Just Answer a Few Questions

A few weeks back I was at a Family Business, a sporting goods shop, their core business is firearms. This small business is a focused on customer satisfaction. They have a series of key questions for buyers, first time buyers:

What is the intended use?
• Set a budget
• New or Used
• Size/type
• Caliber
• How does it feel in your hand?

Considering an advisor, a coach would be wise choice to frame a few questions. What are the concerns: financial, succession or survival? In his book, “You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar”, David H. Sandler discusses pain and moving the issue to a resolution.

Terry McIntosh, business coach wrote these in a recent blog.

Do you recognize yourself in this list?

1. You work 60-80 hours per week and your family misses you
2. You forgot what taking a vacation felt like
3. Your income is stuck in a rut and you want to make more
4. You have a stack of business cards on your desk you haven’t touched.
5. Your business is running you, instead of you running your business
6. You want more customers/clients
7. Your customers call you past 8:00pm and expect you to answer them
8. The idea of turning off your phone for an hour is unthinkable
9. You spend your time managing your office rather than taking care of your clients
10. You work all day and still feel like nothing is getting done

The answer to these problems can be challenging. Most people don’t know what to do.

Where do you go for help? A Business Coach!

Family Businesses may need help. Owners may not easily want to admit the need, or know what to ask, or of whom.  “Fortune magazine recently interviewed Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and CEO, in a series asking CEO’s to reveal the “best advice I ever got”.  Mr. Schmidt’s comment?  “Hire a coach.”

At first, he rejected the idea thinking of coaching in a remedial sense – to help correct something that was wrong.  He soon learned, however, that a coach’s role is to help you be better, perform better.

Using a typical sports analogy, more specifically, Mr. Schmidt said this:  “The coach doesn’t have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to be your best. In the business context a coach is not a repetitious coach. A business coach is somebody who looks at something with another set of eyes, describes it to you in [his] words, and discusses how to approach the problem.”

Ask a few questions, talk with an expert-Family Businesses may need a Coach.