Small Business Support: How to Get Help Making Tough Decisions
Edited Video Transcript:
What do you do when your brain becomes your own worst enemy? Leaders need a different kind of support. Let's talk about that in this video.
Hey, it's Alzay Calhoun with Coveted Consultant. This whole series of videos is based around helping leaders get better tools so you can build the kind of best-in-class business you always saw in your mind. You're not going to be able to build that business if you're chasing tasks every day, so this whole series is about this shift from chief firefighter into being chief executive.
Today's video talks about support and how you get help with those things that are unique to being a leader because in your business everybody looks up to you, right? Everybody's waiting for you to give them an answer, but there are certain questions that only you can answer and sometimes they're really, really hard for you to answer alone. Where do you go to get the help to get those problems solved?
What is the best support option for you as you grow?
Use this short guide to help ---> Download the Guide
Before we address that question, let me set some context because I've had people reach out to me personally and describe themselves as lone wolves, and so what they want me to do is just give them the silver bullet answer to their question so they can go run off and do it all by themselves. Here's what I already know is that leadership is more dynamic than that. It's not about getting these silver bullet, magic answers that all mix and match together and create some perfect business. It's not how it works. Things ebb, change, and flow, and so you need support with your thinking as things ebb, change, and flow. Let's have some fun because I want to prove that to you right now.
How about Batman and Robin? Laverne and Shirley? Sherlock Holmes and Watson? Sanford and Son? Mario and Luigi? All examples of popular duos that we've seen that have lived their fictional lives together.
For those of you who are a bit more serious and you're like "Well, Alzay, does that work in business?" Sure it does. How about Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, HP, Hewlett Packard? How about Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google anybody? William Proctor, James Gamble, Proctor and Gamble, P&G? How about two famous Steve's, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple?
The point is is that even if you only see one person, the results that are taking place are the result of some people, there is a support system in place. It may just be one person as a primary number two or it may be a group of people working to support them. This idea of people working in a bubble and one person closes their eyes, thinks really hard, and manifests this beautiful thing is just not real. That's not really what's going on.
In your own personal situation, you may have to up-level your environment because you don't have one at all, you're currently functioning in solitude, or you need to up-level your environment because your old environment has you at an easy pace and it's time to go one level higher. Let me offer you a couple of ideas to help you locate this number two or that support system that you need.
Support System #1: Map Out Your Thoughts
The first one is that you can just hire someone. You can hire an executive in your company or you can just hire a virtual assistant. It's important that no matter which route you go with the hiring that the person has the right kind of skills. Basically, this person would help you parse out your ideas so that you can figure out how you feel about all these moving parts that are now happening. Sometimes just that can be beneficial all by itself, so you may want to hire it out.
Depending on where you are personally and where you are in your business, you may have already come to grips with the fact that leading a business isn't just about being in business, there's a whole lifestyle that you're trying to manage in addition to being the leader of the business, and so you've already looked into getting support some other places.
Support System #2: Strengthen Your Faith via a Small Group
Here are some examples. You probably have a faith concept of some type in some way, right? You're an entrepreneur, you're leading a business, there's some very dark spots, and so as you go through those dark spots it challenges your faith. One of those faith concepts is this thing called a small group, other people that share in your faith and help bolster your faith. That as a support system or maybe someone in that group that you trust or connect with can serve as that number two to help clear out the spiritual side of how you think so you can move your thoughts forward.
Support System #3: Join a Mastermind Group
Another is a mastermind group. Typically, this is more business-oriented, but these are folks who understand the intricacies of what you do, they understand the intricacies of how your kind of business operates, and so you guys work together to make sure those moving parts are all making sense. Again, we're talking about these leadership challenges. We're not talking about where to put an autoresponder or where to put a webpage, those are small things, but the big things, the big rocks, those 10X things that are important to you. You get in a mastermind group of similar business-minded people and you're all trying to figure out how to move the big rocks that are important to all of you. Maybe that group serves as an important support system or someone in that group that you connect with serves as an important support person for you for where you are.
Support System #4: Involve Your Spouse
Next is your spouse. You can invite your husband or your wife into these conversations. To be clear, I'm not saying that your husband or wife should become your business partner, that might not be appropriate, but your husband or wife is your life partner, what affects you affects them. Creating a space where you can dialogue about these things provides you with even more support and that's a good thing.
What should you do right now? Let's go ahead and use the comment box below and begin a bit of a conversation. Where do you need help right now? Where do you need the most support? Should you be hiring out some support in an assistant or should you better leverage your relationship with your spouse or better leverage your small group or mastermind group? Let's begin that conversation now.
If you're already on the blog, you can scroll down a bit and I've created a bit of a map to show you what support looks like for a leader like yourself. I'm very aware that everyone's support system with look a bit different. This just gives you an idea of what it looks like when you're appropriately supported as a leader of a business. Go ahead and comment below, acknowledge where you need some help, and download that resource if it's a good one for you. Again, I'll look forward to seeing you in the next video.