Case Study: Business Mentors NZ

Beyond the Blueprint: How Mentoring Helped Bassett-Smith Architecture Strengthen the Business Behind the Design

Lloyd Bassett-Smith is the founder of Bassett-Smith Architecture, a design-led architectural practice based in the Bay of Plenty. The practice works across new homes, renovations, and larger residential and commercial projects, including The Pitau retirement village in Mount Maunganui.

Through CGF's funded partnership with Business Mentors New Zealand, Lloyd was matched with an experienced mentor who helped bring greater structure to his growing business. The result was clearer direction for the next stage of the practice, refined systems, and space to test new ideas for the future.

Building the Business Behind the Design

For Lloyd Bassett-Smith, starting his own practice was never a rushed decision.

"Starting my own practice was something I had thought about for a long time," Lloyd explains. "After finishing my study, the plan was always to go out on my own, but I spent many years learning through different roles and projects before the timing was right."

Looking back, he is grateful for that time. The years spent working across different businesses and project types gave him a depth of experience he could draw on when he eventually opened Bassett-Smith Architecture. Since then, the practice has grown to cover everything from new homes and renovations through to larger residential and commercial work, including The Pitau, a substantial retirement village development in Mount Maunganui.

At its heart, Bassett-Smith Architecture is a design-led practice creating beautiful, considered, and sustainable buildings. As Lloyd puts it, the scale or type of project matters less than the care, quality, and responsibility brought to the work.

Creating Space for the Next Stage

By the time Lloyd sought mentoring support, the business was growing steadily. The projects were strong, the clients were good, and he had a clear sense of the work he wanted to be doing.

"There was not always enough space to step back and look at the business as a whole," he says. "It felt like the right time to get an outside perspective from someone experienced who could ask good questions and help me think through where things were heading."

That's where the CGF-funded Business Mentors New Zealand (BMNZ) partnership came in, connecting Lloyd with mentor Poly Barratt, who brings decades of business experience and runs her own coaching company, Axis of Action.

Testing a New Direction

Lloyd came into the mentoring relationship with several ideas he wanted to test properly, including a new initiative exploring the middle ground between group housing and a fully bespoke architectural process. The aim was to give more people access to well-designed, sustainable homes with greater certainty from the outset.

Together, Lloyd and Poly spent much of their time fine-tuning the business and preparing it for its next stage. Much of the value came from tidying up loose ends in planning, workflow, and systems. As the new initiative moved closer to launch, Poly helped Lloyd look beyond the design idea itself and think about the structure behind it.

"Poly had a way of getting to the heart of an issue quickly," Lloyd says. "She asked practical questions that helped strengthen and test the idea."

A Faster Way to Learn

For Lloyd, the biggest difference came from having someone with significant business experience to talk things through with.

"That showed in the way she could quickly understand an issue, ask the right question, and get to the part that mattered," he says. "That was incredibly valuable."

Mentoring also gave him a faster way to learn and apply new ideas directly to his own business, helping him move forward more directly while leaving more space for the parts of the work that matter most to him: designing well, building strong client relationships, and creating work of lasting quality.

It also supported practical improvements to workflow, including the introduction of an agile framework to help structure priorities, tasks, and progress without changing the fundamentals.

As Lloyd describes it, the value came from having someone outside the business who could help test ideas, clarify priorities, and keep the next stage moving.

Looking Ahead

Lloyd's goals for Bassett-Smith Architecture remain grounded in what has always driven him: doing work of the highest quality, whatever the scale or budget, and building long-term relationships with clients, consultants, and builders based on trust and a shared commitment to doing things well.

For any business owner weighing up whether mentoring is worth it, Lloyd's answer is simple.

"It is absolutely worth doing," he says. "Mentoring gave me someone outside the business who could listen carefully, ask better questions, and help me see things more clearly."

CGF is proud to support access to the Business Mentors New Zealand programme for member associations. When capability grows in individual businesses, it grows across the whole sector.