I recently wrote a post called When Cutting Edge Cuts Too Deep in which I warned against getting too fancy pants with your small business clients – for instance, focusing on a Pinterest campaign for a dry cleaners when they’re not even making the most of the big business opportunities available such as handling a large local hotel’s cleaning.

But I want to take this one step further back.

We all come to any given client with certain preferences for generating business.  And there’s no question that the current favourite, the in vogue wunderkind of business, is social media – not surprising, it’s fun, contemporary, ever-changing – it gives you that uber-cool, “I’m a social media expert, darling” buzz!

But hold your horses!  Take off your preference specs for a moment and look at what’s right for the client. READ MORE >>

When I was about 9 years old my mum bought a new meat cleaver.  It was impressive, shiny and very sharp.  And to a young, inquiring mind, it looked like a lot of fun!

As my mum looked the other way, I took the cleaver from the sink and ran my finger along the sharpened edge!

Yeah! You can imagine the scene!

In the right hands and for the right purpose, that sharp edge is the perfect tool.  But in the wrong hands it was a disaster waiting to happen!

Now I admit that I often say that as business coaches we need to have “cutting edge’ skills and knowledge.  And, to a large degree, it’s true that we need to be up with the latest developments, movements and changes so that we can keep ahead of the competition and provide clients with a full range of solutions.

BUT (and, as you can see, it’s a big but) in most cases, your typical small business client doesn’t need cutting-edge approaches.  What they need are the basics up and running properly.  And all too often they haven’t got that right.

Adding the latest and greatest tools is like fitting a bionic finger to a man with a broken arm!

Take today.  I decided it was about time to get a cleaner.  I phoned several companies and all of my calls went straight to answer machine.  Fair enough, they’re out working…although they could have call answering services.  But what’s worse…much worse…is that not one has called back yet!

Such a basic hole in their sales funnels.

I also decided to get my campervan’s exhaust fixed (yes, I’m a closet camper dude!) and searched for a local mechanic.  I selected the mechanic who ranked number one on Google (as you do).  To my horror (on his behalf) his site wasn’t showing because of “unpaid hosting fees”! It actually said that on the screen!  Imagine how likely it was that I would pursue that particular guy any further.

Basic, basic errors that need fixing and fast!  It’s the broken arm upon which too many consultants are trying to fit the bionic fingers of Facebook Pages, Google+ hangouts, Pinterest image sharing and so on.

Don’t get me wrong.  These approaches to marketing are excellent and much needed in the right place.  Just as the cleaver had its place.  Just not on a nine year old’s finger!

So as a business coach, make sure your clients have got the basics right before you go cutting edge on them!

• Check their website is working properly.
• Follow their sales process through from start to finish.
• See if you can use their product or service.
• Check they’re quoting and following up quotes.
• Make sure they’re collecting outstanding money.

These things are the things that really make a business work.  A snazzy Facebook page that puts prospects in a sales funnel that leaks is just wasting time and money.

Just saying!

 

Most business owners start off with a vision.

They start with a feeling of excitement based on what they want to achieve.

But as time goes by and the “realities” of business hit home, the vision gets blurred or disappears altogether as the owner struggles to improve cashflow, manage staff, find clients and all the rest of the ugly-truths of business.

Eventually, the owner forgets why they started and begins looking for ways to cut corners, compromising on what they deliver, eyeing-up attractive new revenue streams that diversify from their core business.  In fact, they start to drift without clear direction.

And it becomes unrewarding, frustrating – even soul-destroying.  Have you seen this?  Have you felt it?

One of the greatest gifts you can offer as a business coach is the gift of sight. The rediscovery of vision.  What I call the Power Vision.

The Power Vision is the juice in the engine of the business owner.  It’s what makes them jump out of bed eager to get started every day.  In fact, you can measure the clarity of vision in a business by how the owner wakes up and gets out of bed!  Ah, if only we could instal CCTV to monitor our clients’ morning routines! Or perhaps not!

So how do we reignite the vision?  How do we get that juice flowing again?

Well really it’s quite simple.  We need to ask the right questions!

