The Return of the Business Coach

I’m going to start with a statement that seems counter productive to my profession;

Business Training is largely a waste of time and money.

The easiest way to explain this would be to recall a quote from one of our previous clients, Francis:

 Training in any form largely concerns itself with the transfer of knowledge. Unfortunately many of us will know the things we ought to be doing more of but we fail to understand the importance of key tasks.

This is where coaching comes into play and in particular Business Coaching. However we are dealing with an unregulated industry, so we as a company dropped the term “Business Coach” two years ago. Why? Because ask your self, every time you go to a networking event, how many coaches do you meet. As many as Graphic/Web Designers I would wager. Most of these coaches are life/NLP or confidence coaches, or worse still Accountants who claim to offer a coaching service, but in fact offer a business advisory service, which again deals with a transfer of knowledge.

So in all this murky water, what is a Business Coach and why on Earth would you need one?

Simple really. A Business Coach is a professional that has the necessary understanding of what works commercially and has the skill set to communicate that knowledge in such a way that, simply put, you ‘get it’ enough to take affirmative action which leads to results, both commercially and personally.

I’II give you another example, a client of mine, was sent on a 4 day management development course that is part and parcel with large corporate enterprises. 3 months down the line, she was still grappling with line management delegation. Having the good sense to pick up the phone we had a coffee and to quote her:

Now I won’t lie, I was very flattered and because she ‘got it’ perhaps in her enthusiasm she exaggerated a little. I simply helped her translate knowledge she had picked up from the course into a level of understanding she could use.

So we made a decision last month, we are reclaiming the title and setting a new bar that all “business coaches” must adhere to give themselves credibility.

If you are working with a Business Coach, then they ought to be able to agree to the following:
1. Inspiring the need to develop both yourself AND the business
2. Motivating you to take/find the internal resolve that leads to affirmative actions that drive the business forwards.
3. Lay business processes in place that move the enterprise away from an owner operated model to one that operates with a strong management board
4. Lastly and most importantly, is prepared to guarantee if they fail to educate, inspire and transform your business, then they will return their programme fees.

So ask yourself, ‘How big is the well of your business knowledge?’ And then ask, ’How much of this do you actually use day to day?’ If you actually did all of the things you ought to do, what would be the result?
The excuses of time, money, the economy are I’m sorry to say just statements of denial. Just look at our results http://www.templetongreen.com/our-results/ and you’ll see that we cut thru the quagmire of denial and excuses and help you gain the necessary understanding to move your business forwards.

With our new Programs Launching this month, we offer a money back guarantee, if it does not deliver a strong commercial result in line with the results we have shown above, we will give you a full refund at the end of the course. So finally I ask you, does the benefit of working with a Templeton Green Business Coach out weight the risk of staying with the status quo.

Get in touch for a needs analysis to find out which of our new programs are best for you and with training grants available, the investment becomes extremely attractive for you to push forwards the business and gain the commercial success you deserve.

Lastly as we say at Templeton Green, in business as in life, we have choices, what will you choose today?

There is a famous story by Napoleon Hill. It goes something like this:

There was a cat who liked to sit on the stove. One day he accidently sat on the hot stove. That cat never sat on the hot stove again. In fact he never sat on the stove when cold either. He simply got out of the business of sitting on stoves… He ‘over-learned’ from experience…

So why recap this story? Last week, I was treated to lunch by two successful business owners who both appeared to share traits with the cat in our story and herein lies the truth of the past few years.

Regardless of industry, the overwhelming majority of us have had to adapt to how we do business. We’ve seen our markets move, the strength of business relationships tested and the need to be less cavalier about spending.

The danger of over-learning from our experience is we begin to see everything we do as a prelude to disaster and walk the cautious path. We all know this path, the prudent and careful one, forgetting that it was the opposite of such behaviour that lead to our entrepreneurial desire and success. So we willingly move from one extreme to the other under the justification that we’re in tough times.

So what’s the result? We create a business that is starved of success, creativity and most importantly joy. With the green shoots of recovery becoming evident (go on, I dare you to take off those pessimistic specs and take a REAL look), we are all in danger of being the cat that tentatively goes back into the market place, that slows growth and confirms our worst fears, we’re not ready. We’ve forgotten what a calculated risk is. We just see the problem in things.

So how to improve? How to find a balance between caution and the cavalier? Here are three tips:

1. Write down your optimistic and pessimistic expectations for the task ahead.
2. Clearly write down the risks to success. Now this can be hard to see. We can be in denial about the real risks, so explain it someone who is not directly related to you business. Someone’s whose opinion you trust. If you can explain to them the task without using jargon, then you are more than half way there.
3. Look at both the Profitability and the cashflow requirements of the task. These are different. If a new venture/product/service has a high gross profit but the customer payments are delayed, you could find yourself out of business.

