🚀 Building Business Winners – Scaling for Impact and Profit
Every entrepreneur starts with a dream—an idea that sparks action, courage, and hope. But moving from a small startup to a thriving, sustainable business takes more than passion. It requires strategy, discipline, and above all, a vision for impact. This is where Building Business Winners comes in—a coaching program designed to help entrepreneurs not only grow but scale with purpose.
Why Scaling Matters
Scaling is not the same as growing. Growth can simply mean more sales, more staff, or more resources. Scaling, on the other hand, is about building systems that multiply impact and profit without multiplying inefficiency or costs. It’s about ensuring your business model can serve more people, more effectively, while staying true to your mission.
The Core Principles of Building Business Winners
This program equips business leaders with tools and strategies to expand confidently and sustainably. Some of the pillars include:
Clarity of Vision – A business must know where it’s headed. We work with founders to define long-term goals that are measurable, inspiring, and practical.
Systems and Processes – Winners don’t leave success to chance. By setting up repeatable systems—from operations to sales—businesses are able to deliver consistency as they grow.
Financial Discipline – Scaling requires smart resource management. We coach leaders on how to reinvest profits, manage cash flow, and explore financing options without compromising control.
Leadership Development – A business cannot outgrow the capacity of its leadership. We equip entrepreneurs to lead teams with vision, accountability, and influence.
Impact-Driven Growth – Profit is essential, but purpose sustains momentum. Building Business Winners integrates social impact into scaling strategies, ensuring that growth uplifts both the business and the community it serves.
The Results You Can Expect
Through this program, entrepreneurs gain the confidence and clarity to take bold steps. They learn how to grow beyond “survival mode” into a season of thriving—where businesses create wealth, jobs, and lasting change.
At TIKVAH Pathways, we believe winners are not just those who succeed financially, but those who scale their businesses with integrity, purpose, and vision. Because true business success isn’t just about how big you become—it’s about the difference you make along the way.
Watch for the following course to be released soon:
How many business owners do you know who are
up against what may or may not be glass ceilings in the growth of their
businesses? Do the barriers really exist
or is it simply that they don’t have the self-belief or the confidence to break
through?
Here’s an interesting proposition – what if
business is just like sport? What if it
is just a question of honing considerable skills coupled with the removal of
certain self-limiting beliefs? Do we really know what our psychological limits
are?
Remember the sub-4-minute mile: in 1954 it
was something that was thought to be simply beyond human capabilities - until
May 6th, 1954, in Oxford when a young medical student named Roger Bannister ran
a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds…. And
then, within one year 37 others did it; within 2 years, over 300 had done it. Now that’s a shift in belief!
And then there's
the paradigm-shattering Bob Beamon super-leap in the '68 Mexico City Olympics
(29 ft 2 ½ inches - beating the existing world mark by nearly two feet!)…. Not
to mention Tiger Woods’ astounding 2000 US Open victory by no less than 15
strokes! It has happened in other sports too: quantum breakthroughs that
somehow enable the next level of achievement by others, and within a very short
time frame.
What if that could
be achieved in business? Well why
not? If you have the skill set and you
have the necessary support and coaching, why couldn’t your business take a
paradigm shifting leap forward? There is
a growing interest in seeking business advantage in this way – by doing what
the sports stars do – taking help to build performance enhancing beliefs …
having someone along side to keep you ahead of the game. Can you afford not to be one of the
enlightened ones?
If you are in need of coaching, take advantage of our 30 minute free session to determine if it is the right fit for you, your team or your business. See the links.
If you need team building, feel free to contact us.
What can you learn from football? A Business metaphor
During the World Cup, everyone loves football a little bit more. Many are captivated by it. Many companies are also responding to this world event. They try to seduce the football fan with all kinds of creative sales promotions. They have to because customers are flocking in front of the tube instead of spending money. But apart from that, football is a good business metaphor for running a business with staff.
Provided I don’t understand football; I do know how to do business with a team. In this blog, you can read the comparisons between football and entrepreneurship with staff and without a crew. It helps you start and expand your business.
