8 Reasons You Should Hire a Professional Business Coach
Starting your own business can be incredibly rewarding, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you’re looking to make your new business successful, there are several steps you should take to help you get off on the right foot, including hiring a professional business coach. Business coaches offer their services as mentors who can help you make informed decisions and set realistic goals, as well as hold you accountable when things aren’t going as planned or expected. Here are eight reasons why you should hire a professional business coach today.
Find an accountability partner
An accountability partner is someone who has your best interests at heart and keeps you honest about your business goals. If you struggle with staying on track, it’s a good idea to find an accountability partner or mentor to help keep you on task; having a shared goal is an excellent motivator for both parties. Keep in mind that an accountability partner doesn’t necessarily have to be a professional business coach, though; many of my friends provide just as much value through informal coaching sessions over coffee and brunch as they do sitting down face-to-face once per week.
Learn communication skills
Communication is key to success in every professional relationship, and even more so when you’re paying someone to help you. A professional business coach will help you communicate more effectively with your employees, customers, suppliers and contractors. Communication is one of those skills that often seems easier than it really is; you think you’re communicating clearly, but your audience misses key points or interprets them differently than you intended. Working with a coach can provide helpful insights on how to say what you mean better and how to make sure your message is received and understood.
Get objective feedback from an expert
A professional business coach can give you objective feedback and make suggestions based on her or his experience with other clients. This is in contrast to getting feedback from your employees, who may feel threatened by a new approach or idea. It’s much easier to try something new when you know that your employees are in support of your vision. If it doesn’t work out, it’s on you not them. Your employees’ job security isn’t affected by what happens at work anymore; they know that as long as they do their jobs well, they’ll still have theirs when they come back in tomorrow.
Leverage their experience and expertise
No one is an expert in everything, and by hiring a business coach you’ll be able to draw on their wisdom and experience with specific issues. For example, say you want to learn how to start a business or get better at customer service. An experienced business coach will be able to help you with those goals. And unlike family or friends who might not always have your best interests at heart (or may have their own agendas), an objective business coach will provide useful feedback without bias. It also helps that many professional coaches are simply masters of certain areas of business, so they can guide you through issues more effectively than most other people could do on their own.
Work with someone who understands your business model
Learning how to get business-to-business communication right can be tricky. Fortunately, hiring an expert coach is a great way to work on your pitch and delivery skills and make sure you’re communicating effectively with your target audience. A good business coach will understand your business model, what you offer customers and how you plan to bring in revenue. He or she can also help you develop effective strategies for reaching customers and make sure that everything from your communication style to press releases reflect your brand’s personality and values.
Avoid getting stuck in analysis paralysis
If you’re in business long enough, you will probably be faced with some difficult decisions. Sometimes, when you are forced to make those decisions, there isn’t time to contemplate or analyze. For instance, if your company is burning through money faster than it is coming in, being stuck in analysis paralysis will not save your business you need to make a quick decision. There are going to be times when action must trump inaction. If you find yourself in one of these situations and don’t know which way to go, that could be reason enough to hire a professional coach or mentor who has dealt with such scenarios before. After all, experience counts!
Have access to resources that can take you to the next level
Do you have an idea but don’t know where to start? A coach can help. Having access to someone who has experience with your particular industry is vital to your success but so is having access to someone who has experience with business in general. A good coach will give you access to resources and connections that will allow you to grow faster and more efficiently than if you were on your own.
Increase your productivity by working smarter, not harder
It’s hard to believe how many people go into business for themselves thinking they’ll just hire someone else to handle certain aspects of their business. It makes sense after all, who wants to spend precious time working on administrative tasks like invoicing and accounting when you could be generating new clients? The problem is that not only does it take away from your focus and productivity, but it costs money too. A professional coach will help you get ahead in a number of ways, including helping you identify where inefficiencies exist in your workflow so that you can eliminate them all without losing any time or money.
Final Thought
If you’re looking to improve your business communication skills, it’s always a good idea to hire a professional coach or mentor. They can help you develop your skills and keep you accountable for actually implementing what they teach you. Even just having someone on hand that has been through many of the situations you face will be invaluable because they’ve already had those conversations with other professionals. As such, they can point out best practices so that your team isn’t wasting time rehashing ideas that have already been proposed by others. From how to handle difficult employees to how much pressure is healthy during crunch times, there are plenty of things only business mentors can tell you. What do you want to learn? How do want improve? Who do want help from?
