Top 10 Lists
Rick Poage
rick@thrivingaudiology.com
Toll Free 1-866-737-6243
Top 10 Lists:
10 Characteristics
of People with a Business Coach on Their Support Team
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They are
smarter than most people.
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They are
better at their profession than most others in their field, and they
intend to keep it that way.
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They intend to
achieve more than they have and are happy to help others achieve
more also.
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They are
serious about maximizing their potential.
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They intend to
have each year better than the last.
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They intend to
achieve their dreams, not just shoot for them.
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They aren’t
afraid to try.
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They don’t
waste time inventing a wheel if someone else has already invented a
wheel.
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They value
their time highly.
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They aren’t
afraid of success.
10 Reasons to Have
a Business Coach
Different
Skills:
If you aren’t learning then I am not teaching. All really
successful people have a team around them that enables them
succeed. You know no one is an expert in everything. You as a
professional have a full time job keeping up with your profession.
Yet if you own your own business you have two professions don’t you;
1 - Whatever your profession is, 2 - Your role as business owner. A
Business Coach brings a different skill set and knowledge base to
your team enabling you to make better faster and more valuable
business decisions without the delay of needing to figure it out on
your own.
Application:
You cannot compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your
effort. There is a world of difference between knowing
something and knowing how to apply it in your particular situation
at any particular point in time. It is easy to read a book and
develop a basic grasp of a concept. But to skillfully apply it to
your situation isn’t in the book is it. Your Business Coach can
know not only the concept and know you, your profession, and your
business, to help you apply what you have learned productively.
Accountability:
Being at the top can be lonely, but it sure beats being at the
bottom and being lonely. In a business it is often not possible
or often wise to share all of your goals with those working closely
with you. A Business Coach can be a trusted advisor and friend at a
different level. An employee normally won’t tell you when something
you are doing that benefits them is bad for your business; like
paying them too much. Your Business Coach can help you clarify what
you really want to do and then help keep you focused on getting it
done.
Honest
Evaluation:
Consistency, persistence, and hard work, are only valuable if you
are consistently and persistently working hard at something
worthwhile. Is my employee’s behavior really out of line? Is
my cost of customer acquisition reasonable? I want to do this, but
is it really good for my business in the long run? Does this
advertisement really say what I mean it to say? Every successful
person has someone who knows them and their personal and business
goals who they can talk to and get an honest response. Your
Business Coach can be that impartial person that will tell you when
your new clothes are transparent. Pretty much everyone else has a
personal interest in the outcome that will impact their response.
If you don’t have a culture of profit, do you think anyone else will
tell you how to get one?
Vision Clarity:
If you cannot inspire with great vision you’ll find brute
intimidation your only hope. Leaders must not only provide
inspirational vision, but know how to communicate it effectively. A
Business Coach can help you clarify where you really want to go in
the short term and long term. And then help you find ways to
communicate your vision to your support team so they won’t just help
but they will accept your goals as their goals.
Implementation:
Without movement there can be no progress. However if your
movement isn’t focused it will only get you somewhere useful
accidently. Imagine you are driving and start making random
choices at every intersection based upon what looks good at that
particular intersection. What are the odds you will get to your
destination? 100% if you have no preplanned destination. 0% if you
actually have somewhere you want to get. This makes it possible to
create a realistic plan and implement it. If you own the business
you must be a leader: Leaders provide vision while managers are a
resource. The Leader must create, clarify, and communicate the
vision. Then there is the management piece to create an
implementation plan and act upon it.
Revive the
Love:
Your Profession isn’t a punishment. Professionals start in
love with their profession and what they will do to help others.
Then over time the fog of reality clouds that vision and they end up
settling for “what they can do”. How very sad, not just for the
professional but for all those who need the professionals skills and
abilities to help them. A Business Coach can help you fall in love
with your profession again. Bring back the passion in your ability
to change the world.
You cannot
afford not to:
It is said a fool and his money are soon parted, what I want to
know is how the fool and his money got together in the first place.
