Do you ever think about why you do what you do? Have you ever sat and thought about it? I have. When you have your own business, smart people like Simon Sinek tell you it is all about the WHY.
With my Why, I’ve always come up empty. I like what I do, I like helping people and I like making sure that businesses don’t through unnecessary problems unnecessarily, but is that enough?
Telling a few stories of my past in a few random chats makes me realise, actually there is more to it that that and that my past is very much part of how I ended up here, albeit subconsciously.
When I was growing up, a few people on my family had their own businesses, so it wasn’t a huge step for me to start mine. You could argue some were more successful than others, but first you’d had to define what success looked like for them. My mum, for example, had a village shop selling bread, cakes, sandwiches and other various items. All she wanted was something that would let her be around for me and my sibling, so we didn’t have to be latch key kids. When we finished our education, she sold it to a local businessman and didn’t look back. Job done!
My dad had a small wrought iron metalwork company, making everything from gates to staircases. He was and still is so creative, designing, making and fitting bespoke products all himself. He was always busy, and so often tired, it being a physically demanding job. He spent most of his time on this side of the business and less on invoicing and chasing payments. Like me he’s a bit of an introvert so he found that side challenging. He’ll tell you now, if he could go back, he would have prioritised this more. Cashflow is the life blood of any business, and when that gets restricted, then life becomes more stressful.
Back then he had no one around him to talk to, no one to bounce ideas off and no one to give him advice. Imagine how stressful that must have been.
I want to be the kind of business coach that I wish my dad could have talked to for support and advice, the one who could have helped him cut back on the doing, spend more time on getting the money in, maybe raising his prices or even going after a different kind of market. The one who would have helped reduce his stress and been in his corner.
The kind of business coach who would support my mum and understand her goal wasn’t to make millions but to have a steady stable business, the one who would have supported her to work fewer hours, to be able to get more time back for her family and teach her that profit is not a dirty word, and look at ways to increase her profit without losing sight of the community she was serving.
I want to be the kind of business coach that you know gives you honest, solid advice. That you can talk to openly and honestly, the one you know doesn’t judge, who will help you make the best decisions for your situation and who will help you get what you want from your business.
What do you think? What kind of business coach do you want? I would love to hear your views.