My coaching clients are three dimensional people with many different facets to their lives. They are business people, yes, but they’re also parents and partners and academics and craftsman and highly regarded professionals. If I were to just look at their issues and concerns in one dimension, I wouldn’t be able to address them even half as effectively as I can when I look at the whole three dimensional picture.
The reality is that hardly any of us are able to effectively separate our working lives from our home lives. However efficiently you try to set up systems to keep the two apart, there will inevitably be ‘leakage’ from one to the other.
Don’t believe me? Here are just a few of the ways your life can have a detrimental impact on your business.
What if you… broke your leg
You go out one Saturday to walk the dog with your family and a nasty slip turns into a broken leg. The logistics of how this would affect your business could be huge. Many business owners do a lot of driving and traveling, which would be very difficult to manage. Doctors appointments could eat into business time and it would likely be difficult to concentrate on your business when you’re in a great deal of pain and discomfort.
What if you… had to deal with a family tragedy
None of us want to think about this one, but if you had to deal with a family tragedy such as the loss of a parent, you would undoubtedly have to take time away from your business. Compassionate leave and paid holiday doesn’t exist in self-employment and so you may feel you need to return to work before you’re ready. This would obviously have a huge impact on your state of mind which would affect your effectiveness as a business owner.
What if you… argued with your partner before an important meeting
Our partners are a huge part of our lives and the state of our relationship with them can have a big impact on how we approach things. Something as simple as a disagreement with a loved one over breakfast could affect how we function for the rest of the day. This could be very problematic before an important meeting or a delicate piece of work.
What if you… disagreed socially with a client
When you work with a client for a long time it’s natural for you to develop a social relationship with them. In some cases this can work well, but in others it can lead to unexpected conflicts. This is also true when things happen the other way round and a friend becomes a client. A disagreement with them in a social context would inevitably lead to a loss of trust and would affect your business dealings with them.
What if you… were dealing with a troublesome teenager
Problems at home can really affect our confidence, especially when they make us doubt ourselves. The way we interact with our children can be a hugely emotive issue and if you don’t feel that you’re able to do so effectively it could make you feel seriously self-conscious. This self-consciousness would be likely to spread into other areas of your life and could make you doubt yourself professionally.
It’s because life problems like these can have such an impact on our businesses that I believe in working with my clients as people, not just as business owners. If you’ve struggled with these issues or ones like them in the past, you may benefit from better addressing them in the future. Take my questionnaire Are You Ready for Coaching? to find out more.
If there’s one emotional tool that will give you the edge in business, it’s resilience. The more under-confident among us can sometimes feel that being self-employed is an exercise in constant knock-backs. Especially in the early days, it can often feel that you hear the word ‘no’ twice as often as you hear ‘yes’.
When this is a problem for my clients, I talk to them about what I like to call bounce-back-ability. As a business owner, if you’re able to bounce back quickly from knock backs you’ve already got a head start. Business owners who aren’t able to bounce back quite so speedily can very easily become demoralised. In this situation, it’s tempting to think about giving up on parts of your business, if not all of it.
The great thing about bounce-back-ability is that it doesn’t have to be something you’re born with. There are many ways that you can build your resilience levels and doing this is likely to have a big impact on your effectiveness as a business owner.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Remember that it’s not personal
If a potential client turns down your product or service, it’s more than likely because it’s just not a good fit. When you receive a knock back like this, try not to take it personally. Odds are that they wouldn’t have been the right client for you anyway.
Train yourself to look on the bright side
Optimists tend to be more resilient than pessimists. Even if you tend to fall on the pessimistic side of the scale, it is possible to train your brain to look at things more positively. Next time you experience a business set back, try and find a silver lining. Perhaps the client has said they’ll consider you for future projects, or maybe any work you’ve done for them could be adapted for someone else.
Look at knock backs as a learning opportunity
Business owners are always learning. Even the veterans among us need to ensure we continue to develop our craft. When you receive a knock back, look at it as an opportunity to learn. Is there anything you could have done differently? What could you do to avoid this situation in the future? How could you make your business proposition more attractive to other customers?
