4 Reasons You Should Seek Out a Business Coach

Posted on March 07, 2018 by Daniel Brown, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

So, you made the leap from being an employee to owning a business. Congratulations!!

Depending upon when you made the decision you most likely fall into one of the following categories:
• Things are going really well and you are content but feel that there is more growth and opportunity that you want to take advantage of.
• You have been in business for a while (at least a year) and things are not going exactly to plan and you are worried that you may need to consider returning to a salaried position
• You have just started out and are excited about what you are doing and believe that you will be an incredible success!

Early in your time as a small business owner you experience a myriad of emotions – sometimes in the same day! You go from thinking you have everything under control, to wondering whether you made the worst decision of your life!

This roller coaster is normal for most business owners especially when starting out and trying to establish a brand and a presence in your market. Things are a trial and error and some things will be successful and others will fall flat … it’s hard to know ahead of time what will and won’t work for your business, the key is to have a plan and an expectation of outcome for each activity and then commit to that … .but always be ready to pivot away from something that is not working!

Over time you will likely see inflection points in the business – I think of these as growth check points. Often it relates to a revenue level, and associated with this is situations where skill sets become called into question – do you have the skills to continue to grow the company the way you want to and the way it needs to?? The decision making required at $30,000 per year revenue as compared to $2 million are quite different! There can come a point where stagnation sets in. You can take yourself only so far without the help of others. It happens to everyone at some point! It is just up to you how to deal with it!.

That’s where the business coach comes into the picture. A business coach is somebody who helps you move from where you are to where you want to be, and does so by solely focusing on your goals. Imagine that! It’s all about you and your growth towards achieving your goals! And it doesn’t have to be financial return, it can be to have a better life/work balance, enjoy the journey of small business owner more! Whatever your goal is – that should be the goal that you and your business coach are working towards achieving.

If a business coach is something you’ve thought about recently but aren’t quite sold on getting one yet, here are four reasons why you should:

1. You don’t know what you don’t know

You have probably heard the expression that “we are greater overall than the sum of our individual parts”. This is never truer than for a small business owner. We have great knowledge of what product or service we undertook to start our business, however it is the rest of the activities that go along with running a business that we may not have much knowledge or experience with. The collective power of many is far superior to the single power of one, which speaks to the value a coach brings in brainstorming new ideas.

These new ideas will help to provide new awareness which in turn leads to better and new opportunities. By becoming aware of new things, you have increased your knowledge sphere and now have more control over what to do next – do you want to learn that skill or do you want to focus on the core aspects of your business and allow someone else to perform that function??

2. Gain clarity on decision making

As a small business owner how many times have you found yourself wondering whether the decision you are making is the correct decision for you? When we are thinking through important business decisions we need perspective – not all of our own ideas are the best! Without external perspective we can lead ourselves into a false sense of security around a decision. We talk ourselves into it!

A coach will provide a sounding board for you to bounce your ideas off and in doing so allows the coach to ask powerful questions that gets to the underlying concerns and thoughts for deeper discussion and analysis before moving ahead.

A coach may have an opinion on the appropriate task or direction, however a good coach will be one that waits for you to ask for the opinion, or better still waits until all possibilities have been extracted from you before offering a suggestion for consideration.

3. To be accountable

Isn’t it strange how easy it is to break the promises we make to ourselves, but less so when we involve other people? A coach serves as an accountability partner who challenges you to strategize and develop your goals while aligning your efforts toward achieving them. Think back just a month and a half ago to New Years Eve … did you make a New Years Resolution? Did it involve other people or was it just for you?? Chances are if you committed to being a part of something with others as your resolution that you are currently working to achieve it … for most of us the resolution has already been broken.

4. To receive guidance

As a small business owner we are likely to be very critical of our own failures, and at the same time overlook our successes. It’s strange to think about that isn’t it? Let me say that again: We are more likely to overlook our success and focus on our shortcomings!

Let me tell you there are plenty of people who want you to fail. Don’t add yourself to the list! Or at least before you do – hire a business coach. They can help to support you, challenge you and encourage thinking and consideration of business direction and your overall goals.

A business coach has a similar role to that of a sports coach. Why do NFL teams have WR coaches, QB coaches, D Line coaches … not to mention an offensive and defensive coordinator … and a head coach! All of these are in addition to the owner and the players! Why do they do this … doesn’t a professional athlete know how to play their position?? You would think so! Perhaps they do but there are things that they could do better but without this guidance / outside perspective they can’t see it and therefore don’t even realize that they aren’t breaking out of the route at the right moment, or they are blocking the offensive lineman in a way that either leads to a penalty or allows the opponent to out-leverage them.

It’s the same for small business owners – sometimes we are doing things in our own business that we don’t even realize are harmful or could be better aligned with our vision/goals. This is where you need guidance to help keep you on track and make sure that you are working towards achieving your goals as you have set them out.

The value of coaching resides in the mental tools the coachee learns that help him or her navigate toward success both inside and outside of the business world. You get to decide what is important for you – more earning capacity? More free time? Enjoy ownership more? You get to choose and a business coach will work closely with you to ensure this happens!

Successful athletes and business professionals use a coach to bring out their best. Shouldn’t you look more closely at brining someone in to get the best out of you and keep you on track to hit your targets!