As a business owner, what's your greatest resource that costs you nothing to use?  Your brain.  When properly utilized and focused, your brain can transform your business and life for the better...like nothing else can.  But how often do you fully engage and leverage this powerful resource?  How often do you slow down and make the time to think deeply about your business?  To think, write and plan in a quiet setting with minimal interruptions or distractions?  Probably not too often.  Odds are, you feel that you are too busy, too frazzled, too involved or too worried to take the time.  But that's the point!  As a business coach, I can tell you with the utmost certainty that most troubles and problems faced by small business owners are not only self inflicted but come about because owners do not schedule enough time to THINK.

Since your brain is your idea factory, it should be operating at optimal capacity and producing a tremendous output
of good ideas.  However, because of busyness, distractions, interruptions, and constant fire drills, owners do not spend enough quality time thinking and their production level of good ideas is suppressed.  When was the last time you scheduled time by yourself in a quiet setting to think without distractions and interruptions (e-mails popping up, employees asking questions, phones ringing, a Blackberry buzzing, etc.)?  Don't you think it's about time to do some concentrated thinking?

As an entrepreneur, your key responsibilities are to create a vision, lead, market your company, and THINK...think up new and better ideas, create innovations, and identify problems and solutions with clarity.  You should be a major creator of ideas yourself and foster an environment where your employees, customers, vendors, suppliers, advisers, etc. generate
valuable ideas for your company as well.  After all, you are in the idea business. 

To help you generate and implement money-making and customer-pleasing ideas, you must spend more time thinking, writing, and planning.  Here are some business coaching tips to help you generate valuable ideas:

1. Schedule at least one meeting each week (90-120 minutes) with yourself away from your office.  Go some place where it is relatively quiet and peaceful.  Go to a coffee shop, restaurant, park, lake, your back deck, a pool, library, bookstore, your home office, or a garden, to name a few.  As the leader of The Growth Coach, I schedule at least three hours each and every week to do nothing but reflect, think, and capture ideas and plans on paper.  This is some of the most profitable, creative and satisfying work I do.

2. Keep your agenda open-ended and very simple...spend quiet time THINKING about creating a better future for your business and your life.  For example, come up with ideas, insights, and innovations; define problems and develop solutions; assess what is working and what is not; leverage your company's strengths and minimize its weaknesses;  improve your sales and marketing; grow revenues and reduce costs; increase customer satisfaction; and decide on the strategic changes that need to be made.  

3. Arm yourself with only a pad of paper and a pen or pencil.  To achieve effective thinking, writing, and planning minimize your distractions.  Leave your cell phone, computer and Blackberry behind.  Again, you want uninterrupted time to slow down and do some deep thinking. 

4. To generate ideas that are worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, elevate beyond your routine way of thinking.  Assume new roles to expand and open up your mind.  For example, think of yourself as a business coach or business consultant and your company as the client.  How would you now view your business?  What would you see through such eyes about your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?  Or, think of yourself as a competitor.  What vulnerabilities would you now see and attack?  Or, think of yourself as a prospective investor examining your company as a potential investment.  What would excite you and scare you?  What would you see as hidden profit areas or new revenue streams?  Costs to be cut?  Or finally, think of yourself as a customer.  What would you like to see improved or changed?

The Growth Coach strategic-focusing process helps our clients on a quarterly basis to slow down, face reality, think, write, decide on changes, create action plans, and then receive on-going accountability to achieve results.  Please click here to learn more about our business coaching solutions.  Additionally, as your virtual business coach, I urge you to  schedule the most important meeting you can have each week...with yourself to think.  Thinking is some of the most important, strategic, difficult, and valuable work you do as an owner.  Shouldn't you do more of it?  Think about it.

Daniel M. Murphy
President, Founder & Business Coach
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System