7 Reasons to Hire a Business Coach

The demand for business coaching has increased in recent years, as the business environment in America has become increasingly competitive. Business coaching creates an opportunity for small business owners and entrepreneurs to adapt to this change. A few years ago, just a handful of small businesses used business coaching as a means to augment their bottom line. Statistics reveal that almost 58% of the medium or small sized businesses are now seeking the benefits of business coaching.

Benefit #1: Refine and Improve Systems

Business coaching offers new insights into daily business activities and helps improve methods, systems and procedures. If you have been doing something a certain way for a long time and the results are decreasing or are limping along at an anemic pace, it’s time for a change.

Having an experienced outsider’s opinion can dramatically improve the way you operate. Sometimes, it’s only a small tweak in the system that the business coach can offer that will catapult you into massive success.

Benefit #2: Cost Effective Way to Get Results

Entrepreneurs and businesses are using coaching because it is a cost effective way to achieve results. It helps to develop personal skills and performance. Individuals who receive business coaching can expect to find guidance concerning the problems that they face.

A study of Fortune 1000 companies using coaching showed these percentages of business leaders reported the following benefits from the coaching they received:

-­‐ An increase in productivity (by 53%)

-­‐ Increased retention of workers (by 32%)

-­‐ Reduction in costs (by 23%)

-­‐ Increased bottom line profitability (by 22%)

Benefit #3 – Enhances the Effectiveness of Training Seminars

Some try to save money by limiting their training expenditures to seminars and books. While these are good ways to build a base of information, the business coach will fill in the gap between book knowledge and the real world. The business coach will develop a game plan for the entrepreneur or business leader that lays out, step-­‐by-­‐step, the path to success.

The Xerox Corporation found that the impact of using personal follow-­‐up coaching after training seminar gave a massive 87% increase in the effectiveness of training when compared to the seminar alone.

Benefit #4 – Avoiding Costly Mistakes

I’ve spent over $270,000 on my business training. Most of that was not by choice! In other words, I learned by making costly mistakes that probably could have been avoided had I received professional advice in advance.

I use several business coaches that have saved me from a plethora of costly mistakes. Whenever I consider spending a large sum of capital on a new business venture, I always run it by my coaches for a second opinion. More often than not, they recommend against it, and they are almost always right.

Benefit #5 – Saves You Valuable Time

The learning curve is a struggle to overcome in any new business or line of business. In the book, “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, the author opines that any good skill takes 10,000 hours to master, whether it is an athlete, an actor or a line of business operations. You can spend 10,000 hours mastering your business, or you can hire people who have 10,000 hours of experience to help.

Benefit #6 – Keeps You Motivated

Let’s face it, sometimes you just need someone to vent on and get a pep talk from. The business coach’s job is not just advising you on the business, but on the personal skills you need to overcome the struggles from your business.

Benefit #7 – Keeping You Accountable

If you are the boss of your business, then you have nobody to answer to. You have nobody to hold you accountable.

Once the business coach helps you develop a game plan, he will use that plan to keep you accountable. If you promised to do something, he will call and email you until you live up to your commitment. With my business coaches, there’s no way to run and hide!