Finding the sweet spot
And not being afraid to make the change
One of the things I love most about running my own business is that nothing is set in stone and I can decide what can be changed.
If something isn’t working quite as I’d hoped, I can change it.
If something works even better than expected, I can do more of it.
There isn’t a business case to be written, a series of meetings, a lengthy approval process, or someone telling me, “this is how we’ve always done it” or “the team don’t handle change well”.
That freedom is one of the reasons I started Vivendus in the first place, to take back control.
Recently, I made a decision that might seem odd from the outside; I reduced the size of my group coaching days to just four people.
When I first designed these group days, I thought somewhere around eight to ten people would work well. Plenty of conversation, different perspectives, and lots of good energy.
Then I experimented with smaller numbers. Two people was lovely, but the intimacy meant it lacked the richness that comes from hearing several different experiences.
After five months of running these days, I realised that four people creates something quite special. I reckon this is the sweet spot.
There’s enough diversity in the room for people to learn from each other
I can spend time with each individual without others feeling ignored
Everyone has the chance to partner with everyone else for outdoor discussion breaks
What surprised me most wasn’t that four people worked so well, it was how tempting it was to potentially ignore what I’d learnt.
This is a takeaway - don’t ignore the information you have in front of you.
Growth at any cost?
Businesses are encouraged to grow by adding more - more customers, more products, more events, more followers.
Sometimes this is exactly the right thing to do, but sometimes it isn’t.
Sometimes the right decision is to sell fewer places because the experience becomes so much better.
Fear of failure and judgement
We can be reluctant to make changes because we worry that changing our minds means we got it wrong the first time. This can trigger feelings of failure and worry about being judged.
I don’t see it like that, I believe the first version is simply the first in a number of experiments where:
You try something
You capture information
You listen to feedback from people and data
You notice how it feels
You make adjustments
That isn’t failure, it’s learning.
I see this in my coaching clients frequently - they’ve become attached to plans they made years ago, even when those plans no longer fit who they are now. They stay in jobs because changing direction feels like admitting defeat, and they maintain habits that really aren’t serving them. Quite often, they don’t change because they’ve invested so much time getting there, what we might consider to be ‘sunk costs’.
Some of the happiest and most comfortable people I meet are those who give themselves permission to continue to evolve. They don’t expect to have everything worked out first time and they expect to keep learning.
There’s another lesson hiding in all of this…
The most appropriate product isn’t always the one that looks to be the most commercially viable in the short term, it’s the one that delivers the best customer experience.
What I’m offering on these coaching days is the chance to enjoy personal coaching while benefiting from the wisdom, encouragement and challenges from others that emerge naturally when a small group comes together.
It would be very easy to squeeze in another couple of chairs, but much harder to preserve what makes the day special - I’ve chosen to protect the experience.
Your action for this week
Consider…
Perhaps there’s something in your own life that could do with a little tweaking?
Not because you’ve got it wrong, simply because you have new information, but have not yet acted on it?
Finding the sweet spot rarely happens by accident, it usually happens because we’re willing to keep making small adjustments until something finally clicks.
If you’re worried about making a change or are scared of getting it wrong, my downloadable workbooks might be just what you need. Each one is equivalent to 5-6 hours of 1-1 coaching.
Grab one now: Are you scared of Failing or Do you fear Change?