There comes a point in business when working harder stops solving the problem.
For real estate and service based sales professionals, that moment can be difficult to recognize. The habits that helped build early momentum can eventually become the very habits that limit growth: answering every call, handling every detail and staying constantly available.
Deborah Stellingwerff, author of Align and Prosper, believes the next level often requires something different.
“The business you want begins with the leader you become,” says Stellingwerff, founder of Aligned and Prosperous Coaching Inc.
Her work centers on a principle that sounds simple but has significant implications: leadership creates alignment, and alignment creates prosperity. Rather than asking business owners to fit themselves into a prescribed model, she helps them build companies around their strengths, values, talents, personalities and stage of life.
When Doing More Stops Working
Entrepreneurs are often rewarded for effort, especially early on. Work longer. Sell more. Take another client. Push through. Eventually, however, there is a limit to how much growth effort alone can create.
Growth begins to require stronger boundaries, better systems, more thoughtful financial leadership and, in many cases, the ability to lead other people. The owner has to change along with the business.
This is where Stellingwerff sees personal leadership becoming inseparable from business strategy.
“You don’t have to sacrifice your health and well-being to be successful,” she says. “You do need to become the leader your business needs.”
That philosophy reframes growth. Revenue still matters, but it is one measure among several. A prosperous business also has to account for capacity, relationships, money, systems and the life its owner intends to live.
There Is No Universal Blueprint
Stellingwerff resists the idea that entrepreneurship has one correct formula.
A strategy that suits one Realtor may be entirely wrong for another. Someone building a large team faces different choices from a professional who values a smaller practice and greater flexibility. Life stage matters. So do personality, ambition, family responsibilities and individual definitions of success.
For Stellingwerff, that freedom is part of the appeal of entrepreneurship. Business owners have an opportunity to define success for themselves, then create a company capable of supporting that definition.
Her perspective is informed by more than business coaching. Stellingwerff holds a master’s degree in English with a focus on rhetoric and brings more than 20 years of experience as an educator in communication and human behaviour. That background brings another dimension to her work, particularly when examining how leaders communicate, make decisions and influence the people around them.
Building a Business That Supports Your Life
Stellingwerff puts these ideas into practice through her coaching programs and live events, including Master Plan, her annual business planning event for REALTORS®, which returns for its seventh year on November 6. The event goes beyond setting sales and production goals, asking participants to consider the business they want to build, the life they want that business to support and the leader they need to become to create both.
The larger work is helping professionals run their businesses like businesses so those businesses do not end up running their lives. As Stellingwerff puts it, “I don’t teach people how to become more productive. I teach them how to become less necessary.”
For some, that may mean pursuing greater profit. For others, it could mean more freedom, stronger boundaries or greater peace of mind. Often, it is some combination of all three.
The starting point remains the same: before asking what the business needs to do next, Stellingwerff encourages owners to consider who they need to become to lead it there.
Learn More
Learn more about Deborah Stellingwerff and Aligned and Prosperous Coaching Inc. at www.deborahstellingwerff.com. Follow her on Instagram at @coachdebstell and on LinkedIn at @DeborahStellingwerff.