Posts in Business Coaching

Coaching Approach

One-on-one (1:1) coaching versus group coaching. Which do you like better? Why?

I’m examining the differences in coaching models and would love your thoughts. Here are some of mine:

Cost: Being coached 1:1 (privately), should essentially cost more than a group session –right? In reality, group coaching should be more lucrative for a coach, if you have enough participants. Plus, it’s less expensive for the participants. Though, you might need a room for a group, where 1:1 can be much easier.

Content: 1:1 seems more specific to the needs of the individual. Group coaching seems more like training and follows a loose agenda. 1:1 seems more personal. The coach probably needs to work more on engaging content with a group.

Mastermind: When you have a group, you have more opinions to share and discuss. In a 1:1 situation, the coach is essentially your only source, but you expect them to be the expert.

Value: I know that value is always measured from the customer’s point of view, but I think value depends on what you want from coaching. One might value cheaper sessions that have a lot of group interaction. Where another might value privacy and targeted advice.

What are your thoughts?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Being the Leader

Pre-COVID Boss to Employee: I’m in charge. I have all the answers. I don’t need to discuss the situation with you.

Post-COVID Boss to Employee: I’m in charge. I don’t have all the answers. I need to discuss the situation with you.

What are the top leadership lessons that we’ve learned in this crisis?

Is it best to be open, up front, honest, and vulnerable with your employees?

Do you tell them that cash flow is struggling, sales have dropped, and no one is buying?

Do you let them know you don’t know what to do and that you’re concerned about layoffs or going out of business?

Do you protect your employees and don’t tell them any of your concerns — it’s better this way?

These are thoughts every leader faces at some point. But how do they respond and what’s the pros and cons of each?

It’s easy to tell someone how they should act, but it’s a totally different thing when you have to do the acting.

What are your thoughts?

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#leadership

Best approach to sales?

Pre-COVID Boss to Sales Employee: “Call as many people as possible, we don’t have time to get to know them.

Post-COVID Boss to Sales Employee: Get to know as many people as possible, it’s a waste of time just calling people you don’t know.

Is there an aggressive shift in sales?  Moving from a ‘numbers game’ to ‘relationship selling’?

I see a lot of talk about the importance of relationships when it comes to selling.

However, I still get the same amount of canned emails and messages going for volume click bait over connection.

I still see people wanting to get more views on social media than actual engagement.

Let’s face it, relationship selling takes time. You need to learn about your prospects…spend a lot of time getting to know them.

What’s easier, getting a, “No,” response on the 15 minute phone call, or after 3 weeks of getting connected with someone?

I’ve worked in the Bullpen, making 100 calls a day for a couple of leads.

In that same company, I’ve researched 100 people and made a few great long-lasting connections.

I’ve also spent months connecting with clients and developing long-term relationships. I prefer this approach.

What works best for you?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#sales

Did you plan for COVID?

Pre-COVID. Boss to Employee: “We don’t have time to plan right now — we need to get work done.

Post-COVID. Boss to employee: “We need to plan right now, or we won’t have any work to get done.

Planning…

That must be one of the scariest words in the Business Dictionary.

Why?

Because, so many shy away from it.

By this Friday, we are expecting it to start raining here in San Antonio TX. It’s forecasted to rain for the next seven days.

That means flooding.

I turned to my wife last night, after looking that the weather report, and said, “We’ll need to get the Flooding Checklist out.”

Is just one of our ‘plans’ that makes sure we are as prepared for the worst as possible.

You do that when you run a business. Ours is a 100-acre horse farm with 40 horses on property.

We didn’t have a “Pandemic Checklist.”

But, almost three months ago, we did pull out our Disaster Preparedness Plan and developed a list of actions.

These actions kept our business moving forward and helped since I was laid off on April 20th.

Did you plan for COVID?

Were you ready for COVID?

What are you doing Right Now about planning for the next crisis.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#planning

Working from Home

Pre-COVID…Boss to Employee: “Our company cannot survive with anyone working from home.”