Do you think Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, or Arnold Palmer had a
Coach before they had money? Or Money before they had a Coach? If
you have a marginal or failing business model, and a plan taking you
nowhere you want to go, waiting until later won’t make it better. A
Business Coach can help you devise a viable business model and plan
so you can afford whatever you need. Failing to plan is planning to
fail, but working a plan to failure doesn’t’ help either.
Save time:
The early bird may get the worm, but that is a poor substitute
for the usual breakfast. In Business doing the wrong thing
perfectly isn’t nearly as good as doing the right thing reasonably
well. If you don’t have time to get your work done then why do you
think you have time to take extra time to do the wrong things? A
Business Coach can help you spend as much time as possible on things
you like and as little as possible on things you don’t; as much time
as possible doing the right things and as little as possible doing
useless stuff.
Win:
Winning may not be everything, but it sure beats loosing. In
our hearts we all want to win even if we don’t’ readily admit it.
However if we don’t take the time to give ourselves the gift of
knowing how we will define winning we will never have the chance to
be able to feel we have won. When we send our kids to school we
normally don’t ask them to strive for a D-. The school sets some
goals and we encourage them to achieve those goals; however when we
get out of school we find no one ever taught us how to set our own
goals. No one taught us how to win on our own. A Business Coach
can help you set useful goals and create a believable plan to
achieve them; enabling you to feel the delight of being a winner.
10 Reasons to Have
Rick on Your Support Team
You Want to
Succeed:
If you are going to sacrifice and work hard anyway why just survive
if you can Thrive? Audiologists assume when a new hearing aid
technology comes out someone will coach them on its use and they
seek out that advice. When a new procedure is discovered they will
go and get professional advice and training, coaching, on how to use
it. However when it comes to business they just wing it.
Relying on your golf buddies for business advice is like going to a
senior center to learn to fit the new technology hearing aids. No
wonder these people are very good professionally and never very
successful in business. Rick’s professional purpose is to fill this
need for business advice and training.
Personal
Service Business Knowledge:
It isn’t the big that eliminate the small, but the quick that
eliminate the slow. Professional Owned Personal Service
Businesses are materially different than Wal-Mart, FedEx, GE,
Procter and Gamble, AT&T or Providence Hospital. Rick has spent
years in Personal Service Businesses as well as doing time in
publically traded companies. This difference is why most of the
business books don’t translate easily into your business. Business
Coaching that works at GE wouldn’t be appropriate for you. Rick has
experienced the difference and helps you apply the concepts to a
personal service business.
Private
Practice Audiology Focus:
It isn’t what you bring in that counts, but what you get to
keep. Your Audiology Business is structurally and materially
different than most other personal service businesses. It is very
different than a Primary Care Physicians Office or an ENT’s
business. It is also very different than a health care retailer of
durable medical goods. It is very different from a distributor or
manufacturer of hearing aids. You have both non-labor COGS related
products and pure service products. You are not recognized like a
physician for third party reimbursement yet your patients see you as
a health care provider. You need to promote and advertize to be
your best. Rick focuses on Independent Private Practice Audiology
Businesses with all their unique quirks.
Independence:
It is hard to overestimate the ability of a group of people
focused on their goals to get you to loose sight of your own
purpose. Rick is the only independent Business
Coach for Audiologists. If the person offering business advice
isn’t getting their paycheck from your company than it is naive to
think you are their primary focus. Rick is not trying to buy your
business from you at the lowest possible price using free business
consulting as a way to find out about your business before making an
offer. Rick isn’t overly concerned about how many brand X hearing
aids you will sell next month as he has no quota to meet or bonus
based upon sales to you. Rick isn’t planning to open up down the
street from you and offering business advice as a vendor to learn
how to compete with you next quarter. (Don’t laugh all of the above
have actually happened to Rick’s clients.) Rick wants you to
understand your purpose and have appropriate goals. Rick wants you
to be a Profitable Professional Successful Audiologist.
