Three Ways To Grow Your Business By Being A Selfish Leader
"Being selfless can make it seem like the weight of everything, and every person’s wants, is on the ... [+] leader’s shoulders." Getty Entrepreneur Mike Malatesta likes to say: “Selfish comes before selfless, in the dictionary and in life.” He says most leaders don’t want to be called selfish. The word has a bad reputation. But if you want to attract high-paying clients, you might want to make a new decision about being selfish. “Since we’ve been little kids, we’ve been taught that being selfish is bad and being selfless is good,” says Malatesta. “In the business world, most of the accolades, the awards and the books are presented to, and written about, leaders who are held up as being selfless and a servant.” Indeed, some excellent books have been written about being a servant leader, from authors such as Ken Blanchard. Malatesta takes a contrarian view as the key to growing a high-performance organization, something he has done more than once. What Malatesta calls selfish, I call focus. Perhaps a better term is extreme focus. Author Bud Harris coined the term sacred selfishness, which I take to mean taking care of yourself so you can take care of others (like the warning the flight attendant gives that in case of emergency, put your mask on first and then help others). To help other entrepreneurs, Malatesta wrote the book Owner Shift. He started his first business in 1992, seven months after being fired from a company he had dreamed he might lead one day. Over the next two dozen years, he founded and sold two eight-figure waste management companies. In his book he talks about how getting selfish got him unstuck. “But there’s a dangerous trap to being selfless and a servant that doesn’t get talked or written about much,” says Malatesta. “If you don’t know about the trap, you will likely end up in what I call the valley of uncertainty. That’s the place where we end up stuck, wondering what we did wrong and wishing someone would tell us what to do to get out. It’s the place leaders end up when what they’ve been doing stops working or breaks them.” The creator of the How’d It Happen? podcast, Malatesta’s mission is to help as many entrepreneurs as he can to create companies that improve people's lives and, maybe, the world. “The trap is that selflessness, putting everyone else first, can easily become a leadership crutch,” says Malatesta. Malatesta offers three tips to avoid this trap: Putting everyone first can be a way to put being liked above being effective. “It can create a hero syndrome,” says Malatesta. “That’s when all the company’s systems lead back to the ‘all knowing’ leader and makes them feel like the most valuable person in the organization. Ultimately, being selfless can make it seem like the weight of everything, and every person’s wants, is on the leader’s shoulders.” Taking the selfish track is the way to avoid the valley of uncertainty. Malatesta says, “The leader’s most important job is to create a vision of the future that the company wants to own and make its property. That’s job #1. Creating that takes selfish space, thinking, attention and time. It can’t be done by squeezing in time after everyone’s else’s needs are met because that time never comes.” A new world opens when a leader chooses to be selfish first. “They see things with a new perspective, through a lens that can often be capped by selflessness,” says Malatesta. “Being selfish challenges the leader to focus on the maximum impact and clarity that they can being to their organization. That’s the leader’s job. It removes the distractions that make so many selfless leaders busy but not effective and liked but not loved.” While an open-door policy might sound like a good idea, it can leave a leader with no time to focus. Leaders need to carve out this time and space and protect it vigorously. A leader can feel constantly ambushed and taken advantage of because of this. One talk show host famously lashed out about this in a memo to his staff, and then had to walk his comments back and admit he should’ve handled the messaging differently. “It may seem a little like going against gravity by putting selfish before selfless,” says Malatesta. “It will make you a better leader and your company a higher performing organization.”
How to Grow as a Business Coach for Entrepreneurs?
