Achieve Your Goals at a Higher Level

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kelly Laverty, Franchise Owner of FocalPoint Coaching, located in Calgary, AB, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I collaborate with the owners and entrepreneurs of small-medium-sized businesses to make them more successful than they ever imagined possible. I work with companies from solopreneurs to organizations with several hundred employees in many different industries. I complement the technical savvy that owners have in their businesses with my expertise in strategy, planning, and managing a successful organization. The synergy developed through this collaboration has a tremendous impact on having the business owner get everything out of their business they were hoping for.

Tell us about yourself

I transitioned from the corporate world working with small-medium-sized businesses for many years into being a business performance coach in 2008. I wholeheartedly believed the skills and expertise I had acquired in the corporate world could be more beneficial to others as a coach. I have acquired knowledge in Business Development, Sales Management, Product Line Marketing, and Management in senior leadership roles that could be valuable to business owners.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I have successfully established a proper work-life balance for many of my clients. This has been accomplished by implementing time-proven techniques and methodologies to have business owners more effectively delegate, empower, and hold team members accountable to do what needs to be done.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the more challenging aspects of being a business owner is managing your time to effectively work on your business and not in it. A major factor in businesses that fail is the lack of time the business owner spends working on the business. It is too easy for a business owner to become consumed with the daily operations of the business and provide no focus on responsibly managing it. Establishing key internal measurements that indicate its performance levels goes a long way to correcting this fundamental mistake by business owners.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Determining your WHY - Ensure you know why you are doing what you do, and it can't be about making money, this is a result. Identify what you are passionate about and how it addresses a need for your customers.
Develop a strategic business plan with SMART goals - a well-planned strategy is a roadmap to your success. This roadmap must always be anchored with very specific goals that need to be achieved by the business to accelerate progress to success. A business without a strategic plan limits its opportunities and will have FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) become a detractor to success and generate unnecessary stress.
Be prepared to work hard – if running a business was easy, everyone would do it. In the beginning, there is a significant level of “heavy lifting” to be done and not enough resources to accomplish it all. A lot of sweat equity will need to be invested before the dividends of being a business owner begin to pay off.

In starting up a new business, it’s important to get the support that you will need to make it successful. The support will more than likely require the business owner to rely on their network and sphere of influence to identify referrals and market opportunities. It will be incumbent on the business leader to actually ask for the help/support they need and recognize their network will be happy to help

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://businesscoachkelly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExcellenceinBusinessCoaching/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/businesscoachkelly/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bizcoachkelly
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KellyLaverty/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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