What Is Business Coaching?

Business coaches are typically experienced entrepreneurs and business owners themselves who decide to use their talents for building and growing a business to help other business owners reach their goals.

While there’s plenty of information and advice available online on how to start and grow a business, all of it is, by nature, generic and not specific to your unique business. Business coaches, on the other hand, are able to provide something far more valuable – personalized, custom advice.

If a person wants to learn how to play an instrument, it’s much easier to find a teacher than it is to teach themselves.

Likewise, if an athlete wants to improve their skills, the best thing they can do is join a team that has a great coach.

We apply this logic – the fact that great coaches and mentors are the quickest routes to success – to most every pursuit, yet the same logic is often overlooked when it comes to growing a business.

Business coaches are typically expert entrepreneurs who know what it takes to make a business successful.

For a fee, they work alongside executives and owners to help them define their goals, polish their vision for their business, and set in place a series of strategies that will help the owner achieve their goals and vision.

If a business owner has tough questions or runs into problems along the way, their coach will be able to help them navigate their issues in the most effective way possible.

Having a business coach is much like having a highly experienced partner on your team, and the value that they offer to business owners is priceless.

Whether your business is struggling and you need a way to revive it or you simply want to take your brand to the next level, bringing on a professional business coach is one of the most effective options you have available.

What Can A Business Coach Help With?

Most business coaches are versatile in the services that they offer, meaning that whether you are wanting to revive a struggling business or make an already successful business even more successful or whether you are running a small, local business or an international company, a talented business coach will be able to help.

There’s a common perception that business coaching services exist only to help owners with struggling or faltering businesses.

While helping get them back on the right track is certainly one thing a coach is able to help with, there are a wide variety of other situations where coaches can help owners as well.

Business coaches can help build a new business from the ground up, advising executives and owners as they go through the process of setting up their business, defining its mission and goals, and putting in place both long-term and short-term strategies for the business.

Likewise, a business coach is able to help business owners that have hit a plateau in their company’s growth as they figure out how to take their business to the next level.

Along with improving the operation and growth of a business, though, such coaches are also able to ease some of the burdens on owners to make their journey easier and more enjoyable.

While running your own business can be very rewarding, there’s no denying that it can be very demanding and stressful as well. This is doubly true if you are running an entire company all on your own.

When you work with a business coach, however, you’ll have someone in your corner who can assist you through the challenges you will inevitably face and serve as a source of experience and expertise that you can rely on when the going gets tough.

In this way, they are able to make the lives of owners much less stressful, which is a priceless benefit in and of itself.

Is A Small Business Coach Different?

There are several different labels that business coaches may use to describe their services, with a small business coach being one of them.

In many cases, the challenges and goals of small businesses may differ from those of large businesses.

For example, a restaurant looking to attract more local customers is going to have an entirely different set of goals and strategies than a large corporation that is shipping products out all over the world.

Small business coaches specialize in helping small business owners achieve their vision and goals for their company.

With that said, most business coaches will be experienced in working with small businesses regardless of whether or not they describe themselves as a “small business coach”.

A big part of the job of a business coach is to learn as much they can about each company and owner that they are working with and to develop a strategy that is uniquely suited to the specifics of each situation.

In other words, a high-quality business coach will likely be able to help you regardless of company size or how large you want it to grow.

A Few Head-Turning Business Coaching Statistics

Satisfied owners who have worked with business coaches to develop and grow their business are quick to talk about the many benefits and advantages that they enjoyed throughout the process, and several different surveys have been conducted highlighting the results of such services.

Just a few meaningful business coaching statistics from these surveys include:

A 2001 study by Manchester Inc. showed that businesses who employed a business coach saw an average return on their investment of 5.7 times the amount that they paid for the coaching services.

A report conducted by the Personnel Management Association showed that executives who received both coaching and training were able to increase their productivity by 86% compared to a 22% increase in productivity by executives who received training alone.

A Hay Group study showed that 40% of Fortune 500 companies make use of business coaching to train and develop their executives.

A study conducted by MetrixGlobal LLC showed that businesses who paid for coaching saw a $7.90 return for every $1.00 spent on those services.

53% of business owners and executives report that it increased their productivity

61% of owners report that it increased their job satisfaction.

23% of executives report that business coaching helped them reduce operational costs.

22% of companies report that business coaching increased their profitability.

67% of business owners and executives report that business coaching increased their teamwork skills within their business.

Statistics such as these shine a spotlight on the real-world value that business coaching is able to offer.

Like anything else your business spends money on, coaching services are an investment – on that surveys and studies show time and time again to deliver significant returns in a variety of key areas.

If you already have a business coach and wonder if they’re the right fit for you, ask yourself these questions: 

• Do they meet you where you are?
• Do they take the time to celebrate you, as well as be there for you when something really goes wrong?
• Do they know where you’re headed?
• Do they have a proven map that they use to ask the right questions for your business in the specific stage it’s in?

Don’t assume they have a real plan or any legitimate training just because they have the word “coach” on their business card.

Can they hold a long-term vision while they help you fix the problems that exist in your business today?

Do they notice patterns and trends, or are they just reacting to your daily frustrations? You want wise counsel, not just quick fixes.

Do they make you more curious?

Their way of thinking about things should be infectious—you should find yourself asking other people the kinds of questions they ask you.

Do they understand what coaching is?

Watch out for consultants in disguise and amateur therapists without the real training or experience to guide you.

Do they truly hold you accountable?

They should be willing to call you out if you don’t show up, do the work and make real change.

Do they hide behind lingo, lists or tricks?

It shouldn’t feel complicated to translate the work you do with your coach into your business and your life—hard maybe, but never complicated or unclear.

A great coach is a lot of things. But most importantly, they’re a trusted mentor who truly cares about your success and the success of your business. They know that the two are inextricably linked, and that’s a partnership where everybody wins.