One Coach

This content is excerpted from an interview that OneCoach CEO John Assaraf conducted with business consultant Mitch Axelrod, author of The New Game of Business. A previous excerpt from this interview, about when to give your product away for free, is here.

The game of business has permanently changed, says Mitch Axelrod.  Here are some of his new rules:

Don’t fall in love with your products and services.  Of course, you have to like and believe in what you sell.  But when you become overly enamored of what you produce and sell, you can easily become blinded to what the marketplace actually wants.

Instead, shift your attention to the people who buy your product or service.  They will tell you what they want and need, and they will help you improve your products and services to better serve those needs. 

Ultimately, your customers determine your success in the marketplace.  Passion is good.  Enthusiasm is good.  But never fall in love with your product or service at the expense of your customer base.

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Growth is the lifeblood of entrepreneurship and business success. It is also the lifeblood of our economy. It is why we at OneCoach are dedicated to teaching and empowering growth. But growth requires work, change and transformation. Perhaps most importantly, growth requires personal transformation in the leadership of the organization.

Most small-business owners have enough knowledge, experience and resources to get themselves into business. However, few have the depth and breadth of knowledge, experience and skills to remain capable as a leader as the business grows– unless they grow too. Growth brings increasing demands, of:

• complexity
• management
• human systems
• financial management
• competitive response
• planning
• training
• development
• technology and information management
• and leadership itself.

Hence, the leader must transform to adapt to all of these changes. The leadership skills, experience and methods that were appropriate for a three-person startup operating out of a garage will not serve a 100-person firm or a multicultural international enterprise. Business growth constantly puts a leader in new positions that require learning, new perspectives, new skills and new stamina. If the leader relies upon what has served in the past, it may not serve in the future. Unfortunately this realization may come too late, unless the leader is ready and prepared for change, expecting, waiting and preparing for it rather than being forced into it or surprised by it.

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