I have this philosophy that I seem to live by lately. Since I am so busy working on or in my businesses, I really hate to sit down and figure stuff out. I am at the point in my life where I can live without that frustration. I would rather just someone sit me down and tell me to do this, then this, then this. Order or a check list is something I can relate to and would rather spend my time with. Figuring something out is dead time for me; I would rather pay someone else to teach me how to be an expert in something. Outsourcing talent like this is the mentality you need to absorb if you want to be successful in small business and in e commerce.

When I was a kid I loved sports. My father was not a sports guy, so throwing the ball around in the backyard and getting instruction was not in the cards for me. So I learned by myself and figured it out by trial and error. Is this a bad thing? It might be or it might not matter at all, depending on what your goals are. Today I enjoy teaching my son sports and giving him instruction. I think about the fact that if he learns some fundamentals and some good form now, he will be ahead of the pack later on. This may or may not be true if the boy does not show talent or is not interested. The same goes for business.

Think of all the research time you spend trying to figure something out. I have spent countless thousands of hours trying to figure out concepts or business models just to decide if something is worth pursuing or not. A lot of time is spent figuring out if the ?guru? who is teaching me or guiding me knows what they are doing or are a legitimate example. I have seen so many products or eBooks claiming they will show you everything you want to know to become the expert in a certain area. Half the battle for me is deciding if this person is a real expert or someone that is just trying to con me out of my hard earned money. There are people who can teach and there are people who ?do? I want the guy that can do both. Enter the business coach.

So what does this business coach do for you? Well for me, I like the practical approach. I say, here are my goals, what are the steps to attain it? Give me a list to check off and show me what I don't know. I want to be reassured I am going in the right direction, not that the direction is worth following. I will gladly pay you money if you show me what to do. This should be your approach too. Do enough homework to know what direction you want to go in. Get educated in what the avenues are so that you can start down one when given instruction. A good example of this is search engine optimization if you have a web site. There is a ton of different ways to market your site, but which one is best? Get familiar with a lot of them and then hire a coach. Tell him what your goals are, if he is listening and has some experience they will know what to tell you. If they don't, you will have just enough knowledge to know to move on to the next one.