Hate Your Job? Start Your Own Business.

I know — it's scary. But here are the facts: 1. There's never been a better time to start a business. Corporate life is uncertain and with technology and the market's ever-increasing needs, you have to get out there. I know it's not the best economy — but many successful businesses were started in a downturn.

2. Start slowly. Do it on the side. Build up clients and then make your break. Small steps lead to big gains. That's how I did it — I started slowly and coached at night. I proved that I could make money — and then I left my company.

3. Pick your area and then MEET people in that field. How is it? Up? Down? Do they like it? What don't they like? Be an information vacuum — learn about the industry, business, and all the small machinations.

4. Many businesses today don't need a lot of capital to start. Years ago, you needed a storefront, loans, etc. Today, all you might need is a website, a business card, and a lot of chutzpah!

5. Learn how to sell. Unless you have a lot of money to market your business — YOU will have to get out there and sell. If you don't know how to do it or are ambivalent — hire a coach or teach yourself how to sell by reading books.

6. Just do it. A lot of people out there HATE their job and wish they were more in control of their life and career. HERE'S YOUR CHANCE. Every year, corporate positions are drying up, bosses are becoming bi-polar, and you are at the whim of the balance sheet. Make a move before they do.

Many of my clients have made the move successfully from a corporate position to running their own business. And guess what? They LOVE it.

P.S. Are you interested in starting a business? Let’s talk. I've worked with people from all over the world who wanted to take aggressive steps in their career — call me to schedule a complimentary session.

Do You REALLY Know What The Problem Is?

John lost his job a few months ago. And for some reason, he has no idea why he was let go instead of someone else. In addition, his interviews are not panning out and he's getting nervous about his available prospects. The clock is ticking. Mary is having a hard time communicating with her new team. For years, she has been an exemplary manager. But for some reason, her new team is not engaging and sometimes petulant. Projects are floundering.

Karen's business is not 8 years old and has been growing year after year. For some reason, it's been hard for Karen to stay focused on key areas of the business. And it's hurting her bottom line. Her bookkeeper is beginning to notice.

I run into clients like John, Mary, and Karen all the time. And I'll be honest, most of the time coaching them WORKS. But every so often, I get a client where there is a major hidden obstacle which eludes us. My coaching is affected and the client is frustrated.

That's where Rich Gee Diagnostic Insight™ comes in.

Rich Gee Diagnostic Insight™ is one of the quickest ways to gain a clear picture into your current and past obstacles, whether they are technical, social, or emotional in nature. This insight can be used to develop appropriate coaching recommendations to Move You Forward.

We Identify YOUR Needs

The combination of proven assessment techniques and live professional evaluations provide a wealth of knowledge about an individual's style of work. What are their values, what drives them, and what are the real obstacles standing in their way. With this understanding, appropriate coaching modifications can be put into place.

We Clarify Barriers To Entry

We will examine your social and professional functioning in light of your current and future milestones and goals. Using this information, we can develop effective strategies for managing people, stress, understanding relationships, controlling impulses, and getting focused at the job at hand.

We Personalize It For You

Rich Gee Diagnostic Insight™ will be tailored to meet the individual needs of your situation. Rich will use a combination of selected assessments, evaluators, and key resources to help you get a better understanding of what drives you and how we can move you forward ASAP.

LEARN MORE HERE >>

Are You Good Enough For Shark Tank?

Ever watch the Shark Tank? It's a reality-based TV show which features a panel of entrepreneurs and business executives called "Sharks" who consider offers from other entrepreneurs seeking investments for their business or product. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's hokey, but in the end. 7 million viewers don't realize major business learnings are occurring right in front of them.

The premise is simple — the entrepreneur has approximately 3-5 minutes to present their business opportunity/invention and the 'investors' then have the opportunity to bid on it (and hopefully make it a raging success!).

Let's look at what you should be taking away from each episode:

Be Prepared

You can immediately tell who has their pitch down and who doesn't. Who are the fakers and who are the 'real' businesspeople.

It's amazing how many people I meet who don't have their act together when it comes to their business or career. It seems like they are drifting through life, allowing the river to pull them along — no paddling, no rudder — and they might be heading for the rocks . . . or the waterfall.

