When I tell people that I’m a business coach, they typically ask me for more details about my profession, so let me address the ten most common questions that I get.
1. What does a business coach do?
Business coaching is about helping leaders develop the right skills to achieve their objectives and improve their performance. The leaders I coach are very often the business owner with responsibility for the direction and performance of their company. These skills are typically about leadership, management, sales, and company culture.
2. A friend of mine is a life coach, what’s the difference?
Life coaches take a holistic approach: they bring focus to all aspects of the person’s life and well-being, such as health, spirituality, work, relationships, intellect, and so on. A Business Coach focuses more narrowly on the work aspect, helping the person improve their performance in the skills that require attention to get better results at work.
3. If you focus on business, are you a consultant?
A consultant works for their client, I work with my client. A consultant is hired for the company, a coach is hired for the business leader. A consultant is generally an expert in one field and will often work independently until their scope is completed. A coach will focus on their client, much like a sports coach: set goals, observe, assign drills, give feedback, provide accountability, and celebrate success. I provide my clients with focused reading materials, tools, training, and support to help them get even better at running their business.
4. Why not just call you a mentor?
Mentors have “been there, done that” and generally provide great advice to their protégé. Mentors can also open doors through their network of connections, and in most cases come from the same industry as their protégé. Business Coaches don’t have to be experts in your field, but rather to be experts at helping you to improve your skills.
5. My job title could easily be “problem-solver”, why would I need a coach to do my job?
As your business grows to the next stage, some of those problems will pile up and some of them will require new skills to get solved. You might be very good at trusting your gut and intellect to learn as you grow, but there may be times when the situation dominates you instead of you dominating the situation. When you realize that you are not making progress at the pace you would like, or you spend too much time “fixing” and less time “achieving”, you could get stuck and encounter difficulty to move forward. Coaching is a great way for you to learn those new skills and not get caught up in figuring out how to solve all problems by yourself. Have you ever felt lonely at work with no one to discuss ideas? Who gives you feedback? Think of a coach as your non-equity partner.
6. What types of problems can the coach help me solve?
They fall into four main categories:
A. Time – The business owner spends more and more time on urgent items and less on important items like setting a vision and tracking progress on goals. When putting out fires has taken center stage at work, it generally siphons time away from all other duties, sometimes affecting family, and life falls out of balance.
B. Team – We are all different people: we communicate and behave differently. If overlooked, these slight differences can turn into friction points that slow down collaboration and create conflict between team members. In the end, all work gets done by people and learning to work together is an acquired skill. My favorite tools are DISC and Emotional Quotient.
C. Money – Yes, we can always have a little more, but how about when it trickles in slowly or when it gets burned somewhere? Growing income is always a high priority, so paying close attention to the sales process is necessary. This process requires tune-ups because markets, customers, and products all change. What worked five years ago is probably inefficient today and definitely useless in five more years.
D. Transition – An entrepreneur founds and launches a startup, but soon it needs to be run by a manager, then the business will grow and expand. The people on the highest chair will change, the business could be sold, merged, transferred, or inherited. Handing the steering wheel over to someone else requires careful planning to stay on track and on speed towards success.
7. What is it like when a coach is working with me?
This is the cycle I follow with my clients: our first three conversations are complementary and they are about discovery; we get to know each other to make sure we build trust, that we can work together, and that there is clarity on the situation and the expectations from both sides. In a formal coaching engagement we will meet regularly – the most common frequency is once a week for one hour – I will send reading material each week with exercises and we will cover these items in each session:
- Check progress since our last session
- Review questions and insights from the reading material
- Go deep: evaluate how it applies to their current situation
- Select one or two action items to start applying right away
- Speak briefly about the topic for the following session
8. How do I know the coach is right for me?
Research your potential coach and the organization they belong to because that is the source of their tools, training materials, and methodologies. Above all, the most important factor is that you trust your coach, their capabilities, and that you have good chemistry. Get ready to open up, to be transparent and honest, and to hear feedback about yourself and where you need to improve. Be aware that coaching will provide you with insights, but it is up to you to put in the effort to make the changes discussed during the working sessions.
9. How will I know if coaching will give me the results I expect?
Let’s start with the premise that you carefully selected a coach that you trust. The next key component is that you are willing to try a new way to approach your situation. If you put in the effort, you read your material, you fill out the exercises, and you follow through on your action items, you are on the right path to make improvements.
Every 3 months we will do a “stop and reassess” to monitor your progress, to review priorities, and to adjust the coaching program for greater effectiveness. I must say this: it is very hard to see results in days or weeks. It generally takes about three months to see the impact on the business.
10. Why did you choose to be a business coach?
I started coaching in the corporate world with the people in my team and in the mentorship programs. Let me share a story: a co-worker approached me because he had received an outside job offer and was doubtful about what path to follow. I knew we risked losing a great performer in the team, but I set that aside and focused our conversation on helping him identify his core values. We spoke about his definition of his ideal future and pictured a regular day-to-day at both jobs. He compared which one would allow him to go home at the end of the day and feel aligned with his values and fulfilled. After our conversation he said he felt relieved by having a new perspective and asking himself questions he had not thought of before. He decided to stay, in case you were curious.
It gives me great satisfaction to see that I can help to make a positive impact on people. I am truly motivated to see my clients succeed.
You may have had these questions about what a Business Coach does and what happens between the coach and the client, but more importantly, I’m curious if this provoked any thoughts within you. I’d love to hear/read what you think. Please comment below or reach out for a casual conversation.
