In today's blog, we answer the question, should you work with a business coach?
Many entrepreneurs, whether they're beginners or they've been doing it for a few years, will raise their hand and say, I need help. And they ask themselves, is it worth it to hire a business coach to help them through their business journey?
Well, today we are going to discuss the following:
Is it worth it when you should consider using a business coach?
How to know how much to spend on a coach?
And how to get the most out of the experience if you choose to work with a business coach?
This is a big investment (in both time and money) and you need to make sure you're making the right choice. Sometimes we will spend money on things we just don't need yet. And you'll also spend on things that you should have done a long time ago.
We are going to make sure today, you know if your timing is right and how to move forward with the business coach.
I want to start by saying that business coaching is a market like any other market.
If you were to hire a contractor to work on your home or an accountant to do your business taxes or even attend a yoga class, you're going to have good, highly qualified, good value people that deliver their service. And you're going to have people that don't.
If you are going down this path and you're going to work with a business coach, you should be doing your due diligence. You have to look for the right coach, not just somebody who gets results but someone who can get those results for you.
Even though we are a business coaching firm, I have a business coach too, Steve Morretti, I've worked with Steve for a few of years now. And before we worked with him, we did a lot of research on the kind of businesses he’d worked with, other companies that were at the same level as us, maybe even in the same market, to find out was he able to help them out and to what level?
Your coach may be able to help you get to point A, to point B, and maybe even to point C, but rarely does a coach know how to get you all the way to Z. They're able to get you to certain stages, so understand when you sign up with a coach, they're not going to be the answer to all your problems. They're going to help you if they're qualified, but it's almost impossible to find somebody who can really specialise in all stages of business.
For example, we help start-up and owners of small businesses reach over a million in revenue each year, up to about 5-6 million. Anything over that we recommend to other business coaches that specialise in that arena. Moving from 7 figures to multiple 7 figures is a different ball game and requires a robust organisations building out which isn’t our sweet-spot as a coaching firm.
Next thing to consider is. Can you afford to have a coach?
Because some business coaches, they're not cheap, they're expensive. Sometimes there are hundreds, even thousands of pounds a month.
The most important thing to get into your m mindset is that, you have to see this as an investment. And if you put that money up, will you be able to get that in return with a profit? You need to make more money than you're spending, right?
That’s business 101.
And how will you know that? How will you actually know that equation? How would you actually know if you're going to get a return on investment?
Well, you have to ask. You can ask the business coach, who should give you examples, case studies, or even someone you can actually go ahead and ask that they’ve coached before and say, hey, tell me what you did. What was your investment?
Not only in terms of money, but time and effort. What did you have to implement to get the results you got? And what are those results?
You need to know the specifics, actual pounds and pence. What did they put in and what did they get out of it?
Otherwise, you're just not going to know how much this is worth it to you.
Choose a coach who can offer you a flexible payment, if you need one, also check if they offer a guarantee on their work with you.
If you can’t afford it, wait until you're in a better financial situation so you can invest in the coaching.
Now, if you can afford it, the best coaches will have some sort of trial run or guarantee where if you don't see a result in a certain amount of time, a couple of months, three months, four months, six months, they will either give you a refund or cancel your contract or even offer you continuous coaching for free until you start seeing the results.
The point here is that they put their money where their mouth is. If a coach is not willing to do that, then they're not really worth even considering, okay? The great coaches will do that, but of course you got to do your part too.
And that's where it gets really interesting. The coach can only do so much. If I'm a football coach and I'm coaching a bunch of football players, if I tell them to do certain drills and they don't do them, if they don't actually run up and down the pitch, they're just not going to get better.
So there's going to be a lot of work involved on your side for the coaching to work. So if you don't have the time, the bandwidth, the energy to do it right now, then you're asking for trouble.
You're asking for disappointment. You need to make sure that you carve out that time, whether that's in-person for coaching or online, any learning videos you have to watch, live calls, homework, etc. I know when I do my business coaching with Steve, there's a lot of work involved.
There's a lot of time I need to put aside to just get through a few of the strategies he implements or he actually recommends I implement, I should say. So it's not just I'm going to pay this person money and magic will happen. No, you're going to have to put in a lot of effort, a lot of time, make sure you have that time and effort.
Otherwise, you're not going to be really getting a lot out of it.
So let's wrap up.
Should you hire a coach?
If they're well-vetted, if they're well-qualified, if they got results for businesses similar to yours, helped businesses get to where you want to get to in your revenue, they're ethical, they're known for getting results.
Absolutely!
If you’ve used a coach before and it didn’t go great, then don’t be discouraged. Take smaller commitments. Try the coach out for a few months. If it doesn't work out, if you don't get the results, just say goodbye.
If you’ve had a coach in the past and it worked well then I’m sure you’re on the side of coaches are a must but they really can add value into your business. A coach can give you a good outside view of your business that can see where your business can be strengthened.
The right coach can make a difference.
Got a burning question? Reach out on our social channels or email michael@purpleyak.co.uk
Thanks so much for your time today, and I'll catch you in the next blog post.
I'll see you then.
Take care.
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