So business is good. Your sales are where they need to be. You’ve got cash in the bank. Your team are performing well. You’re working the hours you want to work. In summary… you’re happy.
Happy is good. Happy is absolutely fine. We should be happy. Being in business can be tough; it’s an emotional journey, with ups and downs, and that is absolutely normal. So if you feel that you’re currently in a good place, then that’s great!
But COMFORTABLE is not good. CONTENT is not good. How come? Simply put, the world around you is changing, faster than it ever has before. Your competitors are always striving to get better, and they want your customers! They also want your best employees. They are diversifying their own markets, and are trying to become a better place to work, with more opportunities, so that they can be a more attractive workplace for the best people in your industry.
And what about your customers and your market? Customers are changing the way they make their buying decisions. They have more information at their fingertips than they ever have before. It’s far easier to compare suppliers and vendors, and your customers are forever evaluating the service, products, and prices that they get from you.
So if the world around you is changing, and you’re not changing with it, you are at risk of finding yourself falling behind, and it can happen fast. This is not fearmongering, just the reality. Far too often we speak with business owners who are happy where they’re at, and not adapting to the changing business world, only to find six months or a year later they have had to shrink their operations, or worse, or have moved from “thrive” mode to “survival” mode.
Even if you were operating in a stable environment, you have to consider how a “comfortable” situation can be received by your team. If we’re not striving to get better, or trying new things, then we run the risk of going stale. Teams – and business owners – can get bored, or complacent in their work, and standards start to drop. This can be subtle and hard to notice, but over a period of time the results can be disastrous.
Lastly, consider what the opportunities could be in your business, if only we were thinking bigger. DREAMING bigger. What would life be like if you were making more money? What would it be like if you had what a business should be: a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you? What would you do with that time? What could you do with more money?
A common response I get from business owners who are content, is that they feel growing their business, or running a larger business, requires more effort, work, and stress, which of course they don’t want. However, growing a business is not more work; it’s just different work. Business owners just shift their time from working ‘in’ the business – running it – to working ‘on’ the business – growing it.
Think about it this way: What’s harder? Owning the corner coffee shop, or owning a chain of ten Starbucks? When you own the corner shop, and an employee calls in sick or quits, you have to cover for them. You have to be in early in the morning to open up, and stay late to count the cash at the end of the night. Having a smaller team is more pressure on you, than having a larger team who is doing all of the work for you. Bigger businesses mean more money for less work, when done right. This is the kind of thing that a coach can help with.
So, does everybody need a coach? Well, I guess nobody needs a coach. But when times are tough, we can always benefit from outside help to get out of the situation we’re in. And when times are good, we can benefit from that same help to continue moving forward in these changing times. A good coach can help us spot the opportunities that we’re missing, and the challenges that are getting in the way which we can’t always see, because we’re too close to it; we’ve been doing it for too long.
In summary, don’t think about whether you need a coach. Instead, think about whether you can get more from your business than you’re currently getting. Think about whether your current situation is sustainable for the next 5, 10, or 20 years. A good coach will shed some light on these opportunities, and hopefully get you thinking differently about your business.
Happy is good. Comfortable is bad.
Find out more about what ActionCOACH can do for your business. Or if you simply have a question about something you’ve read here, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Email me at andrewgoldberg@actioncoach.com.
