A coach should challenge you to persist until you succeed, while at the same time challenging you about whether your goals and direction are what you truly want to pursue. I am a coach – just so you know that I may be somewhat biased in the benefits of a personal business coach. That said, coaching tends to explore your motives and your business plans quite in-depth. Coach that merely affirms your self-worth with a slap on the back should be avoided. The following remarks may help you to decide on the merits of a personal business coach to improve your own and your business’s performance.
Business coaching ought to have a strategic emphasis. The purpose of personal business coaching is to keep you to account, focus you on your strategy, and provide expert help with strategic decisions.
The main focus should be the overall business system, and whether this system will continue to deliver results in the future. Every part of your business needs attention. It should be managed to ensure that long term goals are prepared and the plans to achieve them are implemented. All the while an eye needs to be kept on cash flow while maintaining your profit. You can see that personal business coaching should ideally be conducted by a person knowledgeable and experienced in business, and your coach ought to adopt the following type of approach:
1. A Long Term Perspective (Big Picture View)
2. Define and Focus on Key Results (Profit, Sales)
3. Regards the business as a system and identify the key components that will deliver results
4. Ask whether the system is working and delivering results?
Ensure that the coach demonstrates the skills you will need. A simple presentation of what can be done is not good enough. A personal and business coach should demonstrate that they have the expertise, can apply this to your benefit, and so that it suits your own style, preferences and needs. Your coach should also focus on your life – how you will achieve success. Focusing only on business and neglecting ‘touchy-feely’ stuff like your dreams may leave important stones unturned. The following are some of the points you should expect your personal business coach to focus on:
1. Reflection and balance in the goal you set
2. Gaining clear purpose and formulating goals
3. Ask “What is working and what is not working?”, “What will work better?” This is better than following only cookie-cutter recipes for business planning. You want reflection and original thinking.
4. Your well-being (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement)
Life is about more than business. It is about getting what you really want. Ask what will give you greater well-being. Imagine how different your life could be if you manage yourself each day to do what matters most to you. A personal business coach should focus on business goals such as sales and profit, but also on goals that enrich your life.
Lastly, everything is negotiable. This may not go for special offers and radical discounts, so trying to negotiate a lower amount when the deal is already a good one may not be the way to go. It is reasonable to want to check things out first, and pay no upfront fees until you are sure the personal business coach is the one you want. Try to get a monthly fee with no upfront payments. That way you can stop the coaching with just a comparatively bit at risk.