"Help them continuously work “intentionally” and “strategically” on meeting their goals and having their business work for them, rather than the other way around."
If your clients could benefit from a golden nugget that can help them increase the value of their company, then it’s worth taking five minutes to read this.
What is the number one enemy to building company value? In four words: “Tyranny of the urgent.”
For business owners looking to build company value (and increase profitability), the “urgent” consists of the things that are important and require immediate attention. This includes: filling orders, employee issues, deadlines, proposals, invoicing, receivables, customer requests, payroll, purchasing, etc.
In his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," Stephen R. Covey points out that the most successful people in the world spend the majority of their time working on “important, non-urgent” things (quad 2) rather than “important, urgent” things (quad 1). Translated to business ownership: The most effective business owners are the ones who spend more time working “on” the business rather than working “in” the business.
What does working “on” the business consist of? These are the strategic development things that never feel pressing. There are no “hard” deadlines to complete these things. To compound that, there is no level of accountability to achieving these things. If they don’t get done, nobody will really notice until it’s too late.
Here’s a short list of some of the many “important, non-urgent” things that business owners typically put off until tomorrow (which often never comes):
• Strategic Planning to set targets (goals) and determine specifically how to achieve those goals along with benchmarks and key performance indicators to help stay on track.
• Leadership Development to prepare emerging leaders take on additional responsibilities which ultimately will allow the company to thrive whether the owner is there or not.
• Training / Cross-Training to get new hires up to speed more quickly and effectively while also adding depth of knowledge and abilities to existing team members.
• Exploring Different Growth Strategies (sales and/or profit growth) so that the company continues an upward trend.
• Creation of a Written Systems Manual that creates a cookie-cutter model for running operations most efficiently and profitably.
• Improving / Updating Selling Strategies to more effectively grow sales and increase the return-on-investment in salespeople.
• Improving / Updating Marketing Plans to be sure the marketing message is fresh and relevant and ensuring marketing initiatives are producing favorable returns.
• Employee Reviews and Growth Plans to continually field a team of fully engaged employees who are constantly growing in skills and capabilities.
These “non-urgent, important” strategic development initiatives can have a dramatically favorable impact on a company’s profitability and value. Furthermore, these initiatives foster an environment of excellence that attract and retain talented team members who are capable of running the day-to-day operations of the company while the owner is freed up to do other things (inside or outside of the business).
Ask your clients to think back to the day they decided to start, buy, or take over the reins of their company. Were they hoping to build a profitable, valuable company that would allow them to have total control over their own time? Were they excited about creating a company full of energetic, positive people who were a joy to be around? Was it their plan to become independently wealthy while building a valuable company they could sell for a premium someday? What was their vision for the company and for their own life?
Once they consider those things, ask them to answer one more important question: “How am I doing on these things?”
It is likely they have gaps between where they are and where they'd hoped to be at this point in their company’s existence. They've done a lot of things correctly, for sure. That’s why they're still in business when many (if not most) of the companies that started when they did have long since gone out of business.
But what about those gaps? Are they going to settle and accept them? Or are they looking for an idea to help them close those gaps and realize their vision?
Your job as a professional business coach is to help them:
Get clarity of the most important objectives to meet
Facilitate gaining clarity of the most important strategy to begin their intentional and regimented journey toward their objective
Help them identify all of the things that need to happen (tactics) for that important strategy to be fully implemented
Invite them to take specific action on the priority tactics, and
Provide a forum of accountability to help them stay focused on doing the things they must do in order to reach their goals.
Help them continuously work “intentionally” and “strategically” on meeting their goals and having their business work for them, rather than the other way around. Think of yourself as a “personal trainer” to help them develop their business.
The best athletes in the world all have coaches. The best performers have coaches. The most established company CEOs have coaches. Success leaves clues, and you get to be that coach and help someone transform their business and life!
Are you thinking of becoming a business coach? Do you want to be part of a larger community of highly experienced and trained professional business coaches? If you want more info on becoming a PBCA Certified Professional Business Coach, contact us here and get started!
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