The importance of treating people with respect!

How many of you have been in a situation where you have assigned a project to someone and they have not had the desired results. What do you do? I have seen numerous occasions where the person is belittled or made to feel like a failure. Are you guilty of that! I had the opportunity to attend several Zenger Miller seminars that focused on interaction with people. The entire program is based on 5 basic principles. Here they are:
1. Focus on the situation, issue or behavior NOT on the person.
2. Maintain the self confidence and self esteem of others.
3. Maintain constructive relationships with your employees, peers and management.
4. Take initiative to make things better.
5. Lead by example.

Respect is an important quality that I feel is missing. We need to remember that life isn’t “all about us”. An important part of life is how we interact with people. Everyday we need to focus on showing others we respect them.

What is the definition of bureaucracy?

I saw this up in a post office somewhere. The definition of a bureaucracy is when the first person that answers the phone can’t help you. It was interesting that this was in the post office…but that’s another story. How many of you get frustrated when this happens to you. You get transferred around because, “that is not my department or they are busy or could you hold?” I am currently working with a loan company that must be the biggest bureaucracy in the whole world. Fortunately while I am on hold, I have something to do. That’s right! I am composing this blog. My goal is to never put a client or potential customer in this position. I can only control how I deal with it. If we all made it our goal to not transfer someone, but help them, productivity in America would soar! So starting today, every person I speak with on the phone will get the information they need…from ME!

What can a business owner learn from sports?

Being an avid Braves fan and a huge supporter of Bobby Cox, I found the last three games interesting. When the Braves got behind, he did not panic, he did not throw things as the leader he was in control. When you face adversity in your business what do you do? Do you make excuses? Do you blame others? Or are you a strong leader like Bobby Cox. Our off the bench hero all season Brooks Conrad was forced into action with Chipper Jones out for the season and Martin Prado injured. He made crucial errors in the first two games against the Phillies, so what does Bobby do, he move him to second base where he is more comfortable and had a good defensive game and drove in some runs. As a business owner do you have all your players in the positions where they can be successful? Do you focus them on what they do best? Here’s an example, one of my clients does installation work. He had one employee, that no matter what when sent to pickup stuff at the store he always forgot something…BUT he also worked three time faster than anyone else. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tweak this job description. Focus on what your employees do best and put them in a position to succeed. They win, you win! Will the Braves go to the World Series? I am rooting for them, but win or lose I know they will not get out managed.

Where will your business be in 5 years?

Do you know? Do you have written goals? Do you have a plan of attack to achieve them? If you answered “NO” to any of these questions, you might need a business coach. Worked with one of my clients last week to put his dreams down on paper, put a value to each and developed a plan to achieve “EVERY” goal within 5 years. We then broke the goals down into 3 year, 1 year and 90 day plans. Using the BE x DO = HAVE formula, we have identified what the client and his wife want to HAVE. Developed the action plan of what he needs to DO. The only area we are continuing to develop is who he needs to BE. Does he need to improve his time management skills, does he need to improve his leadership skills or does he need to work on having more fun?

Remember every journey begins with the first step. Now is the time to take ACTION. If you would like clarity in the direction for your business contact Coach Phil.

Are you ready for a business coach?

You are…IF you possess any of the following feelings:  Business is good, but I would like to take to next level.  I know I need to do something different to make sure it remains profitable.  I would really like to grow my business but I don’t know the next step.  I am open to new ideas.  If I don’t do something now my business might not be here next year.   I can’t keep working 60 or more hours per week.

Everyone of my 1.1 coaching clients signed on for one of the reasons listed above.  They all possess a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the current trend of the business or a vision of a better business.  Without that dissatisfaction or vision change is difficult if not impossible.  The formula for change is:  D x V + FS > R. Dissatisfaction x Vision + First Step needs to be greater than Resistance.

If you possess any of the feeling listed above, you are a good candidate for a business coach. If you are open to new ideas, you  are a good candidate for a business coach.  If you would like a 46% increase in revenue and a 61% increase in profits, you are definitely ready for a business coach.  If you are working too many hours, you are a good candidate for a business coach.

Every journey begins with the first step.  Now is the time to get into action.

What’s the difference between important and urgent?

It seems to me that we have way too many urgent tasks everyday.  This is crisis management.  Look at your day, how many hours do you spend putting out fires and problem solving immediate concerns.  I know we have all had those days where when it was done you asked yourself, “what did I get done today?”  The clarification of what is urgent and what is important should help prioritize our daily actions.  To me urgent tasks are those that need to  be done in one week or less.  Important would be characterized as a task that if completed has a major positive effect when done or a major negative effect if not completed.  When you are planning your day ask yourself is this task “important” or “urgent”.    Focus on the important and watch your business grow.

Dream x Goal x Plan x Action = Results

The old saying goes, “Most people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.”  But I can even expand on that.  If we use the equation of Dream x Goal x Plan x Action=Results you can see that planning is only one of four components to achieving your results.  There are two components that come before planning and one that comes after.  Rate yourself on each of these on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being on the low end and 10 being the best.  The highest score is 10,000.  My guess if you honestly evaluate yourself in the four areas your score with be somewhere around 300 points.

Each of the four components are equally important.  What’s your dream?  One of my clients dreams is to sail around the world.  Another is to retire on passive income of $200,000 in 5 years.  Again, what’s yours?  For without a dream we cannot set the goals needed to achieve the dream or develop the plans needed to achieve the goals or implement the actions to make sure we execute the plan.

Using this formula will get you where you  want to go.  You just need to identify where that is.  I challenge everyone to take control of their destiny and be all that you want to be.

Got to vs Get to…

This is a Zig Zigler observation that hit home in a coaching session today.  I was reviewing the weekly coaching focus sheet .  This is the document that I work from each week to keep the client on task to achieve THEIR goals.  The client had completed only one of the four goals we had agreed upon for the week.   Bottom line he did not have the time to complete those tasks…he was too busy.  I tried to get clarification of what was eating up his time that he did not get to it.  It was a string of “I got to do this” and “I got to do that” and by the time he was done with the got to’s he was out of time.  That’s when I had the flash back to CD’s I have been listening too.  The minute we change the words “got to” to “get to” it becomes a privilege as opposed to a penance.  Work becomes challenging and FUN!  To quote a famous southern philosopher.  We get ‘er done when we have some FUN!

Look at how you perceive what you do on the job.  Do you look at it as an opportunity or an obstacle?  If it’s an obstacle, you need to change.  Why?  Because there are people who would love to have a job…even yours!

So let’s change our negative “got to” to a positive “get to” and let’s get on with life!

Business Coaching’s Impact On You Personal Goals…

I have asked my clients why they needed a business coach. The obvious answers are to make more money, work less hours and develop awesome teams. They are very focused on the business side of their goals, but most of them struggle with their personal goals. Here’s the question I ask, “Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 years?” Most have an idea about the business but struggle with the personal. Do you know where you see yourself in 2015? The key to me is identifying your personal goals.
I am working with a client where early on we identified business goals. We put together plans and actions to get the business moving in that direction…but the passion for achieving the business goals was not that strong. Then about four months into the process he came to me and said he knew what he wanted to do with his personal life…and that was to sail around the world. WOW! That’s a great dream! When we started focusing on that goal and how we could do it he became passionate about his business. That was a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious). It’s not about the business it’s about the person and aligning the business to help them achieve their passion. The business is a tool to fulfill your personal goals. Once we were clear on the goal we aligned the business to make sure it would provide what was needed for his ’round the world excursion. Coach Phil.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!