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>> Leigh: There's two main reasons people'll come to me, really it's, the first one's crisis,
and the second one is around growth.
So crisis is where things aren't going well, and they're not getting the results they want,
they've had enough basically.
How do I get out of this situation or the space that they're in.
They're unsure how to get out of it
so, that's generally
or they don't know how to get out of it, and that's generally why they come to me.
The other reason is growth, they're either trying really hard to grow the business, and
it's just not working as well as it should be,
or there's a lot of fires to put out
which is getting in the way of growth,
and the other part of that, that I quite often see,
is businesses want to grow but they don't want to make a mistake and then find down
the track that they haven't grown,
and haven't got the results they really wanted, so those are the main reasons.
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Quite often they've got no direction
and no strategy for the company in the medium to long term.
They don't understand what effect that's having on the company.
Another big reason why they can be in crisis is a large event like an earthquake or recession,
these are generally referred to in the business world as a structural break.
When you get a structural break, you'll get a lot of change, it can be markets disappearing,
it can be all sorts of things, but they happen very quickly, and that can throw businesses
into crisis, they're unsure what to do next.
Another big one is they've got the wrong people inside the business, as well as outside the
business supporting them, so they're getting really no impact, obviously they're not seeing
results.
Another big reason is that, they're actually just overwhelmed, they're just trying to do
too much, they're working long hours, once again not getting results, and they're worried
if they're ever going to come.
Quite often they can be lost, they're not sure what to do next.
What they have been doing, hasn't quite delivered what they wanted, or what they feel they should
have received in results.
And another big one is fear. Quite often they're afraid to make a mistake, and they're scared
to fail, so they're actually taking no action.
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Yes, three examples.
Firstly one that came to me very worried about its' market drying up to a very high degree,
to about 50%
Another one came to me, after the February earthquake, very very concerned about losing
their clients, and possibly losing the business with that.
Another one that came to me was purely, the business owner was working 7 days a week,
up to 12 hours a day. Had no lifestyle, had no holidays, and was very worried about burning
out.
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In all cases there was some very clear things that were going on in those businesses, one
was that the business owners were working far to hard.
They had no lifestyle because of that, their profits in all cases were low.
And in many cases, well not many, all, they had people in the wrong positions, they had
people that weren't performing in the organisations, that had to be changed, and ironed out.
And, they also had absolutely no clear direction of where the business was going medium to
long term, there was no strategy, they didn't understand the strategic fundamentals of business,
none of that was in place.
Which also includes, you know, systems and processes, etcetera, which was making things
very inefficient,
and the other problem was that, there was no real purpose with what systems were there,
as to why they were there, and what they should be delivering without a clear direction of
the company.
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In all cases they're doing very well, they've got a clear direction, they're all growing
exceptionally well, they've moved into new markets.
In all cases actually they're now exporting, which none of them were prior, to coming to
me.
In the last case, the business owner had 13 weeks holiday last year, and is on track to
have that again this year, so he's a very happy person, especially while the companies
growing at a great rate.
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No, coaching and mentoring are quite different, business mentors are usually great people,
but their experience is what they bring to the situation, and they don't have training,
generally, outside of their own experience.
Whereas coaches have been trained in, lots of different areas of business, they're really
there to train the business owners, they're there to ensure the right things are implemented
into the business for business performance.
They should be able to help in virtually any situation that arises within the business
that the business owner needs help with.
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I would definitely tap into your own network, talk to maybe your lawyer, people like that,
professionals that you've got in your network, other business people in your network.
See who they recommend, get a feeling of who they're recommending, see if the same names
are coming up.
But what's really important is that when you're looking for a business coach, look for one
that has very good business experience,
they've run businesses, or led businesses themselves,
also, yeah, look for one that's staying in touch with what's going on, as far as leading
edge business thinking is concerned.
But, yeah, ask around in your networks.
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