Develop a sense of humour
Remember the saying about laughter being the best medicine? If you can look on the funny side of bad business experiences, you’ll be much more likely to bounce back from them quickly and effectively.
Give yourself some TLC
Developing bounce-back-ability doesn’t mean that you won’t experience disappointment. This is a very natural emotion and it will never go away altogether. Just as you might celebrate achievements, don’t be afraid to give yourself a bit of TLC when you hit a roadblock. The better you take care of yourself, the better placed you’ll be to recover.
Of course, it can be difficult to build resilience all by yourself, which is one of the reasons why many business owners benefit from the support of an advisor. If you’re working on your bounce-back-ability, make sure you have someone you trust to talk to about it.
I’ve got some good news for you: being successful in business doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers all the time!
When my clients tell me they’re struggling to balance aspects of their business, I remind them that they don’t have to do it all themselves. A lot of being a good business owner is having the wisdom to know which tasks you can do well yourself and which tasks it would be better to outsource.
The thing about good advice is that it can be much easier to give than to take. Though I know it’s impossible to do everything yourself, there have been times in the past when I’ve tried! Luckily, over the past few years I’ve come to accept that my business (and my life) is better when I seek support from people around me.
Let me give you an example.
At the beginning of last year I decided that it was time to invest in a brand new website. I wanted to build something that better represented the ethos of Green Shoots Coaching and the varied services I offer.
Now, I’m a skilled coach and funnily enough my talents don’t extend to website development. Obviously this was a situation when I needed to bring in some help! I worked with Pick and Mix Marketing Solutions to design my website and Penement Design to develop it and bring it to life.
Once the website was taking shape, it was time to think about how I would fill it. It would have been easy for me at this stage to decide to create the written and visual content myself. After all, I can write and take photos. However, iI was able to accept that I am not an expert in either of these things and that my time would be better spent doing what I am an expert in: coaching. Instead I chose to work with two professionals: writer Katie M Anderson and photographer Karen Turner.
Of course, I could have chosen to go to an agency who would have handled the whole thing. This would certainly have been less labour intensive, but I didn’t feel it was the right choice for me. I wanted to be able to build my own team of trusted specialists who would be able to create a website that would showcase what I and my business have to offer.
This project taught me a lot about using the resources that are around me. Often this means arming myself with the contact details of great specialists who can help support me to focus on doing what I do best. Since developing my website, I’ve continued to work with trusted specialists when appropriate.
I now regularly rely on the virtual services of Cloud 9 Admin and have even brought in Pro-Development, a people development organisation, to offer extra value to my clients. This last choice turned out to be extremely beneficial, as I have since been asked to support them by offering my expertise to their clients. This kind of cross-pollination is something that I’d love to explore more in the future.
So let me ask you a question: could you be more resourceful? If you were able to build your own team of specialists to support you, how much more effectively would you be able to get your job done? I think you might just be pleasantly surprised.
Your business is likely sitting on an extremely valuable resource you’ve never thought about using. That resource could tell you a great deal about the reality of your business, it could help you evaluate where you are and it might even be able to give you some excellent tips on how to move forward.
What is this resource? Your employees.
I talk to business owners every day. Many of them own SMEs with employees. Most of them have never thought to ask those employees what they think about the business.
As a business owner it would be impossible for you to keep an eye on every single aspect of your business every single day. Luckily, you’ve got those areas covered. Your employees are seeing the things you can’t and they have the benefit of different kinds of experience and expertise. They’re likely to have a whole new perspective on how things are going: and that perspective could be hugely useful to you.
Unfortunately, this valuable information can often be difficult to access. Your employees might not be confident enough to voice their views, or you might not have the kind of relationship that would enable you to ask them.
If this is the case for you, why not work towards empowering your employees to share their opinions? You could try:
Planning team building activities to develop work relationships.
Introducing a ‘suggestion box’ system.
Encouraging group discussion during staff meetings.
Improving work satisfaction levels across your workforce.
Making time for regular two-way appraisals.
Ensuring that your staff feel valued.
You may find that you need to dig a little deeper in order to really benefit from your employees’ perspective. In my experience it can be extremely helpful to work with a trusted support team to find out what your employees have to say about your business. A business coach or consultant would be able to act as a sensitive liaison between you and your employees to enable you to learn more about what’s working in your business and what isn’t. This can be particularly relevant in cases where your employees have feedback to share about your leadership that wouldn’t be appropriate to share directly with you.
