Business Coaching to Build a Better Business
Each year scores of books are written on the secret to success in business. And each year, new businesses are launched with their unique products and visions for changing the world. It’s no surprise that you can feel a little lost in the shuffle when it comes to picking the right advisor for what you do. Whether your business is in a high-growth phase —deciding which opportunities to say yes to— or if you are in a later stage where you’d like to know the value of your company for a future sale, business coaching can help get you where you need to go.
It’s only a matter of deciding what your goals are and what you would like most to get from a coaching relationship. The benefit of having outsider insight into your process is essential for achieving longevity as a business.
Years two through five are the most essential for determining whether your business plan will survive the market.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of small businesses fail in their first year. By year two, it's as high as 30 percent. By the end of a decade, up to 70 percent of those original businesses will have closed up shop. For some businesses, it is a matter of disorganization or lack of planning. But for the vast majority, errors stemming from mismanagement are to blame.
We don’t want to discourage any business owners from acting on their ideas! Taking risks is a crucial part of what business owners do every day. Getting the right tools at the right time is a proactive way to ease management burdens that cause businesses to shut down.
How to Build a Better Business
There’s nothing a business owner needs more than a team of trusted advisors. Whether that is in the form of a board of directors, a business partner you work well with, or just a small team of core staff, your people are your business. Before the customer or any significant work on a product begins, you must have the right people in the room! People are the most important resource you manage. When you start with the right people in the right positions, what you are able to achieve is almost limitless. More specific guidelines on how to build a better business also include honing in on your strategy.
Key Considerations When Starting a Business
Having clarity is a vastly underestimated part of starting a business. Most business owners are hyper-focused on building the product that they tend to skip over other important areas. While it isn’t necessarily wrong to want to have the best possible product on the market, it's easy to let other considerations slip that could aid in your success.
Drilling down into the nuts and bolts of money coming in and money going out is a very important part of running a business. Yet, it’s true that not all entrepreneurs are numbers people. If this is the case for you, consider making a business manager or advisor one of your first hires to ensure you are hitting the numbers you need to stay on track.
In the early phase of a business, it is common to have business owners hire fast and furious or rack up a ton of overhead costs as a way to feed the machine they have going. While higher costs are a normal part of getting a startup going, it is not a sustainable way to operate over the long haul. Knowing your limits and where you need insight into blind spots is crucial for early phase business development.
Having a plan and sticking to it is a disciplined approach every business owner should learn. However, when it comes to building a better business than you had one year ago or five—it also requires some flexibility in the unexpected.
Sometimes, there is an opportunity to scale right under the surface that you have missed. Or, an opening in the market due to changes in consumer behavior. If several years of pandemic have prepared us for anything, it's that pivoting is a survival skill in managing a business. Make sure your product is marketing to today’s consumer, not the one who first bought your product at the very outset of your business. Much of the landscape of customer needs may have changed since you first opened your doors. This is why it is so essential to be checking in with your customers.
Sometimes pivoting requires a shift in the delivery method of your products (a pivot to eCommerce vs. brick and mortar) or ramping up your customer service staff to serve a growing demand in your industry. Either way, pay attention to the signals of a shift. Businesses that did not shift, particularly during the pandemic, attained huge losses for their lack of flexibility or preparedness to meet changing consumer demands. Staying ahead of the curve will help with this.
Important Tips for Managing a Company
Have some kind of mission or ‘why’ established for what you do
Keep your finger on your customer’s pulse. If something changes in demand, be willing to move with it.
Scale in one small area before you tackle other business opportunities
Be fiscally responsible and hire a business manager to help you forecast financials
Hire a startup coach or advisor who understands the market you are about to enter
Build a Better Business with Coachwell
If shifting to meet new demands isn’t your problem and you already have the numbers working in your favor, you may still benefit from an outside advisor to help you maximize and grow the good thing you have going on. Coachwell advisors serve successful leaders and CEOs in a variety of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, aerospace, financial services, commercial real estate, creative firms, and more! Our distinctiveness is centered on seeing you accelerate growth, minimize risks around scaling, helping you reduce owner dependency in daily operations, and increasing and stabilizing cash flow. If all or any of these sound like things that would help you to grow your business, we are happy to assist you with an exploratory coaching call or a discussion of how we can help.