Hello this is Jared Polak, the founder of Entre Results, back for another awesome article post. This post is going to focus on a question I’ve been getting a lot lately from many entrepreneurs, which is how to go about growing as a business coach for entrepreneurs. As you and many other coaches know, I’ve been in the coaching industry for a long time. As a result, I spend a lot of my time now focused on giving back to the coaching community as well as coaching the coaches on the Entre Results team. As I do this, a lot of the business coaches I work with ask me the following question: How can you grow as you coach other entrepreneurs? What Goes into Being a Business Coach for Entrepreneurs There is a lot involved in answering that question, it’s definitely a complex one. It would take a decent chunk of time to cover everything in-depth. So, for right now, we’re just going to talk about 4 of the most important steps to take to continue growing while you coach other entrepreneurs. 4 Ways to Grow as a Business Coach for Entrepreneurs 1. Know Your Business Coaching Target. If you want to grow while coaching other entrepreneurs, you must start by thinking about what type of entrepreneur coaching you want to focus on. Doing that will enable you to discern your target. You might have a desire to help female entrepreneurs and choose them as your target, for example, women #business coaching could be what you choose to focus on. Or maybe your target is salespeople and choose to focus on sales coaching. Your target could be small businesses, in which case you would want to focus on small business coaching. These are just a few examples, but my main point is that knowing your target is a huge and very important component of learning how to grow as a business coach for entrepreneurs. 2. Define Your Business Coaching Specialty. The second step to figuring out how to keep growing as you coach other entrepreneurs is defining your specialty. You’re a coach, of course, but what kind of coaching do you focus on? Maybe you’re particularly good with sales and small business and so you specialize as a small business sales coach. Or perhaps you have both business coaching and consulting services. I know sometimes people will use the words coaching and consulting almost interchangeably. Even so, consulting is different than coaching, so it might be the case that you have two specialties and focus on both. More specifically, you might really love working with people who are new to the industry and focus on doing business coaching for startups because of that. I remember when I was starting up as a coach and how important it was for me to have help regarding my business. It was essential in many ways. So, there are many times even at EntreResults where we focus on business coaching for startups who are looking to coach other people. That might very well be what you’d like to focus on as well. Of course, that’s not our only focus, and it’s entirely possible that you might find yourself interested in offering more than one type of coaching as well. The only way to figure this out is to start thinking about your niche, target, and specialty in-depth. You’re going to want to dig as deep as you possibly can with these things. 3. Know Your Process or Coaching Techniques. Pinpointing your niche, target, and specialty is just the tip of the iceberg, because you’re also going to need to answer some questions involving your coaching practice. For instance, what coaching techniques do you want to utilize within your coaching practice? And, perhaps more importantly, do you currently have a coaching process? If you don’t, you need to. And if you do have a coaching process what exactly is it? You also need ask yourself whether you’re going to focus on coaching solo and individual coaching or on coaching teams. In that same vein, you’ll need to figure out what kind of model you’ll be using to coach people. The overarching theme here is figuring out what your coaching process is, what kind of techniques you’re going to use within it, and what type of coaching you’re going to focus on. 4. Choose Coaching Packages That Can Be Easily Understood and Purchased. Last, but not least, you need to consider your coaching packages and how you’re going to organize them. How will your small business coaching packages be set up and how will people pay for them? You might also want to create small business coaching courses or something along those lines. In a nutshell, learning how to grow as a business coach for entrepreneurs revolves around knowing your target, defining your specialty, knowing your process or technique, and making sure you choose packaging that makes everything easy for people to understand and purchase. So go ahead and continue to take action on the steps in this article and as you move forward with business coaching for entrepreneurs. Conclusion As always, thank you guys for taking the time to read this post. At this point, you’ve got some excellent tips when it comes to maintaining your growth as a coach for other entrepreneurs. Being a business owner is highly rewarding, but it’s not always easy. If you’d like more guidance or clarity regarding your business or would like to dive further into anything that was covered here, we at EntreResults can help. We specialize in business coaching and consulting services, sales coaching, and small business coaching services, among other things. If you need coaching support, we can help. So, if you’d like to learn more or feel ready to take your business to the next level, feel free to give us a call! #businesscoaching #entreprenuership #businesscoach #businessadvice
How small businesses can continue to grow amidst a pandemic
