Happy Friday Everyone…..
I absolutely love Fridays… for it means that I can complete the admin stuff for the week, have a 5.30pm meeting with the girls at Happy Hour at the wine bar next door, and of course… take some time out to write a blog.
Last week I started talking about what some mentors, business coaches and so called “experts” are saying and doing to their business owner clients… and quite frankly, its not all good! I also highlighted 7 areas in which I think I have discovered what the Australian Business Owner truly wants from their chosen “mentor”… Here is a reminder…
- Someone who is willing to understand them and their business – not create a business for them that they don’t actually feel connected to. For example…. instead of being dismissive and saying “NO…that’s not a niche”… work out how their passion could be a niche! Sounds simple right?
- Don’t give them a whole load of rehashed american concepts that have NOT been tried and tested in this market
- Understand when online marketing works… and more importantly when it DOESNT!
- They want the tools of HOW to do things… not just theory…
- They want you! That is why they signed to be with you, to learn from you, to find out the strategies that worked for you and most importantly they want the systems that you have… so give it to them…. That’s what you are being paid for!
- They want you to deliver what you promise… if you promise small classroom sizes and access to you… then don’t put them in a room of 35 and give them a “bees dick” amount of time with you… they want someone who “means what they say, and says what they mean!”
- Their business isn’t just about marketing…. they want your professional opinion on all areas of the business… this means they want you to get a little more in-depth than just “What is your ideal day”
I wanted to have a closer look at point 1… “Someone who is willing to understand them and their business – not create a business for them that they don’t actually feel connected to. For example…. instead of being dismissive and saying “NO…that’s not a niche”… work out how their passion could be a niche! Sounds simple right?”
It is very rare that a person will wake up one morning and say “I am going to start a business today!”… normally it has been on their mind for sometime, it has been a small urge that has manifested its way through the skin until it bursts out and says “Yup… I am finally going to do it…” – which means it is also very rare, that someone doesn’t know what kind of business they want to run. It may be a cafe, it may be a coaching service it may be a software development company… whatever it is, that person has been thinking, contemplating, dreaming and weighing up the risks about owning this business for a while – that in itself deserves respect.
I have had too many people come to me recently and say “my last mentor said…NO… that’s not a niche, find something else”… which I can understand to a point… but definitely do not endorse this disrespectful behaviour. Sometimes business owners do get overly excited with their passion, or an idea… and forget to do their due diligence and find out if there is a market for their actual business idea or not…. Please note…. just because your idea may not have a market… doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea for a business… you may just need to tweak certain elements, talk about certain topics and pain points and hit the right markers to find the market you are after….
What I see next is the most concerning of all…. once these “mentors” have disrespected your feelings, trampled on your ideas, and squashed the passion out of you… they then recommend a few niches that you should go into to make money. Great… go into a new business idea with no passion, no sense of belonging and no real connection to the new business…. how do you think that is going to work for you?? Not well at all…. then comes the inevitable confusion. ”I thought I wanted to run my own business, but I don’t really like what I am doing”..”I’m not sure I really have a clear vision of what I am doing…”…”I am completely confused as to where to start” – ring a bell with anyone out there?
This is what happens when a business idea or niche gets forced onto someone.. You don’t need to be someone else in order to have a successful business. All you need to do is work to your strengths, think about what it is you love to do, then find what the market wants as a solution and provide it….
It seems so logical and simple, yet this is something I face nearly everyday with people coming to me for help in their businesses…
I am curious, what you your opinions are on this subject?
Have a great day all
Cheers
N
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | business coaches, business owners, experts, mentors, naomi, Naomi Aldred, small business
love the post – having just sacked a coach/ mentor can relate to all points…..
Brings up the question Greg…. “should their be a governing body around business coaches and mentors?”… love to hear your thoughts!
Cheers
N
Well if ever there was a business that you could say, “…that’s not a niche” to, it would have to be ours!
When we decided to start developing SITE BOSS CMS, we had a great deal of exposure to the already present Website Content Management Systems that existed in the market. There were literally thousands of them. I personally had trialled over 200 of the ‘best’ of them to see what worked and what didn’t and still keep my eye on the development of the best 40 or 50 to this day.
So why did we decide to enter into this apparently crowded vertical sector? Because despite all the competition out there, there really wasn’t a genuine business focused solution amongst the lot of them. Yeah sure, there were plenty of patchwork, Open Source add ons and modules to extend the basic product to allow it to deliver E-Commerce and E-Marketing but these modules were exactly that, add-ons and band-aids. None of them work very well and they are harder to understand than Julia Gillard’s pearls of economic wisdom. There were also some very expensive high end solutions around but these were generally out of the reach of the average Australian business operator.
We also decided not to do as the large percentage of other commercial CMS providers (our competitors) had done – i.e. steal a bunch of 15 year old, out of date, Open Source code and stick a pretty front end on it and call it a pineapple.
