Business coaches open new playbooks
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BY LOUISA MURZYN
Times Correspondent | Sunday, December 10, 2006 | No comments posted.
Paralyzing fear kept Jeff and Shari White standing pat on the sidelines when it came to growing their small business. But that changed when they attended a business coaching boot camp.
"We were always afraid," Shari said. "We'd get to a fence -- a point where our business could really grow -- and then we'd get scared and just sit there. We were in our comfort zone but never growing to the next level."
The Whites, owners of Great White Hard Surface Specialists in Lowell, a tile and grout company generating $100,000 in annual sales, have used many business coaches over the past nine years. But it wasn't until they hooked up with Jeff Levin, of Action Business Coaching, in Crown Point, that things began to click.
Levin helped them formulate strategies for change and showed them they couldn't do it all alone.
"Coaching helped us get over our mindset," Shari said. "We were doing all the day-to-day work and had to hire new employees so we could focus on building the business."
Levin has his clients attend private and group coaching sessions with other like-minded entrepreneurs.
"We go from coach to parent to dictator to cheerleader all in a short span of time," he said. "You're in 14 different roles and wearing every type of hat you can imagine."
Great White Hard Surface Specialists is now poised for measurable results.
"We've laid the groundwork, and it should snowball," Shari said. "Before we were just getting by and not seeing any change. We needed somebody to kick our butt. It's been a great combination."
More and more, small business owners in Northwest Indiana are turning to coaches to help them polish and improve their business skills and acumen.
Ray and Patty Dills contacted the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Highland this year. They own Hose Connection, Inc., a hydraulics wholesaler in Hessville, which opened in 2000 and generates $1 million in annual sales.
SBDC referred them to Leanne Hoagland-Smith, of Advanced Systems in Valparaiso, who helped them see they weren't addressing all their customers' needs.
They were only capturing about 2 percent of the local $100 million hydraulics industry, so they joined forces with a network of other shops and expanded products into pumps and cylinders.
"We outgrew everything we knew how to do," Patty Dills said. "She made us think and gave us a new way to look at our business instead of just making the sale, getting the invoice out and paying the bill. We're growing now and ready for the next step."
Sales have increased 20 percent.
"We got our investment back 10-fold," she added. "And life around here is much easier."
Susan Anderson, regional director at the SBDC, said although her center's focus is economic development, staff there counsels start-ups and are now seeing more existing businesses come in for expansion, diversification, marketing and even loan packaging.
One of the limitations of coaching is some people think it's a panacea or quick fix. The reality is it's an experience that must be entered wholeheartedly by both coach and client.
"It's up to them whether they improve or not," Levin said. "It doesn't matter who is sitting in front of them. Unless they're ready, they're not going to move. People will spend lots of money to not do anything."
Hoagland-Smith agrees. "You have to do the work," she said. "Don't expect your coach to do it.
"We just provide the strategies, tools and knowledge for them to change themselves," she said. "They have to be willing to invest the time. It's a matter of self-reflection."
Nobody knows that better than Phil Falls. He's talked with numerous business coaches over the years, but admits he might be the poster child for the uncoachable.
Falls owns Fast Lane Foods, Inc., a cigarette discount and convenience store outlet with six locations. He has been in business 30 years.
"I've done it all," he said. "I've wasted more money than you can imagine. I was trying to find somebody to fix my problem instead of doing it myself. No coach, no seminar, no book is going to change a person."
Facing up to that truth has helped Falls to grow. Now he feels he's heading to the end zone and looking for a fourth-quarter victory.
"My failure was due to my lack of involvement. I didn't take responsibility for learning what they were trying to teach. All you have to do is look inside."
"It's all there," he added. "You just have to make it happen."
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