Transcription:
This is Hank Hoffmeier with a marketing and business tip
This week, I am going to be joined by another special guest, Mike Mabe. Mike Mabe owns and operates NSL Coaching. He is a business and life coach here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We are recording from Fourth of July park in Kernersville, North Carolina, so you may hear some ambient noises, but the weather is great today. I think it is a great time to have some discussions.
So, Mike, I wanted you to introduce yourself and tell us about you and your background, and why it is important to have a business and life coach.
Mike: Thank you, Hank. I am Mike Mabe, age 70. I have accrued wonderful life experiences in business, marriage, family and my association with you for 17 years is been enlightening and inspiring and good.
I am a retired business leader in a large corporation senior manager in charge of quality control for some very familiar products, consumer products. There I lead and supervised and manage to lots of people over the years and I came good at it, and was respected.
And that is what I want to do to help others today who are starting out like I did many years ago. An to give them some coaching so that they can take shortcuts to accruing the leadership abilities that I acquired over a long period time, through military service, through business, and university, students, and substitute teaching that I am doing in high schools today.
Hank: One thing I have learned about you is you are investing, and I use that word loosely, because you invest yourself, you invest in your family, you invest in the future of people, right? So, whether it is students because you do substitute teaching, whether it is people you meet like me, where I think we have a mutual benefit of learning from each other, or if we are talking about marketing or business, we are each learning something from one another when we have our frequent interactions, whether online or in person.
I highly believe in hiring people or buying tools to help you and your business grow. A lot of times people say “why should I hire a business or life coach” and numerous times of hear “I cannot spend the money on that”. They would rather budget their money towards other things, like marketing or advertising. Where I holistically believe, yes, you spend money on advertising but you should also looking into improving your leadership skills, your business skills, your knowledge, your business acumen.
What would you say to someone that that is hesitant about working with a coach in general? Whether it is business, life, or maybe even a personal trainer if you looking to get fit. What is the benefit of using or working with a coach.
Mike: The tagline of my business is “keep improving, don’t stop”. So many people, when they graduate from college or high school, they think they got it made. They learned what they needed to learn to live out their life. But that is shortsighted, and we all need to keep improving, even to the end. And the way we do that is by investing in activities that we can do ourselves, reading, traveling, meeting people, getting involved in community organizations. But also, we need to take a look at having someone personally spend time with us, watch us, and then get feedback. Positive feedback that is intended to help us grow to be a more respected person in the character that we are accruing.
There is no more important asset for an individual or a company than our name. The name we were given at birth by our parents, or the name that people know us by. People begin to assign meanings when they hear a name. Honesty, dependability, and all those attributes that cause us to take on an image that people can rely on. And we need to stay directed at those attributes of character that contribute to meaningful citizenship, important family member, and the friends that we will have or the friends it will meet us and want to get close to us because of the character that we possess.
Hank: I think it is very important to find someone that aligns with your goals. In other words, I think anyone can read an article about how to run a business, and tell someone else “this is what you need to do”. But without them really getting to know that business owner or really having that life experience, possibly, I think that is of detriment. Where when when you find a coach, make sure that they align with your goals and what you want to accomplish. And do they have the life experiences that are gonna help you determine how you need to move forward?
When we talked earlier, we were discussing not not having money to maybe work with the coach. What are some ways that maybe you can invest in getting better in your business by working with a coach other than paying thousands of dollars?
Mike: The way you and I have come together, Hank, and meet periodically, talk about what we are doing, getting suggestions from each other, and without money changing hands. Paying for each other’s meals when we meet. Giving tips, helping me look at my devices and show me how to improve my website. And then sharing information one-one-one. Not only as a friend, but also as a partner, and trying to bring about personal growth in each other.
Hank: I think we are talking about bartering here, and let’s say I was a bookkeeper and you are a business owner, and our coach, like you are, and I want to benefit from your services, but I just started so I do not really have a lot of money. I am trying to feed my family, and stay keep my business afloat. Maybe what I can do is offer to do your taxes every year, or look at your books every quarter, and in turn, you can give me some coaching tips. Would that be something that’s possible?
Mike: If the association in the coaching is effective, then it should begin to show up in the performance of the leader who is trying to get better. And the services I deliver or the products they’re producing in their relationships with customers. And when those associations and that coaching is taking effect, it is going to bring in more business. And more business means more revenue. And then that revenue can be used to hire a more permanent coaching situation, or go to the different levels. But, yes, you can start out by bartering, one to the other.
Hank: And alternatively, if you do have a budget, I think it is a wise investment because you always see how you want operate your business, and you may feel like you should run it the way you want to run it. And you are not looking at it from a consumer perspective. Someone can come in from the outside, take a look your organization, help you optimize and provide more value from the consumer side and perspective. And everyone seems to have expertise in one area and maybe not another, where as if you sure that up by working with a coach, I think that helps.
Lori Bruhns, who was on previously always says. “do you do best and delegate the rest”. Or maybe I should add on is, “do what you do best, but you know running your business day to day, but we should always bring in the best to help you operate in a more efficient manner.
So, this is been a great conversation with Mike Mabe. We are going to have some future tips the rest of the week. I look forward to them because this is a great conversation. This is a longer tip. Others should be shorter. But I definitely liked having Mike here today is with NSL Coaching. You can go to NSLcoaching.com. Take a look at his website and contact him. He loves talking to people in person, on the phone, and virtually. Drop him a line and say hello. Follow him on his social channels. You can find those on his website.
If you want to hear previous tips, you can go to HankHoffmeier.com/Alexa. You can also subscribe on iTunes and search for Hanks Marketing and Business Tips. We hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and I look forward to the rest of the week.
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