In a series of short articles we’ll look at what it takes to grow your business.

Part Seven

Get someone independent to hold you to account

Come on be truthful !

Have you ever set a New Year’s resolution and then failed before the month of January ? Or, have you set the same resolution year after year ? It’s widely recognised that approximately 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail.

With this in mind how can we increase our chances of successfully achieving our business and personal goals? The answer is simple….accountability.

The most foolproof way of ensuring you complete the actions you’ve committed to is to give someone nagging rights to follow you up. This may be your personal trainer at the gym who makes sure you show up at 6am, or it could be your accountant who checks in on you every 90 days to make sure you’re on track to completing your actions and achieving your business goals.

A soft coach will encourage soft results.

If you think about the type of coach a successful sports team would benefit from, would it be a hard coach or a soft coach? Yes, it’s no surprise that it’s a hard coach.

It’s no different in business. We all need someone with the backbone to hold us firmly to account and follow through on consequences for failure to act (‘give me 100 pushups!’).

A soft coach, maybe a life partner or a friend, is likely to worry they’ll upset you if they nag about inaction. They’re likely to accept your excuses and in the end you get nowhere fast.

But, a hard coach isn’t going to worry about hurting your feelings and they won’t accept excuses. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a heart as great coaches have backbone and heart; they just care more about your results than your excuses.

If you really want to achieve your goals, seek accountability from a coach who’ll console you after you’ve done the pushups, one who discourages inaction, and enables you to achieve.

And that’s Us. We can help and be that person who helps you make the plan, sort out the actions and holds you to account to get these done.

“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, and has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you can be.” – Tom Landry

In the next part, part eight we will look at why building strong networks will help your business generate referrals.