Your Business Matters
2020 - Issue #9
Who can help you to achieve success?
Accepting the Oxford Dictionary definition of success, being the ‘accomplishment of an aim or purpose’, the business world can be quite a lonely and highly politically charged place for many – with success often being viewed outside of one’s reach, or ‘never quite achieving the success I deserved for all the hard work I put in’.
The world of sports has coaches, whereby it is an accepted, trialled and tested concept.
They regularly meet with them, listen to their advice, even travel to events just to hear the ‘words of wisdom’, that the coach will say.
Why – because the sportsperson wants to learn and overall improve their own performance.
They are working smart and looking to gain a competitive advantage.
They want to become more successful – faster, stronger, etc all benchmarked against a series of clear and SMART goals.
They will seek advice as to techniques and analogies of what has and what hasn’t worked.
A sports coach will challenge current thinking and stimulate a response or action, that in turn will enable the sportsperson to make a change – a positive change that will enhance performance.
The world of business also benefits hugely from coaching.
Eric Schmidt, CEO Google states, “Everybody needs a coach”.
Owning, running and growing a business can be an exciting and rewarding time – for many however, it is not.
For the vast majority of business owners, too much time is spent ‘in’ the business, almost as an employed staff member, rather than ‘on’ the business – building strategy and driving growth, etc.
New business survival rates are not great and as we see all too often lately, many established names can disappear overnight.
So as a business owner, how do you move into a position, whereby you can influence and drive your business more effectively?
- How can you give your business the best chance of generating more profit and both surviving and thriving?
- How do you gain the support of others, yet have an unbiased, objective specialist to bounce ideas off and test suggestions.
As an employee, are you really accessing objective feedback to ensure that you are performing and focussing on the right issues.
Yearly, six monthly or quarterly appraisals are fine, but how effective are they really?
For employee and owner, what are your goals and who measures them with you and challenges you to achieve them?
- Who is on hand to push you and drive you to peak performance in order to achieve better results?
As a business owner it can be quite lonely, so perhaps a friend, partner or husband/wife – sometimes the bank manager!
As an employee, the person appraising you is often the person whose job you want to step into and adversely, they want to protect.
Enter the business coach.
A recent Forbes article stated that 70% of individuals that received coaching benefitted from improved work performance, relationships and more effective communication skills.
They also reported that a huge 86% of companies feel that they recouped the investment they made into coaching, plus more on top.
- Decision making – improved
- Goal identification and achievement – improved
- Self awareness, confidence and leadership - improved
Interpersonal relationships were also another important area that saw improvement – both at home and during work.
Not everyone of course will experience the same effects, however why would you not want to imrprove?
It seems Eric Schmidt was right, everybody does need a coach.
Shhh, don’t tell anyone!
When the lockdown first started to happen some 10+ weeks ago, it was interesting to see the communications that businesses were sending out to clients and the wider community.
- My local taxi firm sent me a text, saying we are looking to follow Government guidelines etc. and will not be operating until further notice. They have then continued to text me every few weeks with their updates, the last one being we are open and ready for business, we have strict guidelines in place to keep you safe and so on.
- My local Chinese has been doing the same – displaying large posters with updates – the latest being we will be open from May 29th – guess where my next Chinese will be bought from?
Yet others I have heard nothing from, not a peep.
Are they open, have they closed for ever, are they going to reopen, are they really interested in me – you’re guess is as good as mine?
What does this say to us – the client, the client to be, the community?
In some ways it doesn’t say anything but for many it might mean I will go elsewhere?
We know that from the internet, if you have issues accessing a website – you immediately move on, or click out.
We know that if you cannot park near some shops, you choose the shops near the easy parking and so on.
Therefore it is no different if we are not communicating as a business – then we might just be driving business away – into the hands of our competitors.
Right now the Government are urging the easing of the lockdown and that various businesses will start to return to work.
For many of the public this will mean slight confusion as to what is and what isn’t accessible?
Help them out – communicate and inform them.
Let you clients know all is well and like the taxi firm we are busy pre opening ensuring your return will be safe.
Over 50% of the population are not keen on the easing of lockdown, therefore will be reluctant to return to the high street, to the shops and retail parks etc. – therefore if your business model is not solely online, you need footfall.
You need to communicate and let people know all is ok – please come back.
This is not a time to be quiet – be open, honest and in line with the latest official communications.
Make it easy for your clients/prospective clients to chose you, as the business of choice, to buy from.
Karl Morris - Founder, KRL Consulting
Karl achieved a BSc in Psychology and has over 17 years of designing, delivering and evaluating coaching programmes for a wide range of businesses, across a variety of industries and markets - in total, Karl has worked with over 15,000 people from across 1,200 businesses.
Whether helping a business owner, or assisting a team member to perform better, you and your business will benefit from the coaching programmes - all of which are tailored to your unique business and personal needs.
Karl has extensive experience of working in a variety of roles and companies, this includes senior management positions with RBS Corporate Banking, Bank of Scotland and VW.
He has company director experiences within the UK and US, is an experienced guest speaker both in the UK and overseas.
He is a business coach and has successfully managed and run results focussed teams.
He has good experience within the SME market, having run numerous Start up to Scale Up programmes.
Karl is also a DiSC psychometric practitioner - personality profiling for you and your teams.
If you would like to have an informal chat regarding you, or your business, please contact Karl directly on 07766 053306
Alternatively, you can email him at karl@krlconsulting.com
KRL Consulting
Email: info@krlconsulting.com
Website: www.krlconsulting.com
Location: UK
Phone: 0161 928 6333
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