I passionately believe that if you want to grow you must change.
Now I don’t mean just tinkering around the edges, I am talking about real change. Change that is challenging and causes you discomfort – it is only when we move out of our comfort zone that any real change happens at all.
You know your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change!
We simply cannot stand still, leaning in against the tide hoping to hold it back.
That simply won’t work. But, I know that change in this economic climate is a challenge, but perhaps it creates that burning platform that makes change necessary.
Deepak Chopra said: “All great changes are preceded by chaos” Very apt in these days!
To practice what I preach I undertook to do a complete review of my own business, which I had started almost 10 years ago. I find it staggering to think that it is almost 10 years since I left the comfort of corporate life to start on my own.
To be honest, that decision was also driven by my belief that to grow you must change!
My review clearly showed that my business model of coaching teams and executives was a pretty traditional one of carrying out the coaching face to face. I’m delighted to say that this model had been very good to my clients, and to me!
I did detect a shift in my business. I was getting more and more requests from senior executives, CEOs and business owners to engage with them on a one to one basis. There was, however, a challenge.
CEOs, business owners and senior executives share one major challenge – they are time poor!
That presented me with the challenge of how to fulfill my clients needs in a manner that was suited to their way of working. They did not want me to travel their offices to spend 3 hours coaching them. They wanted something shorter, sharper and one that fitted around their schedule.
That was where the concept of having the sessions online came into existence. It ticked the box of being flexible – we could still have the session whether they were in London, Dublin, New York or Sydney. We could do it at a time that fitted their schedule, and it is also more cost effective as there was no travel involved.
But, let me be clear, my work is not my total life. I love my work, but there are many other aspects of my life and I wanted to ensure that there was synchronicity between whatever changes I was making in my business and in my life overall.
Anyone who has ever listened to me giving a talk at a conference, or to any management team, will know that I am a great believer in shaping your own destiny!
This change in the business also coincided with a desire that my wife, Bernie, and I had to move to live in the South of France – and hey! If I am doing the business online then I can run it from anywhere I want to.
So, hey presto, we moved to France and created an online business – I love it when a plan comes together!
The benefits to my clients are many:
- The sessions can be organized to suit their schedule
- They have total flexibility over when and where these sessions take place
- Their travelling does not cancel any session
- I can be available at very short notice for urgent discussions – where they may just want to bounce something off me
- It is more cost effective as there is no travel involved on either side.
- It really works!
To reflect these changes I have now redesigned my website that is more attuned to this model, and is there to be a resource to all my clients and subscribers. Take a tour around it, please.
I am thrilled with the change and my clients are really getting the benefit of this flexible approach.
I said at the beginning that to grow you must change, and it is true. Thanks to the response from my clients my business is growing. The French way of life is pretty good too!
So, how are you going to change your business? Get in touch and we will discuss.
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