This past weekend, I spent considerable time with a dozen or so business owners, executives and salespeople while attending my kids' two-day soccer tournament and a full day in Indianapolis at the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race. Unfortunately, it seems that a black cloud of negativity has started to hover over most of these entrepreneurs. I was able to glimpse into their current mindsets by simply listening to the words they used to describe their obstacles in colorful detail.
Since it seemed therapeutic for them, I thought I would give you the same opportunity to "vent" with this business coaching blog. Here's your chance to let the frustration and poison out. What's holding your company back from greater levels of success? Come on, be brutally honest and courageous enough to focus on at least 3 circumstances, conditions, things or people preventing your company from achieving better results. Go ahead, think of your top 3 barriers and obstacles. Got them vividly in your head?
Let me guess, all 3 of them were external to you, the owner. Am I right? As the owner, it is not YOU holding your company back, but other things, conditions and people. Am I a mind reader or what? It's not hard. Look carefully at the answers yourself. Were your top 3 obstacles related to the economy, politics, government regulation, your industry, your competition, your sales or marketing teams, your managers, other employees, your customers, your suppliers/vendors, your products/services, the rising cost of fuel and product materials, etc.? Probably so.
Aren't most, if not all of these, merely excuses? At a minimum, aren't most of your competitors facing the same challenges? Then in truth, aren't you blaming your lack of favorable business results on certain conditions or other people? If so, you are giving your power away to others and to circumstances and telling yourself "poor me stories".
Sadly, all human beings and most business owners (me included) are experts at developing reasonable sounding excuses. Instead of accepting responsibility for undesirable results and going to work making changes, it's far easier to blame others or circumstances. Don't fall prey to that! Stop justifying why things aren't working out. Don't settle for less and for the status quo. Stop feeding yourself comforting stories and excuses that make you feel better on a temporary basis but do nothing to help advance your business.
Let this be a tough-love, wake-up call. If you aren't happy with the results you are getting from your business, blame no one but yourself and stop wasting time on fabricating excuses. You are the owner and you are in charge. You are 100% responsible for the results of your business and your personal life. Because of your thinking and actions to date, you have fully attracted the business results and the circumstances and people into your business.
For greater levels of success, take 100% responsibility for your results. Own the good, bad and the ugly outcomes. Face and accept the truth and then decide to improve upon those circumstances going forward. If you accept reality and take responsibility, you can make progress and change for the better. If you buy into convenient excuses, you won't take responsibility and you won't chart a new course of action. Excuses lull you into a status-quo prison. Drop the word "excuse" from your vocabulary and exchange it with "challenge". Any challenge can be overcome if you face it and deal with it. However, all excuses are tragically tolerated and almost never confronted -- get rid of them.
Here is some more tough-love business coaching. If you want a better business, you must become a better owner. If you want better sales results, you must hire better salespeople. If you want better employees, you must find better managers and better employees. If you want better customers, your company must be worthy to attract better customers. If you want better services/products, you must listen to the feedback of your better customers. As you can see, a business only gets better if the people in the business get better -- especially the owner.
You can either make excuses or make more money, but you can seldom do both. You can either make excuses or create a better business. Which do you choose? So let's go back to the beginning of this business coaching blog and try again. What's holding your company back from greater levels of success?
Daniel M. Murphy
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System