The 3 Major Reasons why ALL Business Owners MUST GET a Business Coach

by Dominic Ashley Timms In times of economic difficulty, it is a brave man indeed that invests heavily for the future of the business - yet this is the one thing that has been consistently shown to be the key to longer-term survival. Acting against the herd (who are all pulling in their necks at this time), means that businesses that have carefully directed their investments and have strengthened the key attributes of their businesses, will be those that enjoy the most explosive growth when the economic shackles are loosened! Employing a Business Coach at a time when money is generally tight may seem like an indulgence. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth - if you are going to focus on ensuring your future business success, then where will you actually start? More importantly, will you actually start? A Business Coach can work with you to quickly assess where your efforts should best be directed in order to capitalise on your business strengths - remember, at difficult times, it is all too easy to become a busy fool, which for most of us means that we shall fail to capture the best from the inevitable upswing when it comes. At any time, practically every business suffers from one of the following issues - if any of these speak to you then perhaps it is time that you had a good long look at your likelihood of sustaining your business into the medium-term. 1. You have lost sight of where your business is going and why? We have all suffered this at times in our careers or within our businesses - our heads are down so much we forget to focus on the horizon. During these times, it is even more important to know exactly where you are going so that you can develop some more of the 'how am I going to get there!' As an 'outsider', a good Business Coach can see the wood for the trees. They are not blinded by industry preconceptions or your business' previous way of doing things - "we've always done it this way" is not in their vocabulary! They will ask you the difficult questions (that perhaps you have been avoiding yourself) and challenge you to take action. 2. Your business does not generate enough profit to justify your efforts. Then why, exactly, are you in business? If you want to continue doing what you have always done it should come as no surprise that you will always get the same results! This incidentally, is the definition of insanity...! A Business Coach will challenge your thinking and help you to get focused on taking the actions that will drive your business forward and grow your profits. This will involve a level of change (remember if you've always done the same thing...), so you need to be open to this for it to be successful. A level of commitment is also required if you are to change what has been and drive for growth. The results though could substantially increase your revenue and profits within only a few months of starting work with your Coach. 3. Because you are already good and recognise that it's going to take that bit extra to become Outstanding! What is it in each of us that leads us to believe that we should be able to make a success of our business all by ourselves? We aren't all born great entrepreneurs, and for most of us this means a lot of hard work. Let me tell you, I have been in the Personal Development field for over 20 years, and I still don't know it all! Seeking out coaching support is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength, a recognition that to be the best, we need external support to motivate us towards higher performance. In the same way that top sportsmen and women will always seek out the top coaches in their field in order to excel, you too need a Business Coach if you wish to excel in your business. Your Business Coach will motivate you to want to excel, will hold you accountable for your performance, will demand results from you pushing you forward, will cajole you (at times) but will also be there to congratulate you on a job well done! Next steps - taking Action This is one of those periods that will sort out the weak from the strong in business - those who have the strength of will to focus on what needs to be done to ensure their business success, and those that will hold their heads in their hands and bemoan what's happening all around them. Do yourself a favour, get yourself a Business Coach and get your business into shape. Dominic Ashley-Timms runs the UK's leading Business Coaching company; BusinessCoaching.co.uk, representing the Top Business Coaches across the country. To find out the other reasons why you should work with a Business Coach click the link to download the full article from our website www.businesscoaching.co.uk Article Source: ArticleRich.com

Several Key Ideas for Small Business Success

by Alan Gillies Everybody wants to be a big player - whether it's a tiny company or an individual employee! A lot of people seem to have the notion that "Bigger is Better", but recently this notion has changed, and the new concept of "Small is Big" has come onto the scene. It is usually true that the bigger you become the more profit you'll earn through a higher overall sales threshold, and the more efficient you get in your operations, the greater status you will eventually achieve. But there is another side to this example - something really unfortunate, which is that the larger you become the more general risk you will deal with, developing increasingly inflexible and out of control individual client relations. Small firms are much more focused in their approach because there is a much greater possibility of innovation and experimentation in their in-house operations. These small companies may not be able to implement the benefits of "global economics", but they are certainly open to every advantage of "local economics". In the present scenario small businesses are more profitable and growth oriented, as they have the potential to earn significant levels of profit and growth - at unprecedented levels, which percentage wise, big businesses cannot possibly match. Small businesses are far more flexible than big businesses, and they can easily adapt to almost any changes if the need arises, as they are able to rapidly implement informed decisions in a short span of time. Small businesses are successful because they know what they are good at - and they do it, effectively and efficiently. They can serve the needs of their customers in an ideal fashion - regularly pursuing personal interaction, with the common result of an ever expanding number of long term relationships. Small businesses have actual direct communication with their employees and stakeholders, giving them much more control over their operations so they are better able to integrate and coordinate all sorts of activities. Also, with respect to the stock market, there are numerous occasions where we find that stocks of small companies consistently outperform the stocks of their big business counterparts. Their stocks can sometimes earn very high returns for their shareholders and at times may even be less risk prone. During really difficult periods of the market, there is also much less impact on their share values compared with the stocks of big businesses. So what do you think, what matters most - thinking big or becoming big? Copyright (c) 2009 Alan Gillies Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of the L2L Group. He specialises in supplying Executive Coaching, Training and Consultancy Services to International Businesses around the Globe. Do you want to discover more about these truly impressive business success strategies? Get Alan's essential FREE ebook today! Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com

