Monthly Archives: January 2016


The most popular quote from our twitter account from week 3 of 2016: 1

Most RT'd quotes last week on @thecoachingblog

Each week I share the most RT’d quote(s) from the blogs twitter account over the previous week. Last week the quote with the most RT’s was:

M “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

(Winston Churchill)

Tweeted on 18th January

There was a 2-way tie for the quote with the next highest amount of RT’s between:

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

(Winston Churchill)

Tweeted on 19th January

and

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

(George Bernard Shaw)

Tweeted on 24th January

thank you

Many thanks to everyone who shared the quotes above and the other quotes from last week. I know that there are various aspects that can influence if a quote attracts your attention – if you saw the tweet, personal style, if it speaks to something happening in your life at that moment etc.

Which quote do you prefer?

(For those of you as geeky as I am and wondering what tool I’m using to measure individual RT’s this week I’ve been playing with www.twitonomy.com)


Is Holding Three Months’ Worth of Overheads enough to Mitigate the Small Business from Risk?

Finance is one aspect of running a coaching business. In today’s guest post finance expert Hayley Chiba shares some of her expertise of working with small business and entrepreneurs.

Is Holding Three Months’ Worth of Overheads enough to Mitigate the Small Business from Risk?

By Hayley Chiba

"Is Holding Three Months’ Worth of Overheads enough to Mitigate the Small Business from Risk?" by Hayley Chiba

Business coaches and consultants often advise a small business, to always aim to hold 3 months’ worth of their overhead costs. This is to mitigate the risk of some down turn in the business.

In fact, this could apply to any unforeseen event occurring, where this meant the business were unable to generate sufficient sales to cover their fixed costs.

As a business coach, overall this is a good metric to have, but I was recently asked this question by a business owner. He still didn’t feel assured and satisfied that he had risk covered. If a business coach is to provide a valuable metric to his business owner client maybe a fuller dialogue is needed. As we know, better discussions with our clients can often lead to longevity and trust from your clients, as it gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your deeper value to your clients.

The problem is, that using an arbitrary figure like this, does not really relate directly to the specific level of risk that the business is facing.

Using this measure is fine if it relates to a business with low growth. Also, if it has a foreseeable pipeline of sales and a good insight into future potential environmental factors which may affect the business.

Just concentrating on holding a reserve only buys time, actually 3 months in this case.  You need to consider, if there were an unforeseen event, how would that impact on the business financially?  An unforeseen event may be the loss of a major customer, change in law or perhaps the loss of a key employee. Having considered this, how long would the business need, to put in place an alternative plan? Furthermore, how long would it take for “business as usual” to resume?  This then leads us to think that we may need a much longer period of time, perhaps more like 6 months. As well as thinking about the amount of time the business needs to recover, we also want to consider if the business owner is actually looking to change something about the business.

Specifically, if they are thinking about undertaking a significant investment to grow the business. In this case the potential risk will rise as the return from the investment into growth activity is still to be proven.  Spending out on more investment for growth will, in the short term, lower the profit margins and available cash. This can feel daunting especially when the business owner realises their current healthy profit margin is going to be eroded and in fact with it, any cash reserves they have built up.

So, I always recommend that in this case, further projections should be made. This will give the business owner the peace of mind that eventually, he is going to see the results he is anticipating. More importantly though, having some sort of forecast of what he expects to happen and measuring against this, every month, will flag quickly to him, where the plans are not playing out the way he was expecting. This will give him sufficient time to look at this, think of the actions he needs to take and make the necessary adjustments to his action plans to try to bring his results back on track.

The key report required to help give visibility on whether the new investment is viable is the Cash Flow Forecast.

I always suggest starting with the current situation and financial shape. Hence at this point it is crucial you understand your current position in terms of some key components.

