Third-Party Perspectives: A Good Idea if You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

If you’re a small business owner, you may be fantastic at coming up with creative solutions for the tactical side of your business. But, what happens when you encounter a problem and, even after considerable time and effort, you are unable to devise an effective solution? That’s when a third-party perspective can be an invaluable asset to your business.

What is a third-party perspective?

Smaller businesses generally don’t have a board of directors. The Alternative Board® (TAB) is able to fill that function. TAB members have valuable expertise, but they also have enough distance from your business to enable them to have a different perspective. Often, it is this different perspective that allows TAB members to see options and solutions that you or someone from within your business might not.

Whose perspective is it?

TAB members are business owners, helping one another – peers who don’t have a financial interest in your business but who want to see you succeed. TAB members often bring informality and humor to the table, but they are also professional. Their time and your time is a valuable investment, and the feedback received is well worth it.

How does this perspective work?

This third-party perspective goes beyond just bouncing ideas off of each other into the realm of what small business marketing specialist Ann Farnsworth describes as “expanding your thinking, expanding your options.”

This works by focusing on TAB’s core values of clarifying business problems and getting good analysis and solutions. Members challenge one another, helping each other to hone what they do best. At the same time, members also hold one another accountable for implementing these solutions through these third-party perspectives and are also there to celebrate with you when you succeed.

What are the benefits of a third-party perspective?

Having more resources and advisors ultimately results in increased bankability as any weaknesses in your business are discussed and remedied. Your business benefits as you receive feedback and advice from individuals who are independent from your organization and who are not intimidated. Therefore, they feel free to speak their minds, and opinions are voiced that might not otherwise have been shared.

Credibility, trust, and mutual respect develop among TAB members through this frank and open discussion. Additionally, the third-party perspective approach results in not just one solution, but it can actually also deliver a range of varied solutions for you to select from. Your business also benefits from the collective creativity and years of experience brought to the table by TAB members.

What is your perspective?

What is your experience with third-party perspectives? Do you have more questions on how this might work for you and your business? Leave us your comments below.

Getting a Fresh Perspective on Your Business: Peer-to-Peer Board Meetings

Sometimes, as a business owner, it may feel like you have no one to talk to about the business, strategy, and how to handle problems. It can be isolating and overwhelming.

That’s why one of the benefits that The Alternative Board® (TAB) offers is the ability to increase your business acumen and enhance your knowledge through various idea exchanges that constitute the peer-to-peer board meetings that come with membership. This post will provide information on what goes on at these meetings and what those business owners who participate have experienced for themselves.

A Typical Meeting of the Minds

Following a prescribed protocol, each TAB meeting is structured to achieve a certain purpose: get the most out of meeting together, take away ideas to put into practice, and meet again with new ideas and understanding. The rest of it goes something like this:

• The board meetings are overseen by a TAB-Certified Facilitator who has years of executive management experience under their belt not to mention a host of business and life coaching credentials.
• The board meetings focus on practical solutions that address each member’s opportunities and challenges. These ideas and potential resolutions are the result of candid discussions on the ways and means by which a person may need to consider changing their managerial, strategic, or organizational approach.
• The board members and the TAB-Certified Facilitator work to create, implement, adjust and stay on track to achieve their personal and business success goals. This includes reporting back on their progress and what actions they took since their last meeting.

 Essentially, each meeting follows that old adage: you get out of it what you put into it. 

 First-Hand Unique Benefits

And, for those who participate, it’s clear that they get plenty out of being a member of TAB:

• The board meetings serve as a forum for connecting with other business owners to convey issues and enable better decision making.
• The discussions are intended to stimulate each board member to think about what the others have to say and consider their advice. It is about absorbing what was shared and putting careful thought into how it might be applied to their business.
• The ability to get outside feedback is very beneficial. An owner can ask their employees for ideas but is always consciously aware that they are talking to the “boss.” In a peer-to-peer environment, there isn’t any intimidation or interference in regards to position and rank. It is simply about getting a different perspective from someone outside of the business who might see things more clearly.
• The meetings stir debate and generate renewed excitement and passion for one’s business, providing purpose, opportunities, and potential answers to business challenges.

