What is Success?
November 5, 2010
How do we move from where we are to where we want to be?
How do we know that where we want to be is where we should be?
And if it is not, what do we do then?
Are we hiding from who we are because we fear the consequences of being who we are?
Do we even know who we are?
Are we afraid of the work that is going to be required to become who we are?
And if we’ve been denying our self and know it, and can’t look in the mirror and do it anymore, how are we going to connect the dots between the person we are in the flesh and who we are to become?
How do we connect?
How do we persist against adversity?
How do we make our connection?
How do we change?
This is not about management; it is about surrendering to who we really are.
This is about becoming who we really are.
The answers to “how to do” something is all about technique. “How to” can be learned. The commitment has to be born and we have to birth it.
We achieve the outcome by seeing it before it is here, and walking, running, pushing, meditating, cajoling, fighting, driving, diving our way through our imagination to its reality. And if we are doing that, if we are on that path, at that moment in time, we are successful.
Chuck Markham
11/5/10
Independent Business People
October 21, 2010
Independent businesses contribute tremendous value.
The environment required in order for us to continue being able to do that is threatened every day – threatened by government and by big business. We need level the playing field so that we are able to reach the public with our message and provide our products and services and show and tell and do what we do best: provide quality service and products at a great value.
What are you doing to elevate the visibility and educate the public of the value of the independent business person?
Chuck
chuck@businesscoachchuck.com
http://www.businesscoachchuck.com
Trusting Our Gut In Business
July 20, 2010
Whether we follow our gut or a well structured plan actually depends upon how well we have practiced successfully what we have a hunch about. If we have successfully gotten the result we want in something we have a hunch to do, then there is a good chance that following our “gut” is a good idea. What we are actually following here, however, is muscle memory. We are following a well structured plan that we have practiced so much it has become a hunch.
Even in cases where we have had great success, however, the caveat to following our hunch is to be observant of reality. One guy had a great investment strategy that had worked well for him. Then, he bought six stocks in a row that went against him. He became stubborn because of his previous success and did not recognize that the experience he was having with the six bad trades, was a foreshadowing of a changed market. Consequently, he lost a lot of money. So, no matter how good we have been, be open to reevaluating the facts in light of new information.
In summary, if you are in the zone, stay in the zone, but when results begin to vary, adjust quickly, let go of the hunch to move on to something new or different.
Business Coach Chuck @ 973-670-7215
It’s a Family Busiess
July 18, 2010
The challenges of running a business are huge. They inspire us in ways that we didn’t know they could. Imagine, if you will, these challenges, and then add family to the stew!! Sometimes it is a wonderful stew and some times it is a witches brew.
When I asked a prospective client why she called me, she said, “It’s my employees” she said, “they act like children.”
Two of the employees, I discovered, were her chilvdren. They were key managers. They were acting like children because they were her children. The ones that weren’t her children were working for her children. They patterned themselves after their boss, her children. Later, I observed that not only did they act like her children in the workplace, but, indeed, she acted like their mother. Statements among the three of them were like, “I feel betrayed.” “That is just childish.” This is not exactly the kind of language you’d expect to hear between a boss and an employee. Boss employee language might be something like, “you did not give the support in this situation we had agreed upon,” or, “you did not perform this task correctly.” The language was personal rather than professional.
The approach that has the potential of solving the business problem while supporting the family involves attention to both the business and personal. It involves recognizing that while business and personal in the family should be different, that is not always the case.
Acknowledging this reality results in the potential for a more profitable business and a happier Family.
How this is done is as different as families and businesses are different, but it is what Business Coach Chuck does.
Family, Business and Family Business
July 16, 2010
A happy family is 80% support and 20% accountability.
A successful business is 80% accountability and 20% support.
In other words, in a happy family, if a family member has a bad day, home is a place to retreat, renew, refresh and be loved regardless. In a successful business, if a member has a bad day, week, quarter or year – we want to know why and how is that going to be different next time. In a healthy family, a reasonable dose of accountability keeps us from enabling self-defeating behavior. In a successful business – there is enough support to let the individual know that they have a team behind them. It’s the proportion of one to the other that distinguishes the personal from the professional.