When you make the effort to learn from your employees, either through direct relationship building or with the help of a confidential outsider, you’re likely to gain knowledge that will help to improve your business and build a better relationship with your employees moving forwards.
Are you ready to learn more about your business? Head over to my case studies page and read Tim and Sarah’s story to find out how they did it.
I’m a big advocate of the concept that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
This is something that comes up a lot when I’m working with clients. From an outside stand point it’s often easy to see that a business owner is getting the same results because they’re putting in the same efforts over and over again. When you are that business owner, however, it can be much more difficult to realise that this is the case.
If you’ve fallen into this trap with your business, it’s likely that it’s seriously holding you back. There’s an obvious solution here, and that’s to try something new. Unfortunately, when you’ve been marketing the same services in the same way to the same people for a certain length of time, it can be really tricky to break the cycle.
Here are five ways to break old habits and try something different:
Look at your business from a customer’s perspective
When was the last time you looked at your business from a different perspective? The way you’ve always done things may work for you, but if they’re not working for your customers you’ll need to rethink. One effective way to do this can be to try and experience what things are like for your customers. You could do this by surveying your customers, asking for honest feedback, or even by hiring a mystery shopper.
Work with different experts
If you work with people such as marketing experts, designers, copywriters and photographers, you might want to consider whether it’s time for a change. There can be a great deal of benefit to be gotten from building working relationships with these people over time… but if what they’re doing isn’t working for you you might want to shake things up. Engaging the services of a new team of experts could help you to do this.
Talk to a coach
It can be difficult to break out of old habits if you’re not sure why you keep returning to them. For example: is it a lack of confidence that’s stopping you from trying something new, or is it because you’re not sure what you’re aiming for in the long term? A session with a coach could help you to address some of these issues and gain more of an awareness of the opportunities that are available for you and your business.
Go back to basics
When was the last time you looked at your business plan and strategy documents? If it’s been a while, it might be a good idea to review them and consider whether there’s anything you want to revisit, anything you want to re-address, or anything that’s been missed out. If you don’t have a business plan or strategy documents, going right back to the beginning and developing some could put you in a very good position to have a fresh start.
Take some time away
Owning a business is extremely full on! When you spend every day inside your business it can seem almost impossible to be able to step back and see the big picture. If your business practices have got a bit stale and you can’t see a way to refresh them, it might be time for you to take a break. Many business owners find that taking a holiday from their business and doing something different can be very inspiring.
Over to you: have you ever got caught in a cycle with your business? How did you break out of it? I’d love to hear from you on Twitter.
In business, as in life, not everything goes to plan. Often our perfectly balanced schedules fall apart thanks to badly timed business curveballs. If you’ve done the work to prepare for these curveballs in advance this is likely to be nothing but an inconvenience. However, if you haven’t got a plan in place for these eventualities, you may find they turn into a much bigger problem.
Below I’ve shared a three step plan for dealing with business curveballs.
Step one: define what could your curveballs could be
The whole point of a curveball is that it’s unexpected, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a clear idea of the kind of issues you might be affected by. Making a list of things that could crop up is a great first step for making sure you’re prepared for them.
Consider things like:
childcare problems
illness (for you or a family member)
family tragedy
computer or other equipment problems
vehicle problems
power cuts
website problems
email or phone issues
customer complaints
flood/fire/theft
employee trouble
Step two: get your back up in place
If any of these things crop up, you’ll want to make sure you know exactly who to call. If you run a business with employees, this step will be about deciding which of them are prepared to take responsibility for which kind of problems, or who can step in to deputise for you if you have to be out of the office for a while.
Smaller business owners who work alone might find this step trickier, but taking the time to make sure you have people on side will be extremely valuable should you need them. Think of it this way: would you rather find an I.T. support service while your tech is all running smoothly, or would you rather scramble to find someone when your computer is down and you’re losing working hours? The more professionals you have waiting on the sidelines, the quicker you’ll be able to get back up and running should the need arise.
