@Details about: What are some signs that you may need help running your startup business, even though everything may seem fine from the outside (e.g. money, growth, etc.)?
Here are some signs that you may need help running your startup business even though everything may seem fine from the outside:
Struggling to remain competitive within the marketplace.
Difficulty in overcoming specific challenges.
Difficulty in achieving goals.
Feeling overwhelmed.
Need for a fresh perspective.
If you are experiencing any of these signs, it may be time to hire a business coach to help you1.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
1: source
Received message. Here are some signs that you may need help running your startup business even though everything may seem fine from the outside: 1. Struggling to remain competitive within the marketplace. 2. Difficulty in overcoming specific challenges. 3. Difficulty in achieving goals. 4. Feeling overwhelmed. 5. Need for a fresh perspective. If you are experiencing any of these signs, it may be time to hire a business coach to help you. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. : [source](https://www.startupguys.net/startup-needs-a-business-coach/)
Learn more:
1. startupguys.net
2. hbr.org
3. entrepreneur.com
4. indeed.com
5 Signs Your Startup Needs a Business Coach
As a startup with sky-high ambitions and expectations, you want nothing but the best for your future growth. But your startup can all be taken away if you’re not correctly led.
That’s where business coaching comes in. A good business coach helps tech startups with growth, operations, team management, and cash flow forecasting. So if you want to avoid being one of the 18.4% of startups that fail in their first year, you should know the signs when to call for help.
Keep reading for several signs that your startup may need a business coach and how one can benefit your organization.
1. Struggling to Remain Competitive Within the Marketplace
If your startup business struggles to remain competitive within the marketplace, you should hire a business coach to help you immediately. Business coaches with years of experience can provide insight and guidance.
They can provide input on managing personnel and developing marketing strategies. Through strategic planning, they can help you to identify goals and optimize resources to reach them.
2. Difficulty in Overcoming Specific Challenges
Hiring a professional adviser can help guide clients to achieve their goals. Business coaching is constructive for those facing complex issues within their organization.
Problems can range from team dynamics, strategic planning, conflict management, and leadership. They can also improve customer service and strong financial performance.
3. Difficulty in Achieving Goals
A coach can provide valuable insights and guidance to help you achieve your goals. They can help you identify growth opportunities and develop plans to move forward.
Through their experience, they can advise on overcoming challenges. This increases efficiency and makes sound decisions.
Also, they can provide ongoing support to maintain motivation and reinforce changes. Leveraging their expertise and services can provide structure and direction.
4. Feeling Overwhelmed
Another great indicator of when to bring in a business coach is when you or your team feel overwhelmed. Call a professional if you need clear direction or need proper planning. By using an online business coach service, they can help you gain clarity, develop an action plan and set realistic goals.
They can help you or your team develop leadership and team-building skills and build trust amongst team members. They can also provide feedback on motivating your team best and boosting productivity. A business coach can be an excellent way to get your leadership and team development efforts off the ground.
5. Need for a Fresh Perspective
Hiring a business coach can be invaluable for gaining a fresh perspective on business. They can provide insight into a problem from a different angle. This allows them to offer ideas, solutions, and opportunities that the industry may have yet to consider.
Business coaches benefit entrepreneurs and small businesses with access to advice and mentorship. They can bring their expertise and experience to the table. This provides business owners to climb out of a rut through innovative ideas and actionable advice.
Find the Best Business Coach Today
Knowing the signs to hire a business coach is essential to maximize your business’s growth and success. Additionally, they can provide references to other successful entrepreneurs and insights into how you can improve. Business coaching also allows you to develop better decision-making skills.
Keeping an open mind, recognizing when help is needed, and having a clear vision of goals are all key in the process. Take action now and contact a professional coach to help you achieve your business goals and reach new heights in success.
Dear Ascend,
I’m a college student who will soon be starting my own company. However, I’m more of the “technical expert” and am not very well-versed with the management side of things. I’ve read a few books on how to run a successful company, but I’m aware that merely reading these books won’t make me a good leader.
I want to know: What skills should I focus on building in order to start a successful venture, build a strong team, and become a leader capable of steering my company and people in the right direction?
Sincerely,
A budding entrepreneur
We asked Yariv Ganor, a startup psychologist and psychotherapist who specializes in working with founders in the tech sector, to respond.
Dear budding entrepreneur,
Congratulations on launching your startup! The question you ask is one that many young entrepreneurs face. I want to start by acknowledging that your ability to recognize your own skill gaps and your willingness to investigate them indicates that you already possess some of the critical competencies of a good leader.
