In the spirit of giving thanks, we thought we’d share some heartwarming testimonials.
At ActionCOACH, we pride ourselves on the fact that we’re not business consultants — we’re business coaches. We’re not hired to fix things and leave, but we’re hired to coach, mentor, advise clients and be a sounding board for all questions and concerns. All problems are tackled together. Business coaching is NOT the same as business consulting!
Listen to hear what these ActionCOACH clients are thankful for, and how ActionCOACH helped their businesses!
Business coaching is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity and Bob Grace, the CEO of Grace Tax Advisory Group, knows it. In this video Bob talks about how his ActionCOACH business coach, Heather Christie, and her team has helped his business. By delivering what is important through increased focus and efficient time management thanks to the implementation of systems and strategies, Bob has seen first-hand just how important coaching is for any business these days and you can see how in this testimonial.
Pssst….want to know a secret? Better yet, 7 secrets?
We’re about to let you in on 7 business tips that business coaches tell their clients when they ask questions about marketing. Marketing is something that’s vital to business, and most clients want to know how they can improve their marketing strategies.
These tips are exactly what a business coach would tell you in a business coaching session…so if you’re interested in learning more, perhaps you should consider contacting ActionCOACH.
Step #1. Marketing’s an Investment not an Expense …
Whenever you place an advertisement, send out a sales letter, or do any piece of marketing you have to make sure your investment pays off. From this day forth you’ll never sell to another new customer again. You’ll BUY new customers, and your marketing budget is how much you’re paying for them …
Before you run any marketing campaign, do a break even analysis and work out how many sales you need to make a profit …
Step #2. Test and Measure Everything …
Test which ads are working, test which headlines work better and you’ll quickly become a marketing genius. In fact, instead of writing just one ad, write 7 or 8 and place every one, find out which one works the best, and keep on running it.
Measuring your results is simple … Just ask each and every customer the question, “Can I just ask, how did you find out about us?” And, keep a tally. At the end of the day you’ll know exactly how many sales you got from each marketing approach.
Step #3. Target … Offer … Copy …
The 3 most important aspects of every marketing campaign … Scoring just 1/10 in an importance rating is the copy, or words you use. It’s still in the top 3 but what you write won’t have much effect unless you get your offer right. It scores 5/10. Simply put, you’ll find it hard selling people something they just don’t want.
Scoring a massive 10/10 is your target market … If your marketing isn’t working, the first thing you need to examine is who you’re trying to sell to. Where is your ad placed, who have you sent your direct mail to and so on …
Step #4. You’ve got to Increase Your Conversion Rate …
Most business people believe they’re selling to about 6 or 7 out of every 10 leads they get … The truth is that when most people test and measure we find it’s more like 2 or 3 out of 10. That’s only 20 or 30%. If you could just sell to another 1 in 10 you’ve added another 30 of 40% to your turnover …
Step #5. Guarantee your Sales and find your Uniqueness …
If you don’t promote a written guarantee your customers are at risk when they buy from you. Remove their risk, and increase your sales by promoting your guarantee.
Also be sure to position yourself uniquely in the market place. If you do everything the same way everybody else does, you’ll have to compete on price. And, that’s like being a wood duck in hunting season …
Step #6. You have to get your customer back …
The reason why most people’s marketing doesn’t make money is that they don’t ask their past customers back. You have to keep a database of past customers, and you have to communicate with them at least every 90 days … Ask them to buy another time and a percentage will. These people are your best target market …
Step #7. Write better headlines for your marketing pieces …
Your headline is 80% of the success of your ad. Put the word YOU in it, focus on your customers, and most importantly, use something other than your company name …
The rise of business coaches has led to numerous improvements in the business world. Among them is the idea that happy employees help create strong companies. A business coach enters any situation with a myriad of ideas to improve a company’s performance and culture. Among these are increased accountability and employee empowerment. At the same time, your business coach while improve your company’s culture. A business coach knows these changes will lead to greater productivity time and time again.
