As business owners and marketers, we go through manic highs and lows. Things go well for a while, then follow with periods of low performance. This is normal. One way to help get yourself over the hump is with business coaching.
The best business coaches not only coach you in your business but also coach your life as a whole. This post breaks down the details of business coaching to help you better understand what it is and determine whether you need one for your digital marketing.
What Is Business Coaching?
Business coaches help business owners, managers, professionals, and individuals grow as businesses and people. They’re known for offering honest advice and consulting based on personal experience and research.
There are many types of business coaching, but there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. You’ll want to find the type of business coaching services that appeal most to your business and your goals.
What Does a Business Coach Do?
A business coach takes a look at you as an individual. This is the big difference between a coach and a consultant. A coach is going to look at your entire life: all aspects of it. They’ll focus on your achievements, your mistakes, and your behavior to help you grow as an individual.
As you grow on your own, you’ll develop better habits that you can translate into business growth and monetary gain. You should expect the best business coaches to challenge you both emotionally and spiritually. They’ll provide you with honest and sometimes brutal feedback on your performance, and they’ll hold you accountable in your business and personal life.
Your reason for hiring a business coach will likely fit into one of these scenarios:
- You’re struggling to get your business off the ground to a sustainable level.
- You’ve hit a roadblock and can’t seem to take your business to the next level.
Regardless of where you are on your professional journey, a business coach can help you accomplish the goals weighing on you.
6 Benefits of Business Coaching
Business coaching for entrepreneurs, business owners, or executives is all about the benefits. Everyone wants gratification without having to put the work in. It’s important to know that the best business coaches require a lot out of you. If you’re willing to put in the work, here are some of the benefits you could receive.
Increased Self Awareness
One of the best gifts we could ever receive in life is self-awareness. When we’re aware of our strengths and weaknesses, it makes it so much easier for us to capitalize on what we’re good at and make the most of every step.
Instead of focusing on our weaknesses, worrying about them, and minimizing ourselves, business coaching should teach us to focus on what we’re good at and double down on it.
Business coaches can help you find the fire inside of you to pursue the things you want, and along the way, you may realize you’ve been doing the wrong things all along.
More Confidence
Business coaching teaches you to be more confident. The job of a coach is not to bring you down but to lift you up and help you realize that you’re better than you thought. Sometimes, low confidence and self-esteem are the only things holding you back.
Sometimes we need someone to kick us into gear and tell us that we can accomplish the task that’s been plaguing us for so long.
However, sometimes we need someone to provide us with a healthy dose of reality, too. Confidence isn’t always about lifting us up and telling us how great we are. The best business coaches also tell us when they think we’re making a poor choice. You can go forth with confidence, knowing what you’re doing is the best thing for you, and no matter what happens, it’ll be okay because you’re capable of taking on anything. That’s confidence.
Comfort Outside Your Comfort Zone
An area that a lot of business owners and marketers fall into is a state of comfort. You reach a point where things are going well with your business, you don’t have to hustle as much anymore, and you can live comfortably off the money you’re making. That sounds great if you’re not at that point yet, but like everything else, it gets old.
Few entrepreneurs are satisfied with this because they’re used to the hustle and chasing after their dreams. When you achieve what you’ve worked so hard for, it’s easy to become anxious for the next thing.
Increased Clarity About Your Direction
On less of a mindset note, business coaches are going to help you with the business itself, of course. Sometimes it helps to have someone come and look at your operations, finances, HR, and everything from an outside perspective. They’ll see things you miss in the day-to-day trenches of running a business.
A business coach can help you identify bottlenecks in your process and provide you with a clear and concise plan for what you should do over the next 3, 6, 9, and 12 months.
This clarity is important because you’ll know exactly what you need to do. It doesn’t mean that if you do those things, you’re sure to achieve any results at all, but the clear goals are what matters. Business coaching helps make you aware of the things you may not have seen otherwise.
A great example is with business owners that want to do everything themselves. The “freelancer” mentality is hard to break because the individual is so used to doing everything on their own, they’re afraid to let go of some of that control.
Business coaches can help freelancers work less “in their business” and more “on their business.” When you see it from that perspective, it becomes easier to make the necessary changes.
Boosted Productivity
Productivity is one of the number one reasons why people hire business coaches. Everyone feels like there are some magic secrets to increasing your productivity, but that’s not usually the case. It’s often something much simpler than you think.
A business coach can help you get on a healthy schedule and develop the right habits. When you’re a business owner or marketer, and no one is standing over your shoulder telling you to work 9-5, it can be a lot harder to get things done.
