Five Ways Business Coaching Can Help You And Your Business

I owned and managed a corporate communications business back when there was not a profession called business coaching.  It was lonely.  I had two partners to share responsibilities with, but it was still lonely.  I needed someone who wasn’t ensnared in the dynamics of my business.  Someone who had my best interest at heart, but would also tell me the honest truth.  No one like that existed.  It is one of the great joys of my life that I am a business coach.  I love being to help business owners in ways that I needed help myself, but found it lacking.  That said, here are five ways business coaching can be helpful to you and your business.

Business Coaching

Advantage #1 Objectivity. It’s the old forest for the trees syndrome.  You are too close to your business to see it objectively all the time.  Business coaching adds an objective viewpoint to each challenging situation you face.  Here’s an example from my business coaching practice.  I recently started an engagement with a new client.  On our first call I said something like “You will never get to the activities you need to do to reach some of these bigger goals you have articulated until you get about half of what you are currently doing off your plate.”  Seemed obvious to me.  It was a revelation to the client.  He said that after hearing my words, he knew they were true, but it had never occurred to him.  Now this is a highly intelligent, successful guy.  But, he has struggled with reaching his higher level goals for years.  One session of business coaching and the objectivity of an outside view has transformed his view of himself in his business.

Business Coaching

Advantage #2:  Experience. A good business coach has owned successful businesses themselves.  Not coaching practices, but real businesses.  They have been through the life cycle of a business.  Started it, grown it, almost lost it, restructured it, made money through it, sold it.  Business coaching can bring you a lifetime of experience the first month.  Good business coaching is about helping you find your own solutions.  It’s a lot easier to do that when you have the support of someone who has been through exactly what you are going through.

Business Coaching

Advantage #3 Accountability. When you own the place, who holds you accountable?  No one.  Except the marketplace.  Business coaching can help you reach your goals sooner, because the coach can hold you accountable for taking the steps you really want to take.  Nothing like a deadline.

Business Coaching

Advantage #4 Better guesses. That may sound strange, but the truth is that business management is no more than a series of guesses.  Some things are cut and dried, but most are not.  Everything is about judgment.  It’s about analyzing a situation and taking your best guess about the right thing to do.  Should I hire this person?  Will the market pay this much for this product?  Is this the time to sell my business?  It’s all a big guess.  There’s not a textbook for real business.  Good business coaching helps you make better guesses.  It improves your odds.  I cannot count the times in my business coaching work that a client has come to a call having decided to take a particular action, but just wants to run it by me.  By the end of the call, they have often decided to go another direction.  It comes down to thinking through an issue with someone who has been there.

Business Coaching

Advantage #5 Hearing yourself think. I have found in my business coaching that most business owners are verbal processors.  They figure things out as they talk about them.  They hear themselves talking about something and know whether it rings true or not.  They hear themselves saying things they didn’t even know they thought.  They reach clarity through conversation.  Business coaching is about an extended conversation with a trusted adviser.  Much of the time what the client says is much more important than what the coach says, but it would never come out without the coaching.

I offer a complimentary session to discuss whether business coaching might be right for you.  Feel free to give me a call at 404-378-5026 or email me at noconnor@mindspring.com.

noconnor@mindspring.com

www.nanoconnor.com