Hiring a Business Coach

Hiring a business coach is not hiring a low-touch advisor or an industry-specific consultant to come in and fix your business. And there are a lot of people out there calling themselves business coaches who don’t have any real professional accreditations or associations. It can be hard to know who to trust—not simply when it comes to their methodology or the quality of their training, but also in terms of their approach to business and life in general. Working with a coach is a deeply personal engagement, and on some level you’re buying who they are and why they do what they do.

Your business coach is a trusted partner

Business coaching is not consulting and it’s not therapy. One common misconception is that business coaches will act more like consultants and do the work of developing your business for you—they won’t. Coaches help set direction, and provide feedback, tools, guidance, and perspective. They’re also the accountability factor, which we find to be the thing most business owners need—someone to help them stay focused on their goals.

A good business coach doesn’t simply tell you what to do or listen without giving feedback. A good business coach is someone you can trust—someone that has the ability to diagnose specific and systemic issues in your business and knows that you have to implement the solutions yourself in order to get real results.

Being a good listener and smart about business are key characteristics for any coach. They can’t help you unless they understand what makes a good business good and a great business great. And to truly be a partner, they must care about people and want to get to know you so they can understand why you went into business in the first place.

Great coaches are patient. Their job is to help you clarify what needs to happen next but they wait for you to take action. And of course, they hold your feet to the fire on your goals. A great coach lives by one rule: You already have the fundamental ingredient to transform your business—the ability to change how you relate to it.

Curiosity and courage from your business coaching service

A great coach has curiosity and courage in equal measure. They use their curiosity to look at every corner of your business to find the root cause for why things are stuck or stagnating. A great coach asks the right questions in the right moments—something they can only do if they have the training and experience. And a great business coach has the courage to be honest with you. They understand that you need to hear the truth—even if it stings a bit—or pause and reflect before you jump into action.

If your business coach can bring these elements to your work together, you’ll become a better leader. You’ll see the impact in your business—in the way your business starts to stabilize, grow, and get closer and closer to your vision. You’ll see the impact in how your employees show up to work. And you’ll see the impact in your bottom line, in your customer retention and in how your work changes within the business.

Business coaching helps you focus on empowerment and independence

At Growth Matters, we look at coaching through the proverb, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” A great business coach knows that over time, you’ll need them less and less. Their goal is to give you the right tools to put theory into practice, and to show you how to do for yourself what you need their help with today—the skills to discern and diagnose what your business needs next. Like any good supportive relationship, it’s a bit of a paradox: The more they help you, the less you need them. A great coach knows this and doesn’t pretend otherwise to keep their financial relationship with you intact. A good coach knows that once you’ve built a mature, thriving business, you may not need to meet with them as frequently.

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.