Post-COVID…Boss to Employee: “Our company cannot survive without everyone working from home.”

Was your boss one of the many that didn’t allow remote work?

How’s that working out for them now?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Being Curious

Being Curious 獵 might be one of the most important ♟ skills someone can possess!!!

Are you naturally curious?

When someone says something, is your first instinct to ask, “Why?”

Asking, “Why,” versus simply accepting the response 樂  can be a very powerful tool.

How do you build 料 this muscle?

Do you find people who ask, “Why,” all the time annoying?

What shuts down curiosity mire than anything for you?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#curious

Does Your Internet Suck?

How’s your internet service holding up during these times?

We live out on our horse ranch, north of San Antonio TX. I wouldn’t say that we live in the country, but we’re certainly not in any city limits.

Right now, internet service is massively important.

And honestly, our service could be a lot better.

Last night, we were doing a group mentoring session over Zoom and my connection was horribly unstable and kept dropping.

How many other people are finding their internet service has become their Achilles Heal during these trying times?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants #internet #wireless

Connections on LinkedIn

Do you have a lot of connections , but not a lot of interaction? 

Not all connections are created equal.

What type of person are you on LinkedIn?

隸‍♂️ Super User. You are online all the time. Posting at least daily; like, comment, and share all kinds of stuff; and you respond to messages and comments.

履‍♀️ Lurker. You read other people’s posts, but hardly ever post or respond. You’d rather be a silent participant on LinkedIn than active.

 Absent. You have a profile, but you never use it. Occasionally, you might update it, but you don’t look at your messages or your notifications and you have no pulse online.

Ways to identify what type of connections you have.

1. Send them a birthday greeting or congrats on job changes and promotions. See if they ever respond.

2. Look at their Activity on their profile. If the section is blank, you can see this person doesn’t participate much.

3. Check the recency and completeness of their profile. No picture, limited details, etc. Probably not active.

4. Number of connections. Less than 500? Obviously not using LinkedIn to connect with the world.

Who cares?

Are you using LinkedIn to connect with people on a deeper professional level or just to build a connection count.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Positive or Negative?

So, are you being positive  through this or are you being negative ?

This morning, I woke up to a really negative post on LinkedIn about people being positive in this crisis.

He was complaining about people “predicting” what business will look like after this is over and how things will change.

His mantra was that this will last a long time and the world will be in ruins, so everyone should stop being positive and predicting the future.

Funny, but isn’t that what he’s doing … predicting the future?

However, his prediction was one of doom and gloom over positivity.

How about you right now? 

16 days ago, we had our first day of over 1K of confirmed cases.

Everyone pretty much started working from home about that same time.

Yesterday, we had our largest number of confirmed cases, but the incubation period is 14 days. So, that’s not a huge surprise.

Look at China. On their worst day, their confirmed cases spiked to over 15K and then significantly dropped off.

Since then they’ve practically eliminated confirmed cases.

I’m going to continue to look to a positive future.

How about you?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Knowledge Management During Crisis

Have you discovered the importance of strong knowledge management as companies laid off employees and the remaining employees all started working from home?

You might be thinking, what the heck is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is a process of defining, structuring, retaining, and sharing the information, knowledge, and experience of employees within your organization.

Normally, it’s important because it boosts efficiency, effectiveness, and decision-making ability in a company.

Now, more so than ever, companies are finding that knowledge management has become almost paramount.

Why?

Mainly because of two things:

1.  Employees have, for the most part, been forced to work remotely — working at home.

2.  Several companies have been forced to layoff employees fairly quickly to protect their cash flow.

But really why?

Mainly because most company file systems are completely disorganized, employees have files saved haphazardly in systems as well as their own personal locations, some still have paper files and paper-based processes today.

Thus, it’s extremely hard right now to find information that you are looking for.

How is your knowledge management?  Has it become a major issue in your company?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants