leadership coach for small businesses?

[daft009]

Hi Guys,

Thought this might be a good place to post, as many on here (i think!) are self employed.

what do you guys think of a business coach for your SME?

I'm at a point where i feel my systems/procedures have outgrown our size and can't scale anymore
employee count is also higher, managing/motivating them is also another skill set.

What works when you're 2 people with a revenue of $20k/month doesn't necessary work when its 5 people at 100k/month.. just an example

opinions/thoughts?

 

[Forg]

I’ve got only respect & admiration for those who have the guts to run a small business, and this is only from the observation of someone who’s only ever been an employee. However, the thought of only having $10k/month turnover per employee would scare the living carp out of me, that’s less than the average pre-tax salary where I work, and I know billing needs to be something like 3x what you’re paying someone before that person’s profitable … eek!

Leadership coaches, management coaches, they all only tell you stuff that’s common sense. As a result they can feel like a waste of time; but the thing is, because you’re so fixated on running the business & keeping things going, it’s easy to overlook what seems obvious in hindsight. But … 4 employees isn’t a huge number to need to manage. I actually reckon that unless you’re definitely seeing problems for sure, Googling online for ideas & concepts might get you some extra time & extra business-embiggenment before you could truly use leadership coaching.

Well … them’s my thoughts.

 

[daft009]

the $ figures and employee count were purely arbitary.
just to highlight that systems/processes need to be scaled as one gets bigger.
turnover wise and employee count wise

 

[cove]

Some simple things you can do yourself are:
Pay all your suppliers inside 30 days so you don’t have a tough time figuring out your monthly result.
Have a good outside accountant and a bookkeeper to keep your records in order especially payroll and BAS.
We use Phocas software to analyse our trading overnight and we focus on any problems that are highlighted.
We use Navman so we know where our work vehicles are.
We did use TEC group for a couple of years. There would be one in your State.
I hope that helps…..

 

[daft009]

Thanks @cove some useful suggestions, specially TEC

 

[Denali]

Some simple things you can do yourself are:
Pay all your suppliers inside 30 days so you don’t have a tough time figuring out your monthly result.
Have a good outside accountant and a bookkeeper to keep your records in order especially payroll and BAS.
We use Phocas software to analyse our trading overnight and we focus on any problems that are highlighted.
We use Navman so we know where our work vehicles are.
We did use TEC group for a couple of years. There would be one in your State.
I hope that helps…..

If youre going to pay early, or on time even, negotiate with suppliers for additional % settlement discount.

 

[cove]

Yes we pay 14 days or cash up front for 2% as that can add up.
Get your customers to pay 30 days too.
TEC does work until it gets repetitive.

 

[jonedwards80]

I guess I would ask what books have you read first that help you get a step up BEFORE you have to pay $$$ for a course.

The way I see it, small business is made up of a few key areas and there are countless great resources out there to help and guide you.

I also did a course called the 90 Day Year which was excellent at bringing all things together. Did it give me the 200% growth in their testimonials? Hell no! But it certainly gave me a brilliant understanding of the key pillars of business and how to set up plans to improve them.

These things all take time, focus and energy. We laid the groundwork and saw sales go from 35k per month to 100k per month in 2 years. I can happen, even without a coach if you choose your direction right and get your knowledge resources spot on.

Some great books on the key pillars...

Finance - Profit First
Systems - The E-Myth (and also Systemology following this)
Sales/Marketing - The One Page Marketing Plan, Marketing Made Simple
Leadership - Leaders Eat Last, Start With Why

Hope this helps!!

 

[VPS]

Hi Guys,

Thought this might be a good place to post, as many on here (i think!) are self employed.

what do you guys think of a business coach for your SME?

I'm at a point where i feel my systems/procedures have outgrown our size and can't scale anymore
employee count is also higher, managing/motivating them is also another skill set.

What works when you're 2 people with a revenue of $20k/month doesn't necessary work when its 5 people at 100k/month.. just an example

opinions/thoughts?

Sometimes it can be good to have just sit and have a regular chat with someone that knows your business and bounce ideas off. I often found having a good mentor that was a great devil's advocate worked well because they would pull your ideas apart and you had to really justify your decisions. Good luck

 

[albatross710]

The coaching business is well established as an industry I think. Key to getting started is (according to Michael Dell) finding a customer. Find a customer whom has respect for what you have already achieved and get them onboard. Use a pricing model that coaches already have, monthly retainer with one or two meets per month.

One piece of advice I give anyone starting out in any business is "Choose your customers".

Coaches in particular and consultants tend to have their area of expertise. If you customer's business needs your skills then it's a great return. The return does diminish over time as the coach/consultant has delivered what they know. So if you do a free meet and greet with a client and cannot immediately see where you can help add value then better to avoid that one. Find customers with problems that you can solve.

Value based pricing is what you (I) aim for. Try to disconnect the price charged from "hours in attendance". For example if you see they have a issue with "warehouse utilisation per sqr metre", delivery lead time per order, identifying new markets then rather than say "let's work on this for 10 hours at $200/hour you would say, How about I work with you to deliver a warehouse utilisation strategy for $5k. Hopefully that strategy doesn't take too long or you can rehash some previous work, (Yes, I'm looking at you big 4)

Then maybe you search linked-in for your next customer that has a similar warehouse problem (or whatever is your angle) and rehash that report again.

 

[TheRealTMA]

A lot of survivors from the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B ”consultants” out there.

 

[cove]

Some of our customers and suppliers have developed advisory boards with an accountant, an experienced former business owner and folks like that.
One is a smallish business and another is much, much larger. Both tell me it has worked well for them.

 

[daft009]

Sometimes it can be good to have just sit and have a regular chat with someone that knows your business and bounce ideas off. I often found having a good mentor that was a great devil's advocate worked well because they would pull your ideas apart and you had to really justify your decisions. Good luck

Yes! having a mentor or someone to bounce ideas off is what I guess I'm really looking for.

things like "yeah we had issues with that too, we solved it *this* way"

I don't think a coach can add too much without knowing the business inside out

 

[smckay]

I see you are in NSW. There are many Business Enterprise Centres that will run a mentor program for low cost and can be quite successful. I did one many years ago, and whilst all the others in the 'class' received excellent advice and assistance, I got the show pony who only wanted to big note himself (spending one full day of 'mentoring' on his boat didn't actually increase my business but made him feel fat).
Councils sometime have business groups for connecting local businesses, or they did pre-covid.
These probably fit in the "we did it *this* way" bucket.

Good little thought to keep in your head is most business don't plan to fail but a lot fail to plan.