Why Hire a Business Coach?

Reasons to Hire a Business Coach

Let's start with something obvious and that is the fact that while many businesses have similar aspirations and operational challenges, what the need and how one approaches each challenge will regularly need to differ.

There are a few things that effect this, such as:

• Differences in resource,
• Differences in staffing experience, or
• Differences in business maturity and positioning.

Similar to a doctor treating the same illness across different patients, it is the individual backstory and the health of each patient that determines the treatment required.

Clients may ask entirely different questions or hold opposing priorities, despite carrying the same objective. Their personal responsibilities, home life and everything in between will also differ, and this will always impact the advice given. As such suggestions or approaches will be customised to suit the needs of the business and/or the preferences of the owner.

If the business is not attracting new customers, for example, your coach may provide recommendations for improving marketing and communications, perhaps helping with any analysis to look at why the results are stagnant. A review of the last campaign may reveal techniques that are no longer bearing fruit and a coach will work with the owner to identify improvements.

Introducing Concepts and Frameworks

The hiring of a coach is not a silver-bullet or magical solution to all your challenges. If this is what you’re expecting, then think again. Having a mentor or accountability driven business coach is a partnership, like any other professional coach and mentee relationship. Sporting partnerships being the obvious comparison, what you are paying for is direction and guidance based upon pre-existing experience.

In addition to introducing any new concepts or frameworks to support your specific needs (such as time-management, process improvement or change management methodologies), your coach will put in place measures for monitoring progress, to track objectives and ensure the achievement of goals. Choosing the right key performance indicators (KPI’s) to monitor is a big part of this.

On account of their experience a good coach will often be able to help or advise on getting the right software solutions in place too, and may be able to speak towards some of the challenges or hidden costs associated with expansion or business improvement. This will be in addition to providing input as to which key performance indicators will be most helpful, as you roll-out those changes.
 

Addressing Your Shortcomings

Every business owner has a few things that they know aren’t quite working as well as they could be. Of course, it is sometimes difficult to face up to these and admit when things should be better. If you are struggling to face your fears and admit that things that need changing, then this is perhaps one of the best reasons to hire a business coach. An awareness of the fact that you procrastinate or delay tackling the more difficult tasks, are signs that business support might go a long way. Perhaps your strengths do not lie in those activities, adding a sense of legitimacy to the delay - but we all know, this almost always leads to a time-management problem, with too much work left over at the end of the day.

Once again, a holistic coach will help address any personal shortcomings in a non-judgmental way. You will be encouraged to question even those processes that you think are working well, in order to see what could be further improved. Business is regularly about reaching outside of and expanding your comfort zone (testing and pressing the boundaries). If you’re struggling to do this on your own, then you're in luck - because a coach with the right background will be interested in both your personal growth and business improvement alike.

Hitting a Wall...

Business owners often feel as though they have hit a wall when it comes to their businesses. The relentlessness of performance managing staff or recruiting challenges, supply chain problems, mounting administration and the lack of time to plan improvements. Perhaps you feel the same?

This can be frustrating if you know that you need to plan a change of direction, or desperately need to re-energise things, but you are consumed with the day-to-day activities. A non-emotive, impartial and objective business coach will be able to offer some suggestions to help move things forward. They will help you to see barriers to success, and present options for overcoming these challenges.

Tapping the Coaches Network

The benefit of having an extensive business network cannot be overstated. I have personally lost count of the number of fantastic introductions I've been able to place for clients, and the solutions we have been able to deploy as a result of my connections. Whether specialist legal contacts, niche suppliers or everyday services at great prices. The extended connections of a well versed business coach will invariably act as a perk of the relationship.