Biz Coach Steve

Category: Coaching

  • Time for an immediate change in your life

    Time for an immediate change in your life

    Right now, many folks feel overwhelmed, lost, confused, angry, and uncertain with everything that is going on around them.

    We are in the middle of a pandemic. The political climate is polarized. Group of people are rising, while other are trying to keep them down. A new reality for many business owners has not sunk in yet. Masks. PPE. Social Distancing.

    We all know it is time for a change. Time to change how we do business. Time for a change on how we treat others. Time for a change within ourselves.

    We all want positive change in our lives. We seek to succeed, and to break free from the doldrums of the everyday rat race. 

    We also know that motivation can be fleeting. So how can we buckle down and shock ourselves into the change we need? Many business owners like to stay stuck in the comfort zone. While others are changing and putting themselves in a place that is not comfortable today, but they know that feeling of un-comfort is short term and they will thrive and survive.

    I’m going to share seven simple ways to produce stunning change in your life immediately. 

    1. Wake up 30 minutes earlier than you usually do.

    I’ve got into a rhythm of waking up at 5 a.m. to speak with my clients that are 3 hours ahead of me. While I’m not a morning person, getting up earlier helps me get a jump start on my day.

    If you challenge yourself to get up just 30 minutes earlier, it will help you kick start your day. Even if it is to get out of bed, sit in a nice chair and think. It will also help you at night. You will be that much more ready for sleep in the evening.

    You’ll also have gotten just a bit more accomplished throughout your day. This will alleviate any bedtime brain chatter/freak outs about the day ahead. Those little 30 minutes are amazing.

    2. If you can, meditate or nap during the day.  

    When I first heard this, two things came to mind. Pre-school and that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night. What I found, was a short 30-60-minute cat nap or meditation during the day provided me with more energy.

    That break reduced stress, re-energized me. Gave me that “moment to myself.”

    Ducking into a conference room to close your eyes and enjoy some deep breathing can have a lasting effect. Use an app of your choice to help with a guided meditation. 

    3. Remove the distractions to your goals.

    Need to remove all obstacles and distractions that are blocking you from achieving your goals. If you say you don’t have time to make outbound sales calls, then block time on your calendar to just focus on outbound sales calls. Make a list of who you want to call, why you are calling them, and what you are going to say the day before. This way when it’s time to make the calls, you make the calls. Not wasting time to figure out who you are going to call and what you are going to say. Make sure your door is closed and let other know you are on call time and cannot be disturbed. Eliminate all the distractions during that time. No inbound calls during that hour, no one walking into your office, not going to the water cooler.

    4. Tackle big tasks one baby step at a time.

    I always think of the saying, “you can’t eat an elephant in one bit.” Big projects loom constantly. The more we think of the big deadline, or the volume of pages that need to be written, the more discouraged we become. Anxiety builds, then fear, then procrastination.

    By breaking down big tasks into little ones, we break the inertia and move in a positive direction. Stock piling small wins will build our confidence and stoke the fires of production. 

    5. Think about death more often. Yes, seriously. 

    “I wish I could have done more work.” Said no one on their death bed. They only talk about regrets on things they never had time to do and accomplish. We are trying to do more in less time so that we don’t waste time, which many times takes up more time.

    What does work is if we increase the scarcity of time.  We can do this effectively if we set serious time constraints. For example, challenging our minds to believe that this year is your last year on earth. How productive would you be then?

    Studies have shown that workers are the most productive 3 days before and 3 days after they go on an extended vacation. Change your thinking and be more productive.

    6. Choose better words.

    Becoming more aware of the impact that your words have on those around you, and yourself, can be a powerful change agent. Opening a conversation with comments like “You look tired” or “You look good for your age” can destroy your rapport with friends and colleagues.

    A mentor of mine always had me restate a sentence so that I will use better wording. It drove me nuts for the first 3 months, then I noticed how I said everything changed. It also changed how others responded. His little activity really changed my life for the better.

    Watch your words and how you use them. It will change the environment around you.

    7. Get new friends.

    It’s true that you’re the sum of the people you spend the most time with. If you surround yourself with positive people who are pushing themselves to bigger and better things, chances are you’ll have a better time of effecting change in your own life. Harvard Business Review’s Joseph Grenny says this can be a potent way to trick your brain into long lasting change. 

    If you want deep, long-lasting, positive change in your life, you’ll have to commit to at least a few of these suggestions. Why not try out one or two? You’ll enjoy the results.

