Coaches can help businesspeople thrive

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Diana Scott Shields, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

As children and students, people are surrounded by models and mentors in the form of parents, teachers, coaches and advisers.

That changes once someone starts a business or gets a job at companies without solid mentoring programs. There’s often no one to turn to and plotting a career path or building a small business gets lonely.

Enter the business coach.

Just as the athletic coach doesn’t run the ball down the field or take the pitcher’s mound, a business coach doesn’t run the business or promise to drive the bottom line. The business coach drives business owners or company executives to become the business leader they aspire to be.

The number of business coaches is on the rise. The International Coach Federation has 21,000 members, half of those in the United States. Northeast Pennsylvania is home to a growing number of business coaches working with both local businesses and those far way, offering an outsider’s perspective on business owners’ issues and helping them focus and manage effectively.

“If you try to change the business without changing the owner, you will fail,” said Robert Scott, of CoachFirm, based in Lords Valley. “But the moment you change the thinking of the owner, the business will change.”

Diana Scott (no relation to Robert Scott) of the Scranton-based Fresh Mind Coaching, said business people often feel stranded.

“They may be looking for a mentor or a sounding board, someone without a vested interest in a certain outcome,” she said. “A coach gives people a place to say out loud their goals and intention and gives them an action plan and holds them accountable.”

Lonely at the top

Professionals often don’t have people they can confide in about their business.

Take for example Michelle Dempsey. The Scranton-based architect founded the firm DX Dempsey in 2003 had a handful of employees and soon became overwhelmed and nearly paralyzed. A friend in New York City connected her with a business coach there, Roz Burak.

“You think everything needs to be done first,” she said of being at the helm of a growing business. “It sounds simple, but Roz helped me develop a system where I can attack the things I can in a day, and I don’t feel crushed.”

In those early days at DX Dempsey, everyone was so busy they rarely had meetings. But meetings are essential for effective management and quality control. Ms. Burak helped them establish meeting discipline – every meeting had a goal and a time limit.

Ms. Dempsey’s family operates Dempsey Uniform and Linen Supply, so she has no shortage of business expertise to draw upon, and she does, for the nitty gritty of finances and management. Ms. Burak takes the temperature of the business of regular basis and knows Ms. Dempsey as a manager.

“She allows me to see the back of my head and to bring things we can’t see to the front,” Ms. Dempsey said. “When there is an issue, she helps us determine what to do, holds us to it. We don’t make excuses any longer for why things don’t get done.”

Another issue for Ms. Dempsey is that she is a trained architect – not a business person or necessarily a manager. That’s not uncommon.

Few people in small businesses have formal business training. Many of them are pulled into business by a passion or a hobby – anything from machining to cooking. Making a hobby into a business can be a major mistake, Mr. Scott said.

“If you love baking, why ruin it by starting a bakery?” he said. “A particular skill does not translate at all into business success.”

The moment the passionate hobbyist with the business hires and employee, they are in a new world of human resources, law, accounting and management. The arc goes like this, Mr. Scott said: The proprietor gets overwhelmed, often fails to prioritize tasks or delegate. They get upset and do one of two things they should not do: downsize or work even harder.

Based in Los Angeles, Carol Head is a well-heeled businessperson. Holder of an MBA, she is no stranger to corporate management. She broke out on her own and over 10 years built up and sold a wholesale artisanal bakery. For the last year she has run a web retailer serving the knitting and crocheting community. Yet, she still benefits from working with Diana Scott.

“You get emerged in your business and you see the trees and not the forest,” Ms. Head said. “You end up with the problems no one else wants to solve. I could do my job without coaching. But it’s useful to have an external person’s perspective.”

Hitting a rough patch with a client, what to do when employees aren’t working well together, are the sort of issues that Ms. Head may discuss with Ms. Scott.

Selecting a Coach

Alan Brumagim, Ph.D. a professor of management at the University of Scranton who teaches an entrepreneur course, said most business coaches have a checklist they work through with clients. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but he suggested that businesspeople looking to retain a business coach avoid those with canned approaches and look for a coach who listens, ask questions and customizes a program. Look for ways to measure the coach’s service.

Some coaches bill by the hour or on a retainer. A business coach may charge $995 per month. That sounds like a lot, but business coaches will say that’s the equivalent of a part-time employee. Coaches often pitch that the client to tap into the source of experience, knowledge and guidance, and that coach can save money by improving decision-making.

Ms. Scott offers to prospective clients a free 30-minute strategy session. She found it takes three months, with weekly phone sessions, for coached clients to build momentum and see progress. Then she nudges clients to an annual retainer. But some clients prefer to stick to hourly rates.

Many business coaches are the product of business coaching.

In the 1990s, Robert Scott’s small auto parts retailer blossomed into a larger business. He turned to a business coach to help guide him through the struggles and growing pains. Once he sold the business, he decided to become a business coach himself and founded CoachFirm.

Similarly, Diana Scott worked with an executive coach when she had startup firm in New York in the 1990s and found it helpful. She earned a certification in NLP, neurolinguistic programing, applied in professional development and sales. After many career turns, she recognized the consistent thread was helping people. Combining that with her interest in psychology, business and individual performance, she became a business coach.

Ms. Scott has seen many coaches transition from clinical counseling and therapy. There’s a new type of client as well – financially successful people who are mid-career and waking up to an unhappy life. With these clients, she veers into being a life coach.

“They’ve been working 80 hours a week in jobs they really don’t like and they have the house, the car, but realize they want something else,” she said. “Time is a precious commodity. I see people who have had unbalanced lives wanting to get back to basics.”

For full article visit: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/business/coaches-can-help-businesspeople-thrive-1.1459359