How To Overcome Common Business Problems

How To Overcome Common Business Problems

Sean: What are some of the most common problems that people tell you, people, who work as an employee, that you are able to help them with?

Lou: A lot of the time, so it usually starts with team dynamics can often be an issue and people not knowing how to best handle a dominant manager for example, or an unmotivated team member.

And what I always say to people in that respect is you can’t control those other people’s behaviors. What you can control is how you respond to those. And so I teach them tools and techniques to allow them to get to know themselves better so that they are then better equipped at handling all the different kinds of people.

Another really key thing is their own self-belief and self-confidence, self-esteem, you know, all of the rest of it that has probably been instrumental to the fact that they’re still there. They’re still somewhere that they may realize they shouldn’t still be, because they’ve been there for 10 years, 20 years, however long.

And that comes down to their own sense of self-worth and their own sense of self-esteem, self-confidence to actually do something about it. And so we do a lot of work around that as well. We unlock all of those old stories that we carry around with us, or that, you know, that I often refer to it like a backpack full of rocks.

It’s all our old bullshit stories from childhood, from, you know, experiences of the past that create our limiting beliefs, that creates our, you know, our fear-based behaviors. So I just help them unpack that rucksack and reframe those old stories and they go away feeling a lot lighter.

Sean: That’s awesome. So it’s mostly about coworkers.

Now let’s go to the business owners because they come to you because they’re stuck somewhere in their life. Right. That’s usually the case. What are some of the most common problems of business owners when they come to you and look for a solution?

Lou: Lack of a clear strategy, overwhelm, and again the lack of self-belief. And this is where I, being a self-love advocate because I really helped them do so much work on themselves.

They become unstoppable. So that mix, that combination of getting to know yourself, getting to know your, your own limits and setting in place a really clear strategic direction, but then in their business. Is it completely tailored to where they want to go? I don’t believe you can have one without the other. You can have all the strategies in the world, but if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re not going to get to where you want to be.

And you can be the most confident person and have, you know, doing all of the inner work. But if you haven’t got a clear strategy for where you’re going again, you’re not going to have a successful business.

So those two, and we integrate the two so much so that they step into their own self-belief. They step into their own unlimited selves, knowing where they’re going and knowing who they are and that sets them off. So yeah, they often come to me because they are, they’ve got, overwhelmed. Like we talked about before that shiny object syndrome, they tend to do all. They haven’t got quite the clarity. And I’ll tell you the number one thing that people often come to me with and they haven’t realized that they’re not doing. They haven’t truly nailed who they’re talking to, why they’re talking to them and how they can help them.

Sean: With the business owners.

I just, it’s a bit mind-boggling for me that they’re business owners and they have low self-belief. And they also have the wrong direction or the wrong strategy. It might just be me in my little world or little opinion.

But, a little bit paradoxical, a little bit ironic that the business owner is – when you, when you start a business, you have to like be optimistic about it, there’s no pessimistic business owner. But what happened in between? I mean, how did they lose their self belief? How did they lose confidence? And how did they lose their strategy?

Lou: I agree. I think all business owners start off with such a huge amount of enthusiasm, self-belief, and “I’ve got this”, and “I can do this”, and “yes, I’m going to make it happen.” And then they realize that it’s actually really difficult. Even running your own business is really difficult. You have to be your own marketing person, your own. We do all of it. Don’t we,q and there’s parts of that role that you don’t feel comfortable with.

And it’s hard. It’s, you’ve got to be – the consistency. I think people don’t realize that consistency is key and they do it for a couple of months to think, oh, this isn’t working, you know. It’s not happening for me. I haven’t got a client yet. And then that lack of self belief starts to creep back in, because we’ve all got our stories.

We’ve all got our limiting beliefs that hold us back from stepping into, you know, the best versions of us. And I think, yeah, we start off with enthusiasm, and belief, and passion and it can all get overwhelming. It’s all a bit, you know? Oh, I didn’t realize this was so difficult – is what I hear a lot of the time.

I didn’t realize I had to show up every day and that was going to put all this work in. And what they don’t realize is that you know, they’re probably two inches from gold and if they just keep going, they’re going to hit the jackpot. And that’s when so many business owners give up at that point. And that’s what makes, you know, successful business owners in that top 5% bracket because they didn’t give up. 

So I think there’s a multitude of things. I think it’s overwhelming. The, yeah, the lack of self belief kicks in and that gets all a bit too much for them. Then they lose, they lose a sense of direction of where they’re going.

