Tag Archive for 'Business Coach'

Are you hiding behind your business?

Published on February 23, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

At the moment there are supposedly 2 million plus businesses in Australia. This isn’t a very accurate figure because a lot of businesses get registered and never make it out of the gate. Plenty of other businesses do get started but trot along never getting anywhere. Many business owners remain at the helm of these under-performing businesses because;

  • they aren’t accountable to anyone and quite simply they can get away with it. As long as the business is treading water no-one will be any the wiser.
  • they think “What else would I do?”.
  • they don’t want to work for someone else.

The reality is that as business owners we can hide behind the façade and let everyone around us think that we are running really great businesses where everything is going well, staff are really happy and we’re making heaps of money. The real story is of course often quite different.

In one case I asked a client why he liked being in business. Essentially he told me he felt there was a certain prestige from having your own business and that he liked his friends knowing that he was a business owner. I asked him what he’d think if I brought his friends in and showed them his Profit and Loss. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the colour drain out of someone’s face quite so quickly.

The reasons above are not good reasons to stay in an under performing business. If your business is not profitable, not creating wealth for you, not paying you a good salary or leaning towards giving you a great lifestyle then you have to ask ‘Who am I fooling?’ and ‘How long should I let this continue?’. A quick way to determine whether you’re going well is to ask yourself this simple question; “If I hired a general manager to do my job and they performed like I did for the last 12 months, would they still have a job?”. If you’ve said yes, congratulations. If you said no, think about the consequences of your business never improving. The effects reach wider than your own pride.

So how do I turn this around?

The first area you may need to work on is you. If you have been in the habit of letting yourself off the hook then that needs to change. You need to be ready, willing and able to run an organisation that is goal oriented and target focussed.

Then you need to look at your model. Is the business model that you have chosen the best it can be? Is your business consistent? Do people want to work for your business? Many people focus on the product or service but it’s not just about that. You may have a product or service that is better than your competitors but if you’re not marketing, managing cash flow, hiring people and creating systems better than they do, your model is not working properly and could be improved.

How successful is your business model?

Published on February 23, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Here’s a question. If a trusted adviser analysed your business and told you that it will be very difficult in the current configuration to make significant profits, would you continue doing what you are doing or would you stop and regroup?

We often find that business owners continue along the path that they set out on even though years later they might be miserable, getting nowhere and making little or no money. It’s vitally important to get the ‘business model’ that you follow correct as early as you can.

I spoke to someone before Christmas who described himself as a ‘busy fool’ which I thought was a great expression. He elaborated by saying that he was busy all the time but wasn’t getting anywhere, had no exciting prospects to speak of and his business was barely breaking even. These are just a few signs that your business model is not working properly.

Here are the reasons why I think business owners sometimes get caught in this trap:

  • They often want the grand plan to unfold overnight and when it doesn’t they lose patience and motivation.
  • There’s often a sense of being trapped; they can’t stop what they are doing otherwise the money will stop and they wouldn’t survive for more than a month.
  • They avoid the things they don’t like doing mainly marketing, sales, debt collection, budgeting or managing. These things require them to be out in front of others or focusing on areas they are not strong in when they’d much rather be doing things they like.  
  • They don’t do a good enough job measuring what’s happening in their business – targets, staff performance and marketing effectiveness which leaves them ‘flying blind’.
  • They don’t recognise that their own skills and knowledge are a big part of being successful and are often missing key pieces of information.  
  • They wait for opportunities to come to them rather than go after opportunities. They don’t realise that unless they make something happen, nothing will happen and they often depend on ‘low hanging fruit’.
  • They think that there are magic wand / quick solutions to problems or that doing something the wrong way over and over will eventually lead to a favourable result.
  • They let their pride get in the way of sound decisions even when deep down they know that they shouldn’t do so.

We want to encourage business owners away from making these mistakes so that they can make good business decisions and develop a business model that will deliver sound results over time.

By investing time on yourself, you will learn the skills and attitudes you and your staff need to avoid the thinking that leads to the issues above. Making mistakes is part of being in business but continually making the same mistakes is not.

 

Thinking about your model, is it a good one? Do you have all of the information you need to make good decisions? It’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to go in to correcting flaws in your model however remember that you don’t need to fix everything .. just choose one problem and persist with it until it’s a problem no more.

Business Coaching: what you need to know before choosing a business coach

Published on August 19, 2009 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , .

If you’re considering bringing a business coach into your business, the first step is for you to have a clear understanding of why you need one.

The following are statements we commonly hear from business owners we come into contact with. If one or more of these statements rings true for you, then engaging a business coach is a proven method of propelling your business to the next level.

  • I’m so heavily involved in the day to day tasks, I don’t get time to look at the business at a high level
  • Nobody can do things the way I do them. The buck stops with me so I get bogged down in the detail in order to survive
  • I know that I’m going wrong but I just don’t know what to do about it. There’s never a good time to address the issues
  • I don’t have time to look for long term solutions to problems so I end up putting out fires all the time. My working week seems to get longer and longer
  • I can’t seem to find the right people to fit my business and even if I do, they don’t stay. Often, they leave at the worst possible time
  • I don’t have the time or money to change things
  • I can’t see how this business is ever going to help me reach my personal goals

How Business Coaching can help

Business coaching is well-established as a sure fire way to grow a successful business and get your life back into balance.

A business coach will:

  1. Boost your business skills and knowledge. Your own personal development is an important outcome of a business coaching relationship and will be vital as your business continues to grow.
  2. Assist in your decision making process. A good business coach will increase the number of positive decisions made and will always provide unbiased opinions.
  3. Allow you to draw on the successes and failures of others to help you properly direct your business. A coach will help you solve problems once and for all rather than ‘putting out fires’.
  4. Act as a sounding-board and provide an objective / aerial view on the conditions in your business. It can be lonely at the top and a good coach will make you feel more at ease about your decisions.
  5. Save you time and help you to reach your goals quicker. Most businesses encounter similar problems and there’s a good chance a coach can immediately answer a lot of your questions.
  6. Offer you someone to be accountable to. Setting goals and meeting them is not only important but vital in order to make your business successful.
  7. Guide you in the creation of a bullet-proof model for your business and help you to continually build value in this important asset. Your business coach will ensure your business is aligned with your personal goals and ambitions.

Introducing the Your Business Success Program

Your Business Success is a business coaching program designed by experts, business coaches and highly successful entrepreneurs to be effective and affordable in the current economic climate.

The program uses 80 business case studies on DVD, workbooks containing over 2,500 ideas, questions and concepts and one-to-one contact customised to your business and your budget.

Much of the material is taken from over 11,000 hours of interactions with business owners during the last 10 years, so it is well-proven across multiple industries and scenarios.

The case studies feature real businesses being assisted by some of Australia’s best known business men and women, as well as an army of marketing, sales, financial, human resource, IT and operations experts. You won’t find this much business knowledge in one place anywhere else.

So you get a taste for how it works, we’ve complied 9 short video excerpts from the Program which you can access FREE just by registering here. Simply enter your details and access instructions will be emailed to you immediately.

Click here to register