|
|
by
Bill Dueease
Copyright © 2003 by Bill Dueease
The Coach Connection
Michael Gerber wrote a very popular book entitled "The
E-Myth Revisited" about the myths of entrepreneurship.
He explained that entrepreneurs must have three skills to win. Gerber
claimed that entrepreneurs must possess and execute the following three
skills to be successful at running a business:
1. Technical Skills
2. Managerial Skills
3. Visionary Skills
I believe that Gerber was only partially correct. He leaves readers
with the impression that the entrepreneur (alone) must consistently possess
and exercise all three of these skills for the business to succeed, and
for the entrepreneur to win. I believe that the key distinction is that
the three skills represent the three FUNCTIONS of the business that must
be completed for the business to succeed. I believe that the entrepreneur
does not have to perform all three functions personally.
.
A business is like a chain. It is only as successful as the weakest link
in the chain. The three links to any business chain are the technical
function, the management function and the visionary function. The success
of a business will rarely exceed the level of poorest execution of the
three functions. For example, if the entrepreneur performs the technical
and visionary functions at an excellent level, but performs the management
function at a poor level, the business success will rarely rise above
the poor management level. Therein lies the dilemma. The business is limited
to the lowest level at which these three functions are performed.
Yet, it is extremely unlikely that any
one person, in this case the lone entrepreneur or business owner, can
exercise all three functions to a high enough level at one time to generate
the expected business success.
.
Let’s look further at each of the business functions
to learn why this is true.
The Technical Function
The technical function of a business requires someone to actually perform
the duties of that business, which attract payments. This could include
repairing air conditioners, painting houses, writing computer programs,
or installing tile. People who do the technical work have almost total
control over what they are doing, they frequently do something tangible,
and they receive almost instant feedback and gratification. This is the
“doing function.”
The Managerial Function
The managerial function of a business requires someone to direct, coordinate,
and organize the business activities of other people (and themselves)
to achieve the daily and weekly success goals. People who perform the
managerial function have much less control, because of reliance on others
to actually perform other duties, and they have delayed feedback and gratification
from one day to a week.
The Visionary Function
The visionary function of a business requires someone to look years into
the future, set goals, organize, and lead the business to the completion
of the vision. People who perform the visionary function have virtually
no control, because they must rely on others to actually perform the managerial
and technical functions, and the many unforeseen things that will happen
during the years. They perform even less, if any, “doing” type
of work, and have delayed gratification and feedback from one-to-five
years.
You can see that the type of skills, activities, control, and gratification
periods vary widely for these three very different functions. The very
different nature of these three functions, the very different skills needed
to perform them well, and the very different types of people who would
be mentally and emotionally capable of performing these functions requires
three very different people. It would require one lone superhuman person
with three very different personalities and motivations, and with excessive
energy and time to simultaneously perform all three functions at a level
high enough for the business to succeed. These wide differences are the
reasons it is so difficult for any one person to perform all three functions
simultaneously. More importantly, It is even rarer that one person (the
business owner) would WANT to perform all three of these functions them
self.
Yet, entrepreneurs are led to believe they
must execute all three functions themselves. In addition, most entrepreneurs
feel not only compelled to do everything themselves, but most feel they
are very capable of doing so. But, when the lone entrepreneur/owner works
long hours and expends considerable energy to execute all three functions
of his or her business, the business will almost always fail. In essence,
the business will fail because the entrepreneurs did too many things and
worked too hard. Burnout is enviable.
This year, over 800,000 of the approximately 2,000,000 start up businesses
will fail! Nearly 1,000,000 of those remaining will fail within 3 years.
Clearly the sole entrepreneur doing everything approach is not working
that well.
Smart and successful entrepreneurs and owners discover the three functions
they have the greatest desire to perform and will be the most successful
at completing. You will also want to know the functions you have the least
desire to perform and at which you will probably be the least productive.
This is an extremely important discovery process about you, the entrepreneur.
Once you have made these discoveries, you will want to design your business
around you. By custom designing your business to suit you and your personal
desires, passions, priorities, and talents, you will orchestrate your
ability to enjoy and excel at the functions you selected for you.
Likewise, you will avoid performing the other functions you would have
suffered and struggled to execute well enough for the business to succeed.
You will want to enlist others to perform the functions of your business
that you do not want to do. You will want to join forces only with people
who have a strong desire to perform the functions you do not want to do
and have a strong desire to avoid performing the functions you love doing.