Instead, we started from the ground up with a blank sheet of paper and began to design what we knew the Australian small to medium sized business operator really needed – an easy to operate, fun to use, comprehensive business solution that they could log into in the morning and remain there in the one environment for the rest of the day to run their entire business. We incorporated the lastest and greatest technologies all the way through (because we had that option being the original developers of the core product’s engine) and, not surprisingly, the result makes the alternative offerings look decidedly dated and lacking.
Nobody had done what we were doing before. We saw that as a niche. So, despite to apparently crowded market space we found a way through using our intuition and by speaking to people that would be our future customers about what they really wanted from a Website Content Management System. The result is SITE BOSS CMS.
And as for waking up one morning and deciding ‘today I’m going to start a business’, that didn’t happen either. For the record, I had been dreaming up this concept of an all inclusive business system since about 1992 when I was using Windows 3.x and a very early version of MYOB and thought that it was stupid how you had to go in and out of all of these different programmes to do different things. Word, Excel, MYOB. Wouldn’t it be great if it was all under one roof? Well, it only took us the next 17 years, but here we are!!
Good on you Naomi, you are right on the money with everything you say in this blog piece. People need to be very careful about whom they take business advice from and clearly understand what their real motivations are for promoting one business concept in favour of another. Definitely a case of ‘Buyer Beware’.
I can personally vouch for the legitimacy and integrity of Naomi Aldred and her team at Nexus. They hove worked hard to define their own niche and their honesty, integrity and insight is what will keep them on the top of my list. I urge you to put them at the top of yours.
Trust is everything and I trust them.
Chris Shannon
Managing Director, E-News Direct Group Pty Limited
Developers of SITE BOSS CMS
http://www.sitebosscms.com.au/
love your comment Chris… and thank you for the kind words about Team Nexus… Sales Club is all about being as ethical, supportive and a great service provider. I love Site Boss, we use it at Nexus – and it make life so easy, it’s very intuitive and I can’t wait to start using the emarketing module as well….
Great blog Naomi. I’m tired of hearing my clients complain about their business coaches and mentors. In the words of the wonderful Matt Church – there are 6 billion people on the planet – if you have a great idea, there is a market for it somewhere.
Thanks Jacqui… I am guessing you are as frustrated as I am on this matter… however, as long as we are out there doing the right thing by business owners – hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel right? Thanks for the Matt Church quote!
Whew Naomi… steps 1 to 7 followed with my Mindset Coaching of a small business recently. There was nothing wrong with their business and fortunately for me the previous business coach set up all the systems and KPIs. This business just needed a boost of energy as they went from back yard bungalow to global. We talked about how to bring excitement and passion into their business every day. They have been very jaded from just doing the ‘do’. Now they are on track and so excited to take their business to the next level. Once reminded why they started the business in the first place I was able to get them to refocus ‘why’ they get up in the morning to come into their business that they created. Not just placing themselves in another ‘job’
Hi Naomi,
Love the blog and i think you are spot on, i have heard all of the above from a number of people and it really is sad that it is such a common experiences, as a great mentor can make all the difference in your business.
There is so much information available these days via the net and sometimes it can be ovewhelming, so im sure that when a business owner or potential business owner decides they want a Mentor, it is because they want that direct contact to be able to ask questions to someone who has been there done that before, as well as support, guidance and feedback…. Your 7 points above should be used as a checklist for anyone looking for a mentor so they can get the best results for them and their business…..
I love that you are putting this out there, Look forward to hearing more…..
Kim
Thanks Kim… I love your idea for using the 7 points as a checklist for finding the right mentor for you… maybe this could be a niche in itself? lol
Hi Naomi,
As usual, you have hit the nail on the head. You seem to have a brilliant skill in finding the real truth of people’s needs and wants. I love that you test everything for the local market and are 100% relevant.
What a shame that’s not a niche.
xx Anyce
isn’t it??? lol
Spot on Naomi. I was only recently discussing this very topic, and how I was cut down on a live webinar by my mentor. It strayed me greatly from my path and I followed what I was meant to do instead of where I should have been. Now on the right track, Living Raw is the hub for all information on the Australian raw food community!
Keep speaking up, there’s others out there who need to hear this and realise they were on the right track all along!
xx Kate
Thanks Kate… I love your niche… and yes it is most definitely a niche….
I started business when I was 17 with the World against my ideas, no support, help or acknowledgement. It’s the marksmanship of perserverence that has helped and following what your heart tells you. No idea is a shit idea, there is not one problem without solution.
Having said that, testing something that doesn’t work, you find a different approach to it.
P.s hello Naomi
I love your comment Thaddeus… you have always seemed really innovative to me… and I am a little shocked that there are people out there who didn’t believe in your ideas…
You are absolutely right about having the behavioural flexibility to be able to alter, tweak or shift your ideas a little to ensure they work. Thank you for your comment.
P.S hello Thaddeus
Hi Naomi,
Thank you for another great blog. You made so many good points, I don’t know where to start!
I think the point that stood out is that a mentor loses credibility really quickly when they don’t deliver what they promise, don’t say what they mean and don’t mean what they say. That’s a red flag to kick off your heels, put on your running shoes and get out of there…….fasssssst!
Zainul