementation.”