How to navigate change in your business

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Podcast Transcript

Mike McKay: Welcome to the Tough Love for Business podcast, where we’re getting back to our roots with short, 12 to 15-minute podcasts twice a week. I’m Mike McKay, here with my co-host, the lovely Jackie Zach, who has today’s topic. What’s our topic, Jackie?

Jackie Zach: We’ve been experiencing a lot of changes lately—good changes, but with some hiccups, aha moments, learnings, and frustrations. I thought it would be a great idea to discuss these changes one by one, sharing what we’re going through and how we’re handling it. Maybe others can relate and benefit from our experiences. Was that vague enough for you?

Mike: I haven’t noticed anything. What do you want to talk about first?

Jackie: I’d like to start with the changes. You’re our fearless leader. How have you navigated leading us through these changes?

Mike: Well, I guess that’s a better question for you than for me. I can tell you where we’re going and the decisions we’ve made, but you’d be the one to say how we’ve led through it.

Jackie: What I’ve appreciated is the honesty. You and Beth have been very transparent about what’s happening, what it will take for all of us, and where we’re headed. Being honest about what’s going on has been crucial. No one is left guessing.

Mike: I would hope that’s the baseline for leadership, but I understand what you’re saying. Many leaders fear looking weak or ineffective. We made a significant change in October when we split our partnership. We had a great fourth quarter, but we didn’t realize until February that we were waiting to see what would happen. We needed to make intentional decisions about our business direction. We love our small clients, but with our experience, it’s not fair to give 10 years of coaching experience in a 30-minute conversation to someone just starting their business. We re-evaluated our offerings and decided what kind of business we want to own and what experience we want for you and our clients. It took all of January and most of February to introspect and redesign our business for its next phase.

Jackie: It’s important to consider what kind of business you want to own and the experiences you want for your employees and clients. Business owners often get caught up in the day-to-day and rarely take the time to think about this. Step one might be setting aside time to reflect on these questions.

Mike: I feel a strong responsibility to go through the same journey we’re coaching our clients to undertake. One major takeaway from my self-study and evaluation over the first six weeks of this year is that what sets us apart as a coaching company is our focus on helping people move beyond just being business owners. While other coaching programs focus on improving your skills as a CEO or president, they often concentrate on the job itself. Our vision, however, is for a business to be a commercial, profitable enterprise that operates independently of its owner. If we keep teaching clients to be doers, they’ll never reach the level of true ownership.

I’ve realized that for the first 12 years of our partnership, we were focused on being doers and improving in that role. While this helped clients reach a certain level, we couldn’t effectively guide them beyond that because we hadn’t grown ourselves. To coach clients to the next levels—investor and entrepreneur—I needed to transition from being a doer to being an owner. This realization led us to decide that I should not be running the company but rather owning it.

Currently, we need to take steps to grow big enough to afford a president, even though this seems like a dichotomy. I know that once we reach that point, we’ll grow faster. Meanwhile, we also discovered that we hadn’t adequately trained our team in what we needed them to do. We’ve shifted our marketing strategy to focus on networking since leaving our partnership, and we’re starting to see positive results. However, when I first introduced this to the team, it was clear that neither of you had been prepared to sell coaching independently.

We then began developing skills to address another realization: our clients often resist doing uncomfortable things, even though they know it’s necessary. So, what do we tell them?

Jackie: We do tell them to push through anyway.

Mike: Exactly. For instance, when I started over 12 years ago, it took me seven months to sign a client. Now, we’re seeing new clients within weeks—one-seventh of the time. Every time we push clients through discomfort, known as perturbation, they achieve results quickly. This brings us back to what we decided in 2014 about our business structure. Although the path has been more winding than expected, the vision remains the same. It’s been a valuable learning experience for me and has shown that our coaching methods are effective. It’s rewarding to see our approach work for the team and to focus on what we wanted to achieve back in 2014, now without the need to balance differing expectations from a business partner.

Jackie: So, the big lesson from this episode is to reflect on what kind of business you want to build, the experience you want for your employees, and the experience you want for your clients. Once you have that vision, consider how big you want to grow.

Mike: Then, consider the growth you need and how to achieve it. As the owner, it’s crucial to know what steps to take, and that’s where we come in. We’re here to guide you through the process in the most effective, shortest way possible.

Jackie: That’s it for now. Next time, we’ll discuss navigating change with your employees. Today’s focus was on defining your vision; next time, we’ll talk about executing that vision with your team. See you then!