When these proportions get altered significantly, dysfunction erupts. If one feels like home is too demanding, then joy leaves one’s life while if the work place gets “too understanding” of failure then, well, failure results.
No wonder then that family businesses are often such treacherous places. Without clear distinctions between work and home, families and or their business can fall into disarray.
The same thing is often true of small businesses, where relationships within the business may begin more personal than business.
Working with families and small businesses to create healthier relationships for happier personal lives and more successful businesses is a very high priority with Coach Chuck.
Business Coach Chuck @ 973-670-7215
Golf and Bagger Vance
July 14, 2010
What do God, Golf and Bagger Vance have in common. First of all, Everything. But now, let me break it down a little bit. In Both Golf and Business, people on the outside don’t get it. They don’t get that in each of these endeavors we are constantly called upon to reach deep inside ourselves – usually when no body is looking, like when the ball is in the rough or the woods or on the other side of the fairway – and asks, “whach-ya-gonna-do-now, huh?” and then we can do the right thing or the wrong thing. The thing about golf, and the thing about business, is that when we do the right thing – regardless of outcome – the result is joy. It just feels so good to do it Right – oh yeah!! Joy, joy, joy is the spirit of God. God could give a rat’s a…, err uh, God could care less about Business or Golf. But God – and just for the record, I don’t care who or what your God is – God cares ALOT about reaching deep, doing the right thing and feeling it, feeling that joy. Am I ready for Sunday morning TV or what! at Coach Chuck’s Church of the 1st Tee … I’ll see you at the clubhouse.
There is no book that captures the spirit of golf like The Legend of Bagger Vance. Golf is a game of mind, it is a game of our integrity, of our past, of what everyone thinks of us. And ultimately, is a game that asks, “can we just let go of everything, everything that is, or ever was, and hit the damn ball the way it needs to be hit?” And its not about thinking it. Its just about doing it. The caveat is you go through all the other stuff first, until you find yourself alone with the ball. Its you, yourself and doing the right thing – with nobody looking. What are you going to do? Bagger Vance: the book, the real deal, about the game of golf.
Coach Chuck973-670-7215
Hard Nosed About the Soft Side of Business
July 12, 2010
When involved in a business transition, the business owner typically focuses on:
- What’s the bottom line?
- Cut to the chase – what are the numbers?
Unless the transition that we are talking about is the sale of the business, for which the owner is going to get cash, the bottom line is only one snapshot in a dynamic moment in time. “The Bottom Line,” that which we tend to be hardnosed about, is the result of everything that is done and market conditions and all kinds of “The Soft Side” of business.
Business transitions are as simple as moving from one business season to the next and as complex as purchasing a business to merge with an ongoing business. A Business transition may be creating sales oriented staff from a group that is currently task oriented. A transition may be selling the business wherein the owner is going to get paid over time or buying a business where you are going to pay over time. A transition is any change in business. When there is a change there is a transition. The one thing we can rely upon is change. Therefore, transition is part of business. The more that transition is built into the business, the faster reaction time the business can have.
So, what does a transition business coach do? We get very clear about what the business owner wants to transition into. We get very clear about what the reality of the situation is presently. We get a handle on what is going to be required to make that transition. What is going to need to be different? Then we coach toward an assessment of the current staff, clients, market, vendors or who or whatever is relevant to that change. Included in this coaching process are the vision, mission and intention of the owner and key players.
The result will be a strengths and needs assessment along with a strategy and coaching toward implementation for the soft side of business transition. Additionally, the foundation will be in place for the recognition of ongoing transition so that change, in the future will be an ongoing intentional part of business rather than being treated as a problem.
Cutting to the chase, the point of all of this is, of course, a better bottom line!!
Coach Chuck973-670-7215
What is a Business Coach
July 12, 2010
What is a business coach? What is the process and what could you expect were you to hire a business coach? Frankly, that is a question that you are going to need to ask the individual coach. There are many different backgrounds and educations for coaches. Some have coaching accreditation. As for myself, my educational background is in psychology and counseling. This combined with my extensive business experience informs and has helped me to create an effective and individualized coaching strategy.