To start, let’s break your question down into three parts: the skills you need to start a venture, to build a team, and to become a “great leader.”
1) To start a venture
To establish and run a successful business, start out by building the following skills.
Be proactive: This refers to your ability to “make things happen.” Proactive founders are highly engaged in the “big picture” of the company and have the ability to turn their dreams into reality.
To be proactive, ensure that you always have clarity about your vision — what you want your business to be and what will inspire others to help you get there. Some questions you can ask yourself include:
What is my startup about?
Is my idea easily understood when explained to others, including potential co-founders, investors, and customers? If not, how can I hone my pitch?
What are the gaps in resources? What do I currently have (for instance, an idea, a proof of concept, a founding team) and what do I need (such as capital, employees, management skills, etc.) to accomplish my objectives?
When you ask yourself these questions, adopt an objective lens. How would you advise a friend in the same position? This will help you distance yourself from the stressors and extend self-compassion.
For instance, you may have a great idea but need a more experienced co-founder on your team to assist you in raising capital. Or perhaps you need an expert opinion to tweak your original pitch to appeal to a larger consumer base. Whatever gaps you identify, being proactive means that you’re always thinking two steps ahead.
Being proactive can also lead you to adopt a mindset in which you’re okay with making mistakes, learning, and growing from them. Researchers Michael Frese and Herman Brandstätter define this as an active approach to learning and an active approach to making mistakes.
2) To build a strong team
In 2011, Steve Blank — an American entrepreneur who helped establish the Lean Startup movement — proposed a theoretical model for a startup team that includes founding members with the following core skills: visionary, hacker/hardware, hustler, designer.
The visionary is “the person with the dream,” the one who has the inspiration and charisma to draw others to the idea. Being a visionary allows founders to look beyond daily struggles and set long-term objectives.
The hacker is the “expert” who makes the product or service. It appears to me that as the “technical person,” this might be a role you’re naturally fit for.
The hustler is usually someone who can manage everything from operations to sales, and is someone who is resourceful and takes charge of the nitty-gritty.
The designer is usually the UI/UX specialist, someone who can bridge the gap between the client, the consumer or audience, and the technology.
Now, as you rightly recognized in your question, it’s very unlikely that one individual is going to possess all of these skills. Thus, most successful founding teams — the likes of Apple, Canva, Reddit, and Netflix — have two or three founders, each of whom brings one of those unique skillsets to the table.
If you are the tech expert, then establishing and running the venture could prove to be tough. In most early-stage startups, tech leads carry much of the weight. They’re often asked to develop demos, validate the proof of concept (POC), and synchronize teams. For you, it’s important to take a pause and consider the workload, time, and attention you’d have to give to this function while managing the larger business.
In my own experience of working with co-founders, I often hear their complaints about “not getting” the logic behind their tech co-founder’s decisions. There’s an inherent gap of culture between the hackers, hustlers, and visionaries. If you face this issue when you’re finding your founding team, it might be useful to bring in an external CEO — someone with the expertise and experience of working with tech startups or the industry you’re in. The hope is that this person will help you manage diverse, and sometimes conflicting functions, within the company and aid in problem-solving.
3) To become a great leader
Don’t look at leadership as just a competency. Rather, it’s a relationship that you build with those who work with you and for you. You cannot impose this relationship but have to earn it over time — through daily acts of checking in with your team, communicating your vision, and caring for your employees. The last aspect — learning about your team and employees — is the competency you need to build. You may be great at setting goals but are you in touch with your employee’s realities? Ask yourself: Do my employees feel reassured in the company’s vision? Am I communicating my views with clarity and confidence? Are there concerns that I may be overseeing? How do I build trust among different teams?
When you’re starting out, it may be relatively easy to get to know your employees one on one. Set up time with everyone once a month to understand individual motivations and stressors. If you have people managers leading teams, ensure that you’re aware of how different teams feel about the workload and the culture of the organization. When you do, be open to constructive feedback.
Understand that in the diverse, hybrid workplace, communication is key because your clarity reassures your employees about where you and the company are headed and how valuable they are to your mission. For the leader, this means more responsibility and accountability towards all stakeholders involved — employees, clients, or investors — without assuming that your authority binds them to your decisions.
You need to simultaneously build all the skills I mentioned above to establish yourself as a founder, a manager, and a leader. This will help you build a solid foundation for your leadership style and help you adapt better to changing times.
Wishing you all the best in your endeavor!
Ask an Expert is our advice column in which we help answer the questions that are stressing you out. You can submit a question for consideration here.
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