Benefits of Business Coaching for the Manufacturing Industry

With so many mounting challenges in the manufacturing sector, business owners can feel like they’re struggling to keep up, leading to owners working harder, longer hours, and spending less time with friends and family. Hiring a business coach can be a step in the right direction to taking away some of that pressure.

Professional business coaching for CEOs in the manufacturing industry can lead to impactful results and insights. Coaching has also been known to help owners overcome the hurdle of strictly working “in” the business to moving towards working “on” the business. This allows owners to get back to building a strategy for the future of the company.

In this post, we’ll cover whether or not personalized business coaching for the manufacturing industry is effective, how it works, and what’s expected.

When we say "personalized" business coaching, what we mean is that EVERY business is different and comes with its own unique set of challenges. While our coaches have a standard, time-tested process they use while coaching clients, our organization likes to follow the mantra of; "adapt, don't adopt." Our coaches work hard to find the best ways to adapt our processes to best fit your company.

Challenges Faced by CEOs in the Manufacturing Industry

With an ever-evolving landscape, CEOs in the manufacturing industry can greatly benefit from having access to one-on-one business coaching services that showcase exactly how to implement the principles of the Great Game of Business (GGOB).

Personalized coaching services from a trained and certified Great Game™ coach will give you actionable steps for dealing with:

Internal operations
Worker retention
Workforce development
Company culture

How Do I Get Started With Business Coaching Services?

First, we listen. The initial coaching call is a basic touch point. It’s here that we focus on identifying the core issues you’re struggling with and figuring out whether or not The Great Game of Business is a good fit for you and your company.

Then, you get a big-picture overview. We’ll introduce you to our unique employee-first framework of doing business and see if it’s a good fit.

Lastly, we’ll offer solutions. We’ll pair you with a coach that has; A.) the right temperament and B.) the right experience in the manufacturing sector.

Depending on your situation, we might recommend an alternative to coaching, like joining our business networking community.

Once you decide to hire a coach, our approach shifts from a large-scale overview to highly actionable steps that help identify, map out, and solve existing challenges in your company.

What Do Business Coaching Services for Manufacturing Companies Consist Of?

Coaches deliver a long list of items to their clients. Here are a few of the big ticket items they deliver to every company they work with:

Building A Transparent and Open Culture That Encourages Big Ideas, Growth, and Innovation

First, coaches help set the ground work for creating a transparent and open culture. Why create a transparent culture? Because EVERY CEO should want to tap into the brain power of each and every one of their employees.

To tap into the best ideas employees have to offer, employees have to understand the nature of the business that they're in – how it works, what's important for success, etc. That requires transparency.

For employees to get the full picture of what's happening inside the business, leaders have to share the numbers. Then, you have to TEACH employees what those numbers mean and why they should care (No, you don't have to share EVERY number. Some information like salaries can be lumped into one big number to avoid unnecessary and negative reactions).

Setting up this kind of transparent structure can be difficult to execute. Trust has to be established, and a regular stream of communication has to be in place. Great Game™ coaches know how to get your company ready for this kind of culture change.

They'll provide leadership with the tools they need to lead organizational change and provide insight on how to educate employees through financial literacy. The better your employees understand the financial landscape of business, the greater impact they'll have on driving results.

Chat Bubble 2 (1)-1 Start teaching your employees financial literacy to help them understand how to make the company grow!

Identifying Company Targets Through An Inclusive Process

Right now, there is at least one financial or operational number in your company, something right at the heart of your business, that if improved in the short term would have a dramatic effect on your business. You might understand what that number is, but does every single person in your organization understand how important that number is? We call this the company's Critical Number™.

A coach (with the help of your entire team) will identify that number. We involve the entire team in the process of setting company targets, because no one wants to be handed a lofty goal from the board room that they don't believe in. This allows the coach to rally the entire organization around that number/target.

Because the entire team helped create that goal, they'll be more likely to do their part in helping to hit it. This helps create alignment and clarity on what's important to the company, thus removing departments from becoming siloed. Instead, departments start to look for ways they can help each other in reaching the same goal.

Bringing Attention to Actions That Drive Company Performance And Build Accountability

Once your people know what’s critical to success, they must then understand what they can do to drive that success. Identifying actions that drive performance helps everyone understand what they can do—both individually and as a team—to influence targets. This gives employees line of sight from their daily actions and decisions to the most important goals of the organization.

Since at first, many (or most) employees may not be familiar with reading and acting on financial information, coaches may use non-financial measures to teach managers and employees how to connect their work to the financial outcomes of the company.

Every department across the company—from sales to materials—will identify its respective measures/drivers. Examples may include; enhanced inventory management, better buying, controlled capital spending, and improved shop efficiencies.

When a coach gets everyone working together, focused on the Critical Number, and acting on the Right Drivers, obstacles don’t stand a chance!

Setting up An Interactive Way to Get The Entire Company Involved In Generating Results In 90 days!

Having identified your targets and the actions that will influence them, your coach will now help to create an opportunity for your team to win! Your coach and team will work together to build a MiniGame™ (a 90-day activity designed to pursue an opportunity or correct a weakness).

The MiniGame will include a goal connected to targeted day-to-day improvements that add up to long-term success! This will get employees used to focusing on a goal and holding themselves accountable for the taking the necessary actions to achieve that goal.

Why would employees want to help hit that goal? Because MiniGames are structured to generate money and be able to self-fund prizes if goals are met! MiniGames a great way to bring laser focus to those small, everyday wins that put the company that much closer to the big win.

