COACHING IS IT A GAME OR A PROFESSION

COACHING IS A GAME IT IS NOT A PROFESSION

Coaching  a profession or just mumbo jumbo? No I think it is a game or simulation. It can not be a profession since we have been playing coaching since kindergarten… do not tell this to the billion dollar worldwide coaching and mentoring industry.

I am here to save you money by offering you an insight into how I develop a coaching a mentoring program. I will be interested to hear my readers’ comments. You can go to my blog on http//edmorembuzanamlambo.blogspot.com or email your comments at embuzana@gmail.com .

The core business of a life coach is to direct an individual to achieve one or more objective in life.This entails giving mental , moral support and even material support to the client.

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The word LIFE I have used on my clients.

L in LIFE

This is the first stage you Listen to your client and Learn the problems that are blocking  his or her  development. Take notes at this stage and sketch the development path that you and your client need to walk through to achieve the objectives.

I in Life

This ‘ i ‘ in life stands for ‘EYE’. The coach must be able to see beyond the client’s problem by internalizing the feelings, fear and hope of the client.

F in life

This is a critical stage of life coaching and where the F words and four letter words are used and your expectations both as a client may be at crossroads and frustration is the order of the day. This where we need to sit down and FORMULATE a life plan. I call it the survival stage where both coach and client must do a realty check and come up with a workable life plan.

The plan should have deliverables and timetable  which both parties must commit themselves religiously. The plan should also be resourced either in the form of fees or other form of payment.

E in Life

The E in life stands for engagement. We must engage with our client on all levels. The coach must be involved in the business and social life in order for him to develop strategies that are relevant to the development of his or her client. The coach can seek the assistance of workmates, family members and others within the client’s social circle.

The E in life stands for the end. Coaching as I have already say is game or simulation. It must come to an end where we evaluate our successes and failures both as a client and coach. We must look at the agreed deliverables and see if  we have met our objectives.

The evaluation stage can also be used to see the effectiveness of the  coach ,his or her coaching programme or regime.

I would like to conclude by saying anyone can be a  life coach, as long as  a person has basic knowledge of the subject matter and your able to come with a structured coaching program. So Coach welcome to the game.

(c) All rights reserved Thornbridge Investments 2014

THE 5 STEPS FOR GROWTH FOR THE SMALL RETAILER

5 STEPS FOR GROWTH

I am a bottle store owner and I do not blog for a living. I blog for fun and I would like to share my experience with the world. I believe I am qualified to write on business since I have run a lodge, three bottles stores and a home-based business consultancy. I have closed the lodge and two of the bottle stores but I still do business consultancy for a living.

You and I have seen that little shop by the roadside as you passed. You will remember it from the time you were a child. It may be operating as a family business and it never grew but it has never closed either. It remains that small shop and it will never grow. I have always wondered why small businesses remain small and when I opened my first bottle store, I set out to live this challenge and come out with some solutions for growth.

This has been a challenge for both rural and urban retailers. This challenge can be overcome by adopting simple and tried strategies that the big retailers use. This is what I did to increase my bottle stores from one to three (and I might also tell you how I was forced to decrease them to one in my next blogs). Here are the five solutions to growth and they are not in order.

Increase your customer base

I know when we talk of growth in retail we visualize chains of supermarkets and lots of customers passing through the point of sales, now if I have one bottle store with ten crates and say 200 cigarettes it would be crazy to open a second branch as I will not have enough capital and stock.

The short term solution will be to increase our customer base. Customer bases are hard to increase but this can be increased by making your business visible through improved customer relationship management. There is nothing that beat good old advertising, sales promotions and word of mouth as ways to increase your customer base. Customers can win and be reached through the social media channels such as Facebook It is a must that the customer base be increased, Twitter, Google and other emerging social media firms on the internet.

I have opened a Facebook page for my bottle store and the responses have been wonderful and you can follow me on Facebook or like my bottle store page. My customers for the bottle store can also read my view on my blog. You can follow me on Twitter @mbuzana1

The increase of the customer base will result in an increase in turnover and this will spur the growth of the business and create a basis for further solutions.

Sell more products

Once you have increased your customer base and turnover, the next step is to increase the lines of products you sell. This will result in a further increase in both turnover and the customer base.

Develop new products and services

This is the climax of the growth solution as you will now be able to introduce new goods and services because you will by now have the muscle and capital to your established customer base. In my case, I might put a pool table or Wi-Fi in the bottle store. This process is the most important as the business owner must read both the market and competition as he or she introduces the new product and services.

Increase the price of your goods and services

At this point the business owner the especially if he is the only one at a location like our perennial rural store can afford to increase the price of his product to grow his business as he has no other option, except the last solution below.

Open a new branch

I have now come to a point where I now have adequate management skills and in some case, skilled and experienced staff. My customer base keeps the tills ringing and I have enough stocks and my cash flow is healthy and I making a profit, well this is the time to get a second wife…. No, it is time to open a second branch silly!!

The secret of opening a second branch is to set it up using existing stocks and staff. This will ensure a smooth take off. This is the last step in the growth process and we can start the cycle to get to the next level and open the third branch.

I have used my personal experiences to come up with this guide and I would greatly appreciate feedback both positive and negative. I have put my social media contacts to enable us to interact so happy hunting.