Tag Archive for: small business

Building Your Board of Directors: Work With People Because They Can Contribute – Not Because It’s Convenient

When you’re building your Board of Directors (BOD) and joining boards of other businesses, you need to keep your focus. It should be an exclusive club that not everyone can join. Don’t get others involved because they’re friendly or you think it may land you a short-term gain. What are your needs and goals? How can others help you satisfy those needs and achieve those goals? After you’ve figured that out, work with those who are a good fit, not a convenient fit.

What Do You Need From a Director?

You may have started a business because you’re very good at making or doing something and you enjoy doing it (which is probably why you’re good at it). But you don’t know all you need to know about business and lack some essential skills. A BOD can give you advice, share some tips, and connect you with other businesses that might help you overcome your weaknesses. If you’re terrible at numbers, hire a bookkeeper or accountant. If you’re disorganized, consider hiring a digital assistant.

Your BOD should also be people who have your back while you have theirs. You’re working together so everyone can succeed in the fastest and least painful way possible. In the future, you could brag about all the mistakes you overcame and all the problems you resolved, or you could prevent mistakes, avoid problems, and meet your sales goals. Your business’s story will be less interesting, but you’ll probably have more money and less stress.

How Do You Choose Board Members?

You have to admit you’re not perfect and you can’t do everything yourself, which can be difficult for some people. If you don’t have a business plan, create one. You can get lots of help, some of it for free, when you do this (SCORE is one option and the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers are another). After your plan is complete, decide what aspects you know the least about. Try to find someone who can help you in that area, while you help them in ways that serve them.

Unless your business is a smashing success from day one, you need to generate a sales pipeline. These are prospects and potential customers within your reach. Your pipeline will leak, so you can’t count on business from all those connected to you.

How Can This Person Help You Reach Your Goals?

You, like all business owners, need long-term connections to generate sales. It’s far easier and cheaper to keep existing customers happy and develop new business from them rather than focusing just on creating new customers. Directors who aid you, in the long run, may also help you generate clients and customers who will stay with you over time.

A possible customer may be a convenient addition to your BOD, and it may or may not be a good idea. Don’t add someone to generate a sale then lose interest in them. They’ll feel used and probably say bad things about you, which is never good when creating business relationships.

You could try to kill two birds with one stone if that person’s a good fit for your BOD. You may get a sale and the person may have many reliable connections that could help you in the long term. They might also bring valuable industry experience and knowledge to your BOD.

Take the Next Step. Contact Coaches for CEOs

Recruiting for your BOD is not about racking up quick scores, the focus should be on success today and in the future. You need the right people on your BOD to help you go in the right direction, not cause a temporary distraction.

Your board of directors can be the foundation of your sales machine. They can champion your business while you return the favor. Contact me to learn more about how cooperating with others can grow your business. Fill out my contact form so we can talk about your company and how you can join a Zoom seminar to learn more.

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FFF: Family, Faith, and Finance

We have only so much time and energy in our lives. We’re generally oblivious to the passing of time until there’s a holiday, an important date, or something traumatic happens. We can either float around on this river of time and go where the current takes us, or we can swim toward our destination. Part of that direction includes spending as much time as you can with the people who add the most to your life.

I try to interact as much as possible with people who contribute to my 3 Fs: family, faith, and finance. I try to spend my time with people who contribute to my life in some way. There are people you know who recharge your battery and those who drain it. The more charged up you are, the more energy you have for what’s essential in your life.

  1. Family

I’m blessed with a wonderful family. They keep me going and I hope I do the same for them. We all face challenges, but with strong family support, if you can’t change a situation at the very least you can make the most of it.

A major reason I’m in business is to support my family. I want them to have the resources for their needs and enough of the things they want to keep them happy. Money may not buy you a happy family, but it gives you options.

We all need balance in our lives. You can get a lot of satisfaction from a successful business, as well as a good income, but it’s not worth it if you have no time or energy for the people you love.

  1. Faith

Successful business owners have all kinds of faiths. There are people accomplishing amazing things from all parts of the globe of every faith, including those who don’t belong to an organized faith. I’m not here to convert you to one or another, just to try to open your eyes to the possibilities of faith.

I think we all need some kind of faith to make sense of this world. Increasingly Americans consider themselves to be spiritual but not religious. They find a way to work that into their lives that suits them. If your faith isn’t a God-based religion, maybe you have faith in your potential and that of others.

Whether we’re alive on Earth because of an unfathomable grand plan or sheer luck, we should be working toward creating a better place for everyone. I’d like to think that’s a faith we can all believe in.

I want to spend time with people who build my faith. You should too. It’s a harsh world, and despite all the millennia humans have been alive, it’s hard to find a good reason why bad things happen to good people. I want to make the most of my life, so I try to work with those who strengthen and broaden my faith because it helps me get through the day, to decide right and wrong, and make the most of my life.

  1. Finance

A successful business can be very gratifying, but it’s income that pays the bills and allows you to save for the future. I’m constantly trying to find the right people who, in some way, will help my business and my finances. You never know who you might meet or how they might contribute.

This doesn’t mean your life should be a quest for people to exploit (if it is, what kind of faith do you have?). But it should be about finding people who will help you and developing relationships in which you can return the favor.

You need to find new clients and customers, so keep your eyes and ears open to meeting those who can help you directly and indirectly through a board of directors. It’s the most effective and efficient way to grow your business while allowing you the opportunity to give back to others who help you.

