Two of the presumed five starting offensive linemen are injured. One injured a hip running sprints. Both missed large portions of last season with serious injuries. They will be replaced by a rookie guard, they are teaching to become a center, and a guard, turned center, who is being moved back to guard because he can’t reliably snap the ball to the quarterback. If RGIII doesn’t get killed behind this bunch, he’ll want to commit suicide. If you’re an insurance agent, call me immediately. Time is of the essence. The preseason starts next week, and I am running out of time.
A few days ago, I was researching some potential new programs for the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce. I decided to revisit the web site of one of my favorite business authors, Michael Gerber. He wrote the E-myth Manager series of books, which are just brilliant. I was looking to see if his organization did local seminars.
Gerber’s organization has provided business coaching services for years. That wasn’t news to me. What was news is that they are recruiting independent coaches around the country to participate as franchisees instead of as employees. That interested me. So I clicked on the link at the bottom of the home page titled, “Becoming a Coach.”
I didn’t get past the first page without seeing my favorite business buzzword, brand. Anytime you see or hear the word, brand, make certain no one has stolen your wallet. Some sort of nonsense is sure to follow.
The process to become an E-Myth coach is straightforward. You pay for a lot of training courses, and then agree to pay a sizable royalty on your revenue stream. In the case of E-Myth coaching services, you get to keep forty percent of the revenue you generate. Yes, the company gets sixty percent. Now you know why I made the comment about checking your wallet. That didn’t deter me. The revenue split might just be a bad split of a really good revenue stream. I needed to know what they expect a coach to earn.
As I explored further, I learned that they expect a coach to earn about $6,500 per month before expenses. For those of you allergic to math, that comes out to an annual $78K BEFORE expenses. Also keep in mind that franchisors are pretty optimistic when it comes to the revenue potential of franchisees. To be fair, their example assumed that a coach was only billable half of the time. Obviously, if you blindly annualize that to full capacity, you get $156K before expenses.
That doesn’t sound horrible, except that there is no way a business owner will ever be 100% billable. As owners, we have just a few other things to do besides service clients. We do administrative tasks and, oh yes, we have to bring in new business. I’m lucky to be fifty percent billable outside of tax season.
Why should we care the E-Myth business coaches aren’t well compensated? Well, I don’t care, but you should. How much business advice do you want from someone, who isn’t very good at business? You say money isn’t everything, but it is a damn good place to start when evaluating business acumen. It isn’t the only factor, but it should probably be close to number one.
This lack of business acumen is why I have a problem with business coaches. I find that most of them have never succeeded at anything. They are refugees from failed businesses and bad careers. Someone good at business is probably actually doing business. Your best source of business advice is successful business owners. My best source of business advice has always been clients. A few of them are the smartest people I have ever known. They aren't out coaching businesses. They are being businesses. I love discussing business with them over a beer – or two – or three.
Here's what you should take away from this post. You've heard the advice that you should never eat lunch alone. Take a little of that advice. Have breakfast or lunch with one of your successful customers. There are a number of benefits to this. First, you strengthen your bond with that customer. By all means, pick up the check. Second, you get to find out how this person became successful. If you don't regularly interact with the owners of your customers, have lunch with a competitor or someone else in your industry. If you don't like your local competitors, and you probably don't count them as your closest friends, go to an industry conference and hang out at the bar. If you have any personality at all, you'll find someone in your industry to pump for ideas. People love to talk about themselves and their businesses. Give them the chance. Your best advisors are other business owners. Don't get bled dry by the vampires in the business coaching industry pushing ideas they've never tried themselves.
I've been enjoying the NBC telecast of the Olympics over the past couple of weeks. Thank God for the basketball channel. If you were an alien stranded on earth, watching the main NBC telecast would give you the impression there are two sports in the Olympics, gymnastics and swimming. They are giving short shrift to real Olympic sports like badminton and dressage, excuse me I mean horse dancing.
Thanks for reading. I am always looking for snarky guest posts. Many of you have threatened, but few of you have delivered. As always, for real tax and accounting advice, please visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.
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