The Importance Of Congruence In Business

At this time of year, making new years resolutions is normal for many people, including business owners. This year, however, this trend has somewhat annoyed me.

Many business owners are making resolutions on how to improve their business performances, no problem there. At the same time they are also telling the world that business is not good at the moment, again it is good to admit where things are not working.

What does alarm me however is that these businesses that are suffering from a lack of clients and cash flow are business coaches or so-called marketing experts.

If you are selling a service promising more leads or customers then you need to be walking your own talk.

It is not right to sit and admit to struggling to pay the mortgage and have no new clients yet at same time claim expert status, giving out advice to other business owners on what they should be doing when it clearly is not working for them in the first place.

Where is the value in the offer from a business that cannot practice what it teaches?
This is just so incongruent to me and from a sales perspective completely turns me off from working with that particular business.

It reminds me of an experience when I first qualified as a life coach and believed I was capable of coaching anyone. I felt I could be a jack-of-all-trades and sell to everyone and anyone.

It was this approach, however, that led to my first business being an epic failure.
You see, I am overweight yet I was trying to sell weight loss programs.

Who on earth was ever going to buy a weight-loss coaching program from a fat life coach? It was massively incongruent, as not only was I not following my own advice on how to lose weight; I was also disrespecting the coaching industry.

And this wasn't my first experience of incongruence in my career.

The reason I had gone down the self-employed route was I had lost interest in my corporate career. The values expected of me for the company I worked were no longer aligned to the values and purpose that had matured in me as I had developed in the career.

I spent 18 months reconnecting with myself, really living the congruent lifestyle.
During this time I met my now wife and engaged in a long and happy relationship.

At the same time I started my new business, again as a coach, but this time in a market when I was passionate and had a lot of experience. That was working in sales.

In my corporate career I had closed over £300m of deals. I had developed high performing sales teams, taking nervous new starters with a fear of selling and turning them in to commission earning machines. And I did both of these things

consistently to an award-winning level.

So am I congruent at coaching people on selling skills?

Absolutely. I know full where the value I can add to any business owner or entrepreneur to help them close more deals and get more clients.

I walk my own talk. I can share my unique experiences and war stories with my clients. I know how to sell. I know how to help other people to sell more. I am not sitting here stressing about where my next client is going to come from or how to pay the bills next month.

This is why congruence is so important in business.