Sean: It’s tough. It’s tough to be a business owner. And there have been multiple times when I could have hired a coach, but I asked so many other people instead who are not coaches, but are well-meaning that also helps. Now I want to go back a little bit and talk about growth. You mentioned earlier that one of your values is growth, and growth to me is super important.

And to a lot of young people today is also the same. Whenever we interview people, SEO-Hacker is one of those companies. We’re one of those companies here in the Philippines where we have a paywall. We pay minimum wage when you start and if you don’t like it, it’s fine. Go to the business centers that pay you better.

But if you want to grow, this is the place for you to be, and we must be doing something right, because we’ve got 50 people inside. So growth is super important to us, because I want to learn from you. What are you doing today that continually helps you to grow in what you do, and in your network? You know, you’re a business person, you have to grow your network as well.

What are some of the things you do?

Lou: All along my own business journey I have hired my own coach, I think that was really important. I have just, this week, actually really excited, started with a really high level business coach. And that is a 12 month program that I’ve started with her, which is going to be incredible.

And I know that the growth I will have working with this particular coach is going to be amazing. And I do the work. I read a lot. I, you know, I’m a perpetual self-learner. I always do sort of online courses to improve my own skills so that I can be a better coach for my clients. I am always journaling to access my innermost thoughts, and I do the work.

I do the deep inner work to help myself grow. Because if I’m not growing, how can I then help my clients to grow? Because you can only go as deep with your clients as you have been with yourself. And I truly believe that. And I truly believe that you can, when you commit a big financial investment in something like a 12 months coaching program, I have already leveled up my game.

So my other coaching cohorts have said to me, Lou, you can already sense the difference in you because I’ve committed a significant sum of cash to up my game. You become the next level person by doing that. Not everyone’s in a position to hire a coach or to do that, but I do believe that how can you expect people to invest in you if you’re not willing to invest in yourself.

Sean: yourself, that’s a hundred percent true.

And now I’m wondering, what are some of your most favorite books that you would recommend first for some of us to read? We’re business owners, we’re leaders, we’re managers. we want to learn. What are some books that you recommend?

Lou: All of the Simon Sinek books. He obviously has written Start with Why – hugely inspirational or Leaders Eats Last a great one.

There’s one, this one is a great one. It’s called Do Less. It’s predominantly I think where some for women, but it’s equally as applicable to men as well. It talks about that cyclical nature of how we should work to carry around women’s cycles, but the cycles of the moon. And that was really quite revolutionary, interesting for me.

I think money mindset books are really vital as well, so that we can charge our work so that we can release our stories around how we feel about money. So we can receive money with ease so that we can be the abundant people that we want to be. You know, good people with money, do good things with money.

It doesn’t have to be the source of all evil and all of the other stories that we carry around about money. And there’s some great money mindset books. There’s the Denise Duffield-Thomas one come in to people. Get rich, lucky bitch.

Sean: I’ve read, I’ve read rich dad, poor dad.

Lou: Rich dad, Poor dad is a really good one.

Yeah. About leveraging your time, you know, not trading your time for money. And I love that. I love the fact that you said you pay your, so it really reminded me of rich dad, poor dad. Actually, when you said you pay your employees minimum wage when they first come in, but you help them with that personal growth and that is worth so much more to them and their personal development, that’s how – I love that you do that. I think that’s a great, great thing. That’s the lesson, isn’t it that he teaches?

Sean: Yeah. I do have to add a disclaimer, we do promote them immediately when they get regularized. So that’s within six months. So they do get the salary that they desire.

Within you know, if they just, it’s a paywall. You have to finish the first six months. We check who you are, who you really are, as much as we can see in the first six months. And when you’re good, we regularize you. You’re part of the family. We have higher commitment to you and you have a hard commitment to us.

And you could tell I practice this, right?

Lou: That was very “Rich Dad”.

Sean: Yeah. I’m the deal-closer. I’m the final interview and I’m the deal closer for all of the applicants that we have. So, yeah, we have to, we have to indoctrinate them about our culture. And see culture is all about processes and systems. And this is part of the process of making sure that they grow and mature as an SEO-hacker, not as a virus within SEO-hacker, but as an SEO-hacker, I – really good stuff Lou.

And if people want to know and find more about you and maybe get in touch, where should they go?

Lou: I have a slightly out of date website, which is on my very long list of things I need to do, but that is louhynescoaching.com. Or you can ping me an email at lou@louhynescoaching.com.

Sean: Fantastic.

And we’re going to have those links in the show notes. She also has – Lou also has her LinkedIn. You might want to connect with her there, and Lou, I just want to thank you so much. It’s an honor, and a pleasure learning from you and we are better for itq.

Lou: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, I really enjoyed it.