I have a masters in clinical psychology/counseling where I was educated in both the theory and the practice of assessing human behavior as well as how to aide people to achieve desired results. My experience in mental health is very broad and is combined with 19 years business experience in the financial markets. The specific experience in mental health that informs my methods more than any others is experience is working with families. The family is the basic social unit. The dynamics that occur in families form the basic components of in the rest of our social life, especially in our work life. Additionally, small businesses are often family owned. Even if they are not family owned, the personal lives of the owners and the work life of these owners are inescapably entwined.
My coaching method would begin with an understanding of where you see yourself right now. This sounds simple enough and sometimes it is. Most of the time, however, it is not. Were it simple you would not be seeking a business coach. Your business life does not stand in isolation from the rest of your life, so when we are assessing the starting point, we get a thorough understanding of the rich context of your current situation.
Next, we’d like to look at where you would like to end up. This is broken down into a few areas. First of all, we look at how you think things should be right now, but aren’t. This is not long term at all. In fact, you might be gasping for air right now and before any planning can be done, we need to address the current situation. Dealing with current situation may or may not be a significant issue. It almost always takes longer than the business owner originally anticipates. But, laying the foundation is key to moving forward.
From this foundation, a vision for the business has the where-with-all to emerge. And, emerge it must. A vision is more than just figuring out what the business should do. We dig deep. Business is hard. Things happen. Economy happens. Employees happen. All kinds of things happen. Imagine coming home from the beach on a summer Sunday evening. The traffic is insane. Imagine it comes to a stop. There has been a disaster. No one is going anywhere. What do you want to do then? Most people at that point just want to get home. I’ve never heard of any one in a situation like this simply saying, “Ah screw it! Traffic is really bad. I’m not going home. That would be too hard?” Can you imagine?
We attempt to tap into and encourage your organic and natural vision. In order to get through the traffic jams of business life, your vision must be as certain to you as your home is.
And then, we look at the obstacles between now and your vision. And then we devise strategies to succeed.
In actual practice, this is certainly not a straight line. Each of the areas described above influences each of the other areas. You are never completely in one stage or the other.
Something we are doing concurrently to the above process is graphically depicting your business pipeline. How do customers find out about you? How do you (Your business) and your client connect? How is the client treated? What services or products do you provide the client? How, exactly, is that done? How do you get paid? What happens to the money?
If you are providing a product, the same process is done with the product.
We come to understand the ratio requirements of each part of the pipeline to the other parts of the pipeline. How do you generate revenues while at the same time meet new prospective clients? This pipeline is a living, dynamic organism. If you get twice the number of clients, it is not jus a matter of multiplying the rest of the pipeline by two. Different methods of providing service need to be developed for differing volume numbers. We don’t just manage the pipeline. We inspire the pipeline. That is a matter of assessment and transformation all the time.
So, if you were to ask this coach, Coach Chuck, “what is a business coach and what might I expect form the business coaching process?” You would get an answer similar to what I outlined above.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
Partnerships Don’t have to be forever
July 10, 2010
What are the things that you consider when deciding whether or not to go into a partnership? A partnership should be among people that bring complementary strengths together that when combined are greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, the two people, if working together with common goals, will achieve more than they could alone.
The key here is complementary strengths. Take two attorneys that practice different kinds of law who are always finding that they often refer the other attorney’s kind of law out to some one else. This might be the basis of the two attorneys getting together to discuss a partnership. Could the two together gather resources that would allow each more success in their chosen fields? If yes, then the process then is to discover whether or not the partnership is a good fit.
A partnership, like a marriage, is a very comprehensive relationship. Issues of trust, compatibility, shared vision, compatible work ethic and working styles are just as important as whether or not business complement exists.
Very often people will form a partnership based upon the personal issues of trust, compatibility, shared vision, work ethic and style without examining the actual business compliment elements. Other times, people will form a partnership based upon business partnership without examining the more personal issues. Either of these methods have a poor prognosis of success.
Strategic Partnerships however can be entered on a very limited basis. For instance, the two attorneys above may decide that if they share office space and staff and agree to refer each other, without partnerships beyond that, may, in some circumstances, find greater success than trying to bring together a shared vision and so forth. A Financial Planner and Personal fitness trainer may decide to run a workshop together addressing the needs of retirees, without any obligation to each other beyond the workshop.