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    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals, and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today.

    #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Time Management is Painful Real leaders do it anyway

    We all want to feel good, and not feel bad. So, we prefer that change be comfortable. Sometimes it is. Most of the time it’s not. If you have ever wanted to “get in shape,” “lose weight,” etc. You think it may be easy. But as is it so often said in the fitness world, “No pain, no gain.” You want to slim your waistline? Bigger muscles? You earn that progress through discomfort. You’re going to sweat, and it’s going to burn. Sure, you’ll feel great afterward, but the process is going to hurt. That’s how you know it’s working. That, and seeing the results when you stick with it over time. Many people really believe that if they go to the gym, look at the machines, not put any effort into the workout, some how will see miraculous results in their body. That is avoiding the discomfort and your results will reflect your input. But, if you schedule time in your day to workout, train with other or a trainer, really push yourself-feel the burn. Your results will be directly related to all that hard work.  Stick with your workout and really see the difference in your body and life.

    Business change works exactly the same way. In my experience as a coach, it’s your relationship to discomfort that makes all the difference. Leadership is a challenge, so working on yourself as a leader should feel like a workout. You are intentionally (stressing intentional) doing things that make you uncomfortable to improve yourself and your business. It’s not easy. But it doesn’t have to lead to burnout. In fitness, it’s called over-training. In business, it’s called overwhelm. Over time, what was uncomfortable in the past is easy and something new will be uncomfortable-that is how you will grow as a leader.

    Having more time in your day is right there for the taking, but you have to accept some discomfort to get there. Over the years, the most successful clients I’ve had are the ones willing to accept this short-term ‘pain’ for the long-term benefit. They live by their calendar and their calendar is filled with revenue generating activities, and activities that are moving the business and their team forward.

    Can you wake up, get ready and leave the house every morning in sixty minutes flat? Can you cut your lunches to thirty minutes for a while instead of an hour? Can you say “No” to some brilliant and fun projects that you know you can’t really focus on and are not moving your business forward? Can you train someone on your staff today to handle three things that you know you shouldn’t be dealing with as the business leader? Are you willing to post office hours for the only times of the day where employees can interrupt you? Having an open-door policy is highly encouraged, but you need to be productive. Having set hours on specific days, where your staff can come and talk to you will increase your productivity. You then put lower level tasks on your calendar during those open-door times. This way if someone wants to speak with you, they are not derailing your thought progress on something bigger. You will be able to hop back on replying to emails or making a few outbound calls.

    It’s your relationship to discomfort that makes all the difference.

    Some of these things may sound easy but putting it into practice is another story. Going out of your normal routine can be very uncomfortable. Just remember why you’re doing this – it’s in the best interest of the business and you as the owner. Most business owner I speak with are filling their day with non-revenue producing activities and are busy being busy.

    In the end, you’ll realize that “I don’t have time” is almost never true, it’s just that you haven’t yet made the difficult choices about how you use your time. And making those choices is the first step to creating a business that works.

    Not enough sales, people problems, cash flow issues, etc. – are all symptoms – they’re all a call to face the discomfort directly and solve it first by making the time. Then you’ll have your strength to be able to lift the real weights of finance or management systems or whatever your business needs next. Just like working out. You need to schedule the time, go to the gym, have a workout routine (so you’re not just wasting time), be committed to a result you are working to achieve.

    It all begins with you.

    What are you going to do today to get more time back to move your business forward?

    #

    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today.

    #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Remain Flexible

    One of the greatest challenges to success in business is to learn how to stay focused on your goals while remaining flexible enough to adapt to needed change.
     
    I am a big believer in creating and executing S.M.A.R.T. goals and designed a very specific strategic plan to achieve them, it is equally important to remain open and flexible along the way.  As a business owner, if you look back at most of your defining moments, or the pivotal events that transformed your life, I bet most were unplanned and happened unexpectedly.  Life is a mystery; you never know what might show up and you can’t be so myopic that you miss opportunities and solutions you couldn’t have even fathomed before.
     
    Murphy’s Law and the T-shirt Philosophy
    You know ol’ Murph right?  The oh-too familiar friend who always seems to show up at your party at the most embarrassing and worst-possible times.  Well Murphy lives to teach us this: If something can go wrong, it will.  Don’t be too attached to the route you first charted, as you will undoubtedly be reevaluating and readjusting all along the way.
     
