There is a common misconception that coaches are for beginners, requiring a coach signals the inability to manage, or requiring coach is putting up the white flag of surrender. Yes, having an expert guide you through start-up helps to avoid costly mistakes that can keep you on the launch pad longer. Yes, early expert guidance can help you fill in the blanks which cause you to skip critical steps that end up scrubbing the mission.

Yes, wisdom based upon operational experience is needed to set the proper business foundation so that hard to root out systemic problems don’t bite you in the butt later. No, coaches are not only for beginners. In fact, a coach is required more after the business experiences years of success. Whether it’s a business, a property portfolio, or a licensed professional service, all business owners require fine tuning to help get unstuck and move up to the unfamiliar next level. The hard lessons and the years of setback the NASA space program experienced with the space shuttle Challenger disaster during the 25th flight of the programs is a loud warning that “Nothing fails like success.”

I have owned restaurants, wellness clinics, a light manufacturing company, residential & commercial buildings, and built over 240 houses along with a few low-rise buildings as a developer, so I know the ups and downs of business. Starting from my first business at 16 dropping off cookbooks at businesses for the receptionist to sell to employees on my behalf to my current business status, I put 40 years into the machine of work. I have made some interesting discoveries, and being a coach helps me to share them. There are many experienced people who should consider adding coaching to their business model.

We are leaving the information age and moving into the experience age where people prefer to be part of the story or even be a fly on the wall. Instead of telling you why coaching is needed at all levels, I will share a few personal stories where my coaching has helped to advance my clients’ motion forward. Gary owned 8 buildings and a property management company and was a broker of record with 65 real estate agents. Gary shared with me that he was successful in business but a failure in his personal life. All of Gary’s efforts towards maintaining his business success and rekindle the relationship with his loved ones failed. As a coach I first helped Gary readjust his belief system. Gary believed that it was possible to be successful in business yet be a failure at home simultaneously. I told him that wasn’t true—it’s not one or the other, it’s both or none. I told him if his homelife was a failure then his business system was a failure as well even if it looked and felt successful. And not realizing this fact caused him to apply remedy to the symptom only (homelife) instead of the cause, which is lack of proper business systems.

The real problem was the business was dependent on Gary and would not survive the cult of him if he was not present. Further- more, his business was dependent on specific employees and specific clients for its success. Gary did not put systems in place to reduce his level of daily input required because it made him feel important, in control, and helped his hidden God complex of being irreplicable in his business world.

A business will never have a legacy if the proper systems are not in place to foster its ongoing operation if the CEO, key employees, or key customers were to vanish tomorrow. It is truly difficult to valuate a business that lack systems to allow smooth transitions to the next employee or customer or even the exit strategy to the next person for future sale. With the lack of proper business systems (the why, roles, procedures, training, automation & clarity) there is no way to spend the right amount of time at home creating that proper work life balance. Therein lies the problem. You can’t fix the home life if you don’t realize that ‘time’ is the culprit, and that making your successful business less dependent on your time is the only way to increase time on the home front. Relationships are based upon time the same way rebellions are based upon hope. I helped him to create systems so his people are riding
horses instead of donkeys. Ronald was a successful real estate developer with 25 years of building experience. Year after year he continued to build larger and larger subdivisions as his success grew.

After a while he began seeing diminishing returns and could not understand why; therefore, he called me in to coach him through the problem. To help him find the solution, I shared a personal story of a time when everything began to crumble in unrelated areas of my life even though I was at the top of my game. I had to acknowledge the only thing common among all the unrelated storms in my life was me. To solve my problem, I went back to formula. I found a simple activity and decided to do it perfectly. I was scheduled to over see a renovation in Saskatoon for 30 days, so I applied for a dishwasher job at a local family restaurant for Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. At that time my personal income was over 7 figures, but I worked on my project in the day and washed dishes at night.

My logic was to do something simple, repetitive, and non-thinking, but to do it perfectly with the hopes of getting back to the basics to reset my core program. Once people become big, they take liberties, even shortcuts, and believe the rules no longer apply to them.

After solving many problems, fear of handling something big diminishes, and we take chances knowing that an 11:45pm solution will happen. Washing dishes brought me back to simple and burnt away the top layer of my ego. Strangely enough the owner approached me 2 weeks in and called me out on my attention to detail, impeccable work attitude, perfect dress, and taking care of tiny kitchen details. He said only owners have that attitude, not dishwashers! “Why are you only a dishwasher at your age?” He then asked me what I would do to improve his business. I told him that his main steak dish sells for $15 but he has to pay $5 to buy it, $1 to freeze it, $2 to cook it, $1 to plate it, $1 to serve it, and $2 dollar to have a table to serve it on. That’s a profit of $3. Instead, a pie that you buy ready made costs $12 for 12 slices that you serve for $3.75 per slice, and you make $2.75 on it. After dinner, tea or coffee costs $1 and is sold for $3 to make $2. They come for steak, but if you relax your portion size, stop food waste, and leave room for tea/coffee, you will double the profit on your main dish. I wash dishes, so I see the waste from the large portions leaving no room for dessert or coffee. When I ended my 30-day work stint he begged me to stay on and help him increase profits. I never did tell him who I was and have only shared this story once since 2006. I was ready to take on my problems in a renewed state.

Ronald loved the story. I told Ronald that when you build big, don’t do bigger next, instead go back to small, work out the kinks that success may have hidden, and then go back to big. That’s what I did by washing dishes. Doing a repetitive, non-thinking activity allowed my endorphins and dopamine levels to wash away the adrenaline buildup due to stress. I went back to doing perfectly again even when doing big. Ronald’s repetitive and non-thinking activity was running and his next project was smaller, and he was able to identify key personnel and system problems that invited past failure. Hopefully being a fly on the wall helped confirm that coaches are not only for the beginner but for the expert who finds themselves stuck or uncertain about getting to the next level.