How to Easily Identify a Client's Business Challenges Better Business Coach Video Podcast: Sales Training | Proven Education | Actionable & Downloadable Worksheets

This worksheet forms the first part of your first paid client session and is used to re-unfreeze the client to the fact that they must embrace change to fix their current business challenges.

You may be thinking, "Why do we need to go through the unfreezing process again? Surely the client will want to get straight into fixing their issues." After all, we did a full unfreeze in the Business Needs Analysis and now they have paid for our help. In reality, this is not the case. First, if you followed my advice in session 10, you booked this session two weeks after the Business Needs Analysis, and in small business, two weeks is like a decade. Their business challenges have probably changed and to be honest, they have probably forgotten what that challenge was and may be thinking, "Why did I agree to this coaching anyway?" This session will turn all that around.



I find that by completion of this template, I know I have them. They are pushing me to move to the next template and go from watching the clock because they want to get back to work to watching the clock because they want to get as much done with you as possible.



Episode outline:



"Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple." – Sir Richard Branson



This is a very simple worksheet designed to be short and sweet, but sometimes simple is best. This is not meant to be an intervention, so don’t dwell on anything. Just ask the question, accept the information they tell, and move on. You are just looking for low lying fruit at this stage.



Question 1 - What are your major business challenges at the moment?



This answer can be vastly different from the Business Needs Analysis, so you need to ask the question again. This question is highly important as we will link everything from the following questions back to this challenge to obtain a successful unfreeze.



Most common answers will be:



* Cash flow

* Long ninety hour weeks

* Lack of staff performance



Remember the lessons from session 9: listen, don’t interrupt, and whatever they say is the right answer. This is what’s really keeping them up at night and the key to your long term engagement.



Question 2 - Rate each of the areas on the template using the scale 1-10 (put the number in the column which corresponds to the rating and the area of the business, 10 meaning things are great and 1 meaning things are bad.)



Try to stay as content free as possible. We are just asking to get a general feel, so just get the number and move on. Of course, some people will not be able to answer without giving you a full story. Remember that they may need to get this information off their chest, so let them speak. But move on as soon as you can.



Note:  If the finances are down it is often a reflection of other areas.



Don’t be surprised when you get to internal processes and you hear the response, "What’s that?" When you explain that these are procedure manuals for sales, marketing, collections, recruitment, etc., you will generally hear, "What?