The Benefits of Hiring A Business Coach
It’s National Coaching Week and this has got me thinking about the benefits of hiring a business coach. For my clients, hiring me as their business consultant/ coach has been the key to them unlocking growth. I’ve helped them to identify blocks, challenges, and opportunities, enabling them to realise the vision and aspirations they have for their business.
Related Post: Case Study – Starting and Growing a Candle Making Business After Redundancy
Because the right coach will ask you questions, listen and help you reflect on the options available to you. A good coach will bring clarity to your decision-making process, helping you to think in realistic, as well as new and resourceful ways. S/he’ll help you to identify clear action points which will help you focus on your priorities. And the deadline of an approaching coaching session will force you to do something about your action points.
Working with the right coach can help you to examine your thinking - the messages you’ve given yourself in the past and how these might be affecting you today. It can help you clarify what you truly want and take actionable steps toward getting there, so that you can start to close the gap.
In fact, research by the International Coaching Federation into the effectiveness of business coaching found that 99% of the people they interviewed found their experience working with a business coach rewarding and 96% said they would do it again. 80% said it helped improve their self-confidence.
Consultant or Business Coach?
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ll probably know that I call myself a Strategic Business Consultant. It’s very rare you’ll hear me describe myself a Business Coach. I actually leverage four primary skills in a blended approach as I find this helps my clients to achieve the best outcomes for them:
Consulting: I bring the knowledge and experience I gained as a CEO to help you to work out the most effective strategies for your particular business, and leverage the skills and resources you have.
Coaching: I use open questions to help you introspect and understand the shape of any questions, problems and challenges, before we move into problem-solving mode.
Mentoring: I give advice and share my perspective based on what I've seen work/ not work in business.
Sponsoring: I advocate and make introductions where I have potentially helpful connections to open up new business opportunities for my clients.
Related Post: A Growth and Expansion Strategy for an Online Home Accessories Brand
Why Female Founders Hire a Business Coach
Improving their self-confidence is one reason why female founders hire a business coach. In research for Nat West, aspiring female entrepreneurs said factors such as lack of confidence, thinking they were not the kind of person who could start a business or feeling they didn’t deserve to succeed despite their skills, were reasons why they hadn't started their own businesses. These are factors I’ve heard cited often.
But for some women confidence is not an issue. There are many other reasons why women seek out a qualified business coach, ranging from accountability, an external perspective to bounce ideas off, help to get unstuck and managing work-life balance. The benefits of hiring a business coach are numerous.
The Benefits of Hiring a Business Coach
A business coach will shine a light on what is and isn’t working in your business, encourage you to see your strengths, and help you to see yourself and your circumstances in a new way. A business coach will help you identify your trouble areas and identify ways to overcome them so you get results.
Here are seven benefits you’ll be rewarded with by hiring a business coach.
1. Stay On Track and Accountable.
A business coach is an accountability partner who can help you create lasting, sustainable change. S/he’ll work with you to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to go. She’ll help you stay on track when you run into challenges. She’ll support you through the fear, resistance, and anxiety that can come up when you’re creating something exciting and new.
2. Gain Clarity.
A business coach can help you clarify what you want and work out the most effective way of achieving this. Clarity is one of the most valuable assets to reach your goals. A business coach will ask you the sorts of powerful questions you may never think to ask yourself, thus creating space for new ideas and ways of thinking that lead to new revelations and new solutions.
3. Reach Your Goals Faster.
A business coach will help you to “get there” faster. Sometimes women reject the idea of hiring a business coach because they feel they can accomplish their goals on their own. But hiring a business coach can be a far more cost-effective way of getting results faster because they offer an external perspective, helping you see situations through a new lens.
4. Address The Roadblocks Which Are Keeping You Stuck.
A coach will give you tools, tips, suggestions, and directions to address your biggest roadblocks and help you work past them, ultimately helping you to get unstuck and move in the direction of your vision and goals.
5. Change Old, Negative Patterns of Thinking.
A coaching relationship can help you remove accumulated layers of possibly negative identity and thought processes. When you’re feeling stuck, the right coach will help you break out of self-limiting patterns and beliefs, re-frame thoughts and feelings which keep you from moving forward and overcome self-fulfilling prophecies.
6. Unlock Potential.
A coach will help you unlock the potential of your business by introducing you to different ways of thinking about a situation. By combining their experience, expertise and an extensive toolset, a business coach can quickly redirect your thinking away from problems and obstacles towards finding solutions and opportunities which move you closer to your intended goals.
7. Take Care of Yourself.
This means taking care of yourself so you can be happier, healthier, more productive, and more present. Female founders who prioritise self-care and wellbeing are in better shape to run their businesses and their personal life. This in turn benefits everybody. This is particularly important in a society where one of the internal messages for women is that we shouldn’t put ourselves first.
Related Post: Creating Year-Round Financial Stability for an Award-Winning Wedding Florist
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re a start-up or a scaleup, building a business can be challenging and overwhelming. It's all too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of running your business or to get distracted and find you’ve drifted from what you set out to achieve. I think of my role as a business coach as serving as your compass to make sure you’re heading in the right direction. Over the course of years, even small corrections can lead to dramatically better results, making it more likely you’ll achieve your goals.
Are You Interested in Hiring a Business Coach?
Book a free, no-obligation consultation call and let’s talk about how we can work together to bring your vision to life!