Every business coach knows working is necessary for people to feel useful in their lives. Unfortunately, too many of us have had jobs we didn’t particularly enjoy. In the real world, what you have to do often supersedes what you want to do. A business coach knows that feeling leads many employees to underperform at work. Finding reasons employees underperform is one of the most important things your business coach will do. After finding the issue, a business coach helps you come up with a plan to fix the problem
Greater accountability and employee empowerment seem to be two sides of the same coin. Your employees can’t be empowered unless they are responsible and accountable for their actions. One of the biggest problems in the workplace is employees not understanding the structure of their company. This leads to unhappy workers because there will be confusion. Employees won’t know how to turn to in times of trouble or even know who they are responsible too. As you can imagine, feeling empowered in this situation is virtually impossible. A business coach will show you how to avoid this problem.
Another important aspect of empowerment is incentivizing. With a few examples, we can see how this has taken a hold in business recently. Many companies have found unique ways to incentivize their employees, which, in turn, makes them happier and more productive. Some companies offer day care services, some offer lunch to their employees and some even drop off and pick up dry cleaning for their workers. These are just a few ideas that a business coach may have for your company.
A key idea that many successful companies have focused on is the effort they’ve made to keep their employees happy. A new, enlightened style of business has led to employees that feel empowered and prepared to contribute in ways seldom considered in the past. A business coach can help you exploit the ideas that are right for your company.
ActionCOACH’s goal is to advise business owners to achieve true business success through analysis and systems implementation; forms of business coaching. What that means is that we help the self-employed build a profitable commercial enterprise that works without them. After all, systems should run a business, not the owner.
The first thing business coaches do is to access the business by working with the business owners to determine where they are, where they would like to be, and then helping them implement systems and strategies based on what we, the business coach, find that would be the most appropriate for that particular business’ needs (increase profitability, systems, employee training, controls, etc.).
We will be assessing the business in the five key profit generating areas: Lead Generation, Conversion Rate, Average Value Sale, Average Number of Transactions, and Profit Margins. Those areas are highlighted in the following equation:
Lead Generation x Conversion Rate = # Customers
# Customers x Avg. Value Sale x Avg. # Transactions = Turnover/Revenues
Turnover/Revenues x Profit Margins = £ Profits
So basically, we are looking at the equation for profitability for any business, in any market, in any industry sector. Throughout all of these sectors of business, the equation for profitability stays the same.
We have developed 367 different systems and strategies under these five variables. For example, Lead Generation has 73 systems that can be implemented to help business owners increase their lead flow. In addition, we have 86 systems that may be used to increase your Conversion Rate, and so on down the line.
Once we have established where the business is, we are able to go back and look through our systems and determine which of those would be the most appropriate to implement in increasing the profitability of that particular business type.
We use the information we have gathered on the business to put together a detailed Alignment Report that will serve as our roadmap to success for the next 12 months of Business Coaching.
Once we have established that the business can be profitable, we move on to our secondary goal, which takes place during the Coaching process. That goal is to teach the business owner the difference between working on their business and working in their business. Small business owners can spend 60 hour or more per week just trying to keep their business alive. Most often, what we find is that they are working on the wrong aspects and end up spinning in a relentless circle until the business finally folds in on top of them. Our goal is to help them in working on growing their business instead of concentrating on the technical issues, which are usually counterproductive to growth.
Throughout the process of business coaching we will spend about an hour each week with the business owner (depending on their needs) helping them stay focused on their goals, testing and measuring results, assisting them with potential obstacles for growth, systems implementation, etc. We hold our clients accountable for reaching the goals that we set together, and work diligently to help them achieve great results!
So basically, we teach the self-employed how to become successful business owners. We teach them how to make more money for less effort, and we have been very successful at that.
Putting together the “dream team” for your business can be as easy as taking action rather than “information approach”. With a plethora of training options open to employers, it can often be puzzling when trying to find the strategies that are going to achieve results. This is just another benefit to business coaching — a business coach can offer a new perspective on your business and offer tips you might not have thought of, like focusing on your team as a business owner.
