I took a big step over the last few months and finished my certification as a Small Business Flight Plan Certified Coach through Coachbuilder.
What does that mean?
Great question…that deserves a bit of a backstory.
I have ran a digital media agency for going on 11 years. Over the past decade I have learned A LOT from all of my clients and being a business owner myself.
And when it came specifically to marketing…it wasn’t usually the marketing that was the real opportunity.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There were strategies that needed to be implemented and content that definitely needed to be refined and created, but when someone says that their marketing isn’t working, it rarely is JUST the marketing.
It is most often that the marketing is the center of the issue, but when it’s dialed in, there are issues with customer service, communication or the follow up. Maybe it’s the lead gen or cash flow…
Marketing is effective when it is done right and supported by strong businesses processes.
It Wasn’t Usually the Marketing
There is a word that makes most small businesses shudder – “professionalize”.
The word that screams, corporate, not personal and rules. A small business owner, solopreneur, entrepreneur of any type is a MacGyver at heart. (If you don’t know who MacGyver is then you NEED to Google it, or ask ChatGPT, and then watch multiple episodes, the guy is amazing…anyway, I digress)
So we are MacGyvers, we can make anything out of anything. We break the rules! That’s the whole point of being a entrepreneur, we work outside the box and when a box gets close, we shove it to the side!
Which works…until it doesn’t. And then we don’t know why it’s not working, or why everything we had done before is no longer working.
This is usually where I come into the picture. The first culprit is always the marketing and/or sales. And that is absolutely part of the issue. And then the other parts come into play when the marketing starts to work but they don’t know how to capitalize on a lead or add them to a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) or turn that lead into a sale.
This is when it becomes imperative to professionalize a business.
And for me, this is when it became clear to me that my clients needed more.
The Search for More
So I searched out some coaching programs…and the amount of smarmy, gross, used car salesman type programs out there is INSANE y’all. My emails would get a stupid amount of cold emails and then the calls and creepy videos to boot. And when I started to investigate their programs – it was a bait and switch type of scheme.
For example, there was a program that went a little like this. I will give you this book (that you definitely did not write) and you can use it to go to CEO’s on LinkedIn and ask them for advice to update this book, again, that you did not write, and then sell them on doubling their revenue without any real and practical tools. But you would make THOUSANDS.
After going through all of this nonsense, I found a gentleman by the name of Donald Miller. He wrote a book called “How to Grow Your Small Business”. In the book he uses the analogy of a plane to explain the parts of a business and how to fly your plane far and fast.
If you know me, then you have heard the following more than once, when someone asks me what it’s like to be an entrepreneur I always respond with this: “It’s like building a plane. On the way down. Sometimes it flies and on other days, you are lucky to have an engine firing.”
Coachbuilder and Next Steps
I immediately identified with everything that was in this book by Donald Miller. I saw the practical application of every part of the book and dove into the tools provided. When I found out they had a coaching platform…I was hooked and set out to learn more.
One of my big goals for 2025 was to become a Certified Business Coach. I did it!
And I can’t wait to get started by helping other small business owners implement the tools I have learned.
We are starting a Small Business Owner’s Community because I know that running a business takes a village (why didn’t we figure this out when we started?!). Interested in learning more? Comment below or send me a message on Bluesky.
Welcome to the newest chapter in my journey my friends. I’m excited for the future ahead.