What to Expect From Your Business Coach?

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What is a business coach?

A business coach offers perspective and refinement as you work on your business. It's no different than any other coach you've always had. You've had athletic coaches. You've had academic coaches. You've had arts coaches. And this is no different. It's just another coach.

What does a business coach do?

You should think of your business coach like your primary care physician. When you get sick, you call the doctor. You know something is going on, but you're not quite sure what it is. You can't see it, so you trust an outside expert to give you guidance, direction, refinement...and expertise.

Sometimes you go to the doctor and they can solve the problem right then and there. Sometimes you go to the doctor and they have to refer you to another expert or another specialist.

In either case, you trust your doctor to give you the best guidance and direction to solve the problem and remove the pain that you've been experiencing.

Working with a business coach is very similar.

You have an issue inside your business. You're not quite sure what it is or what's going on. It's hard to locate, pinpoint, or identify. So you trust your business coach to give you some guidance, wisdom, perspective...expertise to help solve the problem most effectively.

Why do business coaches get a bad name?

In comparison, a doctor is "forced" to learn medicine. It takes four years of undergraduate school, four years of medical school, and an additional three to seven years of residency in order to specialize. It can take between 7 and 14 years before a doctor can be a fully licensed doctor.

Business coaches aren't held to the same formal standard. To be honest, anybody can hang up a shingle, call themselves a business coach, and start working with clients.

Unfortunately, that has led to some unpleasurable and unprofessional experiences that give the profession a bad name.

How can you make the best business coaching decision?

I'd like to offer you three things here.

Number one. Choose a business coach that is familiar with your situation. You are dealing with a certain problem set and you need a professional who is familiar and comfortable working on the solution. If they can't express your problem back to you clearly, then you probably don't have the right person.

Number two. Choose a business coach that is relatable. It's important that you like the person. Can you imagine going on a long car ride with the person? Can you imagine talking about non-business related subjects with the person? Let's be honest, if you don't like the person (at least at a very basic level) it's going to be very hard to accept their guidance, advice, suggestions, or recommendations.

Number three. Choose a business coach that will challenge you. Since you currently aren't getting the results you want, something about your approach needs to be improved. You need to work with someone that has not only the courage but the professional tact to challenge your ideas and encourage you to create even better ones.

Working with a business coach can accelerate your experience, but it's important to make a good decision. So, if you'd like to hear from other people who have already made this decision, you can click the link in the yellow above and hear other professionals describe their experience working with a business coach.

Let other experienced professionals be your guide: You can hear what they liked, what they didn't like, what their results were and what they learned. You can use that information to make the best decision for you.