The old adage "Work on your business, not in it." has withstood the test of time for a reason. It is easily the most common pitfall of any small business owner. The thing is, it is a necessary problem when you're first starting out.
The question is: how do you stop working in your business to be able to work on the business? One solution may be to hire a business advisor. Another might be to hire more specialized employees (i.e. marketing managers, accountants, etc.).
Both options are perfect examples of ways to take action to get yourself out of that scenario. Taking action is always the path to success! Learn more below!
It’s Saturday morning. The alarm sounds off at 4 am, time to start your day. While everyone else in the neighborhood is sleeping in, you don't get that luxury. You’re a small business owner. You’re driven, passionate and highly skilled at multitasking. You're also constantly moving, growing your business and there never seems to be enough hours in the day. Sure, you’re doing what you love, but you start to realize that all your time and energy is going into your established business.
When do you have time to work on it? Push it to the next level? New ideas and projects start piling up, taking forever to launch. You’re missing out on some important opportunities for your business.
It might be time to consider partnering with a small business coach. Not only are we experts in helping your business grow and succeed, we can create a massive amount of value for your small business.
So, you may be asking yourself now, how can a business coach help my business?
“Are your revenues where you want them to be? If not, how much more work, on top of what you are doing now, will it take to get you there? We provide the bridge to get there!”
Here are just a few ways that a Small Business Consultant can aid in the both the operations and ultimately, growth of your business:
A Small Business Coach will save you both Time and Money:
Relying on more precarious and risky methods, such as trial and error, for new business ideas may prove to be costly, both financially and functionally. Conversely, spending hours on research and data analysis in order to make decisions, takes up time that could be otherwise spent on doing what you love.
A small business coach’s purpose is to support you and your business. They can aid in anything from strategic planning, intelligent to data driven decision making, and the overall growth of your business.
They will save you money by helping you avoid costly mistakes. And enable you, as a small business owner, to focus on why you started your own business in the first place – your passion.
A small business coach will help develop your long-term goals:
“Where do you see your business in 5 years? 10 years? If you cannot answer those definitively, you'll be playing catch up with your business for the long-term.”
As with any small business owner, you spend a significant amount of time and effort to simply run the day-to-day operations; which may lead to you losing sight of your long-term goals.
Imagine if you will, that you're business is a car moving down the highway. You want to reach your destination, but instead of sitting behind the wheel most of the time, you end up spending a majority of your time under the hood, or filling it with gas, or changing the tires. As you can see if you're not behind the wheel, you're not going to reach where you want to go.
A small business advisor knows what it takes to get to the next level and can provide support and strategies to help you expand and grow in the years to come. In terms of our example above, an advisor could either help you drive the car or handle those small tasks that need to be done so that you can spend more time behind the wheel... or both!
They will help maximize your opportunities:
A small business consultant can help you stay alert to new prospects in the market, while you’re focusing on the present. They can help in developing plans and strategies for your business that can be initiated immediately when opportunities arise or sudden growth occurs. They can also aid with future planning and find mistakes or issues, which happens, that may be holding you back from true success
Keeping your business flexible and open to changes in demands or consumer preferences are just a couple things your business advisor can help you with.
A small business coach will provide an objective view:
As a third party, a small business consultant can provide an honest evaluation of your business operations. Sometimes it just takes that one unbiased view of something to get a handle on what is happening in your business and/or market.
They can also aid with future planning and find mistakes or issues that may be holding you back from true success. Which always reminds me of the dreaded statement of "This is the way we have always done it!" A business coach will help you get away from things you are stuck on to be able to evolve and improve your business over time.
Sometimes it can be difficult to take a step back from your business and view it objectively – a small business consultant can help you to shine a light.
A small business mentor will provide expert opinion:
You’re probably used to wearing multiple hats – you’re the CEO, sometimes the CFO, CMO and maybe even the CTO. While you may be an excellent multitasker, sometimes you will find yourself with questions or in need of another opinion.
"Sometimes even if we excel at any given role, when we try to do them all at once our efficiency overall drops. It's often better to do a few things with excellence, then to do many things less than optimal"
Hiring a small business consultant is a surefire way to get that expert opinion. We can't speak for every business coach out there, but any coach that works for Out of the Box Advisors has extensive experience in small business management. Generally speaking, the purpose of the business coach is to shore up your experience along with allowing you to focus on what you need!
Overall, a small business coach is a great idea, right from the start. They’re a great resource to refer to and will ultimately aid in the growth and development of your small business.
And that way you can focus on what you love to do – your business.
At Out of the Box Advisors we have a combined expertise of over 60 years of business experience. We offer services, including marketing coaching, Executive Coaching, and Business Coaching.
The best part? We offer free consultations! We believe we succeed when your business succeeds - plus, who doesn’t like free coffee?