  1. What is the current Sales Projection based on hard data? We can all dream, but sales forecasts should be based on some credible extrapolation of the past or last year’s actual data achieved.
  2. What are the current profit margins and specifically what is the gross profit margin? Gross profit margin being sales less direct costs.
  3. What are the overheads and what is the average run rate for the overheads? Overheads will naturally fluctuate due to the timing of supplier invoices. Marketing, administration, repairs and travel are good examples of this type of spend. They reflect areas where the timing of spend is discretionary and not fixed as a monthly fee. Breaking out spend where there is some flexibility on when to spend, gives a view of what overheads are absolutely fixed and have to be covered month on month.

So, armed with these 3 areas of information, you should be fine now to create a time based cash flow forecast. Not you of course, the bookkeeper or the business owner himself!

This forecast should be drawn up as a monthly forecast, (or even weekly depending on the nature of the investment spend). Plot it forward until the point when you expect the business to be seeing the benefit from the investment. This is often longer than you realise. The cash flow forecast should show the benefits materialising, which take the business to the next level. Ensure that the forecast covers this full time span. Many business owners stop short of this point. They only project across the time of when the spend is actually taking place. You need to see what happens to the business shape post the spend. You want to see if and when the business shape returns or even improves versus its original shape. This will often result in a forecast for at least 1 to 2 years out.

Having created the forecast, the most crucial action is to measure against this monthly. Failure to do this, may mean that the forecast is not delivered. You will need a flag to alert where and when the business   moves off-track. Ensure that there is a consistent and methodical tracking of the key components of this cash flow forecast.

Planning and then measuring, will help to confirm if the growth investment decision was the right decision. Where it is proving not to be, this early warning flag should give sufficient time to plan how to mitigate these costs by stopping the things that are not working and reinvesting in other areas.

Protecting the business pot of cash is as important as building that pot of cash, whether it relates to 3, 6 or 12 months’ worth of overheads. If you can advise him fully by including these additional necessary steps where appropriate, you will ensure that the business owners hard earned cash is not eroded.

That’s something I’m sure he will certainly thank you for!

About Hayley Chiba

Hayley Chiba

 

Hayley Chiba is a qualified Financial Controller working with small businesses. She runs her own business, Better Numbers Limited, which provides one to one Financial consulting to £1m + growing businesses in the Bristol, UK area.

She also provides Financial coaching to Entrepreneurs, Home Business Owners and Start-ups via her Ecourses. She dedicated to helping small businesses grow through increasing their personal and business financial awareness.

 

 

Connect with Hayley via:

Website: www.betternumbers.co.uk

Faceboook: www.facebook.com/Betternumbers/

Twitter: @betternumbers1

Linkedin; uk.linkedin.com/in/hayleychiba

 

 


Coaching Resource – “Coach Cafe” Live Event

Coaching Resource – “Coach Cafe” Live Event

Occasionally I like to share resources and events that I think will be of interest to other coaches. Today I want to share an event happening next week:

Coach Cafe

5th February Norton Park Conference Centre Winchester

Coach Cafe

This is your personal invite to join the Coach Cafe on 5th February

Founder Pam Rigden says:

Coach Cafe provides a high return-on-investment (ROI). This includes the value of powerful relationships, business building and improvement ideas, learning about a variety of topics connected to professional skills, and the value of community. Sharing successes or receiving help with a challenge is often served through friendship.

When you join us you will have the opportunity to both make friends and be a friend. You will also have the opportunity to share your knowledge and wisdom; we learn together how we can serve our clients and build our businesses.

It is my intent that Coach Cafe provide a safe place and community that encourages and supports friendship, learning, and business relationships. We do that with FUN! Coach Cafe makes it safe, easy and fun for you to build your network of friends, learn what you need to be great at what you do and be more successful in business.

I am delighted that Andy Gwynn will be presenting his signature 2 Hour Workshop ‘How to win more business through your use of Linked In’ at our February event. I was fortunate enough to hear Andy speak for one hour at a networking event in the Midlands back in March. At the time I wasn’t using my LinkedIn account; in fact I wasn’t entirely sure whether I actually had one! To cut a long story short I have diligently followed Andy’s advice and implemented all of the strategies that I learned during that short session and, as a result, I have transformed my business using LinkedIn. I now have almost 4000 connections and have built relationships with a highly responsive network of Coaches across the UK. If you want more coaching clients; this one is for you.