It’s all about habits. Suppose you can get yourself in the habit of showing up to work at the same time every day, blocking off periods for work, taking short breaks, and limiting distractions. In that case, you’ll have a much easier time accomplishing your goals, which trickles down and impacts a lot of the other benefits of hiring a business coach in the first place.
Better Accountability
This could be one of the most important pieces of the success puzzle. If you don’t have the discipline to kick yourself in gear, work when no one is telling you to, and hold yourself accountable, you’ll likely struggle as an entrepreneur.
Many of us don’t have the discipline and need someone to help us develop the right habits. It only takes about 66 days to develop a new habit, so if you can do something for a little over two months, you should have an easier time sticking to it.
Once you’ve built that initial foundation, you can then train yourself to be accountable for your actions. One thing I’ve found over the years is that I tell myself that “I want to be proud of myself.”
It might be a little vain, but think about it: When you goof off all day, accomplish less than you said, and push things off until tomorrow, how do you feel?
You probably don’t feel very good about yourself. The opposite is said for the days you break through barriers, tackle everything, and walk away feeling accomplished. You feel unstoppable.
4 Tips for Finding an Effective Business Coach
When it comes to finding a business coach, you must choose the right person. This individual or team needs to align with your goals, niche, and perspective on life and your business.
- Match them with your niche: You want business coaching from a professional who understands the challenges of your unique industry. If the business coach you hire doesn’t have any actual experience, you might not get the most out of them.
- Make sure their philosophy aligns: We all have a certain philosophy in life pertaining to ethics and beliefs. You should never have to change that for success in business. If the business coaching you’re receiving offends or insults what you believe, you should likely find someone else.
- Read reviews: Make sure the coach you hire has a strong online reputation and presence. Checking out reviews from other people is a great way to gain insight into what your experience will be like.
- Determine your goals ahead of time: Before you hire a business coach, you should have goals in mind, whether they apply to marketing, SEO, keyword research, or mindset. No matter what your goals are, the business coach you hire should listen to them and take into consideration what you want.
Business Coaching Platforms and Resources
As business coaching continues to grow, more and more tools and resources are becoming available. If you’re interested in receiving coaching in your business or life, here are some of the best platforms available.
Interview Kickstart
Interview Kickstart is one portion of the “knowledge coaching” trend. The platform teaches programmers how to handle technical interviews and has helped people land jobs for companies like Amazon and Netflix. This has caused people to take notice: Interest in the company has grown by a staggering 2700 percent in the last five years.
Building Champions
This platform offers trainers, events, and team workshops to help small business owners and managers become the best version of themselves. The company has been around for 25 years, so you don’t have to worry about reputation and social proof. They break down every aspect of your life, from the personal to the business stuff.
Melinda Emerson
Considered America’s number one small business expert, Melinda Emerson offers a ton of great resources for women entrepreneurs and business owners. She has information on how to grow your social media, market your business, and understand the boring financial side of business as well. She can help get your company off the ground or take it to the next level.
CEO of Your Life
I’m a big fan of business coaches that find a great way to meld business and personal life together into one program, and Melissa Dawn has done a nice job of this. She focuses on your spirituality and personal life to help you become not only the best CEO of your business but the best CEO of your life.
Neil Patel
I offer many great resources to help you with your SEO, content marketing, and paid advertising. If you feel like you have most of your business in order but need a little help with your marketing campaigns, we can help with that.
Career, Executive, and Business Coaching: FAQs
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about business coaching and hiring a coach.
How much does business coaching cost?
The cost of business coaching can vary dramatically from $100-1,000 per session. It depends on many factors, such as the demand of the coach and the level of personalization put into the coaching program.
How to start business coaching?
If you want to start business coaching, there are many ways to get started. Many people in many different industries are looking for help.
What services do business coaches offer?
Hiring a business coach is like having a partner, so the business coach should offer whatever services you need the most. They should put together an individualized plan that addresses your needs.
What is the first meeting with a business coach like?
During your first session with a business coach, they will likely talk about your needs, issues, pain points, and goals to tailor a strategy to help you.
Conclusion of Business Coaching Guide
No matter who you are, we all need help sometimes to get ourselves back on track. Whether you’re trying to manage your team better, be more productive, or optimize your budget more efficiently, the best business coaching helps you accomplish the goals that have been weighing on you.
Have you ever hired a business coach? If so, what is the number one reason?
