The 6 P's You Must Consider Before Engaging A Business Coach - With Bruce Frame

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Bruce Frame.

Bruce Frame is an entrepreneur for many reasons but principally because he began his working life as an electrician, and rose to the position of General Manager and Director of a major automotive components manufacturer. At 65 he is widely respected for his emotional intelligence, his business knowledge and his ability to relate to people at any level in an organisation. Since starting his business coaching career in 2003, Bruce has worked with over 350 different businesses as diverse as hairdressers and wine makers and even a funeral director. He currently operates his coaching business from Melbourne Australia in association with a large team of coaches throughout the world.

Why you've got to check out Bruce's episode:

- Learn how Bruce works with business owners who have been in business for 3-7 years and are looking to improve the people and processes in their business.

- Understand the typical challenge that great technical experts have when it comes to running a business, and how being an expert in the delivery doesn't necessarily make you an expert at running a business. You need to transition from being internally focused to externally focused.

- The biggest difficulty that comes with this transition is the frustration that transpires as an outcome if you do not get this right in your business.

- Learn about the 6 P's you must consider before engaging a business coach - Personal, Professional, Passionate, Pragmatic, Persistent & Profitable.

- Finally, how to gain access to Bruce's process for business success.

Resources / Links

https://bruceframe.com.au/my-process/

https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc

Transcript

Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to Succeed Through Speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.

Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Bruce Frame. Who's an entrepreneur, author and business coach, and has now worked with over 350 businesses. As diverse as hairdressers, winemakers, and even a funeral director. So, Bruce, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Bruce Frame: Hello Tom. Thanks for having me.

Tom Bailey: Perfect. Thanks for being here. And whereabouts are you based?

Bruce Frame: In Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Tom Bailey: Awesome. Thanks so much. And I just wanna share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So, Bruce began his working life as an electrician, and he rose to the position of general manager and director of a major automotive manufacturer.He started his coaching business in 2003, and he now works with coaches from all over the world. The title for today's episode is the Six P's You Must Consider Before Engaging A Business Coach. And Bruce is going to talk us through that in just seven minutes. Question one for you today is who are your ideal clients?

Bruce Frame: Okay. Thanks for that. My ideal clients, may be in business for at least three years, but probably not more than seven. So, they've got the basics down. I know what they're doing, but I need to develop systems and strategies to manage their people and make profits in order to make their businesses work when they're not there without a, without a daily direct hands-on bow.

Tom Bailey: Got it. Perfect. And obviously you've worked with over 350 businesses. Now what's typically the biggest challenge that you find they face?

Bruce Frame: Okay, this is a really good one. This is the classic challenge that bright technicians find when they own their own business. And that is that their expertise in the field, which is the thing that got them into the business in the first part. It's whether they started it from scratch, or I bought it as a going concern they did so because they know something about what the business does. But in many ways, that is the biggest problem because they now need to learn a completely new set of skills that has to do with how to make a business work. Regardless of what the business does. So, in many ways we are taking people who are technically brilliant, that is like they get more interested in more detail and more accuracy and more and more internal workings and turn them into people who are external thinking, looking at the big picture and trying to see the future. And so, we're asking technically brilliant people to make 180 degrees.

Tom Bailey: Okay. So that's clearly a big shift to do that 180 degree shift. So, I guess, what, what is the biggest impact on them or their business if they don't solve this problem?

Bruce Frame: Okay. So, what they're going to have is frustration, frustration in a lack of a lack of time and the lack of money, and, you know, that's the worst time. Having no time and lots of money, it doesn't work, but having lots of money at no time doesn't work either. So, we in business as owners, we need time and money. So, if you don't have both, you're going to have frustration that leads to poor decision making. You're going to have a harder and harder labor turnover. And that ends up with broken businesses, broken owners, broken marriages, broken lives. That's the outcome of not getting it right.

Tom Bailey:  Yeah. So it can be a huge detrimental impact. So, what is the one valuable piece of advice that you'd give to somebody to really help them get started in solving this problem?