If you would like to book or would like more information please contact Pam.

Email: pa*@nl***********.com
Mobile: 0044 (0)7741 101077

And you can also book direct via this website link.

 

Future Coach Cafe dates for your diary

8th April
10th June
9th September
4th November
9th December


More posts for coaches – 27th January 2016

Links shared on our Coaching Confidence Facebook Page

Each Monday on this blogs Facebook page I usually issue the following question and invitation:

“Have you written/seen a blog post in the past week that you think will interest other coaches? If so you are welcome to share a link here for others to also read.”

Here are links to some of the posts that have been shared for this Monday’s invite:

“How emotional Intelligence can enhance coaching practices” by Gobinder Gill

“You are your biggest obstacle” by Samantha Mae

Not-knowing” by Nick Wright‎.

 

thank you

Thank you to all the coaches who, by linking to these posts, have taken the time to share their thoughts, expertise and knowledge.

The Monday invite on Facebook is a regular feature so if you’ve written or read a post that will interest other coaches please feel free to share on our Facebook Page.


The most popular quote from our twitter account from week 2 of 2016:

Most RT'd quotes last week on @thecoachingblog

Each week I share the most RT’d quote(s) from the blogs twitter account over the previous week. Last week the quote with the most RT’s was:

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

(Robert Frost)

Tweeted on 11th January

There was a 2-way tie for the quote with the next highest amount of RT’s between:

“The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life.”

(Stephen Levine)

Tweeted on 16th January

and

“If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary.”

Jim Rohn

Tweeted on 14th January

thank you

Many thanks to everyone who shared the quotes above and the other quotes from last week. I know that there are various aspects that can influence if a quote attracts your attention – if you saw the tweet, personal style, if it speaks to something happening in your life at that moment etc.

Which quote do you prefer?

(For those of you as geeky as I am and wondering what tool I’m using to measure individual RT’s this week I’ve been playing with www.twitonomy.com)


Resolution Boycott

In this weeks guest post performance coach Anna-Marie Watson shares some of her knowledge and expertise:

Resolution Boycott

By Anna-Marie Watson

"Resolution Boycott" by Anna-Marie Watson

Over three weeks ago nearly two thirds of the British population will have diligently made well-intended New Year Resolutions in a resolve to get fitter (36% of women and 30% of men), eat more healthily (36% of women and 26% of men) or take more care of their appearance (15% for both women and men). Yet only 31 days later by the end of January 32% will have broken these resolutions (YouGov, 2015). So this year I simply decided to continue with my usual routine that balances work, fitness, healthy eating, family relationships and friendships into everyday life.

The New Year Resolution ritual harks back over 4,000 years ago to ancient Mesopotamia when the Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year (Holloway, 2014). The concept of self-improvement continued through the Roman period and Medieval era with religious overtones and is now firmly embedded in 21st Century Western society life. This entrenched “New Year, New You” social and cultural construct is absurdly timed in the post-Christmas festive lull and coldest winter month of January, not potentially the most conducive to achieve transformational long-standing results.

Resolutions are simply a motivational mechanism to reinvent oneself yet the majority of people aren’t ready to invest mentally or biologically in transformational change. Williams (2014) describes resolutions as a form of “cultural procrastination” as we set unrealistic goals and expectations that are out of alignment with our internal perception. In addition, our human biological process to alter habitual behaviour and change thoughts uses a substantial amount of mental energy to physically rewire neural pathways. Neuro-scientific research has proved through MRI scans that rather ironically the default habitual thought of “not doing” something merely strengthens the neural pathway rather than create new ones. So what’s the alternative?

If there’s an inner urge to join the list-making masses opt to celebrate your work and life achievements from 2015 instead. Then moving forwards on a monthly basis routinely identify five moments to appreciate yourself, your business, your professional and personal development, your relationships and your successes (check out my Facebook page Reach for More. or Twitter @rfmcoaching for my “Monthly Memories”).