Talk On Your Feet

In Shark Tank, you only have 3-5 minutes to present your product. You have to give the best and most critical information quickly and in a way where your audience immediately understands what you do and what the opportunity is. Many presenters don't have solid pitches and the ability to answer easy follow-up questions.

Handle Obstacles With Aplomb

It's funny when you see the presenter finish their pitch and are aghast when the investors ask penetrating and direct questions. Many presenters stumble, some are defensive, and only a few have the gravitas to handle the pressure and perform.

Face it — you will hit obstacles EVERY DAY of your life and it's how you deal with those obstacles which define each of us for greatness. That's why they call it 'work'. If you are giving a status update to your board or pitching your services to a new prospect — make the assumption that they will ask hard questions. If they do, it means they are really interested!

Be Able To Sell Yourself Anytime

It's so funny when I bump into someone or I meet them at a networking event and they are definitely not prepared to speak with me about what they do. They obfuscate, they skitter, or they quickly skip over their most important deliverable. Guess what? I've lost interest.

How about saying something like — "When people are stuck, I get them moving forward - fast." or "It's hard to fully trust someone today - they all have agendas - I'm the one executives call who they can trust." (this is what I say)

Know Your Financials

This is my main pet peeve — entrepreneurs go on the show with some outrageous dollar amount in mind and no way to back it up. The minute the sharks begin to ask questions, the entrepreneurs stumble and pause. Not good.

If you are pitching a client, know EXACTLY what is behind your number and what it is composed of — so if they ask, you have an answer. Also, be prepared for a counter-offer and the full ability to explain your deliverables.

Know When To Close

I've seen too many people not know when to close — they fumble along and wait for their client to 'make their move'. You see it constantly on Shark Tank — they do their presentation and then the sharks either bow out or make an offer.

When you hear the 'buy' signal — go in for the 'kill' and close. Ask for their business, negotiate the offer up or down, and shake their hand!

Smile & Walk Away

There are many Shark Tank contestants who are rebuffed by the entire team of sharks. It's usually because they have a bad business idea or they didn't present or negotiate well with the sharks.

IMPORTANT: Even though you have a stellar idea, you can kill it with a bad presentation or negotiation style.

If things don't go well during a pitch or job interview — close, smile, and walk away. Don't let it get to you — it was never going to happen. The more upbeat you are, the more the client will think that they just let the biggest fish of their career, get away.

P.S. As you can probably tell, I love the Shark Tank and hope everyone who reads my blog runs off to watch it!

Top 3 Mistakes Made In Family Businesses.

I run Multi-Generational Peer Review Groups — and boy do we have fun discussing many issues inherent with family businesses — especially ones where the younger sons/daughters work for the older parents. And the parents have one foot out the door into retirement, yet they feel they need to keep active and still make decisions. Or they are still working 60-70 hours a week and never delegate key responsibilities to their sons/daughters (I'm going to use the term 'kids' for brevity). Here are some mistakes (and possible solutions) I see frequently:

1. Bad Communication.

Number one mistake made in multi-gen businesses. The parent is un-moveable, disruptive, or sticking to their guns and the kids give up on any sort of constructive communication.

Solution: "You're not going to teach an old dog new tricks." It's the kids job to stay patient (and professional) and encourage healthy communication first. Try to bridge the gap and work with your parent and if needed, wear your heart on your sleeve when speaking with them. It's also the job of the parent to also open their heart and mind to their kids' overtures.

2. Loss of Self-Esteem.

If the kids are constantly reprimanded or berated when they do something wrong by the parent,  not only do they shut down and get resentful, they begin to lose faith in their abilities.

Solution: The parent needs to understand that there is a difference between motivational instruction and berating mistakes. They need to acknowledge that you will make mistakes along the way and they are their not only to catch you, but to encourage you to succeed. The kids need to understand that what took their parents 30-40 years to perfect cannot be learned in 2-3 years. In addition, your parents might not be the best teachers, so you sometimes need to pull information, techniques, and practices out of them for you to grow. It will take time.

3. Allocation of Responsibilities.

As the parent slowly relinquishes certain responsibilities to their kids (hopefully!), how the kids perform their new duties might be different than what the parent expects. So the parent begins to hold back the allocation and then adverse situations result. This especially happens when the kids try a new direction for an old problem (i.e., growing their web presence and killing all phone book advertising) and the parent doesn't understand.