Table of contents
Goalkeeper
Backs
Midfielders
Strikers or wingers
Coach
Entrepreneur
Goalkeeper
The goalkeeper must keep all balls out of the goal. “Logical,” Johan Cruijff would undoubtedly say. After all, you win by having more goals than your opponent. However, that is no different from entrepreneurship. The common business logic here is to make sure more money comes in than goes out. A bit simplistically stated, but it basically boils down to that. As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for making a profit. Not your accountant, your finance department, nor the bank you borrowed from is to blame when you lose (money). You need to make sure you always have a positive cash flow.
TIP
Always make sure you have enough money to pay the bills for the coming month. After all, the goalie must also anticipate what is to come. It is quite a specialistic role to perform.
Backs
The main task of the backs, like the goalkeeper, is to prevent goals. They do that by defending well, stop or take over the ball and then play the midfield as best as possible. That means the ball has to go forward. The backs have to ensure that all other players can play the football forward. That means they have to get organized.
Provide a foundation in your company that you can always fall back on. Everyone must know and be able to play their position. The detail here is that no one should hold the ball for too long, but pass it on.
The business metaphor here is that you need builders and tacklers who push the products or services forward. Make sure it is produced and delivered according to standards. So, standardization. Whether you work alone – as an independent professional – or with personnel and hiring self-employed professionals, you need to have your business processes in order.
TIP
Make sure you standardize your processes of creating, delivering, administering, and invoicing your customers. Otherwise, you will perish on your success! Many entrepreneurs underestimate this managerial role.
Midfielders
In the midfield, the midfielders have a double task. They have to act quickly, receive the ball from the backs, and deliver it tailor-made to the front of the field. On the other hand, sometimes, they have to help defend and sometimes prepare others to strike. The midfielder must be permanently playable. It requires planning and walking ability.
In entrepreneurship, you can compare this business metaphor with the support department. A crucial department. For example, they are the backers of the marketing and sales department. The seller, pitcher, or sales team can score optimally by passing the ball at the right time.
TIP
As an entrepreneur, make sure that things are arranged around you. So, make sure that you are always in the position to receive the ball. In other words: is your sales going on while you are practicing your part in your business?
Strikers or wingers
The striker’s job is to score! The best way to do this is to run free, be smarter than your opponent, and mislead the goalkeeper. You are only successful if you know how to convert a shooting opportunity into a goal. It requires a performance orientation and creativity. Because here, too, it is about anticipating and launching an attack.
The similarity with doing business is that you need a good pitch. A sales or elevator pitch that triggers and scores you points. For this, you need good (sales) arguments that fit into the goal of the customer. The entrepreneur ensures that the sales team in his company can convert any scoring opportunity into a goal.
The self-employed professional will also have to stand out during his absence and radiate and satisfy the (potential) client.
TIP
Make sure you know the demands of your customer as well as possible. It will automatically help you counter any against arguments that they have and score a point.
Coach
The football coach is there to make the team perform at all times. That is to say, as a team. Not only all positions in the group must be clear, but also their tasks. Besides, each player must also be flexible enough to respond to the game’s opportunities and threats. Because no matter how well you have determined your setup in advance, each game is different.
The coach’s primary weapon is his strategic insight. Translated into the business metaphor of entrepreneurship: the entrepreneur keeps an eye on the entire company, all roles, and the game’s changes. As an entrepreneur, you have to continuously respond to the opportunities and threats that the company faces.
TIP
Create a SWOT confrontation matrix. A difficult task for many entrepreneurs and, therefore, rarely executed, but oh-so-useful and very easy with this online Confrontation Tool.
Entrepreneur
Now you might think that the entrepreneur is most comparable to the role of the coach in football. My point is that as an entrepreneur, you could play any position on the football field. It is evident that you have to have all roles “covered.” But no doubt you feel more at home in one position than in another. How well have you covered all positions? Just check with yourself. Are you more the productive midfielder, but do you score (too) little, so the goalkeeper cannot handle it? In other words, is money leaking from your company?