 Personal Experiences

TAB - Atlanta East has numerous personal experiences of how effective the peer-to-peer approach has been for small business members. Some of the personal gains they have made are summarized below:

• “I openly discuss confidential problems and issues with my TAB Board--matters I don't even discuss with anyone else in my company, or even with my CPA or Attorney. The result is feedback that I get no other way.”
• “My TAB Board has been like business therapy. The process of thinking through other members' problems has helped me to clarify my own issues.”
• “The Board Meetings, with the support of our Facilitator, have given me the confidence and business perspective to move ahead in business areas.”

Don't carry the weight of your success as a small business alone. Lighten the load and learn about TAB's business tools and resources designed to enhance your business success and meet your personal business goals. If you have your own experiences that you would like to share here, please leave your comments below.

The Benefits of One-on-One Coaching Sessions

Small business owners often feel unsure of which direction to take or even what they are doing currently will help them achieve their goals and objectives. Some may not even know for sure what types of goals and objectives they want to focus on or where they actually want to take their business.

When you become a member of TAB, you can access a greater, more personalized level of understanding about your business and how to chart a course toward success. This blog post provides some information on what is covered in these sessions and how they have helped many of TAB members. 

A Typical One-on-One Coaching Session

The coaching sessions have a specific framework that directs each meeting with a business owner in order to ensure that certain topics are covered and enough time is allotted to the most important issues a business owner faces. Here is a description of a typical session:

• Discuss follow-up on a course of action that was suggested at the previous TAB Board Meeting;
• Prepare an issue for presentation to the board;
• Track progress on the business planning process;
• Complete mini-consulting projects that might include the following issues:
• Interviewing prospective employees.
• Assisting with marketing and strategic planning tactics, such as ads, brochures, business cards, and formal marketing plans.
• Holding lunch meetings with the member's employees to get feedback on employee opinions and expectations.
• Applying proprietary business diagnostic tools, including TAB Business Vantage^® and Strategic Business Leadership^®, to hone in on unique business issues and help provide a course of action that can resolve those issues.

The Advantages of Private Coaching Sessions

Members have TAB have praised the one-on-one experience for numerous benefits they have garnered from participating in these private sessions. Here are some highlights from current TAB members:

• Serving as a facilitator, the coach does not tell business owners what to do or provide the solutions but, instead, offers the tools and pathway so that business owners can learn themselves and gain true insight into their businesses and themselves.
• Business owners receive resource materials that help them understand the business issues that impact their companies so that they can make more informed decisions about their strategic direction.
• The session creates a dialogue between the business owner and the coach in which to discuss business issues on a more pointed, personal basis than would be covered in group sessions.
• The coach’s focus on asking questions helps business owners reflect on topics, strengths and weaknesses, and business concerns that they would most likely not have done on their own accord.
• Business owners report feeling recharged after they have been given a new way of examining the present challenges and future opportunities they have in front of them. This includes receiving a custom SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis that helps business owners learn even more about themselves and their business.

Tell Us about Your Experiences

How have you personally benefited from the one-on-one coaching experience? Share your thoughts here so that other readers can understand the value proposition TAB’s service offers them as small business owners.

Tom Wechsler - Why I Recommend The Alternative Board

Customer Testimonial - Tom Wechsler

TAB Goes Social with YouTube Channel for Small Business Assistance and Advice

Recognizing the need to take the TAB message to a larger audience and one that is more than likely tuned into the social media channels, TAB recently launched its very own YouTube channel. This social media channel is now considered one of the most effective ways to reach target audiences and is becoming an ideal way to educate customers and peers on services, sharing knowledge and ideas.

To date, nine videos have been posted on various topics that will be covered in upcoming blog posts. All the video topics are geared toward compelling and relevant business issues that today’s small business owner needs to focus on or where they could benefit from the types of services that TAB offers. These include Business Coaching & Mentoring, Peer to Peer Advisory Boards, CEO Coaching and Strategic Planning.