    Imagine being at the top of a triple black diamond (most extreme) ski run and your goal is to get to the bottom of the mountain where there is a warm fire and hot cocoa.  If you just ski straight down, which seems like the most logical direction, you probably won’t end up with all your limbs intact–certainly not with your skis still strapped on–when you reach those final yards.  You’re going to have to zig, zag, bob and weave your way all the way down.  You might not look too graceful, you might fall (repeatedly) and you might be fearful all the way down (maybe even screaming like a 4-year-old girl)!  But if you are focused on the goal (getting to the bottom, warm fire and hot cocoa), and are constantly ready to adjust to each new visible obstacle, you’ll find your reward waiting for you at the bottom of the slope.
     
    Then there is the T-shirt philosophy—Stuff (you pick your word) Happens… so be ready to deal with it.
     
    An old military axiom says, “No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.”  After the successful invasion of Normandy in WWII, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked about the detailed planning process that went into the invasion.  He said, “The plans were useless, but the planning was indispensable.”
     
    In an interview with Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, he said, “When you start and build a business, you have to throw out all assumptions every three weeks.”
     
    Just as a business never goes according to the initial business plan, neither does the plan for your life.  Don’t get too entrenched in it having to be or go a certain way.  Be flexible, have a vision and an outcome in mind, but remain wide-eyed about what might show up to accelerate your ride, and open to the various paths that can get you there.
     
    Goal achieving is a delicate balance between planning and improvisation.
     
    Deal or No Deal?
    You never know what’s in the next suitcase…
    In an interview with leadership and management guru Ken Blanchard, he said: “Life is what happens to you when you are planning to do something else.”  Ah, so true.
     
    Remain flexible—Stress and success constraints are caused when people are too fixed and rigid in their beliefs about how things should be.  Learn to bob and weave.  Realize it’s OK to say, “I changed my mind.”

    Reflect on when you might have been too rigid on your goals in the past, even when they were no longer important to your now-greater future.  And remember this lesson as you walk into the great unknown of your new year and new decade.  It is possible that a great unexpected miracle is around the next corner; keep yourself open and flexible to the possibilities.

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    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today.

    #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Sticking to your values – in a time of crisis

    What are your values in your business? Are your values Integrity, Honesty, Trust, Ownership along with many more? Those values may have changed due to COVID-19. Are you still true to your personal and business values, or have they changed with the unexpected circumstances that are taking place?

    Many businesses have stuck to their value, while other have thrown out their core values and substituted them for greed and shortcut solutions that will harm them in the end. With the first value that is being violated – Integrity.

    Here is what I am talking about. Once the shutdown order was given in his state, Bob (name changed to protect him) a retail business owner just told his staff to go home and wait it out, instructed them not to file for unemployment. Bob stopped paying the companies group medical insurance, in fact he just stopped paying all his bills. He didn’t communicate anything to his customers, vendors or staff. Just closed the doors and went home to wait it all out. Bob’s store was successful and had a good referral business. Didn’t have any real social media presence and believed word of mouth was enough to keep his business moving forward.

    His staff, now unemployed-but not officially. Because, Bob did not fire them, lay them off, or furlough them. Just told them to go home. Bob does not answer their calls or responds to his staff’s emails and texts. The staff has filed for unemployment-late in the game and Bob is denying all the claims.

    Bob clearly has not stuck to his values and taken no responsibility for his actions. Bob told me this story and then when I attempted to coach him back to his values, he shut me off, just like his staff, customers and vendors. Bob will probably not have a business once everything re-opens. He has thrown in the towel along with his values.

    Another retail store business owner (let’s call her Cindy), stuck to her personal and business values. She pivoted her business from brick and mortar to on-line; she intentionally told her staff that she is going to fire them so they can file for unemployment and they will be rehired as soon as they are allowed to open. She immediately reached out to all her vendors to see what she can negotiate to defer payments. Cindy did emails, texts, videos to her customers telling them what is going on with the business and they are operating on-line and to see how she can help the community.

    Cindy was able to keep 60% of her staff working full time. She started doing simple informational videos about the products and services she offers, which has increased her sales. She and all her staff (even the ones she “fired”) made masks to donate to local homeless shelters and retirement homes. They stayed active and she and her business stuck to their values. Cindy will come out of this is a great place and have new raving fans, vendors and staff.

    These are just two examples of businesses and how their values have changed. In speaking to a minority of business owners, they have thrown out their values to buy toilet paper and sanitizer only to mark it up 400% to sell it online and then they claim it’s to save their business. But they are putting that money in their own pocket. Other businesses are donating food, clothing, protective gear, time to help others that may have lost their jobs for good, have no food, cannot make their rent/mortgage payments.

