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16 Jun 2011

Growth Coach Challenge – No Really, What’s Holding Your Company Back?

Business Owner, as your virtual Growth Coach, let me ask you a direct question.  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 greater results.  Go ahead, think of your top 3 barriers, challenges and obstacles.  Got them clearly in your head?

OK, let me guess.  Of your challenges, all 3 of them were external to you, the owner.  Am I right?  It’s not that hard to predict … nearly all entrepreneurs attribute success to themselves and challenges to others.  That’s human nature.  Owners tend to look outside of and beyond themselves and to blame other things, conditions, circumstances and people for holding the company back.  Very few owners are enlightened enough and honest enough to say, “I am one of the main reasons holding this company back”.  Are you such an exception?

Let’s look carefully at your answers.  Were your top 3 obstacles, challenges, and barriers (instead of squarely focused on YOU) more about “external factors” like the struggling economy, politics, government regulation, your industry, your competition, the housing crisis, your sales or marketing teams, your managers, other employees, your customers, your suppliers/vendors, your products/services, access to capital, the rising cost of fuel and product materials, etc.?  Probably these or other similar “external factors”.

However, aren’t most, if not all of these, merely excuses?  At a minimum, aren’t 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?  Maybe even playing the “victim” card a bit?  If so, you are giving your power away to own the results and to make positive changes and adjustments.  Bottom line, you are saying that the situation is out of your control, that you are a powerless pawn to circumstances and other people, and that you prefer to feel better telling yourself “poor me stories”.  

OUCH!!  Sorry if I hit a nerve but at The Growth Coach Franchise, we believe in tough-love business coaching to help entrepreneurs wake-up, truly transform their mindsets and habits, and to enjoy greater success and balance.  To do so, business owners have to embrace that they are 100% responsible for the business results generated.

Sadly, all human beings and most business owners (me included) are experts from time to time at developing reasonable sounding, believable, and comforting excuses. It’s a mental coping mechanism to avoid painful reality and results.  Instead of accepting responsibility for undesirable results and going to work making necessary changes, it’s far easier to blame others or circumstances.  We tell ourselves comforting lies.  Then, nothing is required on our part … tragic but all too common.

Do not fall prey to that “victimhood mentality” … it accomplishes NOTHING and only breeds even bigger problems.  After all, it’s not that you have problems that is the problem, it’s that you don’t own up to and fix the problems promptly … making excuses and playing denial is the real problem.

You deserve better.  Stop blaming, complaining or 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 absolutely nothing to help advance your business.

Let this be a tough-love, wake-up call for you and others you care about.  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.  As I just told a large Growth Coach training class this week … you can either spend time making money or making excuses, but not both.  You can also choose to be a winner or a whiner.  

To be a consistent winner, take 100% responsibility for the results of your business and your personal life.  That means learning to accept the fact that your thinking and actions to date have attracted nearly everything to your business … results, conditions, circumstances and people.  All the good, bad and ugly outcomes in your business were in large part attracted because of YOU and/or the conditions you’ve established.  Can you accept such full responsibility?  

If you can, you are a winner and your success cannot be denied.  If you can’t, that makes you more of a whiner and susceptible to excuses.  Sorry, but that’s a key distinction between a winner and a whiner … accepting full responsibility as the owner for all results of your business.

Winners own the good, bad and the ugly outcomes. Winners face and accept the truth and then decide to improve upon those circumstances going forward.  They make the changes/adjustments necessary for better results.  Whiners do not.

Here is some more tough-love business coachingIf 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 to find better employees.  You must also become a better business worthy to attract better managers and employees.  Similarly, if you want better customers, your company must become worthy enough 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. 

As we stated, you can either make excuses or make more money. You can either make excuses or create a better business.  You can be a winner or a whiner.  Which do you choose?  So let’s go back to the beginning of this Growth Coach business coaching blog and try again.  No really … what’s holding your company back from greater levels of success?

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