Business Coaching

Lately, and probably in the future still, people have had a habit of blaming things that go wrong in their business on the economy. But unfortunately, the economy can’t be the only thing small businesses blame.

Sure, the financial crisis didn’t help the small business environment. But other things have been slowly changing as well, which have also slowly but surely been affecting small businesses.

For instance, cheaper imports from overseas and vast improvements and updates in technology changes the way things are run. When cashflow is in order business is booming, it’s easy to miss the effects of these changes. But when the economy is bad and business decreases, the effects are magnified.

Small businesses need to stop blaming the economy, but instead, start working on the issues that are really effecting their business – changes in demand, competition, products and services.

With business coaching, it’s important to keep this in mind. Instead of simply blaming something for what’s going wrong, it’s imperative to fix the problem or make changes…because otherwise, you might be out of business!

Facebook is joining the world of location sharing.

That might not be such a good idea, as we’ve mentioned before. With the increase in popularity of such apps and sites like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, it’s even easier for just about anyone to see where you are. There are even new sites like this on the way, like Plancast. And now, Facebook is getting in on the action, and will debut a new location sharing feature next month.

This sort of thing might be an advantage when business coaching; clients can see where their business coach is, whether it be out networking, running a ProfitCLUB, in a business coaching session, or enjoying their free time at the newest restaurant in town.

But with everyone having access to where you are and what you’re doing at all times, is it safe? Are people setting themselves up for break-ins or attacks, or making it easier for stalkers to find them?

The location feature will have two basic components: the location-sharing capability offered directly to Facebook members and a set of APIs (application protocol interfaces) for third-party developers to add location-based elements to their Facebook apps.

So, is location sharing a good thing, that can help people network and meet others? Or a bad thing, that can lead people to you for not so nice purposes?

What will Tiger announce tomorrow?

Tiger Woods will hold a non-press conference tomorrow at 11 am EST. He will make an announcement, and take no questions.

Everyone is debating what he’s going to announce. Of all the options however, no one is exactly sure…though some have their hunches that he won’t be apologizing and he might have a go at the press for breaking the story about his infidelity in the first place.

The question is: is this non-press conference a good thing for Tiger, or a bad thing?

Or does it even make a difference?

When you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, they don’t measure feasibility of that goal. They just tell you what they’d most like to do. Firefighter, veterinarian, police officer, the President…

But whatever their answer, they answer without a second thought. They don’t think about limitations or any plausible reason as to why they can’t do it.

That’s the difference between children and adults – adults tend to think through the consequences, pros and cons.

Not that that’s a bad thing – in fact, it’s a very good thing – but children don’t consider any options. No limitations, no second thoughts, they just tell you anything, like what they want to be when they grow up.

Sometimes too much knowledge can be restricting. Without thinking about something too much…why not just do it?

If we approached business strategies like that, most of them would be simple, but they’d probably be brilliant. As we blogged about before, Steve Jobs took a simple demand and created a product as the answer: the iPod. It was that simple.

Sometimes you don’t need to think about absolutely everything to come up with a great idea and implement it.