    I would like to say Bob and Cindy are fictional, but they are just two business I have spoken with since the craziness began. Many other business owners are not sticking with their values and will learn an extremely hard lesson when this is all over with. The business owners that have stuck and even improved their values will survive through these times and come out posed for growth.

    So, are you sticking to your personal and business values?  Are you operating with integrity, honesty, trust, accountability, commitment to customers, humility, ownership, leadership, quality, teamwork, and many others?  Or have you thrown out your values in these unprecedented times? Harming others or taking shortcuts?

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    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today.

  • 10 Easy Ways to Resist Change

    Having worked with many owners, leaders, managers and employees and a theme that keeps coming up is how to deal with change. The standard way of dealing with change in most workplaces is to get really upset and run around in great distress. Many people dwell on how things used to be and clutch desperately onto the old ways of doing things. In one business where I had to change the culture, everyone told me “but, that’s the way we have always done it.”  My response was the same as well. Doing that way is why the business is failing and we need to change how it is done so everyone has a job in 6 months. This dynamic usually happens because leaders and organizations do not have the systems in place to welcome change or view it as an opportunity for growth.

    Many people fear change. Change can be scary and daunting but what I’ve noticed affects workplaces negatively is how they deal with the situation. People don’t consciously try to complicate things, it’s just that they don’t know what to do and very often their leaders aren’t helping them through the challenging times.  The next time you’re experiencing change in your organization make sure that you do the following things to make it more difficult.

    1. Pretend it’s not happening.  The put your head in the sand and hope the change blows over.

    2.  Stubbornly keep doing what you’ve always done. No matter what is said and done, just keep doing the it way you’ve always done and hopefully no one will notice.

    3.  Whatever you do, don’t change your perspective.  Stay on your course. Do not look at anything from another perspective.

    4.  Complain to as many people as you can. My favorite. Be the poison in the water. Why not, the squeaky wheel gets the attention.

    5.  Don’t buy-in to new ways of doing things. Blockbuster loves this one. The world is changing and don’t buy into the hype that it is changing.

    6.  Actively resist doing anything differently.  No matter what do NOT try anything different.

    7.  Stay nervous at all times. Be that long tailed cat in a room full of rockers. By being nervous you can spread some panic to those that do want to change.

    8.  Run around aimlessly. Like the old FedEx commercial. Busy being busy. This way people may think you are changing, when you are really just spinning your tires in mud.

    9.  Feed into the hysteria as often as possible.  Find others with the same fears as you and really build the hysteria- just like the media does.

    10. Don’t offer any solutions.  Remember you need to be the problem and not the solution. Giving a solution means you are open to the change and that is not good.

    I know I have seen all these 10 things being done withing businesses that are trying to change for the better. But, if you do these ten things, you’ll find that you will reverse the rotation of the earth and everything will go back to how it was. Realistically, you will have little to no impact on the changes going on which really leaves it up to you to decide how you’re going to deal with what’s actually happening. You have the ability to take even the worst situation and focus it any way you want. You choose whether the change is a tragedy or an opportunity. It’s just like when you want to support your point of view, you can always find someone to support it on the Internet, but maybe not support it in real life. By resisting the change, you will actually cause change, in that you will have to look for another J.O.B. If you are the owner and resist change, then you will probably have to close the doors to your business.

    The world changes. Your customers preferences changes. Buying habits change. Technology changes. Economics change. Regulations change. And so much more.  Smart leaders expect change and need to plan for it in order to grow their businesses.

    What will you do to welcome change and use it to grow and succeed?

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    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Six Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Business

    Do you have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur? Many people jump the cubicle (leave corporate JOBS in pursuit of being their own boss) and may have the motivation and desire.  But, do they have all the other skills, education, focus and money to make the jump? Here are six simple things to consider.

    Bottom of Form

    1) Do you believe you have what it takes?

    We don’t mean personal characteristics — or not just personal characteristics, anyway. Do you believe you have all the skills, energy, money, people, and knowledge to start a business? Founders who carefully identify and evaluate their resources in pursuit of a well-defined goal display “entrepreneurial self-efficacy,” a trait many academics believe to be the best predictor of success. “It’s situationally specific confidence — ‘I strongly believe that I have all the resources I need, and here is what they are,’ ” says J. Robert Baum, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. “Overconfidence, by contrast, is partially caused by the absence of self-efficacy. ‘Let’s get going. I just know I can do this.’ “

    2) Are you able to let other people down?

