Are you looking for a business coach to help you grow your business, but can’t figure out which one is the best? It is a tough choice since there are thousands of coaches out there and you may be wondering:
- What is a business coach?
- How does hiring a business coach help me?
- What are the benefits of business coaching?
- How am I going to find a business coach that I like?
Here is my two cents on these questions and at the end of this post I share my Business Coach Assessment Tool.
What is a business coach?
A business coach provides an outside perspective on your image, the image that you’re in, an image of you and your business as the owner, because as long as you’re in the image, you cannot see, understand and feel what’s happening in the image. You’re in it!
It’s pretty hard to see the image if you’re in it. So, somebody from outside takes a look at that image and says: Hey! looks like you’re doing this wrong or move this around and try something different because that part of your image doesn’t look right.
Another way to think about it is to think of all the sports teams. How many sports teams do you know that don’t have a coach?
Answer: Zero!
How many pro athletes do you know that don’t have a coach?
Answer: Zero!
Do the teams or the pro athletes have a chance of winning a championship or any sort of titles without a coach?
Answer: Absolutely not!
During the coaching session, the team gets feedback on:
- How they’re doing?
- What they should be working on?
- Their action plan and what they should be focusing on?
Now, most pro teams and pro athletes have multiple coaches:
- One coach for the game strategy
- One coach for the mindset
- Another coach for their physical training
- And more.
Basically, they have different coaches for different aspects of their game, which helps them succeed and get what they want in terms of their goals.
A business coach helps the small business owner and the business to create and implement plans and strategies to achieve their goals, and provide support and accountability to achieve their long term goals.
Entrepreneurs’ day to day business activities
As business owners, we are all lonely people in our day to day business life. We don’t talk to a lot of people about our problems, and we have to make a lot of decisions on a daily basis, which is a very tough task.
These could be decisions about:
- How to grow your business
- Strategies and actions
- Decisions about staff
- Products
- Pricing and packaging
- Sales and Marketing
- Hiring and firing
- Payroll
- and more…
However, once a business owner gets support, business growth becomes a lot easier, things get done when there is accountability, and the rate of procrastination goes down significantly.
Business Failure Rates
The failure rate on businesses is about 80 to 90% depending on:
- Whom you talk to and their attitude
- Where they are
- What kind of business they are in
- And the industry they are in
Some interesting facts to think about:
- 80 to 90% of the businesses that a start today, won’t make it to the first year.
- Another 80 to 90% don’t make it to the fifth year.
- Another 80 to 90% don’t make it to the 10th year. So, about 0.8% of businesses make it to
The business failure rate is pretty high and yet you see many business owners that don’t even think about getting support and accountability to fix their problems. But, you never see a sports team without a coach!
Once a business owner makes the commitment and starts working with a good coach, those failure rates change around. Most businesses and the owners that work with a business coach, experience success at a much faster and more secure way compared to the ones that don’t.
How to pick and choose your Business Coach?
What is the best way to choose your business coach?
Working with a business coach is very important and you’ve got to pick the right business coach and choose the best business coaching program. This has to be somebody that is a good fit for you and your business, has knowledge of what you do, and can show you how you’re going to take your business to the next level and reach your goals.
There are eight points that we’re going to cover on how to pick your business coach and create a successful business.
1- You MUST like this person, he or she must be likable,
You MUST like them and it must be the right fit in terms of personality. If you have the gut feeling that this person is not the right fit for you, you’re right, your gut is always right; move on and find someone else.
2- Is this person knowledgeable about their stuff?
After a one hour conversation with them over coffee you should be able to answer these questions:
- Do they know and understand business in general?
- How long have they been in business?
- Do they understand the whole business process?
- Do they read and update their knowledge on a regular basis?
Questions to ask a potential business coach:
- How often do you read books?
- How many books do you read per month?
- What was the last book that you read? What did you learn about it?
If they have a hard time answering these questions, run!
If they don’t update themselves and their knowledge, run!
- Ask them how often they attend a seminar to update their skills?
- How many times a month, week or day do you listen to a podcast, watch an educational video?
- What are they doing to update themselves?
Rate them on those questions. It is perfectly fine to create a list of questions and rate the coach on each question.
3- Do they specialize or have a specialty?
Do they specialize as a coach? Some business coaches claim to know and do everything about everything.
