You Need to Become the Coach.

Transcript of Short 41

Brandee: [00:00:00] Hey there, CEOs. Welcome back to today’s Thursday short of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast. My name is Brandee Gaar, and as always, my mission with this podcast is to help you to ditch the overwhelm and to build a profitable business that you love. On today’s Thursday short, I want to ask you if you have become the coach of your team?

Now, what do I mean by that? When you’re building your business, you are a player, right? You’re not just a player. You’re probably the only player and I’m not really sure why, but when I talk about this, I always think of a baseball team, maybe because it’s the easiest to kind of see where every, position is, and you can see the whole diamond and you know who’s playing second base.

Even if you never watch baseball, you’re kind of like, okay, that guy’s the second base guy, right? That’s the pitcher I kind of know. That’s the guy throwing the ball. The one catching the ball, right? The one at bat. So when I think about my team and becoming the player, and when I think about becoming the coach, I really think about a [00:01:00] baseball field, visualize that with me.

and I want you to think about what each person’s role on your team is. Now, when you’re first starting out, your every player, right? Throwing the ball, you’re the pitcher, and then soon as it’s hit, you’re running out to the outfield to catch it, and then you’re throwing it to yourself at first base to get the other guy out, right?

Brandee: Like you wear all of the hats because it’s necessary. You don’t have a team yet. It’s literally you, and you’re wearing all of the hats. 

But as you start to build your business, you get to add someone else, right? So maybe you can add an outfielder, maybe you can add a catcher. Are you going with me on this analogy here?

I know you guys are probably like Brandee, I don’t play sports. I don’t play sports either of you guys, so it’s totally fine. 

But I want you to really understand that you’re looking for those key players to join your team to make the most impact quickly. Right? 

So I might not add a catcher right away because I [00:02:00] mean, if I’m the pitcher, I’m not that far from home plate.

Like I can go run up there, but I certainly can’t catch an outfield ball, so I might add an outfielder. So when you’re really, really thinking about the strategy of adding to your team. You are trying to think about your team and who can I add that would make the most impact to help me win, right? You’re trying to win the game.

 And then you continue adding players until you have a full team. Okay? So now if you’re at that stage where, You’ve got a full team and you’re like, Oh my gosh, yes, every position is filled, but you still are thinking like a player. You’re still on the field and you’re still in that mentality of, I’ve gotta cover second base, or I’ve gotta run catch a ball in the outfield.

Brandee: You’re not thinking like a coach. Think about anytime you’ve ever watched a baseball game, I promise you that you’ve never [00:03:00] seen the coach. Run out and cover the outfield. Like you just don’t do it, right? They don’t do it because they have to see their team in a way that helps them to understand who is doing the best in which position, right?

If they need to shift people around, if they need to sub somebody out, if it’s time for somebody to take a break, if maybe one of their players, isn’t quite performing really well at second base and they decide, let me see if I can move him to outfield to see if that’d be a better fit. 

The only reason that they’re able to do that is because they’re able to see their team in a way that they’re not on the field, they’re watching from the side or from above, and they’re seeing how each person performs, what their gifts and talents are, and they’re really working with each of those players to make sure that they are performing at their absolute best.

They’re also able to see some of the things that they could be. [00:04:00] Better and they can work with them on those specific things. Right? 

So thinking about that analogy, I want you to really think about your own business. 

When you’re in the day to day constantly, it doesn’t matter how big your team is, you don’t have the capacity to see your team from above.

You don’t have the capacity to see your team from the outside looking in. 

And so what happens is they don’t have that mentorship that they need. You’re not able to see maybe where there’s holes in your system or where one of your, teammates, where one of your employees needs help to just take them to the next level to be even better at what they’re doing.

And really, all of this is a mental shift. It’s a mental shift in what you do and what you’re thinking. It’s a mental shift in how your role is involved in your business. And it’s a actually a really, really difficult mental shift. What I think is the hardest. Is that when you go from player to [00:05:00] coach, you start to have a little bit of a guilt factor.

It’s almost like you aren’t involved in the day to day so much, and so you feel like that if you’re not working until midnight every night and you’re not sleeping and you’re not overly exhausted, That you aren’t doing enough work, when in reality what your business actually needs from you is for you not to be burnt out and overwhelmed with daily details.

It needs you to be clearheaded as a CEO of your business, and it needs you to be able to step out of that player role and really become the coach so that you can see all of the inefficiencies or the things that your team is killing it on, and you can double down on those.

That guilt factor comes in because when you’re transitioning from player to coach, you’re so used to having to be busy all the time and just never have a single break. And it is a little bit different when you step into that coach role because now there’s less physical activity that you’re doing.

Right? [00:06:00] So think about it, on the baseball analogy that we’re talking about. When you become the coach, you are not necessarily having to run drills constantly to make sure that you understand or just to make sure that you can be as fast as possible to run the bases or whatever, right? No, that’s not your role anymore.

Now your role is more mental, it’s more strategy. It’s more, really thinking about your team from the top down. And so it can start to feel guilty in the beginning because you aren’t physically exhausted, but that is exactly what your business needs from you. It needs you to be clearheaded. It needs you to really see it in a way that you can see are all of my ACEs in their places?

Do I need to add a team member? Do I need to remove a team member? Do I need to really sit down and work with a team member on some of their inefficiencies and take them to the next level? Do I have a team member that’s absolutely killing it, that we might be able to double down on their efforts to [00:07:00] even drive more business into our business.

And so this is probably the most difficult part of transitioning from that player role into your coach CEO role is that guilt factor. So it’s really, really important that you’re also sharing with your team what your role now is. Your role is to help them to be their best version of themselves so that together as a team, you all flourish.

So it’s really important that you just communicate that, help them to understand that what you want to do is help them to be so good at their job, that they’re able to fully, fully do their job without you constantly having to step in. 

You want them to be able to know what their guidelines are and what the desired outcome of their role is so that they can think critically on their own. And you can teach that critical thinking versus constantly having to step in for them and step into all of this day to day. 

 When you step into this role, I am [00:08:00] telling you your business will take a whole different trajectory and it’s the coolest thing to watch because once you get past that hurdle of that guilt of I’m not involved in the day to day, I feel like I should be busier, you will start to fill your time with very strategic thinking about how your business can either add an additional revenue stream or maybe open in a different market, or how you might want become an educator. Right?

In episode 1 59 of the podcast, when we were talking to Laylee Emadi, we were talking all about. Becoming an educator or taking that next step in your business as the CEO and really growing again and teaching what you know. 

There’s so many avenues to grow your business when you become that coach and you allow yourself that free thinking space to see your team strategically and become that mentor and coach to them instead of staying a player on your team.

You guys, I would love it if you. Come talk a little bit more about this in our Wedding Pro CEO [00:09:00] community. It’s over on Facebook. If you’re not already part of the community, what are you waiting for? Get over there and join us. You can down into the show notes below and you can just click the link, Join us over in the Facebook community.

And I want to know what are your biggest sticking points when it comes to being part of your team as the coach. What are the things that make you afraid to do that? Or is there a guilt factor you’re already facing as you become the CEO of your business? I would love to know. 

All right, you guys, thank you so much for being here.

Hey, if you haven’t already, share this episode with a friend, share it on your story. 

Tag me. I’m @BrandeeGaar or @theWeddingProCEOPodcast.

I would absolutely love to see more wedding pros listening to this podcast so that we can impact even more business owners in our industry. 

You guys, thank you so much for being here, and I will see you next time.

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