Blog: How to Become a Business Coach

Don't Pay for an Expensive Business Coaching Franchise!

11/15/2015

You have a lot of choices when it comes to starting your own coaching practice. Ask yourself what you really need to get started. I'm guessing (from my own experience!) that what you'd like to have is a pricing strategy, some ideas on how to structure your services, a solid marketing plan, and maybe some pre-built tools, like contracts, spreadsheets, online dashboards, etc. You are happy to pay for that expertise but question paying a huge up-front fee ($35,000-65,000 for some franchises!) and a cut of your profits.

No worries. You don't need to. After 10 years of running a successful business coaching practice, I decided to 'franchise' my model. After one quick meeting with my business attorney (Hoopes and Adams), I decided to license my processes to help others build new, successful business coaching practices, rather than try and franchise it. It was a win-win situation!

Let me share something else with you. In my now-14 years of business consulting, I have run through many iterations of business coaches who tried and failed, using those large, expensive business coaching franchises. They paid much of their severance packages on these franchises, then paid a monthly cut of profits, only see to struggle so hard they decided to give it up and go back to work. With my program, you only pay $3500 up front for training you'll always have, a large library of materials you'll always use, and an online tool (the www.DashboardToSuccess.com) you'll always use. The only monthly charge is for ongoing access to programs you'll use, not a cut of your business.

So, at least give us a call and a conversation before you make this important choice. We look forward to being your partner as you grow your practice.

Make a Great Impression

7/19/2015

I received a call last week from a business owner whom I've known for a couple of years — great guy all the way around. However, when he called, I naturally assumed that he was calling for a favor, some advice, or some other need. When he asked me for copies of my promotional flyer so that he could take them on a business trip to a convention (to promote me!), I was quite taken aback.

This guy is in the service business, and he just showed me that level of service extends to everything he does. That is why it is a key to his success. I’m not even a client of his, and he went this extra mile for me. This extra step in customer service not only made me feel grateful to him, but it also sent me a clear message, “Stuart, I’ll take this time for your referrals, too!” I know that he’ll take great care of my clients when I send them his way.

It just took a couple of minutes, but this small effort has gone a long way in building a strong business relationship. He got me thinking about how I might do the same for others. Can you think of ways you might do so?

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Fail More! (oops, the F word again)

7/11/2015

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, has an easy formula for success: “It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all.”

Double your rate of failure. In other words, if at first you don’t succeed…you know the ending!…try, try again! I know at least three times in your life that you failed miserably, but kept trying, and eventually succeeded. In fact, you went on to become pretty good if not an expert in each one.

You:

1. Learned how to walk after countless head-knocks on walls, doors and furniture. I mean, talk about bouncing back!

2. Learned how to speak a language. Do you know how ridiculous the English language is? But you didn’t give up!

3. Learned how to ride a bike (or swim or skateboard or sprint) . Are you kidding me? How many skinned knees did it take? This all just supports the previous post about Resolve. We can’t fail. That’s why I say just remove that word from your vocabulary. In each step of the way, you are just getting that much better at your business. Your sales strategy is improving. Your marketing efforts are paying bigger dividends. Your customers service is getting to be top-notch.

As long as you don’t take your eye off the Big Picture, you are on your way to success.

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Scratching A Niche

7/1/2015

Sorry…I couldn't resist that title!

When it comes to marketing, one of the most powerful concepts is the Niche Market. I've found that many small business owners are reluctant to focus on a smaller segment of their market, for two key reasons:

1. They have a hard time actually defining that segment/niche

2. They are afraid they’ll lose potential customers that are outside that niche

Defining the niche is a tricky task, but your niche might just be sitting there waiting for you to run with it. Take a look through all of your customers. Is there a group that are just a real pleasure to work with? You know, the ones who pay on time and truly appreciate the value of your product/service! Or…Or! You might look at one particular product or service that sells the best. In either case, your potential niche might just be right there in front off you.

The second problem is a little more difficult. I completely understand the reluctance to take your current efforts and, in a sense, REDUCE the size of your target. The key is to make a smooth transition from a general marketing campaign to a niche marketing campaign. I hate to do this to you, but look at the law industry (lawyers). It’s very rare that you see a sign for a law firm that just says, ‘Lawyer’ or ‘Attorney’. They all dig out a niche: accident law, business law, sports law, divorce law, bankruptcy law, etc. In fact, they likely carve it a little deeper by sticking to a certain geography.