Knowledge
Base:
It isn’t what you know, but what you can apply and use that
determines your level of success. Rick has a Masters in
Business Administration (MBA), lots of business experience, and an
ongoing fascination on why people do what they do. Organizational
Design and Behavior have been at the top of his list of fascinating
topics for 25 years. You have looked at the business books and
wondered if they would be useful. Rick is the guy who reads them
and then applies the information to your situation. Anyone could
read a couple of books on hearing and the manual for a couple of
hearing aids, but that wouldn’t make them very good at helping
people hear. Business is the same, reading some books and attending
some classes doesn’t mean you will be very good at knowing what
information to use. Rick will give you insight into your business
and your purpose that you wouldn’t otherwise have. You will be
challenged and changed.
Not an
Attorney: Not a CPA: Not a Consultant:
It is hard to proceed you’re your team members individual goal is
never to ever accept blame. When did your CPA last explain how
you can use those reports you get to achieve your goals in some
useful manner? Or remind you the stuff the CPA sends you isn’t the
accounting information you really need to run your business? When
did your attorney say “just do it”? Rick doesn’t give legal or tax
advice and doesn’t replace your attorney or CPA. Rick and Thriving
Audiology provide self-help assistance. A consultant does something
for you. When you need it done again they do it again for you.
Like your CPA doing your taxes. As a Business Coach Rick teaches
you, coaches you, so you can do it yourself. A consultant cannot
help you manage your employees, cash flow, marketing plan, personal
or professional goals, or your management accounting and score card
analysis, because these are unique to you and they change. As a
business person Rick can help you evaluate the other professionals
on your team. He can help you understand the scope of what they do
and help you understand if their advice, charges, and mode of
operation, are better or worse than what you might expect. Rick can
make you a better buyer of professional services.
Advisor /
Confidant / Friend:
Small objects when working together with enough velocity and
focus can overcome any obstacle. It can be lonely at the top.
Everyone wants something from you. Vendors, employees, government,
accountant, landlord, customers, patients, kids, spouse, dog,
gardener, even the plant in your window, along with pretty much
everyone else you can think of. Rick is a simple e-mail pen pal,
voice on the phone, a place to vent, someone to talk to about
business (Rick isn’t any good as a life or interpersonal coach).
Sometimes you need to wait. Sometimes you just need to charge
ahead. You will like having Rick on your team.
No Long Term
Contract or up front costs:
If you aren’t focused on the clients goals there can be money
made by prolonging the problem which can help you meet your goals.
It isn’t pay me $30,000 and then someone will tell you what to
do and see if it helps. It isn’t so much per hour and we have no
idea how many hours it will take. Most clients pay by the month and
if you ever decide you aren’t getting your moneys worth then we will
change the level of service or do something differently.
What you see
is what you get.
If you believe tall dark and handsome wearing an expensive suit
and tie and telling you what you want to hear will help you then
don’t even consider having Rick on your team. Thriving
Audiology doesn’t have a sales team and a service team. No sales
person promising something at the sale and leaving you hoping
someone else will fulfill that promise later. Rick considered
himself successful when he no longer felt the need to impress people
by wearing a suit and tie. Rick is informal, often blunt,
occasionally annoying, sometimes forgetful, and not always right.
Rick can also be encouraging, empathetic, caring, funny, and almost
always insightful, knowledgeable, and interesting. Rick is not
boring. Rick will always be focused and interested in helping you
achieve what you want to achieve.
Not Free:
If the lunch is free, it is free for a reason. Rick isn’t
being paid by someone else to help you meet some other businesses
goals. Many Audiology Businesses look more like commissioned sales
reps for the hearing aid supplier than independent practices. There
really are a lot of very valuable services offered by the hearing
aid suppliers. It is just that they are offered to get you to help
the supplier meet their goals; not to have you meet your goals.
Rick is on your team first. Money and time you spend with Rick will
be the best you spend to help you win long term.
10 Reasons Why Not
to Have a Business Coach:
I already have
plenty of people I don’t listen to, why pay for someone else?