Step Three: design your processes with breathing room
Some of the most frequent business curveballs come in the form of tech problems, childcare falling though or illness. Though these things look different on the surface, they all boil down to the same thing: lost working time. To try and limit the damage these kind of curveballs cause, it can be wise to get into the habit of working with breathing room to spare. The way you do this will depend on the kind of business you run.
If you work within an appointment-heavy field, perhaps you could consider keeping the last appointment slot of the week empty in order to allow for unexpected events. If you work with a lot of retainer clients, you may want to experiment with working a week ahead to allow for delays. Whatever kind of work you do, aim to design your processes with breathing room so that when curveballs do arrive, you’ve got some wiggle-space.
I’m a coach. This means I spend most of my working hours sitting down with clients and helping them work through challenges they’re facing in their businesses, careers, relationships or personal lives (or often all four).
I’m also a business owner. This means I have many other things to do to keep my business, Green Shoots Coaching, happy and growing. This includes things like working on my blog, managing business finances, keeping up with paperwork, investing in marketing and developing my service offering.
What I’ve just described is, very briefly, the difference between working in your business and on your business.
Let’s recap: when you’re working in your business you’re doing the every day customer or client work that brings in a profit. When you’re working on your business you’re investing your energy in less immediately profitable work that will ensure you continue to be able to provide your product or service successfully in the long term.
Both these types of work are absolutely vital within an effective business. If you spend all your time working in your business and not enough on your business, you’ll likely find it hard to grow and improve. If you put too many of your resources towards working on your business, you’ll probably run out of funds before you can make those big plans a reality.
In my experience more business owners tend to fall into the first category. They love doing what they do and spend so much time doing it that there’s very little left over to ensure their business is healthy. Does this sound like you? If it does, don’t worry. It’s easy to get back on track.
Why not start by scheduling an hour this week to evaluate how things are going? I find this works best in a quiet spot with a cup of tea! Start by comparing your current position to your big business dream and asking yourself what you still need to do to get there. Once you know what you’re working towards it will seem much more worthwhile to put in the work.
Once you’ve got a goal in mind, set yourself a weekly target for working on your business. This could be something simple like spending an hour networking online, reaching out to five new prospects, working on a side project, maintaining a weekly blog or newsletter, or investing time to research new products. Whatever you decide to do, make it a priority and you’ll likely see the results.
If you were going to set yourself a weekly target for working on your business, what would it be? I’m on Twitter @GreenShootCoach and I’d love to hear your ideas.
Almost every business owner I speak to has a big business question bubbling away just beneath the surface. The question is often difficult or uncomfortable to answer, and so they leave it there, putting it off for another day. Big business questions can undoubtedly be tricky to deal with, but ignoring them will mean that you miss out on opportunities.
There are all kinds of big business question that you might be asking yourself, but almost all of them relate in some way to business growth and moving forwards. Here are a few examples of the type of ‘big question’ I hear from my clients every day:
Am I moving forward in the right direction?
Are the relationships in my business healthy?
Is there a product or service missing from my offering?
Does my website need a rebrand?
Am I working with the right sort of clients?
Could this be the time to move to new premises?
Is this the right time to take on another employee?
Should I do more training?
Would my business benefit from a new marketing plan?
Do any of these sound familiar? If so, perhaps it’s time to listen to your big business question and do something about it.
Write it down
There’s something very powerful about sitting down in front of a blank page and writing down your big business question. When you do this you may find you already have some of the answers. Try and listen to your gut feeling when you’re doing this, as that may help you to pin down what’s right for you.
Talk it out
Big business questions often seem daunting when you’re trying to answer them on your own. Talking through the question with someone you trust can be an excellent way to start to make sense of where to go next. A colleague, close friend or family member might be able to help. Alternatively, many business owners find it beneficial to talk to a professional like myself at this stage.
Make a plan
In order to start making progress with your big question, it’s vital that you make a plan for how you’re going to tackle it. Big questions usually involve big solutions, and it can be overwhelming to look at the whole solution all at once. Instead, I suggest splitting your plan into ordered stages. Then, all you’ll need to do is tackle one stage at a time.
