You know, there’s a cost to doing what you’ve always done in business don’t you?
There’s that saying that says,
“Do what you’ve always done and you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
Wrong.
In business, the saying should read,
“Do what you’ve always done and someone will eventually overtake you and snatch your customers.”
Year on year for the last 5 years, new, registered businesses have increased in numbers. It shows that we have a more entrepreneurial society, but it also means that there is now more competition than ever for the customers and clients that you have right now.
Whilst I bang on about loyalty and treating the customer right, I want to point something out to you. For a business to grow and not go backwards and die, you need new customers. What worries me is that a business owner and their team will often resort to cheap marketing tactics and price dropping, sales, and hocus-pocus offers without actually looking at their biggest asset and invest in that first to attract their ideal customers and clients. Themselves and their team.
It’s a crazy situation when I’m continued to be told that business coaches are, in-fact “a waste of space”. Actually that was comment from a new client who just realised they were leaving nearly £10,000 a month on the table because they were looking in the wrong places for their customers and not investing time, effort and money into their marketing funnel, but relying on their existing customers. Not a bad return on investment for 6 hours of my time so far then.
What it really boils down to, is that NONE of us have all the answers. NONE of us are the finished article. Businesses that fail to grow are dying. Fact. A better owner, a better team will just result in a better business. Fact.
Get Help
Getting outside help with professional and business development is important because it ensures you continue to be competent, competitive and forward thinking in your profession and business. For successful and thriving businesses it is an ongoing process and should continue throughout a professional’s career and business lifetime.
The ultimate outcome of well planned continuing professional development is that it safeguards the public, the business, the professional and the professional’s career. Add to that it opens opportunities for a business to serve it’s customers better and attract more of the right customers at the right time.
Well crafted and delivered continuing professional development, mentoring or coaching is important because it delivers benefits to the individual, their profession and the public.
- It ensures your capabilities keep pace with the current standards and trends of others in the same field.
- It ensures that you maintain and enhance the knowledge and skills you need to deliver a professional service to your customers, clients and the community.
- It ensures that you and your knowledge stay relevant and up to date. You are more aware of the changing trends and directions in your profession. The pace of change is probably faster than it’s ever been – and this is a feature of the new normal that we live and work in. If you stand still you will get left behind, as the currency of your knowledge and skills becomes out-dated.
- It helps you continue to make a meaningful contribution to your business. You become more effective in the workplace. This assists you to advance in your career and move into new positions where you can lead, manage, influence, coach and mentor others.
- It helps you to stay interested and interesting. Experience is a great teacher, but it does mean that we tend to do what we have done before. Focused skill learning, coaching and mentoring opens you up to new possibilities, new knowledge and new skill areas.
- Coaching and mentoring by a third party can deliver a deeper understanding of what it means to be a professional, along with a greater appreciation of the implications and impacts of your work.
- Coaching and mentoring can lead to increased public confidence in individual professionals and their profession as a whole. (I have a mentor and listen to two audio books per month, a dozen podcasts per week and 10 TED Talks per week…my thirst for knowledge far exceeds my MBA!)
- And depending on the profession – business and personal development contributes to an improved protection and quality of life, the environment, sustainability, property and the economy. This particularly applies to high risk areas, or specialised practice areas which often prove impractical to monitor on a case by case basis.
So how much is NOT investing in you and your team ACTUALLY costing your business? How much are you leaving on the table by not having regular input from a coach or mentor?
Take me up on a FREE 30 minute focus call and lets see what plan and action you can take today…BOOK HERE
