Last week I was in a coaching session with one of my clients, when I was reminded of how important coaching can be, and how it works in so many different ways.

In this particular instance, the business is going well. Turnover and profits are far higher than when we started (up 100%), controls are in place, systems are being written and staff gradually taken on to help take away the day to day tasks from the business owner. In fact things are generally looking pretty good. However, there is a very real risk of everything becoming a little too comfortable, and focus being lost, and ultimately the end goals set not being reached (and of course the long term financial goals were set for clear reasons).

This is when as a coach I can’t let my client off the hook. Lots of praise of course for what he has achieved, but now comes the really hard bit where I have to remind him, and push him to take the extra him to take the steps needed to build things to the level where he is no longer integral to the business i.e. the business enterprise which can work without him, which after all is what he says he wants.

So I have to set him tougher targets, mostly now on the sales and marketing front, so he can bring in the next level of business which will allow him to employ the key person to run the business for him. This in turn frees up more time to target more key businesses, and gives him the flexibility and freedom that he is looking for.

To get him to do this I have asked him to monitor all his numbers, calls made, visits made, meetings held, and new customers taken on, so I can challenge him if he does not do enough in between each of our sessions to hit his targets.

So if you have goals which always seem to just out of reach, ask yourself “am I getting too comfortable, and no longer pushing hard enough?” If the answer is yes, but you still can’t motivate yourself to go the extra mile, perhaps you should think about taking on a coach.

Lots of good things seem to be happening at the moment, and I don’t mean just for me. Looking around at my clients, business acquaintances and the economy generally, I see positives everywhere.

Predictions for growth in the U.K. have gone up to 2.9% from 2.3%, inflation is negligible (and could even become deflation) and business for most people I speak to is flourishing. As usual the BBC want to make deflation a negative, but for the majority it is a good thing, after all the main things it is affecting are food prices and fuel costs, both of which are necessities which we will all buy as and when we need it. Anyway who actually waits to buy things until the price “may” yet go down. For example with electrical goods, TV’s, fridges, ovens or computers, most people will buy them now even though they can be pretty certain they will be cheaper in 6 months or a years time.

In all the networking meetings I go to, there are invariable positive things being said, with some people even saying that they are no longer looking for referrals as they are already at capacity for the foreseeable future. Catering companies and venues are getting bookings two years ahead, and construction seems to be on the increase everywhere.

From a personal point of view, with spring just around the corner, I am delighted to say all my clients are growing in confidence, and are all setting increased targets for next year, and many of them are already in the process of, or at least planning to take on new staff this coming year.

So all in all, many reasons to think that 2015 is going to be a great year. I am getting new enquiries, leads and referrals on a regular basis, so I too am anticipating a year of growth.

An interesting situation arose the other morning during one of my coaching sessions. We were looking through their cash flow for the coming year, in a growing business, but one where they are having to be very careful with their costs. A tricky balance trying to increase sales without increasing costs proportionately. They also had outstanding debts and loans which need to be paid off over the next few months, so they had to make provision for these as well.

The problem was that they had set the budget to lose money over the year. Small amounts admittedly for most months, and overall not a huge loss, but enough to make them worse off than they were at the start of the year, especially as this was going to mean that they would not have been able to pay off their debts and loans, and therefore would potentially send the business bust. They said that they were being cautious and on the downside of realistic so that they didn’t make it over optimistic, but I pointed out that there was little point in budgeting for this because it could result in having to close the business.

After much discussion we then looked at ways of raising sales, and if possible reducing costs, or at worst at least holding them constant. We looked at short term reducing their drawings, and went through all the options they could work on. The key thing was that because we had all the figures available, we could do several “what if…..” scenarios on the cash flow template, and see what had to be done to make it work.

So once again it re-stressed the importance of knowing your numbers, and facing up to them, good and bad. Equally well, it showed that if things are looking bad there is no point in budgeting to make things worse. You simply have to work out the best way to make things better.