Back to Basics

It's hard not to get wrapped up in the complexities of what our businesses demand of us each and every day.  The sheer magnitude of "stuff" that happens during our day makes the business seem complicated.  Then when you throw in the unexpected, it can feel overwhelming.  An employee quits, a customer has a complaint, a shipment doesn't arrive or your main computer server has a meltdown.  You fall in bed at the end of a long day and get up in the morning and do it all over again.  Who said being an entrepreneur was empowering and exhilarating?

Recently, I conducted a seminar on marketing in which we discussed the easy-to-overlook need to think about what your target customer really looks like.  Of course that seems obvious, so much so that one of the attendees commented, "It sounds like we just have to get back to basics".  Actually that is precisely the answer to most small business challenges, including dealing with the complexities and magnitude of our daily challenges.

AdviCoach research breaks down typical business challenges into five basic categories, and in my coaching career, I find that one or more of these five areas nearly always serve to explain what is going wrong in a business.  So going back to basics by thinking about, and dealing with, each of these dangers can often set a business back on track.  And if the business owner can't quite seem to course-correct the challenges on their own, a competent business coach can help make the process more understandable and get the changes in place faster.

Here are the Five Business Dangers that you should consider as your "back to basics" template:

• Inefficient Marketing - You aren't getting the sales (or even the leads) that you need, but you haven't re-calibrated your marketing plan since the internet was invented.  How will prospects learn about you if your marketing messages never hit their intended target?
• Under-Performing Sales - Where do we learn to sell in this country?  It isn't from university business programs where it is nearly impossible to get a degree in Sales.  Rather it is usually from "tribal knowledge", or sales experiences that have provided hints as to how we are supposed to go about selling.  Since these are usually flawed, getting help to learn modern, collaborative selling techniques for ourselves and our sales team is a basic that must be addressed.
• Financial Mismanagement - If you aren't paying attention to the numbers, you might as well drive your car without a dashboard.  It's just not possible to consistently make good business decisions without some type of scoreboard of your results.  This is one of those basics that AT LEAST half of all small business owners need to improve upon.
• Lack of Human Capital Management - If you find yourself saying "I can't find good workers anymore" or "young people nowadays just don't have the work ethic we did" or similar blame-type comments, I have to politely suggest to you that the problem may actually be you.  For most small businesses today, the biggest expense we have is cost of labor, yet we spend little time nurturing our people, caring for their well-being, investing in their training and skills and in general helping them perform at their peak.
• Poor Leadership - This may be the grand-daddy of all the Five Dangers because the others seem to stem from it.  But in essence it shows up in a business owner who has no plan or vision of where the business is going and fails to embrace the kind of systems that could help keep it on track.  Business owners who do the technical work of the business fall prey to poor leadership because as the business grows they fail to change how they work, missing opportunities to put other people and systems in place to permit real growth in profits and equity value.

When things aren't going as well as you'd like, or if you are simply looking for new ideas and strategies to bring your business to the proverbial "next level", perhaps a coach can provide some fresh perspective by helping you discover the basics you may be missing.

Why Hire A Business Coach?

Modestly successful is how I'd describe my high school athletic career.  Honorable mention all-conference linebacker, conference champion in track and field, played two years of basketball, but not quite good enough to play on Friday and Saturday nights.  You get the picture.  There are probably a number of you out there with similar experiences and memories.

I guess I had some natural talent.  I was strong enough.  I grew up in Wisconsin farm country, slinging hay bales on my uncle's farm in the summer.  I was fast, but not the fastest, nor did I have tremendous endurance.  I had my sports heroes, and tried to watch and learn from them.  But I had one thing that made the difference between no memories and nice memories of my high school sports days, and that was good coaching.

On warm August mornings, I can still hear my old football coach, Mr. Noonan, yelling "Pick up the pace, Baltus!"  "One more sprint!"  "That was terrible....Do it again!"  But just as important as that discipline and motivation was the ability of all my coaches to teach me the technique and the strategies of the game.

In business, the similarities are striking.  We all have some ability and experience.  We bring some talent into our business.  We can watch others, talk to others and read about others who have done good things in business.  And just as in our high school sports days, we can improve with the help of a coach to enhance our discipline, motivation, technique and strategy.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons that coaching is becoming more important to business performance enhancement:

• A coach is a mentor or confidant.  When you are the owner or leader of a business, who do you confide in?  The old adage is true; "It's lonely at the top."  A coach can and should be a sounding board, a listener, someone to play back to you what he/she thought you said so you can hear it for yourself.
• Accountability.  My high school coach made sure I ran 100 yard sprints at the end of practice.  It would have been tempting to slack off without his attention.  Many business owners have good plans and good intentions, but fail to execute simply because other distractions get in the way of completing the most important things they intend to do.  A business coach holds the leader accountable to their own goals.
• Vision.  It's easy to forget "that vision thing", as George H. W. Bush called it.  We all get mired in the details of the day and fail to step back and remind ourselves where we wanted to go in the first place.  A coach focuses on the vision or the goal first, and then helps us develop the actions necessary to reach those goals.
• Objective feedback.  Ever tried to tell your spouse, or your brother or best friend some of your dreams or fears.  The feedback isn't usually too objective, is it?  A coach can take the emotions out of your fears and dreams and help you see them for what they are.
• Source of ideas.  Sometimes you just get stuck.  The answers aren't obvious.  You haven't been trained for "this", whatever "this" is.  How do your grow?  How do you handle a sensitive employee issue?  How can you cut back on working so doggone many hours?  A coach has generally seen other options and is aware of other possibilities that you just haven't been exposed to.  Why not take advantage of that experience?
• Coaching pays.  Any good coach wants to help you make more money than you are going to invest in the coaching to help you do it.  But here's the tricky part... it only works if you are engaged and committed to the process.  Here's where the sports analogy comes into play again.  The coach can only show you the exercises, teach you the game and motivate you.  But you have to do the work and compete and play the game.  When that happens you and your coach win!

There's deep satisfaction that comes with success.  Doesn't it make sense to do everything possible to help make success more likely?