These days, it seems like business tips are a dime a dozen. You can do a couple of quick searches online or head to your bookstore to find thousands of opinions and experts willing to help you grow your business. Though this advice might be both evidence-based and promoted by experts, it’s not personalised advice for your business.
There is a wealth of content out there. So, how can you figure out what will legitimately help your business and what might send you in the wrong direction?
As a coach matching service, it will come as no surprise that we at Upskill coach want to see you paired up with an expert business coach. A coach can help you improve your leadership abilities and take your business to new heights. A business coach will always be offering practical and personalised advice for your business.
Don’t just take our word for it – in this post we’ll look at some studies and examples of why any business advice you follow should be as personalised as possible.
Growing your business
Some of the typical advice you read about growing your business might sound great on paper. However, it is actually difficult to apply to a real-world scenario. Some of the tips even sound as generic and suspicious as some common “get rich quick” schemes that float around online.
With a quick search, you’ll probably find business growth tips like these:
- Be adaptable to changing markets and changing technologies;
- Hire the right people who will dedicate themselves to your mission; and,
- Focus on the customer by listening to them and giving them what they want.
There are countless other tips just like these. They’re great tidbits of information but the problem comes when it’s time to apply them to real-world scenarios.
Say you just launched an e-commerce store to sell your arts and crafts. Do you really need to hire staff to help you grow? Or, are there other, smarter ways to grow your business at your own pace?
The truth is, the generic advice that can be found in even the most celebrated management books isn’t necessarily going to apply to you. That doesn’t mean that good content is impossible to find – it just might not be tailored to your unique situation.
What personalized advice can give you
That’s where personalized business tips can come in handy. Custom-fit advice for your business can be found through coaching programs or mentorship experiences with people you trust.
Ideally, the advice you use will come from a source with industry experience. It should also be based on your personal plan for growth. The most sound advice will take into account not just the stage that your business is at, but what’s happening in your personal life, too.
The best part of enlisting the help of a professional business coach is that the first thing you’ll do is assess your needs. With one-on-one guidance, you’ll get custom advice that you won’t find even if you read twenty business books.
There are three things about personalised advice that sets it apart from the generic tips you can normally find in your research.
1. Goals of your business
Ask yourself why you started your business in the first place. The reason you became a business owner may take on all shapes and sizes:
- To grow, expand and create an empire;
- To sell your business to add to your retirement nest egg; or,
- To operate a lifestyle business, earning no more than a certain amount of income to help you live your life to the fullest.
One of the issues with relying on generic advice to grow your business is that what you read or hear often doesn’t take into account your personal and professional goals. They mostly assume that you’ll want to turn your business endeavour into a Fortune 500 company or make seven-figures in annual sales.
Think back to the example of the arts and crafts online store. Will that type of guidance really help that business owner?
To complicate things further, many entrepreneurs don’t even make goals for themselves. Does that sound like you?
A study by TD Bank shows the value of goal-setting for modern-day businesses. In it, more than 500 small business owners were surveyed and asked about their goal-setting exercises, especially through the use of visual goal-setting.
The result? 82 percent of small business owners that set goals at the beginning of their business accomplished most of their goals.
Your business goals can be well-defined or non-existent. Either way there are huge benefits to seeking out personalised advice to help you set and reach them. A business coach can assess your needs and help you to create goals that work for you.
2. Capacity of your business
After reading a business management book, you might feel inspired to forge ahead and scale up your business. You take notes and make a to-do list but then suddenly realise that you’re a little tight on resources at the moment.
Hopefully you don’t have to learn the hard way, but one really important part of your business is its capacity. Your business capacity directly impacts your operational decisions whether you realise it or not.
The problem is that it’s difficult to calculate your capacity and depends on a bunch of factors:
- How much time you have;
- Your financial flexibility;
- The number of employees you have;
- Your sales numbers; or,
- Your production ability.
These inputs, and other things that make up your business capacity, are incredibly unique to your specific enterprise. For example, the capacity of an online store is an entirely different problem to solve than that of a consultancy business.
It’s another reason why personalised advice is far more helpful than reading generic case studies. A professional coach will help you develop a detailed list of your business inputs to find a growth level that matches what you can afford to invest.
3. Your comfort with risk
Launching and growing a business comes with lots of risk. Finding the right balance so that you don’t take on more than you can chew can be a delicate process.
Researchers like those at the Startup Genome study how startup companies take risks. They report that 70 percent of new startups take on too much, too early which leads to their demise.
If you don’t want to lead your business into an early grave, you need to balance the amount of risks you take. Risk often comes from managing your resources but it’s also directly related to your comfort level.
Personalised advice that you hear from a close mentor or business coach can help you find the right balance between hedging your bets and keeping your business venture safe and operational in the long-term, if that’s what’s important to you. And the cost of a business coach might just save some foreseeable mistakes when they can be discussed with someone else.
Get your personalized advice
A business coach may be the only thing between you and your business reaching new heights. With personalised advice that takes into account your goals, your life outside of work and your operating capacity, a coach can help you grow your business in ways you may never have considered. Best of all, they can help you do it while managing risk and helping you grow at a pace you’re comfortable with. Book a 15-minute free discovery call with one of our business coaches today to find the perfect coach for your business.
