Small Business Coach

By Lisa Murray

If you are a small business owner, an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, you may be wondering just what a small business coach can do for you. Firstly it is important to understand that there are three types of help a small business owner may need:  coaching, mentoring or a business consultant.

A coach will help you learn the skills you need to move forward.  A mentor will add the benefits of their personal business experiences. A business consultant offers expertise in specific areas and will contract to complete a project for you. If you are not sure which style suits you, then choose a coach who has a diversity of skills and experience, or one who has great networks and is willing to provide referrals when appropriate.

The following services may be provided by a coach, a mentor or a consultant – it will depend on the specific skills the individual offers. Once you have a sense of the types of support and assistance that could boost your business, it’s time to choose your support team! A great coach will enable you to achieve more - using less time, money and effort!

•    Diagnose issues and offer solutions.

•    Create a compelling vision.

•    Craft a cohesive and prioritized action plan for moving forward.

•    Develop self-discipline, self-motivation and self-confidence.

•    Create space and insights which enable tangible progress.

•    Offer an independent perspective on your ideas, strategies, goals and challenges.

•    Provide honest insights and feedback on your leadership and management skills.

•    Develop emotional intelligence and help you breakthrough mental barriers.

•    Provide access to supportive and business building networks.

•    Create clarity, focus and sustainable motivation.

•    Develop strategies to ensure your business can run without you.

•    Identify alternative high growth business opportunities.

•    Consider expansion and exit strategies.

•    Strategize for succession planning.

•    Offer support in making big decisions.

•    Help you work ON your business rather than IN it.

•    Help you realize the full potential of your current business.

•    Develop a business plan to maximise sales and profits.

•    Transition into new strategies and approaches.

•    Utilize knowledge and experience from other industries.

•    Create stretch goals and action plans and coach you to achieve them.

•    Work out which goals to pursue and which to drop.

•    Re-focus you on business growth or life balance, rather than daily problem-solving.

•    Working out what performance indicators are important to your business.

•    Setting up systems to measure and report on important performance indicators.

•    Identify profitable niche markets and ways to access niches.

•    Review your pricing strategy to maximize profitability.

•    Maximise the potential profitability of current clients.

•    Plan for new client lead generation.

•    Develop effective customer service strategies.

•    Develop strategies to work smarter rather than harder.

•    Identify opportunities for systemizing and automating your business processes.

•    Maximise the contributions of employees and outsourced services.

•    Prioritize: help you get focused on the issues and actions that matter most.

•    Re-balance your workload between what has to be done and what you are best at.

•    Introduce creative problem-solving tools to create new ideas and approaches.

•    Develop new business, product or service ideas.

•    Help you solve business challenges.

•    Expand your perspectives on what is possible.

•    Develop goals for balancing life and work.

•    Develop practical strategies for balancing your life and business commitments.

•    Be your accountability partner.

•    Help with stress management.

•    Strategies for managing overwork and overwhelm.

As a small business coach, I often encounter people who deeply desire to own a small business, but have never been able to get started.  This article is a great resource for identifying your barriers to action and breaking through those barriers to fulfil the dream of owning a small business.

So you want your own small business! What’s stopping you? Fear of the recession?  Worried about giving up a regular income? Not sure you’ve ‘got what it takes’?  Don’t know how to assess business opportunities effectively?  Don’t know how to fund your business? Lacking business ideas?

I spent years wanting a business of my own. In 2007 I quit the job-from-hell and started a couple of small businesses.  And I’ve never been happier or enjoyed my work more!! My only regret is that I didn’t jump headfirst a lot sooner. As a small business coach, I have developed a simple process that will help you make that leap.

What is stopping you really?  List your barriers. The more answers you come up with, the better!

Contemplate your list – these are the excuses which stand between you and your dream business. Usually these excuses mean you need a mindset makeover or you need to expand your knowledge or experience.  

Let’s consider knowledge or experience gaps first.   Try taking the following steps:

Did some of these actions make you squirm a little?  Were you feeling slightly uncomfortable about removing your excuses and demanding action?  If so, it is likely your mindset is not in alignment with your goals.  You really want to own your dream business, but….!  As a small business coach, I regularly observe it is the ‘buts’ that kick our butt – but often in the wrong direction!!

All of us grow up with mind programming that subconsciously defines what we can and can’t achieve, how we do things and why, and which areas of our life are successful and which ones we struggle in.  The key to success is gaining control over the little voice in our heads which says ‘you can’t…’, ‘you don’t know how to….’, ‘you’re too stupid to….’, ‘it’s a struggle to own a small business…’, ‘it won’t be worth the effort…’ etc.

List at least 10 responses to each of the following statements – you’ll easily see the habits and beliefs which are stopping you from starting your own small business.

   1. Being successful in my own small business is too difficult because…..

   2. If I own my own small business, other people will…..

   3. As a small business owner I will have to….

Awareness is the first step.  Self mastery - taking control of your mind and emotions - is the next step.  There are many wonderful mindset techniques which can help you to achieve this. Alternately, make use of a specialist small business coach to move you past these barriers. Your business may be small, but you can always dream BIG!

REVIVE Your Business Vision!

Small business owners often suffer from what I call 'shiny new toy' syndrome. Too many ideas, too many goals, too much to do and not enough time to do it! This small business coaching article will help you get back on track in fulfilling goals that are most important to your business success.