Or are you the creative striker who sees many opportunities, may even get to score, but has not organized his backs well enough? In the end, leading your company to lose money. It applies just as much to the entrepreneur with staff as without staff. There is a good chance that you, as an entrepreneur, are more likely to be on the playing field than assume the role of a coach.
TIP
A business coach or entrepreneurship trainer who occasionally gives you tips and advice from the sidelines will significantly help your game.
Just like football, entrepreneurship is a top sport, and every top athlete has a coach.
In this 4 minute blog, you learn about the impact and benefits of coaching small business owners and how that differs sharply from why entrepreneurs think they need a coach. What are the learnings they took home from this blog?
Table of contents
Entrepreneur coach
Business coaching questions to ask
Benefits of coaching sessions
Four major learnings
Small business coaching services
Entrepreneur coach
There are a lot of business owners. But, many of them struggle with running a business and achieving business success. That’s where the small business coach comes in. Small business coaches help new and existing business owners with any number of tasks to foster their entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is not about having a business, but about having an entrepreneurial mindset. At least being enterprising enough for the type of business in which a small business owner is active.
Maybe your coachee has the mindset to be a successful entrepreneur, or perhaps he doesn’t. Nevertheless, in entrepreneurial coaching, which is very different from life coaching, you need to have an accurate profile of their personal entrepreneurial competencies.
Business coaching questions to ask
Furthermore, you need to find out what he misses out on and what his real coaching needs are. Because most of the coachees don’t know what their real problem is, as it turns out.
Research among almost 4,000 business owners found that the coaching needs that entrepreneurs have before the coaching sessions started differ significantly from the learnings they took home.
In an open-ended question, business owners wrote down what they expect before the coaching session began. And, at the end of the executive coaching sessions, they jotted down what learnings they took home. Their answers were categorized into labels to compare them. It led to the following exciting findings.
Benefits of coaching sessions
Most entrepreneurs are not looking for a business coach or mentor, although times are slowly changing for the better. Any business owner can benefit significantly from a professional coach, who is an experienced entrepreneur and has led a successful business.
Managing business has gotten more complex and is changing more rapidly. There simply is no longer the time to “learn while doing” or the margin of error to “learn by making mistakes.” A business coach can help to speed up the learning curve to guide a founder from his comfort zone towards business growth effectively. They have seen so many companies from the inside in their life, that they can help any coaching client to overcome their business and personal challenges.
Four major learnings
First of all, as an entrepreneur coach, you need to get in contact with troubled business owners. To get in touch easily and ask great questions, our business Reality Checkoffers good help to get potential clients. At the first encounter, the coaching client will tell his primary needs, but is that what he truly needs?
The chances are big that ‘Support’ (80% of the entrepreneurs say they look for an entrepreneurial coach, not a life coach, to solve their problems) and ‘access to your Network’ (mentioned by 73%) are at the top of their list. That’s okay, of course.
But, as it turns out after the coaching sessions ended, ‘Support’ is the least mentioned (71%). The more crucial lesson they learned from their coaching experience is that they have determined how to solve their problems on their own (mentioned by 96%).
The table below states the benefits of business coaching. On the left, the needs mentioned before the leadership development started and on the right, and the learnings after business coaching.
Needs mentioned before coaching
Learnings after business coaching
#1 Need: Support, mentioned by 80%
#1 Learning: Sparring partner and much more than that; learned to solve problems on their own, mentioned by 96%
#2 Need: Network by 73%
#2 Learning: Network (learned how networking works by 75%
#3 Need: Sparring partner by 70%
#3 Learning: Mirror; insight in own profile & business and specific skills by 73%
#4 Need: Mirror by 64%
#4 Learning: Support by 71%
Learning #1
The first and most crucial learning of coachees is that they learned how to solve their problems on their own. They found out that the small business coach was much more than a sparring partner or mentor. An executive coach who motivated them to believe in themselves and in their ability and accountability to solve any problem they face.
