Over the last two years I have been coaching a number of business owners that reached a point in their business when things were OK, they were working in the business that started months or years earlier and, like many others, started asking themselves what to do next.  Some of them lost some of their initial enthusiasm because of a number of different reasons; others wanted or needed to move their business to the next level and they were lacking the necessary skills or inspiration.

This is what I define the Now What? Situation, affecting at some point most business owners. The Now What? Situation can have serious repercussions for those that fail to react or, better, prevent it and take the necessary steps at the right time.

Starting a business in the UK is relatively easy, compared to other areas of Europe where I have direct experience, thanks to the minimum bureaucracy involved.  Most individuals with an idea for a service or a product to sell can start trading in a fast and straightforward way.

“Small businesses are over a quarter of all enterprises in the UK: over 520 thousand enterprises in 2009 were Sole Proprietors.  That represented a small decrease of 0.4% compared to 2008, in favour of Corporate Business, representing 58.2% of total enterprises (2.15 million)” (source  Statistics.Gov.Uk)

When the proposition is interesting and many customers are buying into the business then growth can be significant and soon the person with the initial idea and passion is no longer a service provider or product seller: he/she is an entrepreneur.  At the beginning things are exciting, there is a honey moon period that can last sometimes many months or even years. At the end of the bootstrap time there is a need to face a transition period that often catches the entrepreneur unprepared.

There are obviously substantial differences in running a business with you as the only decision maker compared to a company with partners, managers and staff.  Some key points to be addresses during the transition from the micro business and a larger operation are issues like:

• How to grow: by recruiting staff or subcontracting?
• When the decision is about recruiting how can you guarantee to look for the right kind of staff?
• Can activities like admin, invoicing, book keeping and customer service be subcontracted to virtual assistants or other service companies?
• Many people have no formal management experience: what is the best way of managing staff in order to maximise their skills and performance?
• Does the business model need changing? If so how to plan and execute the change plan?
• How to best implementing sales, pricing and positioning strategies?

Coaching can help virtually all business owners involved in a Now What? Situation.

The coaching approach offers a resourceful set of tools, a self directed learning approach that allows to build on the exact current situation, explore alternatives and pin down what needs to be done, establishing and instilling an accountability process.

When coaching a business owner it is very important recognising two key aspects:

• Each individual person or business is unique in its way of being, operating and approaching the market: patterns and templates can be applied but a blank page approach is always easier to start with.
• There will be strong emotional feelings about the business as it was initially started and resistance about how it should be changed for the future.

A business owner, working over a period of three or six months, assisted by a professional coach can be helped to define the exact path about how to move the business to the next level.  In short it is about changing a Now What? Situation into a Now I Know What should be done and I am doing it.

Post from: MaGa Coaching

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MaGa offers you the unique opportunity of being coached over the phone during our monthly conference call that will be held on Thurs 11 Feb 2010 between 1:30 and 2:30pm.

This one hour call will offer you the opportunity of asking questions about how to improve your business and being coached live during the call.  If you would like to simply hear tips without discussing your own business you can still book yourself in as a listener.

If you are interested in being coached for free and have a doubt, a dilemma or a problem that you would like to discuss we want to hear from you: please hurry as there are just 5 places available as a coachee.

Please Subscribe to MaGa Coaching by Email and we will send you the details of the next Free Coaching Call.

Please also book your place using the form below. It’s totally free (apart the standard call rate to a land line number) but we need to know who will be calling in to assess the numbers:

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We have received this morning a SPAM from a source that looks like the VAT office and we would like to warn everyone reading this to ignore it or forward it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk  We have contacted the VAT office by phone and they confirmed it’s a SPAM.

The Email has an attachment (html form that displays like a web page in a browser) that requires you to enter company and bank details to receive a payment of £256.99 but, stupidly enough, they say that the claim should be received by 15-Jan-2010!  Here it is:

Subj:  Reminder: Please Submit Your Refund Payment

Dear Applicant:

Following an upgrade of our computer systems and review of our records we have investigated your payments and latest tax returns over the last seven years  our calculations show you have made over payments of ?256.99 Due to the high volume of refunds due you must complete the on line application, the telephone help line is unable to assist with this application.
In order to process your refund you will need to complete the attached application form.
Your refund may take up to 3 weeks to process please make sure you complete the form correctly.
As we are upgrading our records we require the completed form showing your full current details by 15 January 2010

Please submit the form attached to confirm the refund.

S. M.Roberts
Senior Manager
HM Revenue & Customs

————————————————————–
© Copyright 2010, HM Revenue & Customs UK All rights reserved.
TAX REFUND ID: A29R119

Post from: MaGa Coaching

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MaGa Coaching’s MD, Massimo Gaetani, was recently interviewed by Karl Hartland, station manager at 209 Radio http://www.209radio.co.uk during the 209 talk, a four weekly behind the scene of the community radio and the people that contribute to its success.  209 Radio is a local community Radio that broadcasts from Cambridge on 105 FM.

In this interview Massimo explains the work he has been doing with the various teams at the station as well as various aspects of coaching and the benefits it brings to business owners.

Please listen to the interview here:

Radio209 Massimo Gaetani Interview Jan 2010

If you prefer to listen to the whole program please check this page.

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Massimo Gaetani during the workshop

The workshop “Coaching Skills for Business and Life” (CSBL), organised by MaGa Coaching,  was held on the 2 December at the David Lloyd Leisure Centre and once more it exceeded the original expectations of both organisers and delegates.

CSBL was developed, targeting owners of SME and professionals, to cover three main areas:

• essential coaching tools and techniques to address typical hurdles that can affect your smooth day to day business and can seriously hinder your performance at work.
• hints about maintaining focus and motivation high, both in yourself and the people you are managing
• basic understanding of how stress, frustration and anxiety develop and a hints about avoiding them

A total of 7 entrepreneurs from business as diverse as software development, electrical services and low power computer manufacturing attended CSBL.  They all had the opportunity, throughout the workshop, to share their key topics and address different aspects of their work. They all managed to learn some valuable methodologies to assess and improve the way they run their businesses.

The workshop was delivered by Massimo Gaetani, Business and Executive Coach and Managing Director for MaGa coaching. Massimo was once more very impressed by the motivation and determination that was driving the group: the level of participation to the workshop and the exchange of ideas was stunning throughout the whole duration of the workshop. He commented:

“we delivered dense and fast paced content, offering broad variety of concepts that for most people were totally new: given their responses and feedback all delegates received key information that will have a strong impact on the way they run their respective companies. Given the success of this workshop we are now planning others in 2010.  Once more we had the proof that these workshops are excellent tools to connect and engage in highly targeted conversations with our audience, while helping them to boost the way they run their businesses”.

Maga Coaching offers qualified expert coaching services in Cambridge, nationally and internationally: whether you are a solopreneur, a professional or manager in a SME you will benefit of the top quality expertise and bespoke service offered by MaGa Coaching.

Please have a look at the video with some of the testimonials:

Post from: MaGa Coaching

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