When contemplating a partnership, consider the question: what makes us a partnership that is greater than what we would be on our own? Further, ask if these accomplishments are greater than what could be accomplished through strategic agreements or partnerships, rather than a full-blown partnership. If the answer to these point to partnership, then carefully consider your commitment of each partner to each of the other partners success and how that would change in good times and bad – to put another way, through sickness and health.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
As a summary, partnerships are for those joining complementary strengths between compatible people with a shared vision. This is truly a rare relationship. Strategic partnerships are like dates. One can engage in strategic partnerships with a greater attitude of experimentations.
Being Good and Good at Business: 2 different things
June 30, 2010
Maybe you already know: being good at what you
do and running a business are two different things.
If you don’t already know that, I’ll tell you:
being good at what you do and running a business are two different things.
If you already knew that, great. If you didn’t, now you do.
What do you do with that information?
There are many great systems on how to build a business.
Google “how to Run a business” and there are 323,000,000 listings. Many are very
good. Some are great. Intuit has great resources, the book E-myth is great.
But, how are YOU going to run a
business? In other words, let us assume that you find a good book
or program that teaches you how to create
a business,
How is the unique YOU, not some generic you,
but YOU, going to work this great plan? Most people in small
business that get to a suitable answer to this question, get there having been
beaten into submission by the grim facts of life that confront the business
owner that doesn’t build plan and do the plan.
Would you like to get there before the business beats
you into submission.
OR
Maybe you already have been beaten into
submission and that is why you are reading this now.
This is what coaching is about. It is about you. It is about business
and getting you, the unique you, to build your business.
My coaching service is geared for you:
- Results oriented
- fairly priced
- highly personalized
Whether you are ready to get off to a great start or ready to stop the pain
and really do it different this time, Coach chuck will coach you toward your
vision.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
Take the Next Step to Your Picture of Success
Go To – www.businesscoachchuck.com.
– for details of Coach Chuck’s business coaching services and fees.
Take a Test Drive – Call now for your FREE 30-minute exploratory consultation –
Call 973-670-7215 and set up an appointment. There is never any pressure.
Or e-mail me –
chuck@businesscoachchuck.com. Please provide three dates and times
that would be a good time to call you. I will return the e-mail with a confirmed
appointment time.
The Business Pipeline
June 30, 2010
The definition of a successful business is a business that contributes significantly to the owner(s) happiness.
The reality:
- Most business fail.
- Most businesses that don’t fail create become weight on the back of the owner.
Owners often grow to hate the grueling treadmill their dream has become.
How does the business owner sidestep the grim reality that is the inside view of most small businesses? In the early stages and the middle stages of those who make it to the middle, the answer is, “when we get to (some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow) we are doing to do it right.” In the meantime, the attrition of hope and enthusiasm continues. It continues until the grim reality strikes that this monotonous grind is just going to continue and there is no pot at the end of the rainbow that is going to come along to allow them to “do it right.”
What is doing it right?
Doing it right is Visualizing your business as a Pipeline.
- Reaching prospective customers/clients and then them becoming clients.
- It involves the process of doing the business that you are in – be that providing product or service and all that entails.
- It involves the profit, which is the back of the pipeline.
Define your pipeline precisely.
- Define all of the tasks required in the pipeline, from start to finish.
- Define exactly how you want each of those tasks performed.
- Define exactly how the process of quality control.
- Build rewards and consequences as part of the process.
- Define how flexibility will be build into the process that is responsive to the market and to your vision.
When is a good time to do this?
- Preferably before your doors every open.
- But, if it is too late for that, then the best time is now.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
Take the Next Step to Your Picture of SuccessGo To – http://www.businesscoachchuck.com/. – for details of Coach Chuck’s business coaching services and fees.Take a Test Drive – Call now for your FREE 30-minute exploratory consultation – Call 973-670-7215 and set up an appointment. There is never any pressure.Or e-mail me – chuck@businesscoachchuck.com. Please provide three dates and times that would be a good time to call you. I will return the e-mail with a confirmed appointment time.