Solution: The parent needs to understand that the kids SHOULD be encouraged to do things differently or at least understand WHY their kids are taking a different tack to solve a problem. The kids need to move slowly and continuously bring their parents up to speed on the whys, whats, and hows of their strategy. You just cannot say 'trust me' - it will only inflame the situation.

Bottom line, they are not going anywhere anytime soon — so assess the problem, come up with solutions, and take action. Making believe that it will go away on its own is dangerous.

If you have any questions or issues with a multi-generational business, feel free to call me (203.500.2421) - would love to discuss and help you find a solution.

Why I Attended My Coaching Session This Morning.

Just received this from one of my oldest clients a few minutes ago — I thought I would publish it verbatim. Enjoy! When I rolled over in bed at 5:45 this morning, my usual weekday wake up time, I began to think about my day and realized I had my normally scheduled coaching session at 7:30, meaning I would have to get out of bed soon.

I was thinking I wish I could just cancel the session and grab another hour of sleep. I felt that the session today was going to be less meaningful than others.  There was no “hot and heavy” issue facing me that needs immediate attention.

Oh well, I thought, I will go through the motions and if it turns out that the session is a bust, so be it.  I decided that I would use the session today to discuss a relatively minor event of the day before that had caused me some temporary angst but passed in short order.

My focus would be to ensure that events like these stayed in the temporary and minor range for me. Wasn’t sure a whole session could be filled with that but would go with the flow.

When I arrived at my meeting, spent the first bit catching up with my coach on personal “stuff”.  While chatting, I found myself staring at the piece of paper my coach always brings to every session, a blank, white sheet waiting to be filled with boxes and circles and lines outlining our discussion.

The sheet even had my name on top today reminding me that I was the focus of the session and needed to figure out what I wanted to go over with him.

My first thought was to go with the outline that my coach provides before every session- what were my accomplishments this week?  That would be easy since I made had contacted two people that were on my list from the last session. My coach provided positive reinforcement for doing this and discussed how the meeting that I had and the one that I was going to have were going to fit into my goals.

Where to go to next for the session, I thought about our prior discussion related to managing people that work for me and that I work with.  It was here I could bring up the event of the other day that I had dealt with. Again, my coach complimented my handling of the situation and offered further thoughts on how to set boundaries and expectations that would help when working with these people.

My coach then reminded me that the conference I was going to attend in two weeks, that I had previously mentioned in another session , would be another potential opportunity to identify additional resources for my business .  He told me to think about possibly inviting out one of the speakers of the conference to breakfast or for a drink.  He said a lot of times the speakers are alone at this type of conference and appreciate someone making an effort to include them in the fold.

As the session was nearing an end, I asked the coach how things were going for him.  He shared with me some of his business ideas he was working on and we chatted further about the potential profitability of these ideas. It got my creative juices flowing always thinking about how it is important to keep coming up with new business ideas to keep your business moving forward and be in the forefront of your profession.

We finished up with  setting up our appointment for the following week and said our goodbyes. As I began to walk to my car to begin my workday I began to smile to myself and though okay today turned out to be a more meaningful session than anticipated.

So why did I attend my coaching session at 7:30 this morning? 

• To hold myself accountable on  a weekly basis
• To feel good about my progress/accomplishments
• To be proactive about my business and continual move it forward
• To have a support mechanism for me and my business (business therapy)

So there it is — my client just made me feel wonderful for the weekend. I owe a lot of what I am today to her. - Rich

Failure: How You Deceive Yourself Everyday.

Wonder why you don't get certain things accomplished? Why you hit the same obstacles every time? It comes down to a simple phrase one of my clients so eloquently related to me the other day:

"I know the little games I play with myself."

You see, we all play games in our head. I know of no one who has a personality which is so buttoned up that they perform at optimum efficiency. We think we know some people like that — but the real truth is — they play games too.

The secret is knowing what the games are and why we do it. It's the what and the why that will deliver the insight you need to move past these games.

What games am I speaking of?

Do you dodge people at work? Do you procrastinate on important things? Do you show up late to appointments and meetings? Do you let important and timely decisions lay fallow until the 'right' moment? Again — we ALL do it. So let's pick an easy one:

"I am always late on paying my bills."

WHAT: "I don't open bills until the last minute." That's the reason or the game we play.

