Finders, Minders, and Grinders - More on Being a Yoga Teacher and Entrepreneur

This morning in my Technorati twitter feed came this post: Three Personality Types that Help Drive Business.

I’m not  a big fan of the terms the author used. (Last I checked no one enjoyed “the daily grind.” Who wants to be considered a “grinder”?) But the post is so pertinent to what I wrote last night about being a yoga teacher and entrepreneur that I will write a bit more about it here.

The author, “with over 15 years of intensive marketing, public relations, business development and management experience”, identified three types of people for professional service business “when looking at how to operate and grow effectively.” (And make no mistake, as a yoga teacher, you are a professional, and you are providing a professional service.)

The three types are:

1) Finders: the people who lead the business development. They bring in new business, create new relationships and continue to sell to existing customer.

2) Minders: the ship captains. They make all operations run smoothly, manage stuff, ensuring things get done.

3) Grinders: the ones who get the job done. In our case, this means teaching, and continue to learn how to learn, learn how to teach, learn how to communicate. This is the part everyone sees.

I’ve paraphrased the types a bit, because I find some of the language a little distressing, (”These people are the cogs of a business” is just so cringe-inducing to me.)

Each role is absolutely critical to the success of a company and they all think that they are the most important. Without finders you would have no new business coming in the door, and no new projects for your team to work on. Without minders you would miss your deadlines and fail to monitor and achieve your profitability and success. And without grinders, nothing real would ever get delivered to your clients.

There is one rare type of professional to look out for in a services business however. They are they type that can carry all three roles and flip between them as required, with ease. If you find one of these, be sure value it for the quality jewel that it is.

This is the part where, if you never thought of yourself as one, now’s the time to consider yourself a quality jewel if you are about to start a business teaching yoga. Things will change down the road. You might find that you don’t particularly enjoy doing one type of work and get someone else to do it, for example. When you first start out, however, you’ve got to be aware of what you’re in for and what you’ll be called to do.

I would say that the author missed out several other really Important Roles: an Incubator, someone who sees far and thinks big, and an Advisor, or Mentor, someone who can guide you through the growing pain. Okay, another post is called for, eh?

Sunny spot, we all need one.