Ben, what exactly do you do?

Most new people I meet ask that. Here’s a story based on real life to show you.

I met the CEO of a local small business a few years ago, and recently got back in touch. They’re considering switching their business model this year from services to products, and asked for my advice. If they’re reading, it’s important that you know I hold these people in high regard.

I offered to help them find alignment in their leadership team around a 2024 strategy and we met on zoom to discuss. After half an hour of listening I had a page of notes: what they’d said, the ideas I was having, and the questions that I had for them.

At that point I offered to show up as a consultant, and try and help design your business, or to show up as a coach and ask some questions that dig a bit deeper and might help you even more. They chose the coach option.

I took a risk (and a deep breath) and went with the nagging feeling I’d had for a few minutes that there was something else going on here. As with all intuition, I couldn’t put precise words to it, but mentioned it. I mentioned feelings of sadness, reluctance and shame that I had felt from them while they talked.

One of the team started to cry, and the other two nodded wearily. They spoke in turn for another half an hour, this time on a deeper level [and here I'll spare you the details of some big stuff]. My coaching in situations like that is light touch. All I’m doing is asking short open questions, and reflecting back to the person what they’ve just said, then once they’re done, moving focus to the next person and drawing connections when I see them. We over-ran our one hour slot. No one cared. This was important work. I flipped the mood after a while and asked the team what gave them joy, and a few ideas came out with a smile. It was time to pause.

I left them with some follow up work to write down more things they love doing, or would love to do one day. The whole shift for me was about finding their sweet spot, on which to build the next evolution of their business. I really believe when we do what we love, we’re successful in all the ways. When we try and build a business using dry bricks of what we “should” do, the tower will not be tall or stand for long.

So what do I do? Lead powerful conversations that will change how you do business. As a coach (this time) and other times as a consultant.

Consulting comes back in the upcoming second session. We'll look at the (maybe) 50 things that the three leaders love to do, and gradually start screening them by size of potential, and time to first revenue. Screening's essential, because some things we love to do are for vacation time, not to build a business on.

I imagine there will be some ideas in the 50 that can be cross-pollinated by a coach (coming back in the room). For example “you love to write music? Cool! What part of that do you really love, and how can you apply that secret to your business of laying driveways?” It might sound fluffy, but it’s a stone cold way to build joy back in to laying driveways, which puts the life (and income) back into that business.

There will be obstacles to overcome. Maybe like there’s no way I’m going to quit the driveway business to compose music so what’s the point of writing it out. Maybe even the good news and possibility feels draining when you're drained. Sometimes a coach has to take a stand for their clients’ greatness, and sometimes even for their hearts, and to show them possibility when the world crushes them down to feeling there is no chaice: it's just keep on, or give up.

But back to their original choice. How would this have gone if they'd chosen consultant ideas instead of coach questions? This post is about the story, rather than productizing, so I won't go too deep and don't get lost in this list but we'd have talked about:

• mapping the market: who are they, what do they think, and what do they want?
• your people: their roles are changing from service delivery to product sales...
• your brand: maintaining and growing it through the change
• designing the product: for impact, ease of use, value for money...
• creating the product: building the platform, prototyping, test groups...
• launching the product: events, early advocates & reviewers, building a social following
• delivering the product: (and the list goes on: doing this right can be reasonably complex)

You can see that a consultant provides structure, advice and ideas for a company to walk through the process. And it's important to build on a solid foundation, that you can see coaching can help establish.

So who I am I and what do I do? I’m a coach first, a consultant second, someone who cares about people, the businesses they run and the people they lead. I’m sometimes inside organizations wearing both coach & consultant hats as an employee, and sometimes outside organizations like in my currently freestyle freelance state. I’ve had a varied career and lived around the world. I have a growing feeling of wisdom now I’m 50. I do have some good ideas, and. And… And the wisdom (my Mum would laugh) is tempered by humility, which means your answers to my questions are better than my answers to your questions.

your answers to my questions are better than my answers to your questions.

Thanks for reading. If you’d like a conversation, I'm here for you.