WHY: We are afraid of having reality hit us square in the face. We know we spent a lot this month — now the bill is here and is waiting to be paid. But it might not be as bad as you think. But you'll never know until you open it.

And when you do — it immediately forces you to make a decision — where am I going to get the money to pay this? Or if I don't have the money — I have to get it. I either have to work harder or borrow from savings. AND — here's the best part — it forces us to alter our behavior to ensure it doesn't happen again.

And that's the hard part. But I want you to now place yourself in the spot of someone who opens their bills immediately, schedules or pays them immediately, and moves on. How does that sound? How does that feel? Pretty good.

So why aren't you doing it?

Desperate Times Do Not Call for Desperate Measures.

As a small business owner, you will probably lose some business during the downturn, despite your best efforts, as client companies cut their budgets, shift strategy, or, sometimes, go away altogether. By Julia Rogers at Open Small Business.

The economic downturn has made client and investor retention trickier than ever. Business owners have to do a lot more to compel investors and clients to make long-term commitments and agree that investing in their services or products are essential. According to SMSmallBiz.com and the Wall Street Journal, a lot of businesses are focusing on new strategies – like diversification and re-envisioning current skills or products – that will help them reach new markets and keep the attention of existing clients.

Bernard Nneji, president of Sigma Works Group, a process-improvement agency, suggests a variety of reasons clients and investors say they have lost interest in a small business: the client contact has changed and decides to “fire” the business; budgets and timelines are no longer working for the client; the small business’ strategies and execution of strategies cease to be in line with the client’s mission or the client has outgrown the small business and needs some bigger, fresher ideas. Ultimately, losing clients or investors most often comes down to a basic relationship-building problem –business owners’ inability to identify their clients’ and investors’ real needs from the beginning and a failure to satisfy them.

Regardless of why small businesses lose clients or why interest wanes among their client or investor base, they must focus on building relationships, and there are ways to maintain solid relationships with your best clients and set the precedent for eliciting long-term commitments from new ones.

The truth is, in any economy, chances are, if a small business finds itself with a lot of clients that don’t want to make long-term commitments or leave after one project, it’s often the small business’ problem … not the clients’! The following tips can help you maintain strong relationships with small business clients and investors as you weather the recession.

Know what the sales cycle is and follow a process for bringing your clients through it. Many business owners fail to recognize that the sales cycle is a tangible, consistent process that must be followed with each and every prospect, customer and client. Basically, the sales cycle is the time it takes for a qualified prospect – someone who genuinely needs your products or services and is willing and able to invest in them – to close. The goal is to shorten the sales cycle for each client and increase their trust in you enough to sign on the dotted line. This will make it more efficient to bring in clients. According to Jeff Thull at Inc.com, a key to shortening the sales cycle is bringing clarity to your clients so they are certain you are the best solution to their problems. Figure out what compels your prospective clients and investors – and what ails them – so you can create a sales pitch and a communication style that will appeal to them and keep them interested.

Make real plans to communicate. Many small business owners lose momentum during a sale because they stop communicating with their prospects and investors … or their prospects and investors stop communicating with them. Regardless of which party drops the ball, once this happens, the sale will not close. As a small business owner, you have to take responsibility for communicating with your prospects and clients at all points of the sales cycle with diligent, relevant, planned follow-up techniques … without being a pest. Communication is at the center of any long-term business relationship. According to Denise O’Berry, a resident small business expert at AllBusiness.com, strong relationships – both those within your own company and those with others that are potential and existing clients and investors – will be the best foundation for your business.

Make sure relationships are always mutually beneficial. Facing difficult, desperate economic times and rushing towards a quick sale, many business owners fail to highlight the term “mutually beneficial” as they are proposing agreements and contracts to current and new clients and investors and building relationships. Relationships with clients especially need to take you beyond short-term solutions and center on long-term plans that help these clients better understand where their businesses are going and also help you plan your own future. Take the opportunity to show your clients that you care about their needs as much as you care about your own. Illustrate how signing a long-term agreement with you can bring clients and investors specific benefits, address the long-term challenges they face and add real value. All relationships you build should be built around benefits that keep you and your clients and investors happy and prosperous.

In order to survive through the recession, business owners have to take control of their own businesses and stick to a very solid plan. They need to focus on building solid relationships and staying strong with existing customers and clients.