    A founder may set out in a rowboat, but pretty soon, he is piloting a cabin cruiser with investors and employees on board and their families huddled belowdecks. Risking your own fortunes is easy compared with risking the fortunes of those who believe in you. “These people may not completely understand the business,” says Baum. “They may not understand the level of risk. But they think they’ll be OK because you are so smart. Breaking their dreams is very painful.”

    A business owner walked out in the middle of the road and stood there, half hoping a car would end his misery. He was thinking of all the people who had risked their livelihoods for him. He thought, I have sold this dream to them, and now I am going to let them down.

    3) How do you handle setbacks?

    When you are smiling, the whole company smiles with you. In the book Resonant Leadership: Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee explain that emotions are contagious: Morale rises and falls with the mood of the leader. Consequently, people who succumb to black moods or depression can fatally infect their own companies.

    Because some people have an inflated idea of their resilience, perform a reference check on yourself — ask people who know you well how you handle adversity. See if you are the type of person who needs to retreat for a period to recharge, which is not possible in most business. Are you the type of person that if you have a very high sense of responsibility and you take setbacks hard, you have to know that and be honest with yourself about being in business for yourself.

    4) Are you really an inventor, rather than an entrepreneur?

    Raising a child is generally more challenging than creating a child, and the same is true of new products. Some people mistake the act of invention for the tough part. Too many times, these inventor types spend an inordinate amount of time on the patent and making the prototype just so, then they think once they’ve done that, the world will beat a path to their doorstep.

    It’s also hard for some people to entrust their brainchildren to designers, engineers, and marketers. Entrepreneurs like Sir James Dyson, the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner who surrounded himself with Britain’s best engineers, and “Caractacus Potts types” – a reference to the eccentric soloist who creates the namesake flying car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Product development is a team sport. Inventors don’t get that. Entrepreneurs do.

    5) Can you accept that your company may outgrow you?

    Some entrepreneurs love to brag that they don’t need an exit strategy, because they are not going anywhere. But at some point, your business may need you less than you need it. That’s particularly true at fast-growth companies, at which entrepreneurs may not have enough time to develop the necessary leadership and business skills.

    Sometimes founders bring in presidents or senior executives from the outside, only to sabotage them. They do it by not giving them the necessary information. They do this by not stepping back and by involving themselves with managers in a way that is inappropriate in the chain of command. They can be disruptive during meetings.

    6) When you look in the mirror, does an entrepreneur look back?

    If so, and if that’s the reason you are starting a company, beware. Many traits-persistence, creativity, and risk tolerance among them, are commonly ascribed to entrepreneurs. But having those traits doesn’t much improve the odds that you will succeed.

    Research into entrepreneurs’ personal traits with things like persistence and need for achievement explain only about 5 percent to 10 percent of the difference between people who start companies and those who don’t. Entrepreneurs are less important than external predictors like the spirit of the times, the economy, and changes within an industry.

    Trying to predict success in entrepreneurship based on personal traits is a fool’s game.

    #

    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • What is your EXIT strategy?

    Stephen Covey stated, “Think with the end in mind.”

    Many business owners are so excited and overwhelmed that they often overlook a big part of their business, operating plan.  Their exit plans.

    You may finally figure your target market. Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Your business structure and much more, but you have not figured out how it all ends.

    Here are the most common ways to end a business:

    • Your business dies. You must shut the doors. Usually due to lack of cash.
    • You die in your business-literally.  Do you have will set up on what will happen with the business when that day comes?
    • You get bought out. You worked hard over the years. Put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into your business, now you want to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Do you have a plan to sell? Is your business sellable?
    • You buy a business and they assume control of the merged company. Nice, what are you going to do next?
    • You pass it to a family member (legacy). Most family members do not want YOUR business. The ones that do, it may turn into a legal battleground.
    • You voluntarily shut it down. Could be due to some internal or external situation, but usually must happen rapidly and the outcome is usually not too good.

    The sale or transition of a business will likely be the single largest and most important financial transaction of a business owner’s life………and its level of success will impact the rest of their life in retirement.

