The process for many entrepreneurs starting their own business is to recognize an opportunity within the market and look to exploit it. The opportunity might be to provide products or services more inexpensively than current competitors, to offer something more conveniently than others, or to meet some untapped market potential with a product or service that has no competition. Regardless of what the opportunity identified may be, the business owner will most commonly leverage previous experience or current expertise in establishing the business model, prospecting for customers, or running the day-to-day business.

While this will often serve to meet key factors in the launch and eventual success of the business, it does leave open the potential for blind spots that may hamper or even cripple the ability of the business to grow or even sustain minimal achievement levels. No one person can reasonably be expected to be expert at all facets of a business and therefore, the business owner is confronted with choices to make:

Refuse to believe that there are any weaknesses or blind spots and continue on as if every conceivable decision made is the right one. The outcome of this is often fraught with peril.

Hire staff with strong skills to complement those skills the business owner has competencies in currently. However, that often means incurring costs that are beyond the reach of many start-ups or small businesses and so is not often chosen as the path to

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Acquire or barter for expert advice with those that can lend objective insight. This untapped resource is usually abundantly available, and all too often not recognized as the assistance it could provide.

Where To Find Expert Advice On The Cheap

When starting a business, or even when beyond the launch stage of operating one there are certain dangers that can haunt a business and ultimately prevent it from reaching its full potential. Some of the more common problems tend to fall into one or more of these buckets:

Financing the needs of the business
Sales and Marketing of the product
Human Resources/Organizational Roles
Production or manufacturing

In most cases the idea creation of the product or service is handled well by the business owner, but it is the execution of the idea that separates the winners from those that muddle along or even fail. However, there are many resources that will provide assistance and will not cost the business significantly in exchange.

Talking to customers is an ideal way to get a sense for what is working and what is not as effective from their perspective. Most customers appreciate being asked and being able to contribute a response to a question like, "how can we improve and meet your needs better?" It serves their purposes because they stand to gain by providing insight into getting the business to reach even higher levels. If there is a need to provide incentive to secure this level of insight, or if there are a series of detailed questions that you wish to have answered, an offer of a discount on a future purchase in exchange for answers or some other inducement may be worthwhile if it leads to new product ideas, a correction in a problem area, or identifies something worth fixing.

Suppliers and vendors have the advantage of interacting with many of the competitors in the marketplace and in some instances business that are not direct competitors. They can offer insights into what works well elsewhere and share that with anyone just for asking. While competitive secret stuff may not be shared, business basics or fundamentals may be readily shared and can easily be applied. Suppliers have a stake in the business succeeding because it is a customer and represents a revenue stream. Therefore, they will ordinarily happily want to contribute to the success of the business if they perceive that it will help their business. In most instances, the only payment required to them for their advice would be a commitment of loyalty to continue a relationship and purchase from them in the future.

Paid Professionals that the business has a relationship with can also serve as counselors without necessarily running up significant charges for their time. In many instances, the business may have a relationship with an Accountant, an Attorney, a Banker or some other professional in the community. By being prepared with specific questions or seeking well constructed requests for counsel, the experience of the paid professional's depth and breadth of knowledge can be acquired without having to fear a huge invoice or bill will accompany the insight.

More Personalized Attention

For many business owners the experience of running a business - whether it is in the spare bedroom of a two-bedroom apartment or even in the busiest store on Main Street - is a lonely one. It seems that every interaction with someone has to be judged from a position of assessing what the other person is seeking or what the bias that person brings to the conversation. Customers may be driven by cost reduction, suppliers by cost increases or change in payment terms, professionals by the protection of their revenue streams, etc. The people a business owner can get objective feedback or insight from seem few and far between. It is for those business owners that the idea of having a business coach may be ideal. While the notion of a business coach may cause some to scoff, it is not as outlandish as it may seem. Movie actors, singers, athletes at the top of their professions still have coaches to help them achieve even greater success. A good coach will assist the business owner by:

Providing a sounding board for the business owner to try out ideas without worrying that the answer is being sifted by how the decision impacts personal gain or loss as might happen if employees or suppliers were asked.

Identifying core competencies and areas of opportunities for both the business generally and the business owner individually.

Offering motivation to move forward and/or cautions to slow down when the business owner may be in need of an objective eye and a non-jaundiced view of things.

Techniques Used

The approaches used are as different as the coach and business owner interaction, but often tend to include some aspects of the following:

Assessment of the need - often based on a survey or interview to determine the requirements and scope of the relationship

Assignments - in between meetings or conversations it is typical that the coach will ask the business owner to compete some work that helps the business owner to focus on objectives, processes, tactics, or some other aspect of the functioning of the business.

Communication/contact - the coach may conduct communication through emails, telephone, or face-to-face meetings - but it is necessary for the business owner and the coach to be able to communicate with each other throughout the coaching process.

People do not have to be licensed to establish a business as a coach, so it is advisable to choose a coach carefully. There are associations that certify or license coaches as a way of trying to provide some protection and assurance that the coach has some training and experience (www.certifiedcoach.org, and www.wabccoaching,com among them), but that alone is not sufficient to ensure a successful coaching intervention. While it is very much a "caveat emptor" scenario, the driving force should be how well the business owner and the coach relate to each other.

The ultimate success of a business is rarely the result of the efforts of just the business owner. In almost all scenarios it is the impact of many people beyond the owner him or herself. Therefore, rather than assume that running a business as a sole proprietor means you do it alone, allow the business to soar by floating on the updraft of those that can provide a breeze of success.

David Zahn is a serial entrepreneur and consultant to Fortune 100 businesses (www.zahnconsulting.com) as well as entrepreneurial startups (www.startupbuilder.com).

The opinions expressed are the author's and not necessarily those of connpost.com. Please direct comments to cdauber@ctpost.com.