It really comes down to creating the best fit for you first, and then
creating the best fit for the people performing the other functions. It
is almost like the sport of baseball. There are nine positions in baseball
that must be played well by all nine players in order for the team to
succeed. There are three positions that must be played well for the business
to succeed. Pick the position you want first then have others play at
least one, if not both, of the remaining two positions. This way everyone
will be much more productive, have more fun, and the business will thrive.
But how do you as an entrepreneur or business owner discover enough about
you to be able to understand which aspects of your business are best suited
for you? You engage a business coach. A business coach is, in essence,
a life coach who specializes in coaching entrepreneurs and business owners
to business related goals. The most common business goal clients achieve
with their business coach is to become more successful and productive
entrepreneurs and/or business owners and do so on their terms. The initial
discovery phase of business coaching will assist you to unravel the mystery
of you, so you become The World’s Leading Expert on You! You can
work with your equal partner/coach to develop your business to allow you
to fulfill your passions, follow your beliefs and values, maximize your
talents, avoid as many of your self-imposed obstacles as possible, and
operate your life based on your own priorities. Now that you know what
you want your business to look like because you have your business coach/partner
to support you with options and clarity, and because you as the entrepreneur/business
owner have ultimate control over your businesses, you have nothing stopping
you from custom designing and completing your business to suit you. By
building your businesses to suit you, you will be virtually assured of
achieving outstanding success, and you will get to enjoy the ride along
the way.
If this is true, then how do entrepreneurs and business owners get all
three functions executed well enough for the business to succeed, if they
don't do it themselves? Entrepreneurs and owners have others perform at
least one of the three functions for the business. We are listing several
possible methods entrepreneurs and owners can have one or more of the
three functions successfully performed by others.
.
The simplest way to cover all three functions is to have a business with
two or more partners who execute different functions. This is a very common
success tactic. Do the names of Gates-Allen, Hewlett-Packard, Jobs-Wosniac,
Disney-Disney sound familiar? They succeeded in large part because they
had at least two people accomplishing the three functions from the outset.
Sometimes, it appears easier to go it alone, but if you can find a partner
who wants to and is effective at performing one of the three functions
you want to avoid, you are way ahead of the game.
Tips to selecting a partner
The most frequent reason business partnerships break up is because the
partners are too much alike. Partners with like interests and personalities
want to perform the same functions and compete to do so, while not paying
attention to the other functions. Friction occurs and partnerships or
businesses dissolve. How often do two programmers, or two electricians,
or two salespeople, or two mechanics, become partners only to see their
partnership and the business implode because they focus on the same function
at the expense of the others?
Another way to solve this dilemma is to hire someone to perform one of
the functions. Normally, the function that is the easiest to hire in is
the technical function. However, this fact frequently creates a conflict
with entrepreneurs. Normally, entrepreneurs begin their business by performing
all three functions, including the technical functions themselves. The
baker bakes, the plumber plumbs, the graphic artist does graphic artistry,
the printer prints, the accountant accounts, and the list goes on. The
sooner entrepreneurs can have someone else perform the technical functions
of the business so they can focus on the management and visionary functions,
the sooner the business will start down the road to success. When entrepreneurs
have others execute the technical functions they transition from being
a technician to becoming a business owner.
Remember when you hire others to perform
the functions and duties you do not want to perform, you have several
ways to hire them, and the options and availability of qualified and effective
performers of the functions you might want completed by others is immense.
Here are the three basic ways you can hire others to perform duties for
your business.
Hire employees.
This is the traditional method where the
employees work full time for you and you assign them duties and functions
to complete for your business. The many aspects and issues of hiring employees
are much too diverse and numerous to discuss here.
Hire independent contractors
Independent contractors are people who
perform specific functions for hire on a time or result basis. Bookkeepers,
100% commissioned sales people,web designers, consultants, etc. can all
be considered contractors. Normally you pay them to perform duties or
produce specific results.
Hire other businesses.
There are millions of businesses that are
designed to perform specific functions for other businesses. In fact,
your business might be just one such business supporting business. You
may hire an accounting firm, a PR firm, a sales firm, a manufacturing
firm, etc. to perform the specific duties and produce the desired results
you want on behalf of your business.