So here are 10 powerful questions that you can ask your clients AND yourself to create a vision that gives powerful life to a business:

1. Describe the business you really want if everything went perfectly
2. What do you want to achieve for yourself or others?
3. What difference do you want to make and how will you know you’re doing it?
4. What’s really important to you and how would that show up in your business?
5. What would make your business exceptional?
6. How do you want your business to be talked about?
7. What do you want your business to be famous for locally, nationally or  internationally?
8. Where do you personally want to be because of this business?
9. How would you know you were achieving your vision?
10. What would get you up every day with a fire in your belly?

All of the questions create thoughts and emotions not plans and action.

But plans and actions start with thoughts and emotions and will proceed powerfully and consistently when given the right fuel!

If you or your clients are stuck right now, then go back to the vision.  It’s like lighting the fuse – the firework display will happen!

What other questions would add to this list to develop vision?  Write your comments below…

In traditional coaching, coaches will often rely on individual coaching models which can help them keep focused on a process that helps a client move forward.

It’s rare, though, that they will have a full system that sees a client explore every aspect of their life.

However, in business coaching, a comprehensive, logical system provides a much needed structure to explore the business in all its important aspects.

Whether you have been already trained as a business coach with a full system or whether you devise your own, you need to be able to “sell” a process that enables you and the business owner to take a clear, structured look at the business.

I’ve personally been at the receiving end of business coaching which feels somewhat aimless and directionless because the coach was taking a person-centred approach to the coaching.  In others words, they were allowing me to dictate the content we covered.

Whilst that might sound the right approach (we all like to be in control as clients, don’t we?), in fact, business owners usually don’t know what they don’t know and don’t know what they should be considering.

The role of a small business coach is to ensure that the business owners considers all the elements of their business which can effect their profit, growth, operations, systems and much more.  And that needs a clear structure.

There’s also an important psychological dimension to this too.

Business clients like to feel they’re on a journey that is going to get results.  They want to feel that it’s being made up as it goes along!  Think about it now.  If they know that step-by-step they will address all the elements of the business that affect its success they’ll feel confident that they’ll discover and implement the improvements they need to make.  And so they’ll stick with you as a coach.

There’s nothing more frustrating for a business owner than to feel you’re just talking or, as often happens when thinking about what’s NOT working, moaning about the business!  Your system will ensure your client focuses on uncovering where real change can take place.

As a Rapid Results Business Coach, you’ll follow a powerful, long term process exploring: Power Vison; Reality Check; Critical Fixes; Rapid Results; Unstoppable Growth and finally a Process Review.  It’s simple yet fully comprehensive and the client can see the journey ahead of them.

If you haven’t got a system yet, then create one now and make sure it works!

So, you’re all set up as a business coach and you’re wondering what to do next.  What kinds of business people should you work with?

If, like many coaches, you take a broad brush stroke to what you do you’ll probably say something like, “I work with any business owners!” and that will eventually translate in to “Hmmm, I don’t seem to be working with any business owners!”

So instead, get smart and start thinking about who your target market is.  I mean, isn’t that what you do with your business clients?

So here are 7 categories of “business owners” you might work once you have become a business coach. READ MORE >>

If you are a business coach, I highly recommend using webinars to grow your business and provide a service to your clients.  I also highly recommend helping your clients find ways to use webinars to grow their business or service their clients.

They’re an exceptional tool to reach out, connect with, educate and sell to you market.

Yet it is SO easy to make simple “school boy errors” which mean your hard work, preparation, marketing, finely crafted message and delivery fail to reap the full benefits.

And as a beginner I made them all!

I’m sharing them with you in the hope that you can learn from my mistakes.

Here they are in their full, unmitigated glory!

1) Forgetting to record the webinar!

This is cardinal sin number one.  A webinar is not just for the group who engage live. It can become a product, a sales video, a training video – in fact anything in which you need to deliver ideas and information can be done using a webinar and used after the event to send to clients, prospects or joint venture partners…IF you press the Record button!

In the excitement of welcoming the group, it’s easy to forget to record so I have found the simplest way is to write on A4 paper in BIG letters RECORD and then drape this over my screen so I can’t miss it!

2) Not sharing the screen!  

You’ve gone to all the trouble to put together a beautiful slideshow with well constructed bullets and images that evoke an emotional response.  You’re delighted, proud and excited to present to it.

