How to train with the best to achieve business growth

John Leach, chairman of Winning Pitch, explores the idea of learning from other high achievers in business and offers some practical tips for making it work.

If you want to excel in your professional life and get the most out of your business, work with those people who will take you to new limits.

Training with these individuals will extend your comfort zone, teach you new skills and, more importantly, allow you to gain insight into how they think. Many businesses fail to grow because their founders get stuck in a rut of the same old, day after day. Only when they immerse themselves with a group of high performers do they appreciate what is possible. High performers think in a different way, they have a mind-set that is conducive to grasping opportunities and ruthless execution to make things happen.

Defining who you believe to be the best in your field of work provides a benchmark for raising your own performance. Do away with any feeling of personal pride or sense of undermining your own capability and explore how you can spend time with those you identify as best in class. High performing organisations consciously create conditions that get the best to push each other to new levels of performance. If you want to achieve greater success then align yourself to those who consistently out perform the rest. Be open in your approach to these people and ask them – Please can you help? Or please can I ask your advice? By asking in this way you are delivering a compliment and acknowledging their expertise and achievement mindset. More often than not people will help. Your aim should be to:

• Shadow them on meetings and in their day-to-day activities
• Ask for some time to share their thoughts on why they constantly outperform
• Seek insight on how they think and what drives them
• Enquire what motivates them and what they read
• Try to find win-win ways of working
• Work out how your expertise can be of value to a high performer
• Seek out strategic partnerships

By training with the best, you set intentions and expectations that lift your mind-set to new levels of attainment. Individuals you train with are different to mentors – they are the sparring partners that you work with to develop and grow your skills on a real time basis – they are pivotal to moving your business to a higher level. If the person you want to work with views you as a potential threat, the relationship will not work. Be honourable about your intentions and by no means use it to gain insights that would be of disservice to them – be clear, be up front – if a conflict of interest presents itself then walk away.

Boost Business Lancashire has a wide range of support programmes available for businesses looking to achieve high growth. To discuss any of these programmes further, contact us on 0800 488 0057.