The other thing to consider here is the shear size of your market. If you did some research and counted the size of your current market, I’m positive you’d find enough of them to start getting more focused and still have plenty to sell to.

The point is that a marketing message designed to target a specific niche will be heard faster and louder by its intended audience. Isn’t that something we’d all want from our marketing campaign?

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Ring Around the Collar? Itchy Scalp?

6/22/2015

Do you remember those commercials for the dandruff shampoo? Even now, when I scratch my head, I cringe at the thought that I’m sending the signal, “I have dandruff!”

That commercial made a simple, effective connection between scratching your head and the need for their product. You might remember the same thing with the "ring-around-the-collar" commercial. Both of these products (Whisk! and Head and Shoulders) did a fantastic job of tying their product to something you see in your daily life.

Now, think about your business. If you were to tell somebody, “A good lead/prospect for ME is…”, could you pick out an object that would spark their memory to connect you to your customer next time they see it? A couple good examples are:

• The membership sales team at a local chamber of commerce and ‘Coming Soon’ banners

• A non-slip floor treatment company and the yellow ‘Slippery When Wet’ cones

• A cracked windshield and the windshield repair company

Go figure out your marketing symbol. And while you do, enjoy the trip down memory lane!

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Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici, / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Finding Your Eagle Team

6/10/2015

In a few conversations this past week, I was reminded of a great quote (by Ross Perot and others): “If you want to soar like an eagle, you can’t run with turkeys.” Now, that sounds pretty mean, but the gist of it is a good lesson. We need to surround ourselves with people who help us achieve our goals. So, let’s look at what makes an ‘eagle’

Eagles:
1. Are experts that allow us to benefit from their expertise. This helps save huge amounts of time. I read an article in a science magazine about how a family unit will collectively build knowledge. They start to rely, subconsciously, on each other for certain expertise, knowledge, and wisdom. I know I sure depend on my wife for facts and wisdom on sociological and educational topics! An eagle in your circle will help you expand your knowledge base.

2. Share a genuine concern for our success. Would you want to surround yourself with anyone else, other than those who really care about our success? These folks are more ‘partners’ than vendors, suppliers, or customers.

3. Have achieved some of their own success. You can tell they are on the right path and heading toward ‘great’ things. I think they tend to be very goal-oriented.

4. Are giving in nature. They will spend more time asking about you than telling you about themselves. They are also more likely to work within the community to make it better, or just to help others.

5. Always look to find the positive in given situation. Now that you’re thinking about eagles, I bet you have a few in mind that would be good to bring into your circle. Just like finding a good mentor, give these folks a call, set up a lunch meeting, and just do some exploration to see if there might be a connection.

In one of my past businesses, there was another shop in the same industrial complex owned by an ‘eagle.’ The two of us really formed a strong bond, and he was instrumental to my success. To this day, if you ask him about our relationship, his answer would sound like I was the eagle, not him. Very selfless. I always found myself saying that I was more successful just by hanging around this guy.

Find your eagles and watch how high and how far you will soar!

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This gorgeous Regal Eagle Image is courtesy of Tina Phillips /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Focus, Balance, and that Final Degree

5/8/2015

Have you seen that inspirational video that’s going around? You know, the one about the difference between 211 degrees and 212 degrees of water. Just one degree is the difference between steam power and plain old hot water.

Here, take a look.

To get your business to the 212 degree boiling point, you must have many flames burning: marketing, sales, operations, cash flow, teamwork, goals, etc. There are two keys to being able to do this:

1. Keep that Big Picture view of your business. This is the temperature of the water, your company’s raison d’être, it’s ‘reason for being.’ Call it strategy, bird’s eye view, the view from 20,000 feet, whatever you want. The point is to know maintain this focus while working on all the small flames that will boil your water!

2. Manage all the flames (goals, plans and details) that will bring that water to it's boiling point. Which flames are contributing to your boiling point? Which are not? Which need more fuel to burn, which can use less? As business owners, we have many flames burning, and we need them all to get that water to its boiling point.

