Phil Castle, The Business Times

After working 20 years as a coach and consultant, life remains great for Marcus Straub.

He enjoys a growing base of clients and increasing sales while also expanding services. He’s won awards and other recognition. More important to Straub, he helps other business owners and their ventures succeed.

And so his reaction to the 20th anniversary of launching his Grand Junction firm is understandable. “I have a lot of joy. I have a lot of gratitude. There’s also a feeling of triumph.”

Straub is founder and chief executive officer of Life is Great Coaching and Consulting. He offers a range of services to business owners, companies, teams and organizations. Assessments, trainings and leadership development assist businesses with nearly every aspect of operations. Specific services address what he considers such key issues as communication and customer service. He also tailors services to individuals whether they seek professional or personal improvement.

Straub says he learns as much from his clients as they learn from him. “Every client I meet teaches me something. I want the knowledge to help people.”

Straub still remembers the day he filed the incorporation papers for his business with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. That day followed a chain of events and what he says was a change from a job in which he worked on computers to make money to a job in which he works with people to make a difference.

He closed his business as a financial advisor and worked four seasons as a professional whitewater raft guide. While guiding on one five-day trip, he got to know a woman riding in his boat. At the end of the trip, he says she gave him a hug and asked him why he wasn’t helping people.

He says he discovered at the moment his purpose in life. “I realized I was here to help people.”

Straub launched Life is Great, but also worked as a yoga instructor. He says he connected with some of his first clients through the studio.

Within a couple of years, though, Straub says his clientele and revenue grew. While he continues to work with clients in the Grand Valley and Western Colorado, he says computer technology enables him to also work with clients across the United States and around the world.

He was nominated three times for International Coach of the Year and in 2011 won the award.

Straub says one of his favorite memories from his work as a coach and consultant was having his daughter with him in his car when he received the telephone call informing him he’d won the award.

There are countless memories, he says, of the clients he’s helped turn their businesses around and those who’ve improved their personal lives.

His role, he says, is to listen carefully, ask good questions and then provide pertinent information. In the process, he looks for solutions that help business owners, but also help their teams, customers and the community. Businesses can make the money they need to operate, but also make the world a better place, he says.

Straub says one of the most common problems he encounters is ineffective communication. People more often listen with the intent to reply than the intent to understand. In business, ineffective communication results in disgruntled employees, unsatisfied customers and dysfunctional operations.

People can learn how much they unknowingly sabotage their professional and personal relationships by not listening and become more effective communicators. Business owners and managers who learn  to communicate with the intention of understanding and model the techniques lead what in turn become thriving teams, he says.

Customer service constitutes another prevalent issue, he says. Businesses that provide exceptional, caring services to customers fare better and engender more loyalty than businesses that don’t. Like effective communication, providing good customer services starts at the top with leaders, he says.

Still other problems arise when business owners and managers are reluctant to let go of what Straub terms the “bad apples” on their teams — employees who might possess the skills and knowledge to do their jobs, but also come to work with bad attitudes.

Financial mismanagement and poor workplace cultures lead to business failures as well, he says.

Help is available, though, Straub says — to not only address problems, but also discover opportunities.

Straub says he’s happy and grateful to have provided businesses and individuals that help over the past 20 years.

Life, he says, remains great.

For more information about Life is Great Coaching and Consulting, call (970) 208-3150, visit www.ligcoaching.com or email marcus@ligcoaching.com.