Kiwi Business Story: Tom Dorman, Co-Founder of Tom & Luke

Tom Dorman is the Co-Founder of Tom & Luke, a holistic business coach and consultant, and an Owner Manager Programme alumni. 

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 11 May 2023, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast here.



What’s a typical daily routine?

It starts anywhere between one and four in the morning – depending on what time my baby boy wakes up! Having a new-born baby means taking a big backseat as far getting your sleep, and doing all the other things around that. 

Since taking a step back from Tom & Luke, I've now been able to get back and start my coaching clinic, Pelvic Pro, down here at our local gym in Stokes Valley.

As probably most of the parents out there will understand, it's all just getting to it when you can, and prioritising on the fly what needs to be done that day.

How did you hear about The Icehouse?

I got a phone call from one of the sales team. I looked at what The Icehouse did, in terms of the investor side of things, and I remember getting a bit excited, going: ‘I’ve been checked out by people who know more about things than we do!’

But then I got talked around to it (OMP), understanding the benefit of it, and having conversations with fellow co-founders Luke [Cooper] and Richard [Plimmer] around some key learnings. 

You did OMP in 2017 while you were working on Tom & Luke, what were the key takeaways?

Cash flow is king, definitely, and the idea that cash to the business is like oxygen and when your oxygen supply is cut off, you die. That really sat with me… understanding what can we do to improve our cash flow was a big thing.

The marketing advice too, in terms of really honing in on our target market. That was one of the things that we did in the first couple of days of OMP. I remember thinking, ‘We’re really successful, we know what we're doing, we know our target market – kids from the ages of five to 95 – and people of all genders, races, religions, whatever! That's our target market – we have something for everyone’. And then learning how silly that is. 

[You need to] really pinpoint your marketing to that one person that you're looking for, and since learning and understanding that, that's something that I've definitely taken away and put into everything else that I've done or started as well. You can't be everything to everybody, but you can be something to somebody.

Any key learnings and advice from the early days of Tom & Luke?

One of the things that we took pride in was our distribution network… For us, it was about managing the distribution ourselves and forming the relationships ourselves (and that was definitely something that we built on for the first five, six and seven years). We really focused on that… Definitely in those beginning stages, that was a really good learning in terms of just the power of connection and the power of conversation.

Tell us about your holistic coaching?

It really meets the client where they're at, and getting to understand the person as a whole, as a whole singular being, but also where do they sit in with their community? Where do they sit on with the business? And then, building things in from there, just creating that different perspective and broadening the horizon a little bit - pulling them out of the ‘battle’ so that they see what's going on.

What does success look like?

It's interesting because I've got such a variety of clients. There’s the business coaching, and those clients will get some different results, but it's also really the people that I work with down here at the Clinic. 

[Success is] when you get just a little fraction of an insight into something and somebody goes, ‘Oh, that's what this is’… ‘Ah, THAT's what THIS is’, and then they can put these pieces together. You're sitting there going, ‘You've just done it!’ – just by asking a certain question, flipping this little thing, or helping them walk down a story.