    Mapping out a successful plan to exit the business can help business owners:

    • Avoid unnecessary or excessive taxes.
    • Minimize risk during the transition.
    • Realize the full value for their life’s work.
    • In recent years only 20 to 30% of businesses listed for sale ended up being sold. Many of them did not sell for what the owners initially thought they were worth.
    • The failure to plan and manage succession well is the greatest threat to the survival of a family business:
      • 41% of family businesses plan to pass ownership and management of their business to the next generation in the family
      • Yet…only 30% of family businesses last into the 2nd generation, only 12% into the 3rd generation and only 3% into the 4th generation and beyond. (Family Firm Institute)

    The key to exit planning is that it isn’t actually about the exit itself. It’s about the planning for the exit. The staging process that leads to a happy ending for the business owner, bringing them maximum value for the business when it’s sold.

    Here are some exit statistics:

    • Most business are owned by nearing retirement baby boomers 63% of all businesses. The youngest are now 56.
    • 80-90% of their wealth is tied up in their businesses. They have NO retirement plan.
    • 75% plan to transition over the next 10 years; 48% in the next 5 years.
    • Represents a transfer of 4,500,000 businesses and over $10 trillion of wealth.
    • 78% have no exit strategy team on board.

    How successful are we at transitioning businesses?

    • 12 months after selling, 3 out of 4 business owners surveyed “profoundly regretted” the decision. (Price Waterhouse)
    • 70-80% of businesses put on the market don’t sell. (Business Reference Guide, T. West)
    • 95% of M&A professionals believe a business owners unrealistic expectations of company value are the biggest obstacle to sale or transfer. (AM&AA)
    • Private companies are not generating returns on investment greater than their costs of capital. (Private Capital Markets Study, Rob Slee)

    A successful business exit strategy includes 5 key ingredients:

    1. A written exit plan, and related documentation, based on the owner’s objectives.
      1. A team of professional advisors to each help with their areas of expertise (Business Coach, Attorney, CPA/Accountant, Financial Advisor, Banker, Insurance Advisor, Business Broker, etc.)
      1. Positive cash flow in the business and determining a quantified business value.
      1. A strong management team.
      1. Enough time to prepare for a successful exit (typically planning 3-5 years, minimum, in advance of an exit…the more time prior to the owner’s planned retirement age, the better)

    Are you prepared to exit?

    How are you planning on exiting your business?

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    Steve Feld, MBA, Certified Business Coach, Author, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business.

    Contact Biz Coach Steve today to see how he can assist you get the results you want in your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail

    Sad to say this but the stats don’t lie. The statistics for a new business to succeed is not too positive. Twenty-four percent of new business fail in the first two year. Almost 50% of those remaining fail within the first five years. Which leaves about 8 out of 100 new business that are still around after 10 years.

    The top ten reasons small businesses fail are simple and all can be avoided. But most business owner do not seek help and avoid the harsh realities of their own business. The order of the list has been discussed with many fellow business owners, mentors, coaches and consultants and we feel this order and the years in which a business fails are accurate.

    1. Cash flow: Hands down the number one reason why small businesses fail. You need to know how to track the money coming into and out of your business — even a profitable venture will flounder if it runs short of cash. In addition, you must learn to make cash flow projections that will help you decide how much money you can afford to spend and warn you of impending trouble.
    2. Lack of clarity: Most new business owner does not have a clear vision for their business, and do not have a target market. They are shooting a shotgun in the wind and not shooting at anything at all. If you don’t know who you service, what their problems are and how your product and service satisfy their need-your business will die an ugly death.
    3. Sloppy or ineffective marketing: Contrary to the popular cliché, few products or services “sell themselves.” If you don’t have time to market your product effectively, hire an experienced person to do it for you. Marketing keeps your products selling and money flowing into your business. It’s crucial that you do it well. Know your target market and stay focused on them. Forget everyone else.
    4. Unsustainable product or service: If you don’t have a market for your product or service, then you have no sales. The true purpose of business is to satisfy a want or need with your product or service in exchange for money. If your target market is 1 out of every 10 million people, you will not be around long. Once those people have your product or service will they rebuy?
    5. Inadequate planning: Start with realistic but precise goals for your business, including deadlines. For example, don’t just say that you want to increase sales; instead, decide that you want sales to reach $100,000 by next holiday season. Then write down the steps you can take to meet those goals on time and set deadlines for completing those steps. Consult your goal list every day, and make sure you are doing what you need to do to meet your objectives.
    6. Procrastination. When you own a small business, you will find that tasks and paperwork pile up like snowdrifts on your desk. Putting them off is like piling up debt; eventually they could overwhelm you. Small business owners like distractions that keep them from money making activities. Stay focused, have goals, move forward in your business.
    7. Incompetent employees: Hire only workers who are essential to your operation. When you do hire employees, make sure they’re well trained and able to complete the tasks expected of them. And remember that happy employees make good workers — try to create a work environment that keeps your staff happy and motivated. Sometimes the incompetent employee is the owner.
    8. Ignoring customers´ needs: Once you attract customers, you’ll have to work hard to keep them. Customer service should be a key aspect of your business. If you don’t follow through with your customers, they’ll find someone who will. Most small business are horrible at following up with customers. This can set you apart from your competition.  Remember, not customers, no revenue, which leads to no business.
    9. Ignoring the competition: Consumer loyalty has declined sharply in recent years. Today, customers go where they can find the best products and services, even if that means breaking off long-term business relationships. Monitor your competitors, and don’t be ashamed to copy their best ideas (assuming that doesn’t mean violating patent law). Better yet, devote some time each week or month to devising new methods, products or services for your firm. You need to show value in your products and services. Being the low-price leader, means you also need to be the low-cost leader to win.
    10. Lack of versatility: You may be great at making hats or painting houses or fixing computers, but that’s not enough to make your millinery shop or house painting business or computer consultancy successful. Successful business owners tend to be adept at a number of tasks, from accounting to marketing to hiring. You need to be well versed in all aspects of your business. Hire people to do the tasks you do not like to do or are unskilled to do.

