Business Coaches: Improve Your Chance of Success

If you want to start a career as a business coach, you are in luck. Unfortunately, today’s economy is in trouble. Consumers are reducing their spending and some businesses are finding it difficult to stay afloat. These are usually small to medium sized businesses. Since the industry needs a professional like you, you are already at an advantage. There are, however, ways that you can improve your chances of success. What are they? A lot easier than you might think.

Be polite. When working as a business coach, you must first analyze a business. You examine their profits to see how short they are falling short. Look at their marketing practices to see what they are doing wrong, and so forth. Your job is to take the bad, educate a business owner or operating manager, and transform it into good. Unfortunately, that means criticizing. Yes, it is your job, but remember that we are all naturally offended. Insult a business owner and they will get upset. It is all about delivery, be polite.

Be positive. As previously stated, your job is to take the bad and transform it into good. You do so by providing suggestions, showing by example, and by offering feedback. No business owner is so bad that they never do anything wrong. Their doors would have closed by this point if that were the case. You need to focus on the bad, but also focus on the good. For example, if a retail manager has a well-organized office, but a poor organized sales floor, commend them for their effort. Let them know they did a good job in their office, but that they should have extended the organization to the sales floor. You let them know there is a problem, but still provided positive feedback. Your client will be more receptive.

Offer praise and encouragement. As a business coach, it is your responsibility to teach business owners and operating managers how to run a successful business. The keyword is teach. You do not do the work. You can display a few examples, but let your clients do the brunt of the work. Like a sports coach, sit back and watch. Analyze the situation and provide feedback. Throughout the task, offer praise and encouragement. It sounds silly, but some people just need a positive push in the right direction. In addition, since you are treating your client like a human being, you score extra points.

Offer to work with the entire staff. When providing business coaching services, business coaches usually work directly with the company owner or manager. There are others onsite though. These staff members, their actions, their results, and their productivity are important to the company’s success. You can educate your client and they can retrain their staff members, or you can offer to do it. You should charge extra for this service, but offer a low rate or discount and you should get some takers.

Offer to come back and help. As a business coach, you can spend one day working one-on-one with a client or one week. No matter what steps you take to educate them on the importance of all business components, your advice may be ignored. So, always offer to comeback for a review or to answer a few simple questions. Let them know that advice is free, but retraining will cost extra.