ABOUT FELLSIDE / EST. 2012
A coaching practice built by people who’d been coached badly
Fellside exists because its founder hired three business coaches during his operator years — and fired all three for talking in posters.
THE STORY
From a packaging plant in Bolton to a studio in Ancoats
Neil Garside sold Garside Packaging in 2010 after nineteen years, eleven of them as MD. He’d used coaches along the way — some helpful, most not — and kept a private list of everything he’d wanted and never got: someone who’d read the accounts before opining, someone who’d run a payroll, someone who’d say the awkward thing.
Fellside opened in 2012 as that list, made into a practice. The first three clients were manufacturers who knew Neil from his operator years; the 214th signed last month. The rule that built the place still stands: no coach joins without having genuinely run a company.
The name? Neil plans his year on the fells above Edale. The metaphor stuck because it’s honest: businesses aren’t rocketships, they’re hills — climbed in legs, in weather, with a map.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Five working principles
01Numbers before narratives
Every session opens with the figures. Feelings matter; margins pay for them.
02Operators only
Every coach has run a company. Empathy you can’t fake, questions you can’t Google.
03Fees in daylight
Every price is on the website. “Investment on application” is a tell, not a strategy.
04Three priorities, never ten
A route card you can hold in your head survives contact with a busy week.
05Say the awkward thing
Politeness that costs the client money isn’t kindness. We’re northern about it.
THE STUDIO
Blossom Street, Ancoats
A fourth-floor studio in a converted mill: one long oak table, decent coffee, and no motivational posters — clients have checked. Boardroom groups and workshops run here; one-to-one sessions run here, at your premises, or on video.
Studio 4.06, 27 Blossom Street,
Ancoats, Manchester M4 6AD
Mon–Fri 8.30am–5.30pm
THE FIRST STEP
Walk the first mile with us. Free.
A 90-minute Survey Session at Blossom Street or on video: your numbers on the table, an honest read of the terrain, and a first route card to keep — whether or not we ever meet again.
NO OBLIGATION · NO FOLLOW-UP PESTERING · EST. 2012