    Bonus: A closed mind: Everyone goes into business with some preconceptions — don’t be surprised if you find that many of yours are wrong. Look for mentors who can give you advice and run your ideas by them before you make important financial commitments. Read books and magazines about small business, visit business-related Web sites and network with your peers in the business community.

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    Steve Feld, MBA, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business. Contact Steve today to see how he can assist you grow your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • How to be strategic in your business

    One reason that many businesses fail, is that they have no strategic plan.

    They are always chasing a sale, or marketing/advertising just to be marketing or advertising with no real purpose. Yes, we get it.  You want more sales, but your marketing and advertising is not strategic towards the goals of your business. It has no real purpose; it does not have any strategy that is in alignment with the goals of your business.  That is one of the many reasons you are not getting an ROI on your marketing/advertising investment.

    Strategic management is a widely studied field because it is through strategy that organizations attempt to reach their goals and out-think the competition. Thinking strategically requires research, analysis, and forethought in order to create a plan for how you will proceed as an organization.  Most small business owners do not take time out of their schedule for strategic planning.  They have no strategic “game plan.”

    The process of crafting and implementing an organizational “game plan” for:

    • Creating customer value
    • Sustaining competitive advantages
    • Achieving performance targets

    Look at your business and ask yourself, your team, division, department and then as your organization as a whole:

    • Are we doing things, right?
    • Are wee doing the right things?

    Next, you need to create a plan for how you will make choices in the future that align with your strategic plan. You must be willing to identify and make changes to the way you currently think and operate so that you are truly guided by the strategic plan you adopted for your business.

    Here are six P’s of thinking strategically:

    1. Purpose: Decision as a collective group. Without purpose or a mission, you don’t know what you’re working towards. This is the goal of what you want to achieve. What you want your business to be in the future. A strategic plan is a guide for when you cannot remember what you are working towards. When changes happen fast, it may not be easy to keep up with them and it’s very easy to get sidetracked from your goal. This is when you need that roadmap to keep you on track with your actions and activities.
    • Plan: Actions that you have consciously intended. You need to develop a solid, specific action plan to achieve your goals.  Each goal you set requires some form of strategy to reach it. Each goal should, in turn, be somehow forwarding the goals of the strategic plan. If you and your employees have a goal with specific actions to reach the goal, it will improve work performance overall and move the business forward. I.E. If the goal is to “improve customer service” that is not specific. What you think that might be, may not be the way your staff thinks it should be. But, if the goal is clear, “reduce customer complaints by 50% over a five-month period” that is specific, measurable, realistic and timebound.
    • Ploy: What you will do to out-do the competition. You need to be familiar with your competition. You need to identify how you compare to them in the areas that are important to your customers. Part of your plan is to strengthen your weaknesses, highlight your strengths, pursue customer where your strengths are the most important decision criteria.
    • Pattern: Establishing success as a constant action over time. One useful method is to incorporate items into individual performance goals that you have for you and your team. I.E. Review existing performance goals and measure to determine whether or not they are in alignment with the overall strategic plan of the organization. In one business, we tied performance goals to the total output of the business. The employees got a bonus to the business achieved those goals, but their own personal goals where tied to that success.
    • Positioning: Creating and holding a marketplace presence. Despite your enthusiasm for all that your product or service and do for a customer, the fact is that there is only a certain portion of the population that will every purchase your product or service. This is because not everyone can benefit from your product offering.  You need to know who your customers are, and what they are most likely to perceive as a benefit from your product or service. Then concentrate your time, effort and money on marketing to those people.
    • Push: Goals that stretch the organization-push them outside the boundaries of your existing comfort zone.  Whether or not you manage a team, you need to take on the challenge of pushing it to the next level of achievement. Start with an assessment on you and your team to determine where you are now as well as what is you and your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Then you can determine the appropriate action to develop yourself and your team to be high performing.  Organization that sit back on their accomplishments get left in the dust by those businesses that are continually evolving. Ever heard of Blockbuster?