Make yourself accountable
Once you’ve brought your big question out into the open, the last thing you’ll want is to let it slip back beneath the surface. It’s a good idea to set things in place to make sure you’re accountable to your plan. There are a few ways you could do this. Some business owners find it helpful to set clear targets for themselves, while others schedule regular meetings with a colleague or business coach to discuss progress.
If there’s a big business question you’ve been asking yourself for a while, why not take fifteen minutes today to start doing something about it? As always, I’m more than happy to chat. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook, or my direct contact details are available here.
I’m lucky enough to have worked with many small business owners. Though every case is unique, I come across some issues again and again. One of those issues is self-sabotage.
This sounds dramatic, I know, and at first glance you may think it doesn’t apply to you. You’re passionate about your business and want it to succeed: why would you be actively sabotaging it? The thing is, many of us are doing it without realising.
Below I’ve laid out four bad business habits that seem fairly harmless. Unfortunately, if you’re falling foul of any of these on a regular basis, it’s likely to be having a long-term impact on your business.
Procrastination
We all do this occasionally. It can be very easy to find yourself putting off a big or tricky task by focusing on smaller, less important ones. However, if you’re a serial procrastinator it’s likely to be having a big affect on your business. The more time you spend on unimportant busy work, the less time you have to spend on the key tasks that are earning you money and helping you grow. If you were able to get your procrastination under control and jump right into handling your biggest tasks, how much more do you think you’d be able to get done?
Avoidance
No business is perfect and there are always issues that need to be addressed. Maybe for you it’s deciding which direction you are going to grow your business in, addressing a weak area in your service provision or getting your expenses under control. Whatever your business’ issues are, it’s a bad idea to avoid dealing with them! The longer you put your issues off, the bigger they’re likely to become.
Under-confidence
Being in business can be scary. Us business owners have to put ourselves ‘out there’ a lot of the time, and those of us who suffer with a lack of confidence can find this difficult. However, if you are giving into under-confidence and failing to put yourself forward for opportunities; you are causing your business to miss out.
Indecisiveness
One of the great things about owning your own business is the flexibility. However, if you’re being too flexible this could become an issue. Successful business people know what they want and work on moving towards it, one step at a time. If you regularly change your mind about your goals, it’s going to be very difficult for you to achieve them. It might seem frightening to commit to what you want from your business: but the sooner you do it the sooner you’ll be able to start enjoying the rewards.
Sabotaging your business is a lot easier than you might think, and most of us don’t even realise when we’re doing it! Whether your business is being held back by one of these bad habits or by another one entirely, recognising the problem is the first step to being able to solve it.
If you were to describe your business to me, you’d probably do so from the inside. You might tell me what you do for your customers, or what challenges there are for you as the owner. It’s completely natural to have this perspective as most of us spend just about all of our time inside our business, looking out.
There is another way to look at your business, however, and it can be a very valuable exercise. Looking at your business from the outside could give you a very different view on things. Think about it this way: when you look at your business from the outside you’ll see the same thing that your customers, prospects and competitors do. Doesn’t that sound useful?!
I’ve helped many of my clients to look at their businesses from the outside, and when they do this they often realise a glaring mistake. On many occasions there has been a very obvious improvement for them to make which wasn’t obvious at all when they were considering their business from an inside perspective.
Some people find it easy to get into the headspace to see their business from the outside, whereas others find it a little trickier. You may be able to find this new viewpoint on your own, or you may need the help of a trusted advisor to get you there. To get started, you could try getting out from behind your desk and talking to some of your customers to see how they experience what you do.
Once you’re looking at your business from the outside, ask yourself some of the following questions:
Are you presenting what you do in a way that makes sense from the outside?
Is there an additional product or service that would fit well with your current range?
Are you offering a product or service that doesn’t fit in?
Are your processes set up to benefit your customers or to benefit you?
Is the service you offer your customers the best it could be?
Is there a part of the whole customer experience that’s weaker than the rest?
What challenges do your customers have to overcome to work with you?
Is there anything your customers need that you haven’t considered before?
If you’ve ever explored this exercise, I’d love to hear about what you discovered. Why not tell me about it? You can share your story in the comments below, on Twitter or Facebook, or even by sending me a private email.