A free lunch is often worth just that. More than likely those you
don’t listen to aren’t really knowledgeable about your business /
profession (often spouses and friends), or you haven’t taken the
time to really share your goals with them so they can help (often
casual or short term non-focused relationships), or they may have
other motives (often suppliers and consultant sales people), or you
don’t trust them to really help you (often because of past
experience). On the other hand you may not value yourself, or
believe in yourself enough, to really want to succeed (you are
stubborn like a mule) or you may even fear the change success would
bring. Always get a Business Coach that has a focus in your kind of
business.
I don’t have
the money.
May you therefore never have the money? If you don’t have a
profitable viable business time isn’t going to make it better. If
you have a profitable viable business you will be able to find the
money. A Business Coach may even help you find money. Do you think
Tiger Woods had a coach before he had lots of money? How about
Michael Jordan?
If they were
any good I wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Sounds like a true looser in the making; if they are any good they
will show you how to afford them. Business Coaches normally know
more about what their clients can afford than their clients do. If
a Business Coach is working with small business then they will be
priced for small business. Small business is very different than
the big corporate boardrooms. Get a coach that wants to help people
like you and then work out the finances.
I am afraid
they will just rip me off.
For every wise man with a problem there are a dozen lesser people
willing to take his money. If a large up front payment or long term
commitment is required they may think you will feel that way. This
is a very real problem. Be sure to find one that specializes in
your type of business. Someone across the country that knows about
your business is far more valuable than someone nearby that does not
know about your specialized business. A Business Coach is a
Business Investment in your future and the future of those depending
upon you. Somewhat like a professional degree and professional
training are investments. Decide what you want to buy and then buy
it. Your time is more valuable than telecommunication costs. Be
wary of a Business Coach that thinks you or they have the time to
drive over to visit face to face weekly.
I am afraid I
won’t live up to their expectations.
Fear of Fear is the real Fear. So, who cares? What is important is
will they help you to meet your expectations. Somehow Audiologists
manage to get out of school with more fear of not meeting other
people’s expectations than meeting their own expectations. If a
Business Coach doesn’t encourage you and accept you as you are where
you are get a different one.
I am afraid to
share myself and open up to someone.
Putting your head in the sand won’t protect your behind from the
lion. Aren’t we all? Start with small confessions and work up if
you need to. We are all weird in our own way and we all have our
own little secrets. Sharing your fear and having your Coach help
you understand how common your problem really is and how to remedy
it can be more comforting than almost any other single topic. As it
is really rare that anyone comes up with a really different way to
do business it is really rare that anyone comes up with a really new
confession.
I don’t have
the time.
If you don’t have the time to do it right once, what makes you think
you have the time to do it three times poorly? Who really thinks
they have the time? You are ambitions, creative, and productive.
You may take on to many things. You may be getting the urgent done
at the expense of the important because you know how to do the
urgent and the important is out of your comfort zone. Business
Coaches help you prioritize and focus on what needs to be done
giving you time to concentrate on what you want to do. More money
and more of your own time are not incompatible.
I don’t want
to admit I need help. What will my friends, spouse, kids, lover,
dog, think?
After the suicide everyone asks why didn’t the deceased get help?
After you fail they will be asking you the same thing. Why didn’t
you get help?
I am not
exactly failing, at least not yet.
If you keep setting the bar lower, and lower, eventually you may be
able to stub your toe on it. What is failure anyway? Lots of great
people have a business failure in their background. It isn’t the
business failure that’s important, but what you do with it that
counts. On the other hand no one finds business failure fun so why
go that route if you don’t need to? The school of hard knocks is
overrated. Skip it if you can.
I really don’t
want to change; I just want things to be better.
One definition of an idiot is someone who does the same thing over
and over expecting a different result. If want you are doing
doesn’t have you on a course to get you where you want then you
really do want to change, unless you really want to just slowly.
Perhaps your purpose in life is only to set a bad example for
others. Do you want to be the case study of what to do? Or a case
study of what not to do?
Would you like to know more?
Click
here
to
learn a little about me and why I do what I do.
Please call me at 1-866-737-6243 or
e-mail at
rick@thrivingaudiology.com
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