When you’re starting a business, it’s hard to have all the pieces together right away. In fact, it’s hard to know what you’re doing when what you’re planning is your first venture into the business world. Regardless of what business you have—be it digital, brick and mortar, or a combination of the two—being able to find your way through the help of someone who knows what it’s like to start their own business can be immensely helpful, especially if that person knows and understands the struggles that surround starting your own business with little to no guidance from someone else.

That’s why Danielle Ewalt is so dedicated to helping those around her! My guest for this week’s episode of the PDX Small Business Network Podcast, Danielle is a business coach who helps small businesses owners and entrepreneurs in the Portland area get a grasp on their business strategies by coaching them through being a business owner! Together, Danielle and I talk about the kind of work she does, and how she inspires other business owners to success using her own success story. Let’s get started!

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• What it is Danielle does! As a coach, Danielle works with business owners to work on their business strategy in order to build up a team of people who will work for them. Usually, these people are a product based company, or they run an office, and Danielle helps to provide them with the rights steps needed to create the structure for their business to help them achieve their goals, and bring their team into it! The end goal is to have a team that’s powerful enough to run the business when the owner isn’t there, letting you enjoy time off that you need!
• Danielle talks to us more in-depth about what she works on, stating that her work primarily exists in helping business owners build the framework of how they’re running their business, and how they’re working with their staff. Regardless of the type of business, she’s working with, the thing they have in common is having employees that they want to leverage, and the question revolves around helping those employees come into the fold of understanding the vision of the company. You, the founder, don’t have to do everything! You can train people to take on these responsibilities and generate high levels of experience in the process.
• Danielle explains to us why she got started in the coaching industry, stating that she started her own company 8 years ago with her husband. Together, they had a cafe and coffee roastery, and they floundered during their first years in business trying to understand how to run it. They had to figure out how to run a business that’s profitable, runs well, and that they don’t have to be around all the time for the business to find success. Together, Danielle and her husband learned the hard way through trial and error—and research—and eventually reached a point where the business was successful and running perfectly. However, her struggle (as well as people asking her how she turned it around) is what motivated her to get into the coaching industry!
• Danielle also tells us how much she enjoys being there for people, explaining that she felt so along during her time as a business owner, and it never really crossed her mind to connect with someone that could help her and her husband. They lost a lot of money, and it took them longer than it needed to in order for them to be successful, and she knows that if someone like her had helped their process, it would’ve been much better.
• Danielle talks to us about the top problems that are happening in small businesses, explaining that a lot of the issues revolve around all the responsibility falling onto the shoulders of the owners. They haven’t created a structured system to offload some of that responsibility to others, and they haven’t created the space to hold them accountable for it.
• Additionally, Danielle talks about how important accountability is as a tool for furthering the business. It helps people understand clearly what’s expected of them and that there are consequences if they can’t live up to those expectations. When you hire people, you need to have conversations to solve these issues, and when Danielle works with people, she finds that sometimes they’re hiring people at random and expecting them to do a good job without giving them the space to understand what it is that they’re doing, making them frustrated in the end that nothing is getting done.
• Some advice from Danielle on solving those issues is encouraging business owners to understand and know what you want your employees to do. Furthermore, it helps to think about the top 5 things that this employee will be doing with 80% of their time in the workplace, and once you have those tasks and skills on hand, you want to quantify them in a way that brings productivity and brings results. Train the staff appropriately, give them a quota to meet, and if they can’t meet it, tinker with the equation until you get what you need.
• Lastly, Danielle talks to us about how she’s “The Unconventional Consultant”, stating that due to her personal and approachable nature, testimonials about her stated that she was unconventional in her approach! She has the experience and understanding to know where these people are coming from, but she’s also personable and will engage with you about your life, and your issues.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Danielle Ewalt
• Work With Her
• Danielle’s Blog
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

Did Danielle not have time to answer a burning question on your mind? No worries! You can send an email to Danielle, or through any of the social media links listed above. Danielle has the amazing experience to deliver real results, and on top of that, she’s nice and understanding with those she works with! If you ask me, it’s a perfect match!