For nearly two years, the pandemic has continued to force small businesses to shift the way they do business. When 2020 lockdowns began, having a functional website and online store became essential tools, with all facets of business depending on it. And with each subsequent wave and variant, the importance of businesses having a digital presence only increased—consumers spent $791.70 billion online in the U.S. in 2020, up a whopping 32.4% from the year prior. In 2021, seemingly temporary solutions businesses pivoted with became the “newest normal” redefining the way small business owners work and what it takes to not only survive, but thrive. As we embark on yet another year of the pandemic, things still aren’t looking like business as usual. Small businesses must continue to adapt quickly to consumers’ changing habits and needs. Many are more tightly integrating their online and brick-and-mortar operations as customers prefer to interact both online and in-person, exemplified during online orders with prepaid curbside pickup. Greg Goldfarb, VP of Products and Commerce at GoDaddy, shares how small businesses can lean into new innovations and technology trends spurred by the pandemic to simplify shopping for customers, boost customer loyalty and grow their business. Image Credits: Wicker Goddess While brands are running their brick-and-mortar locations, due to the pandemic many now have an online store open for business, allowing customers the choice between shopping in-person, online for delivery or online with in-store pickup. Consumer’s personal comfort levels have varied throughout the pandemic, and due to this new hybrid way of shopping sparked by the pandemic, new consumer habits have formed. They expect more options, and ultimately more convenience. Small businesses that can meet those demands are going to be a step ahead of the rest. A recent survey commissioned by GoDaddy and conducted by OnePoll revealed four in five Millennials (82%) specifically said they would be more likely to purchase from a small business if they can place their order for delivery or pickup. Business owners should look at ways they can integrate tools like curbside pick-up, QR codes and contactless payments like Apple Pay, expanded outdoor dining options, video classes rather than requiring people to meet in-person and more. Providing more customizable shopping experiences for customers will build the loyalty needed to keep them coming back. With many small business owners selling in new places and across new platforms, managing orders and sales from various channels and keeping inventory up to date is essential to providing a seamless and positive experience for customers. There has never been a more important time to have a modern, digital commerce solution that provides a one-stop shop across ecommerce and point of sale along with integrated payments. Companies like GoDaddy, which recently launched a commerce solution that offers businesses the ability to sell, track and manage sales in more places than any other comparable platform, simplify this process for small businesses. GoDaddy’s commerce solution empowers businesses in three ways: It provides two new point of sale devices fully integrated with WooCommerce and GoDaddy Online Stores to support scenarios like buy online with scheduled in-store pickup. It incorporates GoDaddy Payments for both e-commerce and POS transactions at industry-leading low rates, so businesses can keep more of what they make. And it also provides one convenient dashboard where business owners can see the state of their business in a single snapshot, including visual graphs mapping sales and orders, payment transaction and deposits details, and the ability to compare the performance of sales across all the marketplaces that business sells. Tapping into smarter technologies helps entrepreneurs future-proof their business, save time and grow their customer base. Image Credits: Juanita’s Plants Along with the need for an engaging online store, the success of a business in today’s climate also depends on reaching customers wherever they are. As transactions become more digital, small businesses cannot solely rely on “location, location, location,” and need to adopt an expanded mindset of where they need to be present—while remaining consistent across each channel. Consumers are shopping across the world’s biggest marketplaces, whether that’s through channels like Amazon, Etsy and eBay, or directly on social platforms they engage with daily. During a 2021 survey over 47 percent of responding social media users from the US aged 16 to 34 have purchased products or services on Instagram. Now more than ever, businesses need to be seemingly everywhere at once. However, small businesses should focus on a small handful of channels that matter most to their specific product category. Because while there are always new platforms and endless creative ways to sell to customers, it can quickly be confusing to manage them all and draining to figure out how to break through. There are tools available that provide businesses with a simple and intuitive way to connect their online points of presence, including social platforms, marketplaces and a website or online store. For example, GoDaddy’s Website Builder now has an integrated Facebook and Instagram Ad Builder that enables small business owners to easily create and manage paid advertising across Facebook and Instagram from a single login. From that same dashboard business owners can add products to across places like Google Shopping, Etsy, Amazon and more. Operating under a commerce platform like GoDaddy that automates brand consistency, best practice selling across channels, leverages a single product catalog and inventory, and enables businesses to manage all orders from one place makes a huge difference. As we move forward, businesses both small and large will need to closely examine how nimble and interconnected their systems are. The past two years have brought continuous ebbs and flows in which side of a business—online or in-person—served as a cornerstone or supporting pillar and proven that the speed your business is able to adapt is where successful brands catch their edge. Change is inevitably part of our foreseeable future; is your restaurant ready to shift with evolving consumer behaviors and preferences? And how quickly can your business make those changes? Companies that connect all of their offline and online points of presence create a seamless experience designed to swivel with your business as the proverbial pendulum swings. Building that kind of consistency for customers is how to lean into the “new normal” and position your business for growth in 2022 and beyond.
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