How can coaching help me in my business?

This morning’s meeting’s focus was to see if people had thought about their business plans after Nova’s input last time.  Some people were definitely inspired; Sally with her weighty halo even arrived with a mindmap showing her thoughts! She also had adopted the ‘mini-step’ approach of thinking 6 months ahead to get motivated and moving.

(Reminder brief summary : contact Nova for more info
1. Think where you are now, where you want to be, consider what you do, your customers, how you operate

2. Think how to effect the  changes you want with respect to finances, operations and sales/marketing.

)
Each person got longer coaching time today as a couple of no-shows - no doubt due to the gorgeous weather - enabling us to take a little longer on the open questionning and a couple of likely ‘breakthrough’ ideas emerged!

Thanks too for supportive suggestions to promote B2i:-

- Cost effective

- Drip fed nuggets of information

- Exchange of ideas

- Sort out business problems

- Monthly checkpoint to focus
- Peer understanding, mutual interest

Next meetings :

- Ferndown 12June
- Ringwood 29June

If you missed our Ringwood meeting this week, then let  me introduce you to Nova Woodrow of New Star Enterprises. Nova inspired us to do the minimum to give ourselves a vision of 2014. Well, what would you like to be doing then?

We heard a simple strategy for keeping us on track towards our 5 year vision (and easily adaptable to 1 year!); most present said they’d definitely give it a go!

Do reply here when you’ve tried it! Or contact Nova for her process.

The first meeting of a new group was held today. We were inspired by photographer, Kaspar Gobell, who explained the power, in marketing, of our own image, as well as our logo and brand. Business is increasingly personal, we must appeal to our market as (approachable?, pleasant?, fair? ‘normal’?) individuals worthy of doing business with!

We hope Kaspar will return in future meeting to take pictures!

Next meeting in Ferndown proposed for 29May.

(All attendees welcome to add  a comment here about the meeting and I’ll add a link to their website)

If you’ve read this and are interested in attending a monthly meeting, here are some important upcoming dates:

April 24th - Brand new group starting in Ferndown (10.30 for 11am start)

April 27th - New 3 month programme in Ringwood (10 for 10.15am start )

If you’d prefer an evening meeting, then get in touch with Shirley

Because several of us have explored multiple lines of business, we had another discussion meeting (which supported the change of venue to small room in Greyfriars community centre, Ringwood) - this time about running an income generating business or employment strand, alongside our ‘main’ business.

In very much a coaching style, we explored the pros and cons, and netted some positive goals:-

- business needs focus (Ian Giles of New Forest Systems related his recent successes, having concentrated on the main priorities of his business - very powerful!

- any spare time job needs to be bounded: the less to think about the better

- another strand of business needs prioritising against the main strand(s), so that we know how much time to spend on what!

No speaker today- instead some  fruitful discussion on the topic of how we know when to delegate or subcontract:

- Stuff that goes to the bottom of the priority list (it takes us too long, we hate doing it!)

- Stuff that we’re not very good at (results not effective with what we do ourselves)

- When we have a system for something: we can set performance criteria on the outcome, so that we manage it (We are still responsible!)

We got an insight into how to be systematic in our business approach, particularly recommended for consideration even prior to trading! Of course it’s never too late! Richard’s tips:-

- be able to describe your business in one sentence

- get feedback from everyone, especially those you trust

- write a realistic business plan (including SWOT)  and maintain it

- use all available resources to succeed

For more information about how Richard helps his clients be systematic in keeping their accounting records uptodate see Dare accountancy website

Deborah has been working, as marketing consultant, with several Ringwood companies of late, as well as maintaining her business development role with Dale Carnegie Training.

(Well done Deborah for maintaining 2 strands to her business!)

What great banners she uses to highlight her business!

Deborah shared some novel visualising techniques for when networking.

If you want to find out more about her marketing activities, see the members list in Ringwood Chamber of Commerce

We got some brilliant networking advice from Kathryn Hay, of Curious Arts in our 17Nov08 meeting. The introduction is key, as it covers that moment of an initial impression:-

Say something a bit different!

Keep eye contact, but don’t stare!

Use the other person’s name!

Touching the person’s hand with your second hand is a warm gesture!

And we discovered this in true coaching style: practising introducing ourselves to each other as quickly as possible, and sensing our own impressions, especially of what was most memorable!

Sarah Jackson | alphamortgagesandfinance.co.uk | on Nov 12, 5:24 PM said:
I found my first B2i meeting very informative and was interested to hear other people comments and experiences. With a relatively new business its always good to mix with other business people and hear different ideas etc.