How to be a Good Manager and Coach

by Madisen Harper Career expert Madisen Harper outlines five simple coaching actions to become an good manager. If you want to know how to be a good manager then you need to learn how to be a great mentor, coach, leader and role model. But despite all their management training (or lack thereof) one of the biggest complaints I hear from clients is that their manager couldn't inspire a dog into action even if they had a steak around their neck! Harsh words! But unfortunately there's not a lot of love in the office and a recent statistic indicates 60% of workers hate their manager. Employees want to be lead by a manager who is clear, focused, results driven, inspirational and most of all team driven. A great leader sees the value of up-skilling their team and are advocates of on-going development. Team members want to work for people they can learn from and coaching is a great way to support and inspire. Here are 5 tips on being a great coach. 1. Ask your team members what skills they would like to develop. I once asked a man in my department, "If there was one skill you'd like to learn, what would it be?" I kid you not, his eyes welled up as he said, "Nobody has ever cared enough to ask that." Wow! Such a seemingly simple question had such a huge impact. In reality, you shouldn't need to ask this question as skill development is usually part of your company's performance appraisal program. Nonetheless, I've discovered, even when it is, there is little activity or coaching to help employees improve their skills toolbox. So put the effort in and nurture your employees. 2. Work on developing 1-3 skills over a 3-6 month period. The bigger the goal, the fewer goals you can work on at any one time. If the goal is complex you don't want to overwhelm or lead them to fail because there's not enough time to invest in success. If the goals are simple, then you can work on a number of them concurrently. 3. Guide, don't give solutions. Coaching is about helping people, help themselves. You can use your expertise to ask people the right questions which in turn leads them to them to the answers they're after. Employees feel a great sense of accomplishment when they realize their success was a result of their own initiative. 4. Uphold accountability. Keep people on track and accountable. Establish tasks that are due every 1-2 weeks and let your team member know they are responsible for completing the tasks and reporting the progress at your next coaching session. If they start to slack off in delivering, it may be a sign of fear, so it's worth taking the time to investigate what's really going on for them. 5. Reward and recognize. It's my personal belief that we need to celebrate life more and a great way to do that is to acknowledge when milestones and goals are met. Sometimes it is as simple as kind words, because quite honestly, we hear so few in our day-to-day lives. Repeat and replicate the above 5 steps as you work through your teams' goals and watch them flourish in their success. Here's to you becoming a coaching sensation. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR Madisen Harper is a career expert who provides a proven system to help people take their first jump into a management, team leader or supervisor role. Get her free report on why "Dealing with Difficult People is Your #1 Priority as a Manager" => http://www.BecomeAManagerNow.com . Madisen recently co-authored a book with Dr Wayne Dyer, Brian Tracy & 'The Secret's' John Assaraf & Michael Beckwith.

Coaching for Life Management

by kensium We live in complex times. We are bombarded by more stimulation than ever before in the history of the world. The stimulation comes in the form of visuals: billboards, advertising, newspapers, magazines, television, DVDs, video games, Internet, e-mail, and computers; audio: music, noise, radio, TV, phones, etc. For the most part when stimuli bombard us the message is to buy, do, or go somewhere. The messages tell us that we would be happier and our lives would improve if we did something different than what we are currently doing. This is the reality of the world in which we live in the 21st Century, and it will only increase. In addition to the constant barrage of stimuli we also must contend with task-saturated lives where answers are expected in nano seconds, and there is less and less time to process information and data. In summary, less time, higher expectations, and a plethora of visual and auditory stimulation creates stress. With stress comes confusion, doubt, uncertainty, and a certain amount of anxiety. If you are in the situation where you are juggling multiple tasks, and trying to get everything done, and you feel as if you must make a decision and you don’t know what to do, you are not alone. This is the condition that has given rise to the need for coaching. In 1974, Dr. Cherie Carter Scott started coaching professionally, and in 1975, she designed and taught the first MMS Coach’s Training! Since then, The MMS Institute, Inc. and The MMS Worldwide Institute, BV have been conducting Coach Trainings around the world. These Coach Trainings have helped thousands of people assist others in making inner-directed choices. These choices have reduced stress and enabled people to take action producing more satisfaction and fulfillment. Just as so many inventions by women were credited to their male counterparts, until recently Dr. Carter-Scott’s contributions have either been credited to others or they have been attributed to anonymous. Now you have the opportunity to learn from the source, the person who invented coaching, who designed the first Coach’s Training, and who knows coaching better than anyone on the planet. Dr. Cherie’s coaching approach is truly profound. Whether you are a professional coach, or you use coaching in your work with employees, patients, or clients this book will be your handbook that you will always keep close by your side. Learn from Dr. Cherie and help multitudes of people through your extraordinary coaching. Article by Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph. D. Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott is an International Author, Motivational Speaker, Management Consultant and Original Coach Trainer since 1974. She is the Founder and Chair of The Motivation Management Service Institute Inc. To know about Dr. Cherie, please visit her website www.DrCherie.com. You can access her Online Virtual Training programs by visiting www.mmsvt.com . Article Source: http://blisspublisher.com