©2007 Charles W. Markham MA. You may not copy, reproduce, post or forward this document in any format. For permission or joint venture opportunities contact Chuck Markham at chuck@businesscoachchuck.com.
Vision – What is the “Vision Thing?”
June 28, 2010
“We are always successful.” – Maxwell Maltz
This means
- we are successful at what we really see happening.
This means:
- It is important to develop a vision rather than letting it happen.
- Fear is our first reaction to change. The second reaction is our choice. Without activation of choice, fear, de facto, becomes vision.
- We, with our powerful brain of our always have a vision.
- Our brain knows where it is going.
- The goal is to bring our whole self, including our brain, into alignment.
- Bring your goals and your vision together.
If you want to make more money and to have a better relationship with your spouse and start the day knowing that things at work are a mess and old issues are suffocating your love life: it is going to be ugly.
On the other hand if you wake up knowing that today is going to be successful and that you have a loving relationship with another caring person, all kinds of doors will open. They may not be the ones you expect. Without the expectation of positive outcome the likelihood of seeing the open doors are remote and the likelihood of walking through them is remoter still.
Vision is the GPS (global positioning system) of your brain. Vision is how you know where to go. So, if you envision failure, your brain will, with all due obedience, open the door to all the opportunities that you need in order to fail. It is trained on that spot.
Vision is what you actually know is going to happen.
So, right now, you may know that if you don’t do x, y and z this terrible thing is going to happen. It is time to develop a new vision. Write it down. Shape it. As the song says, “Make it real or forget about it.”
One of the things that I do with clients is help them to get very clear about what they believe to be true and what they want.
Getting our beliefs and our wants together as one is how we set our own GPS.
Develop effective goals.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
To learn more go to www.businesscoachchuck.com.
Take a Test Drive – Call now for your FREE 30-minute exploratory consultation – Call 973-670-7215 and set up an appointment. There is never any pressure.
Or e-mail me – chuck@businesscoachchuck.com. Please provide three dates and times that would be a good time to call you. I will return the e-mail with a confirmed appointment time.
No, They Don’t Appreciate You, but thats Okay.
June 24, 2010
If you have a family or small business and you find yourself asking this question to yourself of employees and partners then you are getting business and personal relations confused.
Example:
A business owner (whom we will call Mary) realized her manager (whom we will call John) really did not like to work Saturdays. Recently Mary hired a person to come in every other Saturday, thereby giving John the day off. Something came up in Mary’s personal life and she had to call John and ask him to work a double shift. John agreed to. Mary Further offered to work for him on the following Saturday (a day he would normally have had to work). He agreed to that too.
It came to Mary’s attention that John had a really lousy attitude that day and even told a customer that he didn’t feel like doing something because – “I’ve been here since seven this morning and I will be here till nine tonight.” Additionally, John was beginning to act like the owner. Mary had come to rely on John but she was getting very uncomfortable.
This is a situation doomed to blow up. It happens all the time. If the people involved are family members, it is even more explosive.
As for as John is concerned, he still has to work every other Saturday and he is annoyed about that. As for her working for him on Saturday in exchange for working for him … he feels that she is putting personal matters ahead of the business which he would not be allowed to do. In his mind, his power is growing. Perhaps he has even made people think he is the owner. The fact that Mary can call in and just say she’s not coming in (which is how he interprets what she did) and he can’t creates a resentment.
The underlying problem here is that John is not clear as to what his position is. Why? Probably because Mary was so overworked that when he began taking more and more over, she was happy to let him. Michael Gerber, of Emyth, describes this as abdicating responsibility as opposed to delegating responsibility.
Defining position expectations is key.
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
Take the Next Step to Your Picture of SuccessGo To –
www.businesscoachchuck.com. – for details of Coach Chuck’s business coaching services and fees.
Take a Test Drive – Call now for your FREE 30-minute exploratory consultation –
Call 973-670-7215 and set up an appointment. There is never any pressure.
Or
e-mail me – chuck@businesscoachchuck.com. Please provide three dates and times that would be a good time to call you. I will return the e-mail with a confirmed appointment time.
Oh No! Not this Aagain
June 24, 2010
Yes, that is where we often find ourselves – back in the same place again after having said again and again, “never again!”