This learning was reported by 96% of the coachees. This development of entrepreneurial learning was an unexpected outcome. Coachees were expecting a good or even a great coach who would solve their problems; mentorship and support (mentioned by 80% of the coachees). However, the coaching relationship turns out to be very crucial to get this kind of business success.
Learning #2
The second learning that the coachees took home is learning how networking works for them. Where they expected to have access to the network of the business coach, what they got, the bigger surprise was that they learned to start networking effectively.
So, how they can build a network of their own that fits their entrepreneur profile.
Learning #3
The third learning that entrepreneurs reported after coaching sessions is that they have a better and deeper insight into their entrepreneurial personality profile and what business skills and knowledge they miss out on.
Many more entrepreneurs (73%) reported that they appreciated the coach holding up a mirror, where only 64% anticipated this before business coaching started.
Learning #4
The fourth lesson learned by entrepreneurs is that they have received assistance in improving their company performance and business skills. Of course, the need for support is the primary driver for any business owner to start seeking help; mentioned by 80% of the coachees.
Some aspects of their business or performance aren’t going the way they foresaw. Although the coachees seek help and call it ‘Support,’ they have no clear idea what a business coach will bring to the table.
To speed up the connection and ‘chemistry’ between a business coach and business owner, DISC was introduced. It helped the coach to talk about the person behind the business and its problems and build a sound coaching relationship right from the start.
Small business coaching services
Every entrepreneur is unique, so is their path to business growth and emotional intelligence. Thus, small business owners need to discover what works for them and their businesses. However, many never get to make it successful businesses. So, as a small business coach, you can help to speed up this problematic, unpredictable process with action plans, coaching programs, and coaching sessions.
Something to keep in mind when you talk to a prospect who is considering business coaching about the extra unexpected added value that you provide as a business coach. Entrepreneurs don’t know upfront what they are going to learn.
Do you want to get the best business coaching reviews and grow your coaching business? Learn how DISC can work for you in both attracting new clients and turn clients into fanatical ambassadors? Get Your DISC Report here.
In this 5 minute blog, I’ll tell you what the difference is between a red vs blue ocean, and how certain entrepreneurial skills can help you survive a bloody red ocean. Because, only with a blue ocean strategy and the right entrepreneurial mindset, you can swim into a more profitable and distinct blue uncontested market space.
Table of contents
Entering a red ocean
Red ocean vs blue ocean
How to survive in a red ocean?
How to avoid a red ocean strategy?
Blue ocean strategy
Business coaching industry
Free E-Scan; the marketing tool for coaches
Entering a red ocean
A red ocean is a metaphor for a market full of competitors and little differentiation. Cutthroat competition turns an ocean bloody. Are you a business owner? Then, the chances are that you are already operating in a market turning red because you lack a clear competitive advantage. Wondering how you can make competition irrelevant.
So, the question is: where would you like to be? Do you like to operate in the busy and highly competitive market space with battling competitors, or do you prefer the spacious, pioneering, yet very new market space where competition is irrelevant?
Be warned, though, once you become successful in that blue ocean, a competitor or copycat will soon arise and take advantage of your blue ocean strategy. However, this competitor will not make the mistakes you have made to get there first. With this first challenger, more will join the yet uncontested market space. In the end, forcing you into a bloody ocean again.
Especially in this Internet episode, more people see an opportunity to start the same (online) business you started earlier. Of course, this process in itself is not new. It is part of entrepreneurship. What do you do when you are in a blue, uncontested market space, and it is – slowly or not – turning red?
Red ocean vs blue ocean
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne introduced the term red and blue ocean a few years ago with their book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy.‘ This book is a must-read for any small business owner or wannabe entrepreneur.
Do you have the support of a business coach? Else, find a business coach here! Let them guide you with this insightful knowledge. There is a ‘step-by-step’ guide inside their book. A business coach can help you grow into a more profitable business. However, first, you have to know how entrepreneurial you are and where your personal strengths and weaknesses lie.Check here the entrepreneurial mindset.