Structuring A Bonus Plan Or Incentive Program

Most employee bonus plans are disappointing to business owners because they don’t motivate, they aren’t appreciated, and they quickly become entitlements. They disappoint employees because they’re a mystery, they’re unpredictable, and they’re never, ever enough.

Our business coaches can help build a bonus plan that will best fit your company!

Imagine a self-funded bonus program that connects the people who generate results in the business (employees) with the rewards and recognition they deserve! Our bonus plans are paid out progressively to avoid paying out too much money too soon. Your company may have a great first quarter, but then tank in the second quarter.

Coaches will structure your customized bonus plan to ensure the company never pays out money it doesn't have. Coaches will also help setup a forecasting system for your bonus plan.

This allows the company to determine what level of bonus payout employees are sitting at within any given time – and then share that information with employees.

The more money employees help generate, the greater payout they receive. This eliminates entitlement around the bonus and let's employees know what to expect. No more surprises.

Creating Scoreboards To Regularly Measure Progress Against Targets

Coaches will help your team develop scoreboards that reflect whether or not the business is winning or losing. This is similar to tracking KPIs, but takes tracking one step further.

Companies that focus only on KPIs can sometimes miss out on larger goals.

Is it possible to be profitable and still run out of cash? Is it possible to hit quality goals and still lose a customer?

Absolutely.

Creating quality scoreboards will help balance all aspects of the business simultaneously.

What Do People Say About Business Coaching?

Most clients say the biggest benefit to having a coach was how quickly their company saw results. They no longer had bottlenecks slowing progress because they had a coach dedicated to pushing the company forward and executing on the objectives in front of them.

Watch this video to hear feedback from CEOs who have either hired a coach or self-implemented The Great Game of Business management system on their own.

Does 1:1 Business Coaching for Manufacturing Really Help?

A business coach gives you added clarity and focus, as well as a fresh, new perspective on the issues you’re struggling with.

If you’re busy tending to the daily challenges of running your company, it can be hard to step back and see what’s wrong or what opportunities lay in wait.

Remember this: business coaching alone is not a cure-all.

Success with business coaching requires that you put in the work and have the right mindset.

Humility, willingness to learn, and genuine care for one’s employees — these are the qualities you’ll need in order to benefit from the GGOB style of coaching.

ROI of Business Coaching

As every company is different, it's difficult to give an exact ROI companies can expect to see from coaching. Every company is unique and comes with a different set of challenges, and every company will most likely select a different set of goals they want a business coach to help accomplish. However, we can provide you with some information reflecting the financial impact other companies have seen.

Company Results - ROI

Read Case Study From Total Solutions Group

Read Case Study From Kiolbassa Smoked Meats

Read Case Study From AMBAC International

Identify Strategic Ways to Retain Skilled Workers

It’s a well-known fact that the manufacturing industry’s labor shortage is placing many executives in a difficult position, faced with lower morale, reduced productivity, and new-found training or recruitment costs once workers leave.

Personalized coaching services offer expert solutions to address the eternal question: how can I retain great employees?

Our business coaching services help owners spot areas of improvement in their organization, identify actionable methods in which to improve employee retention, and guide them on how to not only maximize their workers’ productivity but satisfaction as well.

Generate Workforce Development Plans

Maintaining skilled workers means having systems in place to ensure they can grow professionally and bring the most value possible to the company.

Our coaches show you how the GGOB methodology can be applied to rapidly improve workplace culture, build succession plans that put employees on a career path, and bring job satisfaction to employees.

Upskilling your existing workforce is far easier when you build naturally occurring processes that provide regular training and development opportunities to employees.

Business coaching services show you exactly how to make this a reality while operating on GGOB’s core principles of employee education, engagement, and empowerment.

Create Systems that Lead to a Better Work-Life Balance

If you play the game the right way, you’ll reap amazing benefits. For starters, you’ll save time (and time is money). Personalized coaching lets you and your employees hit the ground running in a way that's much quicker than a do-it-yourself approach.

You’ll learn specific techniques to get your employees interested in playing The Great Game of Business, whether it be executing business plans through open-book management, playing MiniGames™, or engaging in Huddles™.

The sooner you can implement the right processes, the more time you’ll have available.

The GGOB business management process allows you to finally achieve a reasonable work-life balance by dispersing responsibility among the entire organization. This allows you to dedicate more time towards coming up with solutions for things like rising material costs or establishing positive cash flow.

Business Coaching Simplifies The Game™ Step by Step

Our coaches show you what steps you can take to leverage the talent of your workforce through our unique business management model, focusing on educating employees about company finances via open-book management and empowering them to make better, more strategic decisions on behalf of the company.

The idea behind the Great Game of Business is that doing business is akin to playing a game; in other words, it can be simplified, made to be fun, and still promote growth and profitability.

Hiring a Coach for Your Manufacturing Facility

When it comes to hiring GGOB coaching services, there are two routes you can take:

Hire a coach to show you how to implement the Game within your organization.
Have one of your employees train and certify to become a coach and have them lead all internal training for your company.

Not sure which one is best for you? We’ll help you identify the best option!

When you choose the first option and hire one of our coaches, he or she will work to ensure that your organization is ready to effectively train and engage your entire staff to incorporate GGOB’s unique business philosophy.

When you choose the second option by selecting one of your employees to train and certify under the Game™, they receive comprehensive coaching and become a more valuable asset to your organization.