In this episode of OutBüro Voices featuring LGBTQ professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders from around the world, host Dennis Velco chats with Stephen Crawford a Business Coach who focuses on the end game.
Stephen Crawford throughout his career has been a teacher and/or coach in some manner. For the bulk of his career, he was a vocal coach helping his clients and students be pitch-perfect while performing and guiding their careers. He has owned two successful vocal studios and has clients who have gone on to reach prestigious positions.
01:10 Stephen’s background in music and vocal coaching
07:00 How vocal coaching relates to business coaching/consulting
09:50 It’s all about mindset
10:50 Stephen provides an overview of how he works with small business owners
12:30 Stephen shares examples of what business owners have lost by not having an exit strategy when unexpected emergencies force them to close their business
15:00 Exit strategy for business growth
17:30 Document your processes – even if you are a baker, document recipes so all things are repeatable by others
19:00 Stephen shares information about the methods and their profit accelerator business survey that covers 40 areas of a business
22:50 Stephen provides a prioritized approach so that business owners can incrementally work on what is the most important and growth-oriented
25:30 In the past you may have hired a coach and didn’t get the actionable results desired. Stephen’s tools provide actionable prioritized reports and guidance.
29:00 Stephen assists professionals with their webinars, presentation, and public speaking game. We further discuss how business owners should leverage video and audio to promote their knowledge, products, and services in an informational way.
Stephen focuses on the end game of what the client is wanting to achieve and then works systematically with them to help them shift their mindset to remove the stumbling blocks that are holding them back. Stephen has taken his past and realized his skills, knowledge, passion, and expertise can help small businesses. He launched Infinite Symmetry Business Strategies as an independent small business consulting agency under a national Business Services company that provides a researched methodology to structure his consulting practice with tools and resources.
One of those tools is a comprehensive business survey that helps Stephen and the business owner uncover underdeveloped or missing core business structures, processes, marketing channels, and key business documents. There are over 40 areas of insights in this survey and its personalized report. From completing it, along with the businesses owners’ stated goals, Stephen can then make prioritized recommendations.
In our conversation, Stephen provided an example of how a business owner due to a family unexpected health issue had to sell her business. She was not prepared and basically had to walk away from all her years of working to build and sustain it. Had she previously worked with Stephen, gotten prepared with the legal documents, documented business processes, a growth plan, a solid marketing plan, insurances, clear accounting, and an exit strategy, she would have been in a much better place financially and emotionally.
Having a business exit strategy is not just a single document. Think of it as an athlete whose goal is to compete in the Olympics. Writing on a piece of paper, “I want to compete in the Olympics” is great. But it won’t get you there. An effective business exit strategy relies on all the areas of the business to be strong, documented thoroughly, and in place right now. Waiting until you need or want to exit is likely too late.
Do you think you are leaving your business to your child/ren? Have they worked in the business long enough to know how it fully operates? A great exercise would be to have them assist in the forming of the exit strategy. As they assist in process documentation and all the other aspects they’ll gain a fuller knowledge and understanding along with being able to contribute to some of the decision makings. Having an exit strategy also prepares a business to raise capital from investors or secure a good business loan.
www.infinitesymmetrybusinessstrategies.com
www.infinitesymmetrysymmetrycoaching.com
You owe it to yourself to have your business as strong and ready as it can be. Reach out to Stephen today to set up an initial conversation.
To connect with Stephen you can find him on OutBüro here. https://outburo.com/profile/stephengetsmorecash4u/ Join us on OutBüro, the LGBTQ professional and entrepreneur online networking community for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, allies, and our employers who support LGBTQ welcoming workplace equality-focused benefits, policies, and business practices. https://www.OutBuro.com
Would you like to be featured like this? Contact the host Dennis Velco. https://outburo.com/recommend-a-guest/
