If you’re a business owner considering hiring a business coach to help you get to the next level then it’s really important you do your research to find the right match.
There are a lot of different styles of coaching and a lot of people out there promoting themselves as business coaches.
Everybody has a different idea of what a coach does and what you can get out of the coaching relationship but here are a few things from my point of view that you should expect from working with a good business coach.
It’s Important to Find the Right Fit
Firstly, you want to find a business coach who has proven time and time again that their methods, their framework, and their approach works.
You need to read testimonials, ask questions, and do your research.
Most importantly you need to understand their approach.
To help you understand this point, let me explain my approach to business coaching.
There are essentially three dimensions.
1. Business Development
The first dimension of my business coaching is focused on business development, and that’s about the systems, tools, strategies and tactics to be implemented in the business.
That’s the part that most people think of when they think of business coaching.
There isn’t a shortage of information out there. Business owners are bombarded with business building & business growth information every day. What they should be doing, the latest technology, the latest strategy.
The problem for most business owners they are overwhelmed with information. Overwhelm leads to confusion which leads to inaction.
My job as a business coach is to help you figure out where your business is in terms of the stage of development and then determine the priorities to move it to the next stage.
In other words, I help you cut through all the noise and enable you to get results effortlessly by focusing on the right things for where you’re currently at and where you want to get to next.
2. Personal Development
The second dimension of my business coaching is focused on the personal development of the business owner.
This is helping the owner adopt and move towards a mindset of success, I call this the science of success. However, that’s only half of the equation. The other half is what I call the art of fulfilment.
Let me describe it this way.
‘The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle’. Meaning, the capacity of the business to grow and develop is always limited to the owner’s capacity to grow and develop.
The success mindset involves developing the skills of leadership, communication, goal achievement, mastering emotions, our relationship with time and building the muscle of focus & concentration to name a few areas.
The other aspect of this is in balancing success-driven ambitions with personal fulfilment. Meaning, often business owners are so focused on chasing success for their business at the detriment of other parts of their life – their health, their relationships etc. without really seeing it until it is too late.
As someone much wiser than me once said: Success without fulfilment is the ultimate failure.
A good business coach is someone who has experienced their fair share of life’s challenges and undergone self-improvement and growth and understands the personal development journey.
3. Performance Accountability
The third dimension has to do with performance and accountability.
No matter how much discipline you think you have none of us have enough to overcome the resistance to change. Willpower will only get you so far.
Someone outside of ourselves will always help us do more, achieve more, and reach more than we would on our own.
That’s why so many of us have personal trainers, right?
We go to the gym, but a personal trainer helps us do more push-ups and better-quality push-ups.
And as a result, we get fitter faster.
The same thing applies to business.
Someone outside of yourself will help you achieve more.
Many business owners don’t really have anyone that holds them accountable.
A CEO of a bigger company will have a Chairman and a Board who will hold you accountable for the delivery of the plan on behalf of the shareholders.
As a business owner of a small to medium-sized company, often you don’t someone holding your feet to the fire.
Yes, there are the external realities of customers and banks and that kind of thing.
But at the end of the day, there isn’t anyone that holds you accountable day-to-day for working ON your business.
Having someone hold you accountable will help you to achieve more.
So that’s the three core elements of my business coaching.
If you’d like to explore how business coaching with me could help you, get in touch. You can book an initial complimentary 15-minute call with me at TimeWithShane.com.