There is one basic rule to apply when considering your next team building exercise. “Dream teams” are not built through information or training alone. Seminars, competency training, reading books and watching videos are all helpful strategies but as the age old adage goes “action speaks louder than words”. Being able to perform tasks during training is not the same as applying them on a day to day basis. Just as information does not automatically change behaviours. For example, we read about the dangers of smoking but many people still engage in this behaviour.
Environment is one of the key factors in influencing your team’s success. People base their behaviour on their beliefs about themselves and their environment. Can they have a positive impact on their environment? Does this environment support positive behaviour? Team members should feel that they have the capability to contribute in their environment. This means giving them the right equipment and environment to be effective is essential. It also helps if they feel safe to contribute their opinion and feedback in a supportive environment. But how do you find this out? You simply have to ask. Ask your team if they think there are factors in their environment which could be improved to help them be more efficient, productive or happy. Perhaps they may prefer music as they work, better light, or flexible hours. Many organisations have realised the importance of employee satisfaction on the bottom line. Workplaces now can include facilities such as childcare or the benefits of ergonomically designed work stations.
Beliefs are the key motivators in peoples’ behaviour. However, changing your team members beliefs is not an easy or swift task. Recruiting the right people through personality instruments and team interviews can be one strategy but understanding their beliefs can be important in identifying other strategies. Common beliefs limiting team performance include:
Feedback “I have some constructive feedback but expressing it may cause a confrontation – best to keep it to myself”
Delegation “The only way to get the job done properly is to do it myself”
Sales “Real salespeople are dishonest, pushy and arrogant”
Changing beliefs such as these can be a daunting challenge. Team leaders need to facilitate change by designing flexible experiences for people in organisations to learn that “maybe there is a different way to look at this”. Experiential learning such as climbing trees and playing games aren’t just used because they are fun and help build relationships but because they work. Multiple and varied experiences must be used to inspire new ways of seeing and thinking about things. Reframing opens the mind to new beliefs and behaviour.
Information and ideas are not enough they need to be engrained in day to day activity. You need to look at training options and ask what beliefs in this organisation may hamper or aid in achieving the desired outcome? How can our work environment be changed to support flexibility and greater productivity or what experiences will help foster changes in belief and behaviours? Team building is not an exact science but a cast of finding the best strategies available to bring out the potential in your team.
Can Business Coaching provide leadership to your career and your business?
For executives who want to take their career to the next level, Business Coaching can get you there.
Not only can Business Coaching increase the impact and effectiveness of your career, Business Coaching can accelerate your company’s growth and implement programs that result in exceptional ROI.
Not only will an effective Business Coaching program offer additional insight and add a new perspective to your career and company, good Business Coaching will guide your productivity by linking performance to key metrics on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
Maybe it’s a friend or a colleague who can guide you through the twists and turns of running a business.
But if you’ve had enough of books and other media, or you don’t have a “friend in the business,” you can find a great mentor in a Business coach.
Not only will a good Business Coach have the knowledge and experience to help mentor you to transform your business, he or she will be act as your guide to greater success.
Business coaching is a form of training and education that helps business owners get better results in their businesses.
With a series of proven system and strategies, business coaching helps guide owners to find their own answers that best fit their company and industry. Business coaching also holds owners accountable for getting results.
Like a sporting coach, business coaching seeks to achieve optimum performance by getting business owners to improve their systems and teams.
Business coaching, like sports coaching, also relies on measuring performance against metrics and benchmarks.
Business coaching is perfect for small-and-medium sized businesses, because the coaching programs are designed as simply as possible and are easy to implement.
In today’s world, business coaching can mean the difference between the success and failure of your company. Check out ActionCOACH’s business tips to prevent failure!
In the spirit of giving thanks and being grateful this Christmas season, we thought we’d share some heartwarming testimonials.
At ActionCOACH, we pride ourselves on the fact that we’re not business consultants — we’re business coaches. We’re not hired to fix things and leave, but we’re hired to coach, mentor, advise clients and be a sounding board for all questions and concerns. All problems are tackled together.
Listen to hear what these ActionCOACH clients are thankful for , and how ActionCOACH helped their businesses!
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