Here are some of the video highlights:

• Listen to TAB members explain why they recommend TAB to other Atlanta area business leaders.  
• Gain insight into the effectiveness of participation in Peer to Peer Advisory Boards.
• Learn about the value of joining The Alternative Board.
• Hear about the value of the one-on-one CEO coaching assistance offered by TAB owner, Buddy Hall.

Each video spans only two to three minutes but provides key insights on how a small business owner can benefit from these types of resources usually only thought accessible to large companies or multinationals. The videos also include business owners who have used – and continue to partner with – TAB because they recognize the value of accessing the resources, expertise, and knowledge of the business people associated with this concept.

Check back for further blog posts this month about each of these videos, including other content and ideas now found in the videos.

Is Business Planning More Trouble than it’s Worth?

They say that you get out of something what you put into it. For the small business owner, though, who is often short on time because they lack the staff and resources to do as much as they like, this may mean that they have to skip steps. 

One of these steps is often seen as only necessary for the big guys – the multinationals or corporate powerhouses – and that is business planning. This means that they not only skip quarterly planning, but they also simply ignore it altogether.

Defining Business Planning

Business planning is a formal process for setting goals for your business. It is a strategic process in which you state what you would like to achieve and then figure out what types of tools, skills, knowledge and resources you need to achieve these stated goals.

Often, people equate business planning to something that only happens when a business starts up and then do not give it a second thought once they are rolling. Business planning should be seen as an ongoing process to use to move the business forward to do more and make more.

Understanding the Benefits

To achieve the growth you desire in your business and achieve your goals, it is necessary to create a business plan – a roadmap, if you will – to how you will get to that desired point. If all it took was hoping for the best and working night and day seven days a week, there would be more successful businesses out there. However, just having good intentions does not cut it in a business environment that has become more demanding and more competitive.

Key Components of a Successful Business Plan

There are a number of key components that make up a successful business plan:

• Design a Compelling Competitive Advantage – Define what makes you different and unique in the marketplace. Focus on how your business can stand out to your target audience and select the tactics that will help you communicate this compelling competitive advantage.

• Describe Your Definition of Success – Success means different things to different people. You might think success means sustaining your business through all market cycles or you might believe it is all about growing your customer base. Whatever this definition of success may be, use it as the catalyst for everything you do in terms of strategy and tactics.

• Outline Solution Formula – The business plan is not simply about your success; it must also include that of your clients and prospective customers. Your business plan has to explain how you can alleviate the pain points for your customers and provide them with answers to their concerns. Planning should provide a strategy for solving customer and target market problems, which can tie into your definition of success and your compelling competitive advantage.

Ideas on Making it Work for You

Here are some ways to make business planning work for you:

• Work your way into quarterly planning sessions. Begin with a yearly review of your business and work toward more sessions that get you to stop and think about what you are doing and what you could do better.
• Generate reports that track results on a 90-day timeframe through using business planning software that walks you through the steps and ways to look at your results.
• Post your action plan targets in your office where you can see them to remind yourself that you have certain requirements and assignments that need to be fulfilled and checked on. You would do the same for what you give any of your staff, so make yourself just as accountable.
• Do not focus on how long the business plan needs to be – just hone in on what you need to accomplish. While some may take 20 pages, you may only need a one page outline to state what you need to do.

A Business Planning Partner

While these tips are intended to help you get started and on the right path, it is never easy and still may be confusing. That’s why the GPS market took off – more than one person lacked a sense of direction. And, so it goes with business planning. You do not have to go it along but can look to a GPS, or rather a BPP – business planning partner – who can help you get from Point A to Point B by working with you on establishing – and sticking to – a business plan that is unique to your business and goals. A business planning partner can point you in the right direction and also keep the planning at the top of your mind by working with you on a quarterly basis to review metrics and revamp strategies.

What’s your experience with business planning? Have you found strategies that help you start and stick to business planning? Do you have questions on how to get started? Share your thoughts here.