Are you a small business owner, solopreneur or entrepreneur with an unfulfilled vision? Have you set the same New Year resolutions for the past few years but failed to achieve your desired result? Do you have a burning business goal which you have not been able to accomplish? Contrary to the beliefs of some, your past does not have to represent your potential!

You can revive your approach and renew your potential achievements by using this simple but effective ‘ABC‘ model.  The Accountability, Believability, Challenge-ability model is designed to help you overcome your struggles, stresses and beat the status quo that is keeping you from realizing your business goals…
·        Accountability: Access the benefits of a coach or mentor.
·        Believability: Breakthrough the feelings, beliefs and habits which hold you back.
·        Challenge-ability:  Collaborate with a motivated network or support team on your challenge.

AAARGH…. NOT ACCOUNTABILITY!
Many entrepreneurs push hard against the idea of accountability – after all, isn’t the pursuit of freedom one of the key reasons you became your own boss in the first place?  In my experience, the more accountable you make yourself, the more your business will thrive!  After all, you are the only person who can be 100% responsible for taking the actions which will enable you to meet your goal!

That said, we all know that sometimes it can be really challenging to keep ourselves accountable when we are only answerable to ourselves as the business owner.  If you’re anything like me, you may have noticed a little ‘flexibility’ creeping in when there is a much needed strategy or task to be done that you don’t enjoy!

The best answer I have found for this dilemma is to make myself accountable to an external party.  I hate doing my accounts, but I have made some specific commitments to my bookkeeper so that things do not get too out of control.  If I slip on a delivery date, my bookkeeper has full permission to provide me with some firm reminders of my responsibilities – no guilt trips, just a clear and timely prompt regarding our agreement!

If you have a list of ‘excuses’ attached to every incomplete task or goal, or you have been playing the ‘waiting game’ (waiting for something to happen before you take action) then using a specialist small business coach to move you forward on a your business goals will enable you to make fast, easy breakthroughs.

Make sure you design the small business coaching relationship to suit your specific needs.  Also consider that your coaching needs will change over time.  This may mean finding a new business coach or renegotiating the coaching strategy or the relationship with your coach so that you can maximize your returns on the time and financial investments that you make. Here are a few ways to use a small business coach to revive yourself or your dreams:

• Project based e.g. to move you out of overwhelm and into peak performance; to focus on a specific goal or vision and generate tangible progress during a specified time frame.
• Direction-setting e.g. to discover or refresh what you really want from your business or your life; to find profitable strategies to expand your business; to realign your business goals with your personal goals…
• Regular checkup e.g. to keep you on track and to keep you accountable.
• Stretch targets e.g. to achieve a major breakthrough or ‘impossible’ goal; to expand your boundaries, beliefs and business in (currently) unimaginable ways.
• Modelling and mentoring e.g. by using the specific business experience and expertise of your coach to extend your own skills and knowledge.

BELIEFS = BREAKTHROUGHS!
One of the greatest impediments to achieving our vision is the beliefs we hold about that vision.  If, somewhere inside us we don’t truly believe our vision is possible, or we can’t see ‘how’ that vision can be made real, then self-doubt takes over from self-expression.  To make a breakthrough on your languishing vision, you may need to uncover some of the beliefs which are keeping you stuck.

Shine a spotlight on these limiting barriers and blockages by asking yourself:

• What emotions do I feel when I think of my dream in detail?
• What excuses am I using to stop myself from achieving this vision?
• Where am I over-focusing my time and energy because it is easy?
• What opportunities have I (almost) missed because of fear or anxiety?

• Where could I ‘let go of the steering wheel’ and trust that the right results will arrive?

Ask your coach for support - a good business coach will have a range of mindset techniques, tools and tips which enable you to move past these paralyzing emotions and into a space where anything is possible!

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” -- David Beckham

When you believe anything is possible, you will achieve more than you ever imagined! So, what else is possible?

CHALLENGE-ABILITY – DO YOU DARE?
Recently I participated in a 55 day ‘online’ challenge where my business goal was to get a new business idea up and running. Did I succeed?  YES! And I finished off a few other ‘outstanding’ goals as well! This new ‘challenge-ability’ approach to achieving my goals has proven itself a highly effective process which I plan to use often. My next challenge is already set up!

If you want to achieve your goals effortlessly and with ease, then set yourself a challenge and find a group of like-minded people (i.e. supportive, helpful, and action-oriented) who also want to achieve the impossible or the improbable!  Set up an online forum, share your progress daily and use each other as additional knowledge resources, for encouragement and back-up, and to be more accountableyou’re your actions.

As a small business coach, I found it easy to identify my ideal challenge.  Just ask yourself: “If you knew you couldn’t fail what would you most desire to achieve in your life or your business?” For some the dream may be about work-life balance, for others it may be financial or relationship based.  Business goals could encompass expansion, profitability, teamwork, community or customer relationships.

If you don’t currently know any ‘like-minded others’ but you are ready to dust off your dream, provide purpose for your passion and gear up to achieve your business goals with ease, take action now and register for the REVIVE Coaching 2009 “REVIVE Your Dream” challenge.

One last thing: take some pressure off yourself.  Just because you are a small business owner (or want to be one!), you don’t have to achieve everything ‘by yourself’! The opportunity to engage with like-minded others in a supportive, fun and friendly environment is one of the key reasons people make significant progress during a REVIVE challenge. Most New Year resolutions and new business ideas fail because people do not have enough support to help them over the mountains and through the valleys that create barriers to success.

It’s your choice – will you and your business thrive or just survive this year?