Small Business Coach
As a small business coach, I’ve noticed that many business owners are leaving a significant amount of money on the table. Simply put, a typical small business owner is potentially losing out on hundreds of thousands in revenue each year!
And, over the long term, they may be missing out on millions in revenues and profits because they aren’t focusing on the success of all 7 stakeholders in their business.
The problem is many small business owners only focus on what they can get out of their business. Or at most may consider how their “best” customers, employees and partners can benefit. Worse, many small business owners hold on to the old win-lose view of business which states that for one person to win, another must lose. But this old view is clearly wrong….Small Business Coaching
Why?
Everything is interconnected.
Your business, like everything in life, is a system. And, in a system, every part is related. Therefore to win at your highest levels, all the stakeholders – anyone or thing that can benefit or lose depending on how your business performs – must win as well.
It’s only when you grasp this truth that you become empowered to achieve sustainable business success – to maximize your long-term business success and profits.
Let’s explore how you can achieve greater profits….
Sustainable Business Success
As a small business coach, I help clients who own small businesses focus on each of their stakeholders in ways that help the business owner achieve their highest financial results.
Here are the 7 Stakeholders that must win if you want to achieve you highest level of business success:
- Owners. Most small businesses have one or several individuals who are the owners. This includes “family owned” small businesses. As an owner of your small business, you have an investment and are at risk for either losing that investment or making a good return on it. Focusing on your return and how to best achieve your financial results in your best interest. It is your commitment to yourself and any other owners. Owners should focus on both the short term and long term, including their exit plan, such as selling the business. If owners are going to maximize their financial success, then they must focus on the other six stakeholders as well.
- Lenders: Any source that lends money to your organization to finance your operations, from owning a building to a credit line that gives you the day to day working capital you need to run your business, is also a stakeholder in your business. They have a vested interest in your success because they win by your being in a position to pay your interest and repay your loans. Whether your small business financing source is a bank, individual investor, or small business lender, they are a stakeholder in your business.
- Employees. They are the core of your team. When you build a culture that supports their growth, empowers them to achieve their best, treats them with regard, respect, and validates their contribution, they give their all and therefore benefit the business and its growth. When you care about your employees and validate them by appreciating their contribution to your business, you will attract the best employees. In today’s market, the best employees want to want to work in a culture where they are supported to win, a culture in which they matter.
- Customers. Your business exists to serve your customers, to provide benefit and value in a way that is meaningful to them. When you focus on creating an experience for you customers that gives them what they seek, you build a loyal group of fans who feel connected to and supportive of business success – because you are giving them what they seek. They feel like they are a part of your company and build an emotional bond with your business and your brand.
- Partners. Think of business suppliers, joint venture partners, outsourced workers, anyone with whom you combine business efforts to achieve your business success, as partners. When you focus on their needs as being as important as yours, which includes their business success, you build strong long term alliances. This is in your business’ best interest, both short and long-term, to make creating mutual benefit one of your top values and priorities.
- World: The community in which you live and build your business is also a stakeholder in your business. For example, when your business creates jobs, you increase revenue to people in your community, which empowers them to purchase your goods and those of other businesses which may then purchase from you. When your business creates products and services that solve problems for the people and businesses in your community, everyone wins. And when your business gives back to your community by supporting causes and getting involved in needed projects, your community becomes more vital. This can result in more people moving to your community, which then gives you a wider audience for your business.
- Environment. You use raw resources and impact the quality of the environment, positively or negatively, by how you do business. The simple fact is that without the environment, you couldn’t do business – everything you use from the desks, supplies, and utilities come from raw resources in the environment. It is just practical business sense to choose green solutions such as using energy efficient light bulbs or placing a water saving device on your office toilets and faucets. These actions save on utility bills which increases your bottom line profits now, while decreasing the cost of the raw resources in the future because there will be more of them.
New Business Environment
In the new economy, business is shifting almost on a monthly basis. Small business owners across the country are finding that what they did a year ago is no longer working. Why? Because the consumer’s ability to spend is shrinking. And, this is going to continue to be the trend, perhaps for several years go come.
The answer to this problem is focusing on your relationships – with caring about all of the 7 stakeholders winning. We are in a new business environment. It is now ALL about the relationships you build and the service you give. This will both determine your brand and whether a stakeholders even wants to do business with you.
From your relationship with your customer to your alliance with your lender to the bonds you build with your business partnerships, in the new business environment, it is now all about relationships with stakeholders.
YOUR New Bottom Line
Caring about all 7 stakeholders isn’t an option, it’s actually the most practical, its the new bottom line approach you must take if you want to achieve sustainable business success and maximize your profitability.
Once you become aware that everything is interconnected, it becomes clear that for one part of a system to win, all the other parts must also win. This is the key to sustainable business success.
When any part wins, the other parts win more. The opposite is also true. When any one of the parts loses, it negatively impacts your whole business system, and therefore your business success and profits.
While you may not notice this on the short term, on the long term it will show up, both in your bottom line and in your enjoyment from running your business.
Advantage for Small Business
When you create a business in which all the stakeholders win, each stakeholder’s success comes back around and you, as the business owner stakeholder, achieve even higher levels of business success. You are probably familiar with the phrase “what goes around comes around.” Well, that’s what I am saying.
If as a small business owner you only focus on what yourself as a stakeholder and what you can get from your business, you are literally leaving 6/7 of the potential for your success out of the equation. Actually, you are leaving more than that – because you are also leaving out the synergies that result from all of the 7 stakeholders being successful.
However, in order to achieve your highest level of small business success, all of the 7 stakeholders must win. This is the new direction for business. And, because small business owners can make fast shifts in how they approach business, this is also an advantage that small businesses can have over larger organizations in this new economy.
This is where business is headed. It’s at the core of the Conscious Millionaire Business Model.
Simply stated…massive stakeholder success results in massive business success!
Small Business Coaching
Sit down today and write down one thing you can do to increase the VALUE that your business gives to each of the 7 stakeholders. Turn these into action steps and then implement them, one each day over the next 7 days.
Let me know the results you achieved by implementing your 7 action steps. I look forward to hearing from you. Leave a post or send an email.
Your Small Business Coach,
J V Crum, III, M.B.A., J.D., M.S. Psy
Founder, Conscious Millionaire Institute, LLC
www.ConsciousMillionaire.com
Director, Conscious World Foundation, Inc
www.ConsciousWorldFoundation.org
Keywords: small business coach, small business coaching, socially conscious business, socially conscious companies, business success, sustainable business success, small business owner, conscious world