To help you balance your flames and keep an eye on the big picture, I recommend a good plan. Sit down and map out your plan:

1. Strategy: Map out your strengths and weaknesses in your market as compared to your competitors

2. Cash Flows: forecast your sales, plan your monthly expenses; compare these to actual results each month and make adjustments

3. Marketing: Write out your promotional plan for the year and make sure you do it each month

4. Goals: identify your Big Picture Goal and figure our what its going to take to get your there (all the flames)

5. Metrics: find the numbers that will give you the pulse of your business: sales, profits, sales per transaction, etc.

Now, keep an eye on these plans every month. Pretty soon, your water will start to boil.

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I Work Twelve Hours a Day!

4/16/2015

I Work Twelve Hours a Day!

This is one of the most commonly uttered phrases from an entrepreneur's mouth: “I work twelve hours a day!”, or “I work 80 hours a week!” It makes me wonder, “Do you really love what you do, or are you just bad at it?” I think as entrepreneurs, we are too creative and innovative to put up with working those kinds of hours.

Now, I know that if you’re a new business owner, you are probably putting in these long days. My point is not to insult you, but to get you thinking about a new way to improve. When you are getting started you may need to put in crazy hours, hopefully, it is a pleasure. But, if you are still there a year, two years, ten years later, you may want to rethink your methods.

If you took a good hard look at your day, would you realize that you could take just as many steps toward reaching your goals in much less time? How many hours could you cut out of your schedule each day or week?

I propose getting onto a Time-Loss Program (as opposed to the good old Weight Loss Program). Use these tips/ideas to help you get rid of wasted time:

1. What tasks can you delegate or outsource?

2. Where can you move from “perfect” to “good enough” in order to save time?

3. How could you better manage your calendar to save time in travel, meetings, and events?

Once you start thinking this way, you’ll be amazed at how much time you can get back: time to think big; time to explore; time for yourself.

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Image courtesy of [contributor name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Can I Give You Some of My Profits?

2/11/2015

Can I give you some of my profits? Do you know that’s what you’re saying when you offer a discount to your customers? When you take a discount off of a sale price, that goes straight down to the bottom line, right out of your Net Profits. It doesn't take any detours through cost of goods or expenses. It comes straight out of your pocket.

I once worked with a salesman that HAD to offer a 10% discount on all of his proposals. It was his method of selling. At the end of our first year together, we had a modest loss in the business.

The thing was, though, that this loss equaled, almost exactly, the amount of discounts given over the year. What an eye opener! We had basically given away our profits!

So, the next time your customer starts asking for a discount, just think to yourself, “Do I want to give away my profits?”

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Passionate or Stubborn?

3/27/2014

Is This Cute Fellow Passionate, or Just Plain Stubborn?

Probably one of the most oft-repeated pieces of advice is this : follow your passion. We hear that in life, and we hear that in business. I even have ‘Passion’ as one of the seven essentials for small business success in my eBook, “Do You Have What It Takes To Succeed?”.

I will say that a business owner without passion has about as much chance at success as one without capital.

However, there is a line at which passion becomes stubbornness. This stubbornness can be to the detriment of the business.

What brought this to mind was a episode on TV of “Kitchen Nightmares.” If you haven’t seen this show, I highly recommend it to small business owners. Now, there are a lot of similar shows, but this one stands out in terms of a business example. The premise is that a world-renowned chef descends upon a failing restaurant and quickly turns it into a profitable venture.

The chef, Chef Ramsey, takes a similar approach each time: get the proprietor to admit there’s a problem; clean up the kitchen; change the decor; and, change the menu. Chef Ramsey always looks around the area to see what menu would be most welcome to the town. Then, he changes the restaurant’s menu to fit the bill.

The stubbornness comes in when a proprietor refuses to change his/her menu. It is in this moment that the occasional owner morphs from passionate to obstinate, and they cannot grasp the need for change. At this point the business turns from a strategic entity into a pet project.

While we must all have passion in our businesses (passion for our product, for our market, for the business itself), we can’t forget whom our business serves: the customer. When our passion steers us around our own customers, then our passion has turned to stubbornness.

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Adorable image courtesy of Paul Martin Eldridge, / FreeDigitalPhotos.net