Bruce Frame: That's where I really want to talk about the six P's that you need to ask for the business cottage. Right. And my six P's are personal. I work one-on-one with business owners. I don't work with groups, so attains or executives I went without. And so, you've got to ask yourself, does this person understand what I do? Second is professional. Tom you said earlier, I've had about 350 clients in the last 20 years. When I started coaching, I used to spend the first two hours trying to explain what a coach did. Now I have to explain why I'm different from other countries. Experiences, one of the passionate, everyone who knows him again, what should we decided that you really do love this stuff? Don't you? And the truth is, are, do I love it? I love challenging the white people in order to give them a better outcome. We did business in that. Pragmatic is the next P, in that is I'm looking for a solution that works provided it, these reasonably legal, moral, and moral and ethical. I'm not the tax department. I don't need to get involved in whether it's right or wrong. I need to get involved in. Does it work or does it not? And so that's the fourth P. The fifth P is persistent, I will not give up while my quantities moving. Well, I am moving. Even if they're moving in the wrong direction, I want to give up which one did I stop?

Then it becomes very frustration, frustrating. And the last P is Profit. Profit's not a dirty word. If we're done, my profit is no point being in business. So, everything we do in business has to make a profit and that has to be the mindset. And so, I'd say that, hang on, tend to continue to get good advice before you start or buy your business from, from someone who knows what they're doing and think about those six P's.

Tom Bailey: Fantastic. Great advice that, and what is finally one valuable resource that you can share with people to help them get started?

Bruce Frame: I would say disc behavioural profiling, I don't know if you're familiar with it, influenced support component it's available free. You can get it online, but understanding your own behavioral profile and how various identities interact with that profile. We will change the why you behave with other people. It will improve your ability to sell and improve your ability to recruit and improve your ability to manage, feel improve your relationships will improve your life. Disk is something that I use with all of my clients, and I highly recommend it.

Tom Bailey: Excellent. Thanks, Bruce. And I'm just going to post a link into the show notes as well for this show for your process. And that is Bruceframe.com.au/my process. And what we'll do is I'll also post the link in there for the disc profiling.

Bruce Frame: That'd be perfect. Thank you.

Tom Bailey: So, a quick question for you now is what would you say is one of your greatest either failures or mistakes that you've over made either in life or business and what did you learn?

Bruce Frame: Okay. So thinking about this one, really honestly, the biggest challenge. I think, I mean, everyone in business is going to make mistakes. You don't like them to start shopping. So, I think the biggest mistake I made for my business was expecting honestly, and then be at the same level or higher than my own. And I was continuing to have some disappointed until I got to the idea that I needed to be more guarded in dealings with people in general and allowing them to demonstrate around standards before committing to anything ongoing. And that has slowed me down and explained a frustrating learning lesson, but, you know, life gives us lessons. We then learn the lessons and, and move on to a new lesson or we don't want, unless we get the sound lesson game time, it takes a while, but it's okay.

Tom Bailey: Exactly. Completely agree. Perfect. Thank you so much. And the last question from me today is what is the one question that I should have asked you that will also bring some great value to our audience?

Bruce Frame: The one I, the one I would like you to ask is what is, what is the secret to recruiting good people? Because I get these all the time. I get people saying to me, if you could just help me to find good paint in the lane. I'm forced to quote my father who said you get dependent, you deserve. And I think that's absolutely true, but once you have recruited someone, I think it's all about how you onboard them. I have a process called 7-4-11. Seven days, four weeks 11, which, which I'm happy to share. And I'm happy to send it to you, Tom, to do with, as you see fit, it's a little confrontational but it produces. a fabulous outcome. And all of my clients who use it, and most of them do swear by it would never go back. So, the reason I use it, even though it's confrontational and it can be quite difficult is because it works. And so.

Tom Bailey: If it gets 7, 4 11, if you can send that over, that'd be much appreciated. Fantastic, Bruce, thank you so much again for your time today and for sharing such great expertise and value.

Bruce Frame: I really enjoyed it.