    A strategic plan is like a game plan for you and your team to follow. Your team wants to know they have a leader that knows where the team is headed. The plan gives you something that your team can rally around and get excited about. It helps them feel connected to the mission of the organization and to feel that they can make a contribution helping the organization to reach the desired outcome.

    What are your businesses strategic plans?

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    Steve Feld, MBA, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business. Contact Steve today to see how he can assist you grow your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking #keynotespeaker #meetingprofs #eventprofs #meetingstoday

  • Don’t stop working during the holidays

    The Holiday Season is upon us and for sales professionals and sales managers this time of year adds special challenges for maintaining focus on sales productivity.

    Being an entrepreneur has lots of challenges between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The familiar music, parties, seeing old friends, and spending time with family. In the midst of a joyous season the sales environment can be brutal.

    During the holiday’s salespeople and business owners struggle to maintain activity targets while prospects and customers routinely put off decisions until the New Year. The good news is, despite the challenges, you can take control, maintain your focus, and still close deals. The key is in staying true to the fundamentals of selling and maintaining self-discipline combined with a sprinkle of creativity.

    One of the hardest things about selling during the holiday season is getting customers to act on buying decisions. They say they just want to wait until the New Year to make any decisions. To them it makes logical sense to wait. Far too many salespeople willingly accept this excuse as logical too. However, if you’ve been around selling long enough you know, by the time you get to January, most of these deals will be cold.

    To have any chance of closing these deals you have to strike while the iron is hot. You cannot allow emotions to wane. So, during this time of year you have to give your prospects and customers a more compelling reason to make a decision now than to wait until later. This means getting creative with your offer, price, value added services, or signing bonuses. You may have to give up more to get the deal done than during other times of the year. 

    In sales, like it or not, activity is everything. If you are not prospecting, questioning, presenting, and closing you will fail – no matter what time of year it is. Of course with all of the wonderful (and not so wonderful) distractions of the holidays, it can be easy to slack-off, let your self-discipline slip move away from your normal daily routine. 

    This slip has two consequences. In the short-term it hurts your closing ratio during the month of December. In the long-term it impacts your sales pipeline during January, February, and March which can have a major impact on your future income.

    To keep this from happening to you, it is critical that you sit down with your daily planner right now and ensure that you have your calendar blocked properly for daily prospecting and lead generation, as well as information gathering, presentations, demos, and closing meetings. Take into account all of your holiday activities and build them into your planner. You may have to do some workarounds, but the key here is to get everything planned out in advance. To stay on track set daily activity targets and commit to reviewing those targets each morning and afternoon. You will be amazed at how powerful this forward planning process is for keeping you on track and focused during the holidays.

    Most importantly, by planning in advance and developing creative ways to close more business, you will find that you feel less stress, cash bigger commission checks, and have plenty of time to enjoy the holidays with the ones you care about the most.

    One thing I cannot stress enough is to be open as much as possible during the holiday season and answer your phone. Just that alone will separate you from the rest of the pack. Keep moving forward, do not take the season off and your business will benefit in the first quarter of next year.

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    Steve Feld, MBA, provides training and business performance coaching to business owners, professionals and executives. Steve also speaks to organizations, conducts workshops and training.  Focusing on the lead generation and revenue creation to get growth results for the business. Contact Steve today to see how he can assist you grow your business, [email protected], or www.bizcoachsteve.com. He is in the business of growing businesses. Need a speaker, contact Steve today. #bizcoachstevef #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #coaching #businessowner #businesscoach #leadership #marketing #speaking