The professors claim that competition can be rendered irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set. The image below explains, as a blue ocean strategy summary, the difference between a red and blue ocean market.
Image: red vs blue ocean strategy. Source: Book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’
How to survive in a red ocean?
In red oceans, business leaders and entrepreneurs are in a cage of creating innovation and competitive advantage as dominant business thinking. Consequently, they are rivaling head to head with their competition over the same existing customers. So, they all are doing exactly the same things, only better and cheaper to outperform their rivals – an attempt to grab lasting success.
As the existing market becomes busier with the same existing demand, the hopes for profitable growth become smaller. Products turn into commodities, and the competition turns the water bloody. Many companies face difficulties as they try to sway away from the competition.
How to avoid a red ocean trap?
Defeating competition by working harder will not work. Battling for the lowest price, will not give you strategic success either. You will have to move to leave the competition behind.
It always reminds me of Alice talking with the red queen of the chessboard in the movie and the book of Lewis Caroll’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass”. Suddenly, she starts running, but no matter how hard Alice runs, she stays in the same place. The queen explains that in their country, you have to run at least twice as fast to get somewhere else. This story is an excellent business metaphor (see our next blog) for what happens in red oceans.
You need to have a blue ocean idea.
Blue ocean strategy
Denote all the industries not in existence today, the unknown market space, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, the new demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.
There are two ways to create blue oceans.
The first way, as happened in a few cases, is when a company gives rise to an entirely new industry. An excellent example of a blue ocean strategy is eBay, which did it with the online auction industry, or Cirque du Soleil with the circus industry.
The second, more common way is to create a blue ocean within a red one. This happens when a company alters the market boundaries of an existing industry, as Curves did within the saturated fitness sector.
Tips and tries to implement a blue ocean strategy
So, what can you do besides hiring an entrepreneur coach? How do you stay blue or become blue again? Here are a few tips and tricks for a blue ocean strategy:
Offer benefits that competitors consider irrelevant or over-unique. Think for example of shape; a unique style not typical for the product category; or a unique purpose, for instance, a contribution to the environment and implement this purpose throughout your whole organization, be authentic.
Make a combination of benefits for your customers of different product categories or lines of business. The key is to define the total solution buyers seek when they choose a product or service. A simple way to do so is to think about what happens before, during, and after your product is used.
Search for other buyer groups or other segments for your product.
Find a new appeal.
The process of discovering and creating blue oceans is very structured, and entrepreneurs are engaged in the process of reordering market realities in a fundamentally new way. It is not about predicting or preempting industry trends. You can approach your business from a different perspective on time.
Focus on powerful commonalities in what buyers value instead of focusing on customer differences.
However, there is one important disclaimer to make with a blue ocean strategy, especially if you are an entrepreneur or small business owner with little budget for marketing and business strategy. Make sure you check whether your entrepreneurial personality is suited for a blue ocean strategy.
Business coaching industry
Coaching is still a relatively young industry. Nowadays, the coaching industry is a $2 billion industry and the second-fastest growing industry in the US. Before coaching became so popular and mainstream, it was a domain run by psychologists. Although the market is huge, coaches still experience it as a blue ocean that turns red.
There are a lot of different types of coaches. Research shows that coaches, in general, have a hard time finding enough clients. The business coach, as a specific type of coach, is faced with the following three biggest challenges:
Lead generation
Conversion of leads
Consistency of income
They are no different from any business owner in that respect. Just like many self-employed business people, business coaches are good at what they do (see future blog). They are specialists. Probably a lot like you. However, the red line in these three challenges is more about bringing in customers than there are too few customers.
Getting clients is a struggle for most entrepreneurs in any industry. Especially when they are practicing their profession, they aren’t able to attract new clients. Most coaches, whatever the type of coach, often admit that they have no idea where their next client will come from. They just have to find a structured way to get a constant stream of clients.
