Most business owners describe their business as their child. It represents their hard work, their ideas, and their legacy. As such, every business owner wants the best for their business. Almost every child has a structured development thanks to school. The concept of school has existed as far back as Ancient Greece, if not earlier. It has evolved over the recent decades and allowed our civilization to develop rapidly. It’s time we adopt the same principles in our businesses.
A teacher performs two roles – a coach and an evaluator. They help in both knowledge acquisition and assessing the assimilation of knowledge. Business Consultants fulfill the role of the evaluator. They assess business performance and highlight areas that could be improved. But having a coach to guide you would help channel your efforts better. A 2001 study by The Manchester Review revealed that businesses that had employed a business coach saw a minimum average of 5.7 times return on their investment over the cost of the coaching services. (McGovern and Barker, 2001)
In 2019, Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and one of the most successful executives of one of the largest Tech Companies globally published The Trillion Dollar Coach, where he spoke about the impact his coach Bill Campbell had on his performance.
How can a coach help you?
1. Clarification of Goals:
A coach can assist in defining your goals, refining your vision for Business Coaching New York, and help you formulate strategies that will support you in better achieving your goals and vision. The clearer your goals and visions, the better will be your decisions to achieve them.
2. Being Accountable:
A key aspect of growth is keeping commitments, whether personal or professional. At times, being accountable for a commitment to someone else can help better focus our efforts. The coach acts as an external accountability measure for your most critical goals.
3. Addon Experience
In the age of unlimited information through the internet, finding the best solution for your need becomes time-consuming. Spending time finding solutions is detrimental to any business in this increasingly competitive and fast-paced business environment. Just as a teacher curates knowledge for their students, a coach curates business concepts, and their application through experience developed running their own business.
4. Inspire Confidence
As you run your business, you are constantly dealing with difficult situations, handling conflicts, and, in some cases, crises as well. These can wear you and your Confidence down over time. As such, having a coach act as a support in dealing with these demanding situations can help maintain your Confidence and build it up.
5. Asking the right questions
Every successful business satisfies an under-serviced need. The product and services can be for consumers, businesses, governments, etc. The entrepreneur has to ask the right questions to identify the value and benefits their client segment requires. The coach will facilitate the process and work with you to answer these questions to satisfy your clients with your products and services.
6. Sustain Balance
In an increasingly connected world with everything needing our attention simultaneously, we can end up disturbing the work-life balance. In the beginning, it can create greater returns for the business. But this is not sustainable and will result in unwanted burnout. The coach can help limit the unbalancing to ensure that you don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term gains.
7. Risk Assessment
Risk is an integral part of any business. Entrepreneurs are constantly evaluating decisions based on perceived risk. Accessing risk is an essential skill set for any business owner. However, it is a skill built with experience and practice. A coach can help you better understand the risks, empower you, and help develop your skill at an accelerated pace.
8. Supplement Networking
An essential aspect of a business is building networks. While you are focused on running your business, you may not prioritize networking. A lack of network can result in lesser opportunities and slow growth. A coach comes with existing connections that can help supplement your network.
To conclude, the business coach can help you master the art of entrepreneurship and support you in achieving your desired goals. The benefit of hiring a business coach has been well articulated by Andrea J. Lee, and I quote, “I believe that wherever there is mastery, coaching is occurring and whenever coaching is done, mastery will be the outcome.”