This conscious “attitude of gratitude” process based on positive psychology becomes engrained in our neural pathways. Rational and positive thinking therefore becomes habitual as “conscious appreciation establishes appreciation as an ongoing and stable cognitive habit” (Taylor, 2014). This mindset of gratitude wields immense power over our mood, wellbeing, energy levels, perspective, communication and relationships. In turn, these positive effects ripple across our entire lives with reduced blood pressure, lowers cortisol, better sleep, fewer physical symptoms…the list continues. Boycott the resolution, embrace gratitude and give yourself permission to celebrate success.

ExerciseTake a moment to consider your top 5 memories from 2015.

Once you’ve decided it would be great to share your thoughts within our Coaching Confidence community.

 

References

Holloway, A. (2014). Ancient History of New Year’s Resolutions. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-news-general/ancient-history-new-year-s-resolutions-001185 Accessed 18 December 15.

Taylor, S. (2014). The Power of Appreciation. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201407/the-power-appreciation Accessed 21 December 15.

Williams, R. (2014). Why People can’t keep their New Year’s Resolutions. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201412/why-people-cant-keep-their-new-years-resolutions Accessed 21 December 15.

YouGov (2015). 63% of Brits are planning to make New Year Resolutions. [ONLINE] Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/16/63-brits-are-planning-make-new-year-resolutions/ Accessed 21 December 15.

 

About Anna-Marie Watson

Anna-Marie is a performance coach who draws from NLP, sports psychology, neuroscience, positive psychology and mindfulness theory to craft industrious and dynamic coaching partnerships with clients who yearn for more and desire balance within their life. She integrates Analytic-Network (http://www.analyticnetwork.com) and mBraining (http://www.mbraining.com) methodologies to unlock and unleash transformational change. Anna-Marie’s specialty is “walking & talking” where the Great Outdoors inspires facilitates deep level insights, encourages different perspectives and ultimately optimises performance.

AnnReach For Morea-Marie has been at the forefront of leadership and personal development for over 15 years working with high performing individuals and teams across three continents. Anna-Marie’s core values of growth, balance and energy are reflected in her business Reach for More. where improving yourself is an all round experience.

For more information on Anna-Marie’s performance coaching services, visit www.rfmcoaching.com

Connect with Anna-Marie on Social Media

Twitter: www.twitter.com/RFMCoaching

Facebook: www.facebook.com/RFMCoaching/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/awatson4

Google+: www.google.com/+AnnaMarieWatson

Instagram: www.instagram.com/rfmcoaching/


More posts for coaches – 21st January 2016

Links shared on our Coaching Confidence Facebook Page

Each Monday on this blogs Facebook page I usually issue the following question and invitation:

“Have you written/seen a blog post in the past week that you think will interest other coaches? If so you are welcome to share a link here for others to also read.”

Here are links to some of the posts that have been shared so far this year:

“Cracked cups are annoying” and “Who will you travel with in 2016” by Molly Grisham.

“Is This Really Normal?” by Linda Anderson.

Let Go of Self Pity with Gratitude” by Maria Henson.

Are you sleep walking through life?” and “New job, same issues?!“by ‎Different Perspectives, Coaching and Consultancy‎.

Meditation, close to home and at a distance” and
A slice of life”  by ‎Minda Miloff‎.

Learning to wonder” and “New Year’s revelations” by Nick Wright‎.

Reach for More shared a link to Tony Wrighton’s podcast‎ “Connecting to nature with endurance athlete and performance coach Anna-Marie Watson“.

 

We’ve also had sports coaches share some of their posts:

“If I Played, YOU Play” by soccer coach ‎Richard Cashman‎.

“Making Breathing Easier” by ‎Winning Swimming LLC‎.

 

thank you

Thank you to all the coaches who, by linking to these posts, have taken the time to share their thoughts, expertise and knowledge.

The Monday invite on Facebook is a regular feature so if you’ve written or read a post that will interest other coaches please feel free to share on our Facebook Page.