And then the committees form in the head:
“We told you so.”
“Back again, huh.”
“Loser.”
And then there is the thought that if people really knew the real you they wouldn’t like, do business with, hire, love or whatever it is you’d like them to do with and for you.
How do we get in these positions? Sometimes that is an important question and sometimes it is not. Sometimes trying to figure it all out is just our ego trying to rationalize something that we know is wrong. One day in New York, I got out of the Subway on 57TH Street. I needed to go to some street in the Mid-sixties. It was a stop I’d been in before so I really wasn’t paying attention, with my mind more on some project. So as I’m walking along in my own world, at some point I looked up to see what street I was on and I was on 49TH. Obviously, you say, I’d gone the wrong way. I found myself standing, looking at that sign, mentally telling myself I knew I’d gone the right way and giving myself reasons for why I came out of the subway the way that I did. Then I Just cracked up laughing at myself. “Hey brainiac – the sign says 49. You are going the wrong way. Turn around.” I became very amused at myself for the way that I tried to rationalize something that was so obviously wrong. Why I went the wrong way is not important.
On the other hand, if I find myself, for instance, always scrambling to get my bills paid regardless of whether I make a lot of money or a little – that is something that is a bigger problem, over and above simply not having enough money. Were it a simple problem, more money would solve the problem. In order to have a better life with more money requires a change in life-long ways of doing things.
How great would it be to say – “never again!” And be confident that that were true.
Cw Markham
Coach Chuck
973-670-7215
Take the Next Step to Your Picture of Success
Go To – www.businesscoachchuck.com. – for details of Coach Chuck’s business coaching services and fees.
Take a Test Drive – Call now for your FREE 30-minute exploratory consultation – Call 973-670-7215 and set up an appointment. There is never any pressure.
Or e-mail me – chuck@businesscoachchuck.com. Please provide three dates and times that would be a good time to call you. I will return the e-mail with a confirmed appointment time.
©2007 Charles W. Markham MA. You may not copy, reproduce, post or forward this document in any format. For permission or joint venture opportunities contact Chuck Markham at chuck@businesscoachchuck.com.
The Difference Between Coaching and Counseling
June 22, 2010
Coaching is about keeping your eye on the prize. Counseling and Therapy is about untangling the mess. They are very important. Each are has inherent strength and inherent weakness. If you tell a coach that you just found out you have to go in for heart surgery they are likely to begin developing a plan to keep progress toward the goal in motion, or at least on the tracks while this procedure and the ensuing recovery takes place. A therapist may explore the feelings that arise because you are going in for heart surgery at the same age that your father died from a heart attack.
The strength in the coaching approach is that regardless of your heart condition, assuming the experience does not change your goals, you are going to want that process to be as far along as possible so that you can just get back on for the ride when you recover. The strength of the counseling approach is that our feelings produce results in the real world. The power of our belief is probably one of the most important distinguishing characteristics that separate us from other life forms. We are able to believe that which is not in our present experience and act on it. By acting on that believed reality we make it true. So, it is very important sometimes to come to terms with what it is we believe and why we believe it and decide if that is something we want to believe. As with anything else, the line between coaching and counseling is not set in stone. But, in general terms, what was just described falls into the area of counseling.
The weakness of the coaching model is that one can be so focused on a future goal that one neglects health, relationships and other aspects of the moment. When we achieve our dreams and ambitions, they are empty without those with whom we love. Counseling and Therapy, on the other hand can get so enmeshed in the past and with feelings that it becomes a tangle with no outcome. We can get lost in there.
It’s easy to see how these two areas can work together. While most excellent counselors and therapists have a little bit of the coach in them it is not their primary job. Coaching is not therapy. When coaches and counselors can work together, the therapist can help untangle the obstacles that prevent us from being the best we can be while the coach helps you devise a road map, vision a goal and achieve it.
From a practical application, this approach can end up being very economical. This is because issues that come out in counseling are often worked through quicker. Coaching is often done over the phone. The phone call might be a fifteen-minute call. When its all working together, it can be faster, better and more effective. That is the goal. And achieving that goal makes us feel good!
Cw Markham
Coach Chuck: chuck@businesscoachchuck.com
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