Darrick: Hi, everyone, it’s Darrick here, I’m with Walt, and we are both business coaches and strategists with Denver Business Coach and we’re here for Coach’s Corner.
Darrick: We get questions quite often from our clients and from other small business owners. Just different challenges they’re having in their businesses, and we figure we spend some time chatting a little bit about it. And if this is the kind of help that you need or things that you feel would be good for your business, go ahead and give us a call. That’s what we’re here for.
Darrick: So the first question we have today is from an HVAC company down in Parker, and this is what they said, Walt, “I’ve been moderately successful getting my business off the ground and sustaining a decent sales volume, but I’m doing almost all the work myself. How do I build a plan, a roadmap to help guide me in the next stage of significant growth sales volumes, hiring the right people, at the right time? I can’t keep up this phase. I’m feeling overwhelmed and I don’t have the business acumen to confidently take the next steps”. Boy, if we had a nickel for every time we heard this question.
Walt: Well, that’s a big one. A lot of our clients get that feeling of being overwhelmed because they are doing it all. And that’s probably one of the most common reasons we see people come to us. So what we try to do at the start is break things down for them a little bit and I think, in this case, the owner was looking for a roadmap. And what we do is we have tools and resources at our disposal to help with these situations, and we tailor each engagement to that specific owner’s priorities and objectives.
Walt: And in this case, we might start with what kind of strategic plan they have in place, what are their short-term priorities and how we can pull them up and help them run. And in this case, with the business owner wanting some guidance, we would create a very concise plan and tailor the next several sessions based on that plan details.
Darrick: Yeah, and I think, I don’t know about you all, but I feel like often times when we talk to entrepreneurs like this, they’re looking at all the full scope of everything that has to happen. And it just does become overwhelming. And so you get to the point where you’re paralyzed because you feel like there’s so much to do and sometimes it just takes working with someone to help you boil it down to the priorities and what’s next on the list.
Darrick: So just approach and accomplish the next thing on the list and then go to the next thing and the next thing, as opposed to looking at the enormity of the whole picture and sometimes breaking it down like that and making it sequential almost, allows somebody to think about it in smaller chunks and achieve a little bit more.
Walt: Yeah, that’s exactly what we try to do and some of the things that help with that is, what is their business structure? How many people do they have? If it’s a solopreneur? That’s one thing, nobody to delegate to in that case, if there is a team with a strong number two, there is the need to delegate. Some owners have difficulty doing that.
Walt: But in many cases, we’re working with solopreneurs who literally have to do everything, and because the day to day is so time-consuming, what we help them do is carve out time for working on the business, not just in the business. And even just an hour a week with us, helps them overcome that barrier of having no time. And then that creates the momentum to keep that discipline going and make progress.
Darrick: And I always feel like this, that beginning period or that small period when it’s just you or just you and maybe a partner, is such a gift because the foundation you establish for your business then, is really going to ease the growth as you go down. If you take the time to put the financial foundations in place, the operational foundations, the sales, the marketing, all those things, and get them built really well, it’s just like building a house, right?
Darrick: You’ve got to have a strong foundation, if you do that and spend the time there when you’re small, the scalability at that point becomes so much easier. When you start to add more clients, you start to add employees and that complexity starts to build into your business. If you have that foundation already there, you’re going to be so much better off.
Walt: And that’s the beauty of putting together a strategic plan with some timelines that allow you to not think everything’s got to happen at once, but I know over the next year I’m going to try to achieve these specific steps. It may be hiring new personnel or trying a new marketing plan. But rather than feel like I’ve got to work on everything right now, this just helps the owner get its things in order with timelines to help ease some of the pressures that they’re feeling.
Darrick: Yeah, I was going to say, I think this owner really has some good intuition because they actually mentioned the roadmap. And I think that’s really what they’re looking for, a roadmap with some milestones and a path to follow. And if this is the kind of approach that you think would be valuable for your business, this is kind of what Walt and I do, every day.
Darrick: We work with our clients. We work with small business owners. We work with entrepreneurs to help them solve these types of problems. So if you think this could be beneficial, feel free to give us a call. Our information’s there on the screen. And we’ll keep doing these videos, though, because we like to bring about these questions. And if it’s helpful to you, keep watching. We’ll see you next time.
Walt: And thanks for joining us. If you have a question you’d like to see us address, let us know. Contact us at DenverBusinessCoach.com.