And then you forget to share your screen!

And all your delegates see is the welcome slide from the webinar provider.  Worse still when you get a recording of the webinar it’s all black! You know nobody is going to sit through that as most people enjoy visual as well as audio stimulation.

So underneath Record you write “SHARE”

3) Starting the webinar too soon.

Yes, I’ve done this too.  It’s not in broadcast mode but you have officially started the webinar and time is ticking away on the duration you have allotted.  I was meant to be running an hour webinar from 8.00pm and pressed the start button 7.45pm to be prepared.  I didn’t press broadcast so I knew nobody could hear me.  What I didn‘t know was that the clock was ticking down.  So at 8.00pm I now had just 45 minutes left! Disaster.

So make sure you get to know how your webinar service works and how to start in practice mode ready to broadcast.

4) Trying to respond to people’s request to be louder or quieter.

We don’t know how someone has their system set up and many people are IT-hopeless.  So delegates will type that you’re too quiet, too noisy, too tinny, too squeaky! It puts you off your stride and you start worrying more about that than the content.  You desperately eat the mic in a bid to be louder.

Stop!

Instead, make sure you get your volume right from your end before the webinar starts then be confident in your settings and know that the attendee needs to adjust THEIR volume!  Tell the group your volume is tested and to simply control their volume accordingly.

5) Unmuting the attendees for questions.

This is not a good idea for a sales webinar though potentially perfectly useful for a training webinar.  The problem with unmuting is twofold.  Firstly, you get all the uncontrolled noise from that person’s environment.  Dogs barking, TVs blaring, dishes chinking kids screaming along with any audio feedback their phone or computer creates for the system.

Secondly you can’t know the quality of their personal input.  With all the best will in the world, some people ramble and tell you the story of their life before asking a simple question you have already covered. Some asked insanely technical questions that relate to nobody else on the webinar.

Instead, stick to typed questions.  You’ll get through more, answer them better and tackle them at the right time.

Summary

Now, these are all basic errors but they’re simple to make and can have a devastating impact on the quality or future usefulness of your webinar.  Get it right and you’ll make more sales, develop better content and enjoy your webinars a whole lot more.

I just came back from three days cycling C2C from Whitehaven to Tynemouth and, as is often the case when I undertake these arduous cycle rides, I got to thinking about business.

And it struck me that riding C2C across windswept moorlands, up tortuous lakeland hills and through boggy paths is somewhat like running a business! It’s a challenging, long hard slog that makes you question why you started in the first place!

There are the stiff legs, the aching backside, the tense shoulders. There’s the soggy gear, muddy bike and dog-eared maps.

But then there are the sweeping downhills, the lingering lunches at pubs, the sun breaking through the clouds and, of course, that terrific sense of achievement when you hit another milestone.

It’s living and being and doing.

And I think the role of a small business coach is to be there on that ride. To help your clients through the tough stages whilst keeping an eye on the good stuff to come.

To pursue the cycling analogy, it’s helping the client find themselves on the map so they can measure their progress, it’s making sure they’re on the right bike and that it’s oiled and ready to go, it’s cycling alongside and encouraging them to make those last strenuous efforts to reach the top.

And it’s celebrating when the downhill comes and the client can fly with the wind in their hair and a feeling of elation. It’s being there when the client hits the end and say, “What next?” with a tired but joyful smile on their face!

That’s the joy of business coaching.

Take a step back to move forward

Small business owners can be heard to complain of many things: lack of time, poor sales, low revenue, high costs, too much to do, business rates, flagging economy. You name it and there’s a good chance to you’ll hear it.

But there’s one thing a business owner can never truly complain about.  Their essential role in the success or failure of their business.

You see, in the end, every business owner, when confronted by their ability to make a difference in their results, even in tough times, knows they can do something a little better, a little more efficiently, a little more smartly.

The problem is business owners often forget!

They get so lost in the day to day workings of their business that they forget they have the ability to step back and think, plan and, yes, even dream!

As a business coach, one of the greatest benefits you bring tomyour client is the space to breathe.  The space to think afresh.  The space to take control of their outcomes.

So when it comes to moving forward, take a step back first.