What is a Business Coach? Your 5 Burning Questions Answered
What is a Business Coach? Your 5 Burning Questions Answered
In this article we will be exploring what a Business Coach is, what they can help with and what they typically don't assist you with. It's also important to explore who may not require or benefit from a Coach.
Lots of questions arise when exploring how to grow a business online.
There's an avalanche of information available to new business owners and entrepreneurs and it can be really hard to know where to start.
So we’ll explore questions like, what does a Business Coach actually do? How do I know if having a Business Coach is right for me? How can a Business Coach help me grow? And what stage in the business building journey is the best time to start considering a Business Coach?
Rewind 18 months ago and to be quite honest, I had absolutely no idea what a Business Coach was either.
I worked as a Corporate Sales Consultant and Business Development Executive for 12 years. When I first heard the term Business Coach I was a bit confused.
It’s a fairly straight forward term, but it’s not abundantly clear what’s included when someone assumes the role of Business Coach.
When I set up my own business in early 2020, I walked through a LOT of wrong doors, before starting to walk through the right ones.
It was at that time I started exploring what types of Online Coaches were out there.
There are so many things to consider when setting up a business for the first time. Or if you have had a business for a while and are now looking to grow your brand online.
With a sea of information on the internet, and such a huge proportion of that information contradicting itself, it’s no wonder the majority of people give up altogether. (Which is actually pretty sad! Talent the world needs, but people can’t have... because the online gig was too hard.)
Let’s be real, there are a lot of challenges newbie business owners can face.
Strategy being one of the key challenges. If you have the wrong strategy, or have an ineffective strategy for your business or niche, you can find yourself concentrating on the wrong tasks.
Focusing on the wrong things also means, wasting a huge amount of time. Time equals money when trying to grow online.
Let’s explore the 5 most common questions about Business Coaching:
1. What is a Business Coach?
A Business Coach is someone who helps guide you on the best strategy to help your business grow.
There is a range of experience and specialities depending on your budget and needs. It’s important to look into any Business Coach for their experience.
There are lots of people out there willing to give advice on business, but it's better to take a little extra time to find a Business Coach who is an expert, has a strong brand with testimonials and a verifiable background.
Why? Because then you can see that they have already walked the path of brand building, social media growth, strategy and have literally walked the path before you.
You can leverage someone who has done exactly what it is that you need to do right now, but don’t know where to start.
If you have a small local business, you probably don’t need to fork out a huge budget of 40-50K for a Business Coach. But, if you are growing an empire, you might want the best of the best armed with all the tricks of the trade to help you get from where you are now, to where you aspire to be much faster.
It can be seen as a fast-track pass rather than if you went for a ‘trial and error’ approach.
A Business Coach can best be described as someone who has the experience, knowledge and know-how to guide you to your goals at an accelerated rate.
These Coaches are often a wealth of knowledge and can provide a lot of value.
2. Do I need a Business Coach?
If you are running a business or are considering running a business, you may have noticed that you have strengths in certain areas, but not in others.
If you are a creative, maybe you don’t feel comfortable in the sales aspect of business. Perhaps you have a trade, in which case online marketing can make you feel like a fish out of water.
You aren’t expected to be perfect at everything.
However, it can feel like you need to know it all when you first start out. The biggest challenge when growing a business online is to know the best areas to focus your time and energy, for maximum returns.
There’s a lot of guess work in the early days.
A Business Coach can help reduce the amount of trial and error.
In some cases that can save months of time wasting. If you are a service based business, maybe you think you need to be an expert of SEO, Instagram, Facebook, Email Marketing, Stories… Or one of the many new trends that pops up halfway through your strategy (if you have a strategy!).
Well a business Coach can help with your strategy and focus to keep you on track for a profitable business.
For some people, especially if you have felt ‘shiny object syndrome’ or had experiences of tangents that sent you running around in circles, a good Business Coach can be a gift.
For others it might be that you don't need a business coach, especially If you are running a well-oiled machine already!
Most people who want to grow their business, would benefit from a good Business Coach.
3. What can a Business Coach help me with?
When you have decided that you would like the support of a Business Coach, now it’s time to find the best one for you.
It’s really important to look into the background of the Business Coach you are considering. There’s a wide range of experience levels out there and some will suit your needs more than others.
Coaches can help with business strategy, sales, lead generation, PR, marketing, social media, outsourcing, business management, automations and guiding you with what to say and how to position your business or offer.
They can be especially helpful when you are either brand new to business and getting overwhelmed, or trying to scale your business but not 100% sure how to do so.
Business Coaches can help fast track the process of building your business and becoming profitable. You are paying for their knowledge, experience and more often than not - all of their past trial and error doing all the same things you're trying to figure out.
Whether that’s for their own business or what they have helped other similar clients with.
4. How do I choose the best Business Coach?
The variety of budget and experience levels for Coaches can make it a bit confusing.
A couple of things to consider, what is the branding like for this coach? If they have a professional looking brand, a strong social media presence and some resources you can enjoy for free, it’s a great gauge of their experience and ability level.
Some could potentially be brand new and highly experienced - and that’s fine. Most offer a discovery call option so you can ask questions about what they’ve worked on in the past.
You will be able to gauge suitability from their content and get a feel for the fit between what you need and what they offer. I get lots of enquiries about Business Coaching, however I prefer to work with the people who are the best fit for my skill set to ensure the best possible result for them.
For instance Online Coaches, I have lots of proof of work and results for these clients, so I love supporting Online Coaches. I also have extensive experience with Digital Agencies and service providers, so I love to support those clients as well.
Growing an ecommerce store isn’t my specialty, so I refer clients who want to do that to another Business Coach. Ask questions to your prospective Coach about who they’ve helped in the past to make sure you find the best one for you and your business.
5.How much does it cost to get a Business Coach?
This is a difficult question to answer. There’s a huge range of pricing when it comes to Business Coaching packages.
You are investing in a transformation. A coach won’t manage your business for you, they will guide you to the wisest use of your time and resource, helping you with a profitable strategy.
Pricing ranges based on experience levels, value and length of coaching packages.
Coaches know the value of having a clear strategy and the know-how to make you business a success, so really it’s a case of finding the best Coach for you and where you are at on your entrepreneurial journey.
Without the right strategy, you can find you have spent a fortune on courses, contractors, software, ineffective ideas.
I can confidently demonstrate return on investment to my clients because I know how much time and money I save them in trying to figure it all out themselves.
There are plenty of free resources out there to do the trial and error of business building alone. You may find yourself spending a frustrating amount of time figuring out which are the best tools and focus areas for YOUR business.
That’s where a Business Coach can save you from guess work, heartache and a whole lot of money.
In summary, a Business Coach can help save you time and headaches when trying to grow your business online.
Not everyone needs a coach, but those who opt for one can see profitable time-saving benefits during the business building process.
You can find out more about my style of Coaching here!
Have a wonderful day!
Rach