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Making The Most Of A Business Coach

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A business coach is one of the most important things you can have when you are trying to grow your business. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in – strategy & growth need to be top focuses, and often, you cannot do it alone.

Here are some tips to ensure you make the most of a business coach. It’s always a good idea to find someone who has experience. You should also be sure you are establishing a strategy early on.

At B3 Consulting, we have worked with 100+ businesses in a wide range of industries and are in different levels of entrepreneurship. Choosing a business coach is not something you want to take lightly.

Below are three ways to make the most of a business coach.

Be Open to Ideas

Be open to the ideas that they share. They are the coach and you hired them to learn from them. This means you have to be willing to take their ideas and turn them into strategies that are going to help you and ultimately deliver business growth.

Explore New Options

It’s always important to explore new options. We have created all sorts of new ideas for search engine optimization, improved customer engagement, and changed employee infrastructure. If something has not been working for you, there is no reason to keep following that route. Your coach is going to look at the big picture – something that you cannot do because you are too close to it all. They are going to show you new ways of doing things and this can be just what you need to be more successful.

Take Notes

You probably aren’t going to have a business coach in place all the time, throughout the duration of your business. This means you want to listen to what they say and understand the reasons for why they suggest different things. Pay attention to the analysis so that when you hit another bump down the road, you can remedy the situation on your own. When you have plenty of notes from the consulting sessions, it can ensure you know how to tackle problems that you run into.

Not all business coaches are created equally. When you decide you are ready to make a difference and get professional help for building strategies designed to take your business to the next level, you want to hire someone who can truly make a difference and help you achieve your goals are.

Don’t hire a coach and then not be willing to listen or make changes. You want to reach goals and grow your business to be bigger and better. Make the most of your time with a coach by choosing the right one and being open to the suggestions.

Still not convinced about the benefits of business coaching?  Remove the risk and sign up for a FREE 30-Minute coaching session!

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SWOT Analysis Can Help With The Growth of Your Business

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Before planning any marketing strategy, project or venture, a small business owner needs to focus on planning methods as well as the best assessments in order to help their company go forward. SWOT analysis has been proven to be extremely effective, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the business. By studying this, you will be able to set goals and achieve results.

Here is a look at what goes into the process which will help with small business growth. It will begin with the internal factors, which consist of strengths and weakness, followed by external issues, which are the opportunities and threats that come into play and which one has to be aware of.

Strengths – You will know what does well in terms of sales and how certain employees help with the growth. Keep on focusing on what you are good at and how you can improve on these areas. Clients and customers enjoy good service with some variety in products.

Weaknesses – A business needs to look at various areas where they are suffering. They may not be optimized for the internet and this can bring them down. Even if they do have a website, they need to focus on internet marketing, social media and mobile marketing. Keeping statistics and records over the last couple of months will tell a business where they have not been performing as well. It is also important to look at the way your staff is working because this can bring a business down. Someone with a bad attitude is not going to help with the small business development. Employees should enjoy what they do.

Opportunities – There are always opportunities available in the business sector. However, it is nothing that you can rush into because too big of a risk is going to damage your reputation. This is where planning is important. However, one should always be thinking where the business can expand.

Threats – This could come from other businesses that are similar in nature. Competition is always something to bear in mind and one has to look at strategies which will help the company progress. Once you have found what the problem is, you need to find solutions and this may mean bringing in extra staff having the experience and qualifications. For example a small business may have developed with creative and talented programmers and designers. However, one needs marketers onboard so that word is spread.

There are certain coaching techniques and consulting firms that help with this SWOT analysis. It is not something that you can just suck out of your thumb. It is especially useful to have a professional help you with this should you have something specific to look at, such as new technology or a trend that you want to introduce.

Using Crowd Funding Effectively To Grow Your Business

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Crowd funding has become a powerful tool in helping small businesses grow their business and maximize their full potential. If this is done right, one will see that there are various aspects in a business, such as products and services that can reap the rewards.

Sometimes, people will donate to an online platform because of a worthwhile cause they are supporting. Other times, they will want to invest in a company and in this way they can buy a share in the business. An example of something which you can invest in is green energy. This has become huge over recent times, and a company like Abundance Generation has seen much growth by allowing investors to visit their wind farm.

Another method of crowdfunding is where people are able to donate in a project, but will only get billed once they see their project is starting to pay off. An example of this is Spacehive which allows people to fund a park in a community of their choice.

This can work well if the business has planned their project and has the research set out. You have to be prepared for questions that investors might throw at you. People who are open and are able to engage will go far in this sort of environment.

Crowdfunding is an alternative to the traditional approach of getting loans and quite possibly going into debt. One will also be able to see rewards as you become known through social media. You will be able to see this when you release a product and there are people who fund this, stating that it is a good idea. Often this will go viral.

The top five crowdfunding platforms:

There are many of these platforms that you have to experiment with, but starting with the top ones is always a good idea.

  • Kickstarter – this is mainly for creative projects that specialize in dance, film, arts, food and photography. Ouya is one of the companies that have had a lot of success with them.
  • Indiegogo – There is a lot of money that has been put into this particular platform and it has grown a lot during recent times. They get 4% of the cut, which is about average. This is a platform that is more flexible in nature.
  • Project Travel – As the name suggests, is for people who are interested in the travel industry as well as education type projects which connect with travel.
  • Razoo – This is mainly for nonprofits that want to grow in one way or another. There are no charges for signups and you will find that it has been very popular.
  • Crowdrise – This is basically a platform for good causes which people are able to donate to. They specialize in a wide range of causes, such as disease, education, religion, animal rights, arts, disease and crisis as well as the environment. Their pricing is lower at 3%. They have had success with the NYC marathon.