If you own a business and you are looking for someone to help, ask every coach you talk to one question: how do you plan to stop working for me? The answer will tell you almost everything.
The Client Who Fired His Coach
I congratulated my friend, who is also a business coach, when he said the client “fired” him. This wasn’t a hostile ending. In fact, it was because he did his job! He provided the tools, knowledge, and skills necessary to solve their problem. Throughout the engagement, he was able to massage and hone the problem into a solvable issue. In the end, a person with a specific skill set was able to come in and take a clear path forward. Had that person come in early, they would have been selected to solve a problem that didn’t really exist. The coach provided clarity. And that is the magic.
Tools That Replace the Coach
The best thing I can do is give you tools that make me no longer necessary. And that is a problem for the coach to solve, not the client. The premise is that the problem presented by the client is rarely a problem the coach can solve. Instead, it is up to the coach to uncover what is truly under the thesis. That is where we begin.
The Comfort Zone Trap
Typically, coaches select a target audience based on what they are comfortable talking about. Because of this comfort, there is a huge upside in keeping the client within the coach’s comfort zone. For instance, we could target “honest lawyers,” then dive into the problem, create others, and solve again. It’s a cycle that a lot of successful consultants use, at the client’s expense.
Keeping the client in the coach’s comfort zone is a way to keep the problem alive. Let’s get unbelievably uncomfortable. That is the magic place!
Wanting Without Doing
Not long ago I sat down with a business owner who wanted his company to grow. His business had not grown, and the reason was simple. He wanted it, but he was not doing it.
That is a different problem than a lack of strategy, and more tactics would not have fixed it. The gap was not information. It was motivation. Wanting is easy. It costs nothing, and it feels a lot like progress. Doing is where the risk lives, and nobody has to take a risk to sit in a meeting and talk about the future.
So the problem was never the business. The problem was the owner’s motivation, and until that gets solved, nothing else on the list matters.
Motivation Comes First
As a business coach, I can show you how to build a P&L, a pro forma, best practices, and technology leverage, but I cannot impact your business until you understand your own drive and motivation.
I can hand an owner every tool on that list, and it will sit in a drawer next to the other good intentions. The tools work only when the owner wants the result enough to pick them up. So the real work starts with questions that have nothing to do with the spreadsheet. Why do you want this? What will it cost you? What are you protecting by staying right where you are?
Slow the Conversation Down
Coaches have something to offer, but that requires giving of ourselves. The goal is to slow the conversation because not everything needs to be said at once. Don’t drift to the good places. All there is there is comfort, even if it’s defective. That’s not where growth and transformation happen.
When there is no truth, there is no fear to avoid.
Tune Out the Noise
OEO. Opinions, expectations, obligations. We need to learn to tune that out.
Most owners carry more of these than they realize. There are the opinions of people who never ran a business but have plenty to say about yours. There are the expectations of what a successful owner is supposed to look like. And there are the obligations you took on before you ever asked whether you wanted them. All of it adds noise, and noise makes it hard to hear what you actually want.
Ask the Value Question
What is the value behind the choice?
Is it worth the time and effort we devote to it?
Ask those two questions about the next thing on your to-do list. Ask them about the meeting, the hire, or the project you have been circling for months. Some of it will not survive the question. That is a good thing. The rest will have a reason behind it, and a reason is what gets people moving.
The Forecast Is Internal
TOOL: It’s not the events of our lives that shape us but our beliefs as to what those events mean. Weather is determined by the onlooker, not the atmosphere. Some see sun, some see rain. Our forecasts are internal.
Two owners can look at the same slow quarter. One sees a failing business. The other sees a signal worth listening to. The numbers are identical. If you can change what the event means to you, you change what you do next, and what you do next is the only part that moves the business.
What to Look for in a Coach
If you are searching for help, here is what I would look for. Find someone who asks about you before they ask about your numbers. Find someone who will make you uncomfortable on purpose and will not park the conversation in the safe topics. Find someone who hands you the tools and teaches you to use them, not someone who keeps them in their own briefcase. And find someone who talks about the end date in the very first conversation.
Working Myself Out of a Job
That is how I work. I come alongside the owner, we uncover what is really going on, and we solve it together. If I do it right, you will not need me. You will have the clarity, the tools, and the drive to keep going on your own. My friend’s client fired him, and I congratulated him for it. I would be proud to hear the same.
If you are a business owner who knows what you want but has not found a way to start doing it, reach out. Let’s get uncomfortable and figure out what is really in the way.
