Have you heard the stat that 50% of businesses fail within their first 5 years? Any idea why this is?
In this article we will discuss that as well as why business coaching is important.
Why do Businesses Fail?
1) Owners have no idea where they are going: So many people go into business with an idea but have not taken the time to truly establish where they are going. This is sort of like getting into a car and saying you want to end up at some place beautiful, and then just starting to drive without a clue as to where you are driving to. You may get lucky and find something beautiful, but is it what you want? Even if you are lucky enough to find the place you always knew existed, you would have likely spent a lot of time and gas (resources) ending up at dead ends or places you did not want to go to. One of the first steps for a successful business is clarity about your business.
2) No plan is established on how to get there: If you know where your final destination is, but you do not map out a strategic step-by-step plan for how to get there, your chances of getting to where you want to go are slim. Even if you have the best vision in the world, you need a plan including specific actionable items that you can work on to move you towards your vision and goals.
3) Not having the systems in place to analyze your plan: Since where you are going with your vision will likely take you years to get there, how to do you know if the plan you have put together is on track for getting you there? Developing a way of analyzing your plan is essential for making sure you get to where you want to go with your vision.
4) Not developing the right team: You cannot do everything by yourself. And, you do not have the skillset to do everything, no one is a master at everything. Your success in part depends upon your ability to hire the right people and to help them grow into what your business needs.
5) Ineffective corporate culture: Even if you find the right people, getting them to stay and grow with you is the next challenge. Employees that resonate with the corporate mission and that understand the inner workings of the company are worth their weight in gold. Development of a corporate culture that is supportive and fun to work in is part of keeping employees happy and your business healthy.
6) Not being an effective leader: Leading a team is its own unique job. Understanding how the uniqueness of what each team member needs to feel appreciated, motivated, and inspired is essential to leading a good team.
7) Making decisions based upon emotions: Intuition definitely has a place in business decisions, but emotions generally do not. Decisions in business should be based largely on what the numbers and analytics of the business tell you. If you do not know the numbers of your company (or even what numbers to look at), you will likely not be able to make informed decisions. And of course, this should be combined with intuition and gut feelings. Neither should be ignored.
8) Not understanding your customer: Too often people create a product/service based upon what they think is cool and exciting. You can think it is the best thing in the world, but if your customer does not agree, you are going to be very poor. Listen to the feedback from your customers. Oftentimes, they will tell you exactly what they are looking for.
9) No one can find you: If you have the best product/service in the world, but no one knows it exists, you will be broke. So many times, people make the mistake of thinking that they can just put a website up on the internet and people will find you. If you do not have a strategy for getting your website to the first page on search engines and/or other ways of people finding you, you will not be able to grow your business.
10) Thinking they can do it all themselves: This applies to the developing the right team that we spoke of in number 4 above, but it is beyond this. Not doing it all yourself, isn’t just referring to your internal team, but your external team too. Do you have someone that can look at your business as an outside observer and advise you on what to do? Have you fallen into the tactic trap where you take course after course on various business-related tactics and skills, but have no advisor to help you analyze if that particular tactic is the best use of your time and if so what order to do the projects in? This is where we get into the discussion of why business coaches are important.
I have three businesses, one of which is a 7-figure business. Want to know how I did it? I hired people that new more than I did to teach me, and then I put in time and effort. I literally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my coaches, but I have made way more than that in my success. One thing that most of the best athletes, speakers, executives, and politicians have in common is they have coaches/advisors.
One of the best ways to get your business flourishing is by hiring someone that can help you get there because they have not only done it before, but they have also taught others to do it too. When you are building a team, think not only about the internal team of who you can hire to do the tasks that you want, but the external team of who can help you see what you need to do and help you develop your business in a way that eventually can run itself if you want it to.
Hiring a business coach (if it is the right one),
will be one of the best decisions you make from
a perspective of helping your business grow.
What to Look for in a Business Coach
To decide if a coach is right for you, you will want to interview them. These are some of the things to consider when you are talking with them. For continued free support for business coaching check out all of our blogs.
1) When you are on the phone with a potential coach, pay attention to their style. Do they give advice before taking the time to really understand your problems? Doing this is a sign of a cookie cutter methodology. A good coach will take the time to ask questions, so they truly understand the problem and the nature of the problem before giving much advice.
2) What sort of success has the coach had in their own business?
3) Have they taught others? Just because someone can do something well, does not mean they can teach it well.
4) What are their philosophies and values around their businesses? Finding someone with similar values can often make for a better experience.
5) What sorts of other organizations/individuals have they worked with before?
6) What is their strategy on how they work with clients?