Get the Help Your Business Needs

If you want to learn more about how to leverage your relationships with business partners and grow your business, fill out my contact form and attend one of my online seminars. Let’s start the conversation about how we can help ourselves and others.

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When It Comes to Business Partners, Knowledge is Power

When you become a Coaching for CEOs client, we will talk about your business and learn all we can to help it grow. The more we know about you and your business, the better position we will be in to help you put together the best board of directors you can.

We will want to know your POS:

  • Production: How many clients do you currently serve?
  • Offering: What services or products do you offer?
  • Sources: Who are your ideal clients?

Without knowing your strengths and weaknesses and what you need to reach your goals, it’s hard for us to help. We will also need a baseline of where your business is now so we can chart a course for you to grow. Your business partners should also know your POS. If not, they won’t know which of their clients and connections are a good fit for you.

With the right knowledge, your business partners will be empowered to help you.

Production

We’d like to know how many clients you have and your capacity to serve more. You may want fewer new clients who buy more from you or you might be better served by diversifying your clients so there are more of them, but they buy less.

How much growth do you want and how fast do you want to grow? Companies can fail because they lack customers or can’t cope with fast growth and their service and reputation suffer. Your competitors could take advantage of the situation and take your unhappy customers away.

Offering

No one can help your business if they don’t know what you do. Depending on what you do, one of your possible business partners may be a great match, while another may not be much help. Ideally, you find someone who is well connected to the people or businesses you want to serve but they’re not competing against you.

Your business may be very local, have clients in this region of the country, or nationwide. A business making or selling something fairly simple and inexpensive will have a client base much different than if you are selling a product that is complex and expensive. Do you sell directly to users or through distributors?

Service providers face similar issues. A business selling home cleaning services or lawn maintenance is much different from one offering accounting or legal services to business clients. Is your service limited to a geographic area, or can you provide it anywhere thanks to telephones and the internet?

Sources

Your ideal clients could be individuals, small or large businesses, institutions, nonprofits, or government agencies. They might be in the area or within a five-hour drive. You may seek well-off families with considerable disposable income, businesses willing to spend money on you to save more money by cutting one of their costs, religious organizations looking to grow their membership, or car repair shops looking for more customers. There’s no potential customer out of reach with the right board members.

Get the Help Your Business Needs

If you want to learn more about how to leverage your relationships with business partners and grow your business, fill out my contact form and attend one of my online seminars. Let’s start the conversation about how we can help ourselves and others.

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Business Connections – Help Those Who Help You By Spreading the Word

Your board of directors is there to help you. Why not return the favor? They’re reaching out to those they know to find opportunities and business connections for you. Are you ready to do the same for them? You never know who you’ll meet, including the biggest customer one of your directors ever got – thanks to you.

Wait? A board of directors for your small business? Yes! We call it a BOD here at Coaching for CEOs. Your BOD is made up of business connections who make a deliberate intent to contribute to the bottom line of your business.  

As the pandemic (hopefully) winds down, friends, family, and other business people will be getting together for the first time in months. We’ll be enjoying that human connection many of us missed living behind our computer screens. What will you talk about?

Small talk is all about asking open-ended questions. Make the other person the focus of the conversation and actively listen to what they’re saying. They’ll probably appreciate the attention and think you’re really smart if you’re interested in them.

Your Board Members May Need Many Things. Might This Person Help?

Keep a mental list of what your partners do and what they’re looking for. Their priority may be increasing sales, finding a supplier, a contractor or investor, or filling job vacancies. Try to figure out how the one you’re talking to, or someone they know, might fill one of these needs.

Come up with questions you can ask those you meet to find details that can help a board member (maybe even more than one). Start very broadly, with open-ended questions, then get more specific. You might find out more about their social circles, who they work for, and whether they might be someone your board members are looking for.

Once you have narrowed down which board member this person might help, they may open up more if you state you are asking for a friend, not for yourself: someone you are connected with who helps you with your business does _____ and is looking for help with _____.

Ask Specific Questions If You Think the Person Might Be a Good Fit

If the person recently got married, got a divorce, had a child, bought a house, or is heavily involved in a charity, your board member-attorney-friend who does estate planning would probably like you to ask if they have a will. If so, you could ask if it’s been updated to reflect their current goals, like making sure their assets will help their child or support that nonprofit. If not, creating one would be a good idea.

Your board member selling life insurance would also probably love to chat with that same person. Someone going through major life changes should review their existing coverage or buy a policy. Proceeds could pay off a mortgage, support a child, or benefit a charity. Tell them a friend sells insurance, and it is something they should think about.

Mortgage interest rates are at historic lows. If your board member works for a mortgage lender, and if the person owns a home, you could ask if they’ve refinanced their mortgage recently. That board member, or the one who is a real estate agent, would like you to ask if they plan on selling their home to buy a new one.

Both those industries are having record years. Maybe these board members need help keeping up and are looking to hire new employees. If you meet someone who doesn’t sound happy with their current job or is actively looking for work, they might be a good fit. Tell them you know someone who is hiring and offer to connect them to your board member.

Speak Up for Your Board Members

Your board members need help too, and reaching on their behalf is a great way to do it. Not only might they link you with possible clients or customers, but they are also a valuable resource who can answer questions or give advice. When you join Coaching for CEOs, you create business connections and have access to business partners who will help you build reciprocal relationships.

Want to learn more about how to leverage your relationships and grow your business? Fill out my contact form and attend one of my online seminars. Let’s start the conversation about how we can help ourselves and others.

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