 Lastly as we say at Templeton Green, in business as in life, we have choices, what will you choose today?

Starting a business is hard. But keeping one going is even harder.Scotlandhas an unenviable business failure rate compared to the rest of theUK, with 60% of start-up companies failing within the first three years of business, and an alarming 80% going under within five. There are, of course, many reasons why a business fails, but more can be done to ensure new business owners are fully prepared for the hard work and the 24/7 attention required to keep a new venture afloat.

 Starting a business, in my eyes, is similar to owning a pet for the first time. We create this ideology of how much fun it’ll be and the benefits we will receive from having one. But it’s not until you actually get the pet or start the business that you realise there’s a lot of clearing up, hard work and dedication required to get the most out of it.

 For example, looking after a dog is more than simply enjoying long summer walks with man’s best friend – whether you like it or not, your dog needs feeding, regular exercise (regardless of the torrential rain outside), bathing and taken to the vet when it isn’t well – a costly exercise in itself – not to mention endless amounts of attention and cleaning up after it.

 Do it right and your dog will be your best friend. Do it wrong and it’ll take its appreciation elsewhere – leave the gate open and it’ll be gone.

 When my niece, aged six, asked for a pet, she was given a Tamagotchi – a virtual pet which needs to be fed and cared for just like a real one. If she could keep it alive for two weeks then a real pet would be considered. She was the perfect owner for a couple of days but she soon became bored asking her parents to look after the pet. Within a week, two virtual pets were on their way to digital heaven.

 If potential business owners were forced to successfully run a Tamagotchi-style virtual business before they received funding from banks and business start-up agencies, how many would actually be granted the cash?

 Funding bodies might be more inclined to say yes if people can prove they can cope with everything a business can throw at them – they might even invest a little more.

 The internet hosts an array of virtual games where virtual beings make friends, earn money and eat, so I see no reason why we can’t create a similar environment for trialling businesses and their owners.  Real business issues could easily replace fighting and car racing challenges on the web.

 If you own a business, and particularly if you don’t employ anyone, you are responsible for everything – cleaning, tax returns, facing the public, ordering stock – and when you’re relying on yourself to do all these things on top of what you perceive as your job, it sometimes becomes more than you can manage.

 All too often, I see business owners struggling because they hadn’t thought about who would look after the business when they’re on holiday or didn’t really like doing the finances, so constantly pushed them aside. You might have a great product or service to offer the market but if the back office tasks aren’t completed properly and poor decisions are taken your business won’t survive.

 Maybe it’s time we started urging businesses to prove they can hack it in the digital world before they come a cropper in this one.

 Lastly as we say at Templeton Green, in business as in life, we have choices, what will you choose today?

 huge thank you to Mark Johnston of Grid Design a client of ours who is the inspired the following story.

Question – What is the function of a catalyst?

Collins Essential English Dictionary has catalyst described the noun as:

1. a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

2. a person or thing that causes an important change to take place: e.g. a catalyst for peace

Now, in the majority of businesses, all of the major ingredients necessary to run a thriving commercial enterprise are in place and will have been so for many years, but ask yourself, could the business operate faster and more effectively if you could give it a good shake and get rid of some of the cobwebs?”

Here are some tips and ideas which may help to identify whether a catalyst is necessary within your business:

• Does your marketing yield consistent number of enquiries per month?
• Is there a proven process of review and change to increase sales conversion?
• Is this year’s turonver and profit going to exceed last year’s figures?
• Does the business review its performance and implement improvement changes every 90 days?
• Does everyone in the business pull in the same direction?

Remember, regardless of what the media portrays, there is still business to be found and money to be made.

It is your choice, what environment do you create for yourself and your team, one that gets by or one that flies?

Want to get started immediately?

For a limited time only, we are giving local business owners the opportunity to undertake a full 2.5 hr business review with our compliments.

We’ll review your marketing strategies, your sales process and your cashflow potential within the business. Our guarantee is that we’ll leave you with a minimum of three proven ideas to move your business forwards.

Just ask yourself the question, is the benefit of this complimentary review by experienced business improvement specialists outweigh the risk of keeping with the status quo?

Does that sound like a worthwhile investment of your time?

Our role is to help start the reaction and provide the re-education of business strategy for this new business environment. Just look at our testimonials to see direction and focus we’ve given to so many businesses, both small and large.