There are coaches that focus and specialize in different areas of business and specific industries:
- Mindset
- Sales and Marketing
- Team development
- Management
- Leadership
- and more
There are different coaching areas.
So, ask your future coach if they specialize in any area of business or in and industry? That’s a very, very important question to ask.
Tip: no one coach can help you with all aspects of your business.
4- Are they certified or qualified or both?
What do you mean by that, Mostafa?
well, let’s say you have no business experience, and then some job opportunity as a coach shows up. You can get some training over a weekend or a week, and become a certified business coach, without any previous business experience, even if you have a hard time spelling the word entrepreneur!
Then you can be a certified coach with a business card with a bunch of acronyms on it and become a certified business coach that has no clue about business!
And then there are qualified business coaches;
That is a person that has owned businesses, and they decided to coach and mentor others. That is a more qualified coach with previous business experience.
There also certified coaches that are very qualified because they have been coaching for a while and have practiced on many businesses. These coaches are qualified. You just want to make sure that they are not practicing on you, and that they are transferring their experience to you.
If you find someone that is qualified and certified, great, but you need to work with somebody that has owned and run a business before.
It is simple; if you don’t know how to ski, you cannot possibly teach me how to ski. Right?
If you don’t know how to write a book, you cannot possibly teach me how to write a book. Right?
If you have never run a business, you will do a very poor job of teaching me how to run my business because you just don’t have the context of how it works.
5- Does he or she walk the talk?
Do they only tell you what to do or do they do it themselves? Do they teach by example?
And you can tell from their surroundings from their business, the way they run their business and the way they do things. Pay attention to the clues.
Does this person appear to be walking their talk? Or is it a “Do as I say, not as I do” type of situation?!
6- Is this coach able to challenge me and my business?
Does he or she have the courage, confidence, and honesty to call me on my shit?
If I am procrastinating, if I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do, if I’m coming up with excuses, if I’m coming up with B.S, does this person have the confidence to call me on my B.S?
If yes, great. If not, trust your gut feeling and move on.
You do not want a Yes man. You don’t need to Yes man to be your coach. You need somebody to hold you accountable, and support you and push you through. Right?
7- Is the investment in the coaching program clear?
Here are a few questions to ask about a business coaching program that you are reviewing:
- What is the price that I’m going to pay for the coaching program?
- Are the business coaching rates clear?
- What are the extras? What is included? What is not included?
- And which coaching program am I getting myself into?
- What will be the goal of this program?
- What is expected of you and what is expected of the coach?
If you ask the above questions and the answers are not clear, move on.
8- Does he/she have good references, testimonials and reviews?
Make sure that they have references and testimonials.
To check on this, you can visit their LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, Google listing, and other listings and check what’s happening. Double check the quality of the reviews and make sure their cousin didn’t write it for them! 🙂 This is funny, but people do that!
Make sure to call their references. Many people don’t check the references and they hurt themselves.
Do NOT just suffice to one or two references; That’s not enough. You need to ask for three or four references or maybe more, and then DO check on them.
Do Not be afraid or lazy to check for or ask for references.
I hope this information helps you find the right business coach and grow your profits, reach your goals and create the lifestyle you always dream about.
I’ve shared my business coach assessment tool that helps you rate your business coach on these eight different areas and see if they’re a good fit for you.
Download the Free Business Coach Assessment Tool here
If you know any other business owners that could benefit from this article, please share it with them.
Comments or feedback are welcome on the form below. Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you. (I do read and reply to the comments)
To your massive success
Business and marketing coach and consultant
check out my other post: What does a business coach do?
What is a business coach?
A business coach is like a coach for a sports team but for businesses. They help business owners see their business from a different perspective and give advice on how to improve.
How does hiring a business coach help me?
Hiring a business coach helps you make better decisions for your business, grow faster, and be more successful because they give you support and hold you accountable.
What are the benefits of business coaching?
Business coaching helps you make fewer mistakes, grow your business faster, and feel less lonely as a business owner because you have someone to talk to about your problems.
How can I find a business coach that I like?
To find a business coach you like, look for someone you get along with, who knows a lot about business, specializes in the areas you need help with, and has good reviews from other people.
How do I know if a business coach is right for me?
A good business coach should be knowledgeable, specialize in the areas you need help with, have experience running a business, walk the talk, challenge you to do better, have clear pricing and expectations, and have good references from other people they have helped.
