Business Coaching – In it or On it – You Choose!

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Is Business Coaching a consideration in your Business? Here are some of the thoughts on why it should be an investment that you should make in your Business!

Anyone who has ever listened to, let alone engaged the services of anyone involved in Business Coaching will have heard the instruction and guidance that “we should be working ON our Business, NOT IN the Business” for us to achieve great Business Growth. But is this always the case?

If you are a sole trader, micro business or lower end SME, then you will know the pressures on your time and resources only too well. You end up being the Managing Director, Finance Director, Administrator etc etc, the list goes on – basically you do the lot!

You may have the luxury of having staff in the Business, but then you’ve got to manage the staff, task the staff, while still doing the sales and marketing, customer meetings, the exhibitions and of course the networking events!

It is not that straight forward to adhere to the advice to “Work ON your Business NOT IN your Business”, especially when you ARE the Business!

Yet, over the 25 years I have worked in Business Development, Growth and Business Coaching, from Corporate Organisations to pre-start Businesses, I have seen the casualties of NOT adhering to the Advice.

I have seen what happens to great Businesses FULL of Potential when the driving force gets caught up in the day to day working IN the Business and loses focus on Where the Business needs to GO and they don’t work ON the Business.

So what can Make A Difference for busy people, being all things IN the Business and how can they work ON the Business effectively?

Below are THREE KEYS I have developed over the Two Decades I have been offering Business Coaching to all sizes of Businesses:

There are 3 keys to solving this issue:

1. DECIDE to take time OUT of your Business! YOU need to make a conscious decision in YOUR Mind that you WILL take some time OUT of the Business EACH week to look at where your Business is AT and where your Business NEEDS to GO. ONLY YOU can make this decision and stick to it, so, the buck starts AND stops with YOU!

2. INVEST in half day events that will give you access to the Knowledge, Information and Connections you require to help you to GROW your Business. Time is precious, so start by committing Half a Day OUT of the Business to give yourself the time to work ON the Business. You WILL have to invest some money in this as you DO NOT get anything credible in life TOTALLY FREE. And watch out for FREE events, usually they turn out to be gatherings where you get SOLD TO, or you get PREACHED AT, neither of which will help your Business and certainly will NOT Build you as a person.

3. DEVELOP a pattern of continuous learning in life! Always be someone who reads articles, listens to successful people and fills your heart and mind with knowledge that you can apply in life and especially in your Business. As we live our lives we leak! Our education, learning and knowledge diminish unless we constantly REFILL ourselves with new learning and fresh knowledge. Linkedin is a great place to read new information, share articles, knowledge, expertise and through the groups to discuss with peers and learn from each other’s experience.

If you follow these top three tips from my life experience and over 25 years in Business Growth and Development I KNOW that you have the ability and resources within these tips to GROW Yourself AND GROW your Business!

Develop this as a habit and lifestyle and the combination of these three tips in an acronym will tell of your success because they make up the word DID – a statement of faith perhaps NOW but with application will become a lifestyle of SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT!

If  I can help you to MAKE A DIFFERENCE in your life and Business,  through my Business Coaching service then please get in touch via the Contact page on this website.

Meantime please have a look round this website and see some of the resources I have on offer that will Help You to Build in Life and Business.

Till then, DECIDE, INVEST and DEVELOP and see you soon amongst The BIG Businesses in life who DID!

The 60 Seconds Elevator Pitch to Make An Impression!

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The 60 Seconds Elevator Pitch to make an impression

Yes, we all do it, some dread it, others relish it, but its a necessary part of promoting our business, the 60 seconds Elevator pitch!

This is probably a topic that there have been millions of articles written about, so you may have heard some of this before, but in terms of communication if something is worth sharing, its certainly worth repeating.

When was the last time that you reviewed your 60 Seconds Elevator pitch? For me, I review it EVERY time I know I am going to use it. Seems a bit of overkill? Well there is a method to the madness, honestly!

The 60 second Elevator pitch is not, in my view, designed to be  set in stone. It is not something that I would print on my business card and be giving out to everyone.

Let me explain why.  ALL businesses need to be adaptable to the ever changing markets that they operate within. They need to be able to adapt their pitch to catch the fish.

If I was to have a standard 60 Seconds Elevator pitch, then my business is not adaptable to the markets around me, and I will end up losing opportunities rather than gaining new business.

Therefore, I have a few basic rules / components to my 60 Seconds  Elevator pitch, but around this I build my pitch for the audience that I am in front of, whether thats an individual or a group.

The core components of my Pitch are:

  1. Who I am
  2. What my Business name is
  3. A call to Action

Just three core points of my Pitch are always the same, the rest is developed according to my audience.

So how do I gauge what I am going to say in the rest of my 55 remaining seconds?

Well, if I am going to a network meeting, where most of these Elevator pitches are utilised, I always try to find out beforehand from the organiser Three main pieces of information:

  1. What the format of the Networking event is
  2. What sort of Businesses attend
  3. If there are any potential competitors anticipated to be there

This information gives me the scope to then decide what I Pitch. It lets me know the type of business in the room and what from my list of services are most likely to be of appeal to those businesses so that I make a connection.

It also aids me to design my pitch with a call to action that is relevant to the event format. So for example if the network event had the 60 seconds round near the beginning of the event with opportunities to have 121 appointments during the rest of the event, I would have a call to action to be one of those appointments with people in the room.

However, if the pitch was at the end of the event, with people potentially rushing off, then I would make sure I placed my business cards on the tables when I arrived at the event, refer to these as how to connect with me in my call to action, and ensure that people had the means to contact me if we were unable to do so in the meeting.

If there are other businesses in the room doing similar to myself, I always have a few items up my sleeve to pull out and pitch according to what my competitors have already said. So if a competitor pitches something I was going to say, thats fine as I will have a couple of other services I can promote to be different to my competitor and give people a choice in connecting with me.

Another tool that I employ in deciding what I pitch, is to listen to the other Pitches. I look to see the reaction of the people in the room, what they engage with, what they don`t. This can be reading body language, do people write things down about what is being said, do people use jokes to break the ice and they get a reaction?

These things all feed into how I pitch and what I pitch.

I have found that the following help with the successful delivery of the message and therefore influence the content of my Pitch:

  • People like to hear facts about the topic
  • People warm to statistics to back up your point
  • Asking a question to gauge where people are at helps your pitch
  • Relating what you have been doing for other businesses to illustrate your service / product benefit, helps people understand and connect

It is important however, that I know my services / products / goods and know which ones I want to promote and which ones are right for that audience. This is a skill that develops over time and with practice.

If I know my business target markets, if I know what I have in my portfolio relevant to each target market, then all I need to do is identify who in the room falls into which target markets and pitch accordingly.

The main skill in this is blending the markets, if more than one, into the pitch so there is something for everyone to potentially make that connection with.

For those who know me, then this will come as no surprise that the main feeder for the Pitch for me is my gut instinct! There is nothing like being in a room, gauging the atmosphere, looking at the businesses present and deciding last minute what to say in my Pitch – it keeps me sharp!

You are you, and I am me, so like my journey, yours will be full of try it outs, see what works, what you need to change and feel your way in your circumstances and situation.

Hopefully some of the pointers I have shared will give you more focus on your Pitch, on how to gauge your audience, and how to ensure you know your services / goods that you want to promote, and just stand up, SMILE and GO FOR IT!

If you want support with your 60 seconds elevator pitch or your Business Communication in general, then please get in touch with us and see how we can assist! You can use the CONTACT US button.

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