However, if you are excellent at performing the technical functions, you
may want to bring in someone to perform at least the visionary and probably
some of the management functions. The franchise structure of business
has been used for years to allow performers of the technical functions
to utilize the franchiser to perform the visionary functions and provide
considerable guidance in performing the management functions. Look at
the successes of the McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and other such
franchises. The headquarters of each of these groups perform all of the
visionary functions and design and teach a large part of the management
functions. The franchisee performs the technical functions and some of
the management functions. Through this separation of duties all three
functions get performed exceptionally well to produce great successes.
As the entrepreneur or business owner you have the power, control, and
obligation to design your entire business around you. You want to discover
and know yourself very well going into the design of your business, so
you will know exactly which functions and duties you will really want
to perform. You will undoubtedly create excellent results from the duties
you want to perform. Likewise, you will want to find, attract, and surround
yourself with others who will want to perform the other functions of the
business you chose to avoid. They will also produce excellent results
from performing their chosen duties. This way you get to do what you love,
and you will do it well. You also have others producing exceptional results
because they enjoy it so much at the other functions of the business you
chose no to do. You win because you will work less and enjoy yourself
more, your supporting cast wins because they will enjoy what they do and
they will be rewarded for their high quality results, and the business
wins because all three functions will be executed exceptionally well.
Why is business coaching worth
so much more than you pay?
The value of the goals you achieve will greatly exceed what you
pay for coaching. You set your coaching
goals and you will surely set goals that are the most valuable and
important to you. In fact, business coaching clients have found that the
value of the goals they achieve through coaching are inevitably priceless.
Results
of a Study to Determine the Return On Investment (ROI) of coaching!
There are also other, more hidden benefits of coaching that are frequently
worth more than the value of the goals achieved. The benefits from improving
as a person to achieve your coaching goals are frequently priceless. Getting
your ideal income position (a very common coaching goal), will frequently
entail reducing or eliminating your business stresses, improving your
attitude about business, improving your relationships with others, and
much more.
Telephone coaching has proven over the
years to be the , the , the , the
, the , the , and
the of coaching available.
In fact, over 91% of all successful coaching is conducted
over the telephone. Click
here to
discover why these statements are true.
There is one more very compelling reason to use telephone coaching. By
using telephone coaching, ,
since you will not be limited to the geographical area near you.
You will want your telephone business coaching sessions
to last at least 30 minutes. You begin to get your money's worth at the
30 minute mark of each business coaching session.
However, you will want to keep your telephone business coaching
sessions below 60 minutes in length. The reason is that the sessions will
be very focused and energetic and you will start getting tired as the
session gets closer to an hour.
Choose your ideal business coach!
You will select your ideal business coach after
experiencing business coaching from at least three ideally matched TCC
Member business Coaches. TCC has 138 Active Member Coaches located in
41 States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Member Coaches were thoroughly
interviewed and rigorously screened from over 1,150 applying coaches.
Click
here to read the required personal characteristics of TCC Member Executive
Coaches.
Get Started Now!
1. Call TCC for your confidential consultation
2. Be coached by three prescreened Business Coaches
3. Choose your ideal Business Coach
4. Turn your activity
into Profitability
It's Easy:
1. Call us for your Free, No Obligation,
Confidential Consultation to learn more and decide about coaching for
yourself at: 800-887-7214 (toll free in the US and Canada) or 239-415-1777.
(We answer the phone by the fourth ring.)
2. Request that we call you for your Free
Consultation,
3. Contact us by e-mail.
4. Attend a teleclass entitled:Is
Engaging a Coach Right for Me? or Is
Becoming a Coach Right for Me?
5. Or learn more about coaching and TCC
before acting!
(after all, we made a lot of promises and business coaching and TCC
might be new to you)
You are invited to select the starting point that
best suits your level of knowledge
Bob has been instrumental in my development
as a businessman and person. His knowledge and experience are invaluable,
and his insight into a person's personality traits, tendencies, likes, dislikes,
strengths, and weaknesses is incredible. Bob's genuine caring shows in his
ability to listen not only to what is being said, but to what is not being
said. He is always assessing and reassessing to make certain I'm moving
in the right direction, and is always patient and encouraging. I would gladly
recommend his services to anyone and would love to have him on retainer
for the rest of my career.”
Raul S.
Entrepreneur, Businessman
Fountain Valley, California
View
more testimonials.
The Privacy and Confidential promise of The Coach
Connection.
Everything you do with TCC will be private and confidential.
In addition, what goes on between your TCC Coach and you is so confidential
and private that the only way anyone will know about it is if you tell him
or her. TCC guards your privacy and confidentiality to the extreme.
|
 |
