What is Business Coaching? Business coaching is a profession where a coach spends focused time and energy over a defined period of time with the owners and managers of a company, to take the business from where it is now to where the business owner(s) want it to be. The role of a business coach is to help the client achieve the objectives that previously seemed impossible or out of reach.
Unfortunately, when it comes to coaching, anyone can say they are a coach.
I coached youth soccer for many years, and frankly, I never played soccer growing up, watched a game live or on TV, yet I coached my son Josh’s soccer team for seven years. While I may have known a bit more about soccer than the kids I was coaching, because after being asked to become the team’s coach, I read a few books on coaching and soccer, but I was by no means an expert. I was a poser, masquerading as a coach. Because anyone can call themselves a coach, many people have had a bad coaching experience, which has given coaching a bit of a black eye.
Regrettably, many programs promise a person that they can become a certified business coach if they just enroll in their coaching program. I find this incredibly dishonest marketing. While a coaching program may help someone understand how to use a diagnostic tool or a methodology, it can never impart the wisdom that it takes to become a business coach, which in my opinion, takes years of trial and error and is not something you can learn by listening to a lecture or reading about it. To gain the wisdom necessary to be an effective coach, you must have walked the walk.
On the topic of certification, what is a certification really worth? I am a “Certified Business Consultant” with the Pikes Peak Small Business Development Center and a “Certified Small Business Mentor” with SCORE. My certification consisted of sitting through an online program on the organization’s counseling or mentoring methodology. Neither taught me any of the technical skills of a business that my clients are looking for. So next time someone says they are a certified coach, take it with a grain of salt because the certification, in most cases, will have no real bearing on helping you succeed.
I have chosen to use the term business coach since, by definition, a “coach” is a person that helps improve performance. Moreover, the term coach is far more universally used than consultant or mentor. When looking for a business coach, you don’t have to worry about whether they call themselves a business consultant, business mentor, or business coach. What you want most is one with the following five attributes.
Experience
When you decide to hire a business coach, look for someone with real-world experience. Ideally, the coach should have experience in launching, operating, and successfully exiting a business. Anyone can say they started and operated a business. What you want is someone that had a successful business. One that has earned an acceptable return on invested capital and could have been sold to another company or owner. Building a company that someone was willing to buy proves the business’s value and the coach’s experience.
When you hire a coach, much of what you are paying for is their experience. As we alluded to earlier, many coaches are trained in a system or process and may claim to be certified business coaches, but the real value comes from their real-world business experience rather than their education.
Industry Knowledge
Industry knowledge is another crucial attribute in a business coach. If you hire a business coach that has built, operated, and sold several automotive-related companies, while they may have been very successful in this type of business, their business experience may not be 100% relevant if you are starting an eCommerce drop shipping business.
Moreover, when your business coach has worked in the same or similar industry, they likely have a list of contacts that will prove very valuable. Furthermore, they probably have developed many procedures that can easily apply to your business.
Business Acumen
You will also want a business coach with a high degree of business acumen. According to Wikipedia, business acumen is a “keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a business situation, both risks, and opportunities, in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome.”
A good business coach, by virtue of their vast business experience and industry knowledge, can see the big picture that often eludes business owners who are forced to keep their heads down while operating in the trenches every day. The best business coaches were business owners themselves and possess an executive mentality that helps them understand all the moving parts and how they interact and affect each other.
Authentic
Great business coaches are authentic and true to their personality, values, and spirit, regardless of the pressure to act otherwise. They are honest with themselves and others and take responsibility for their mistakes. They share stories of their personal failures as well as their successes.
Delusions of Grandeur by cmdixon2
In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins refers to a concept he calls “The window and the mirror.” The window is a metaphor for looking at external conditions, while the mirror is a metaphor for self-reflection.
When a less effective leader encounters an obstacle, they look out the window and try to find external conditions to blame. When something good happens, they look into the mirror and take personal credit for it.
However, effective leaders use the window and mirror in a very different way. When an effective leader encounters a problem, they look into the mirror and ask what they could have done differently, taking ownership of the problem. When something good happens, they look out the window and say that external events or their team helped achieve the positive results.
Great business coaches are effective leaders and authentic. They don’t hide or withhold anything from their clients and demand that their clients do the same with them.
Business Stage Alignment
Not every business coach’s experience will align with yours. There are seven stages of business growth, mostly related to the size and complexity of the business. Over the course of the seven stages, the business’s priorities, the role played by the leader, and the challenges faced by the business evolve.
I have several friends that have led venture-backed companies. While we have all started, grown, and sold businesses, our business experiences are not the same. I have other friends that occupied the C-suites of large publicly held companies and were heads of Sales and Marketing or acted as Chief Financial Officers (CFO); while they have a tremendous amount of business knowledge, they may have little to offer the owner of an HVAC company or a tire store. It is therefore important that the stages in which your business coach has gained experience align with those of your business.
Business Coach Specialty
There are many specific forms of business coaching generally reserved for larger businesses, but it’s worth mentioning even though I’m writing for an audience of smaller businesses. Among the most notable coaching specialties are sales, leadership, executive, financial, and marketing. While a small business may desire to hire a business coach with a particular specialty, many small businesses often focus on finding a coach with more industry knowledge than a coaching specialty.
Are you ready to hire a business coach, and do you know what to look for?
