Every Business Could Use A Business Coach

How can you tell if your business needs a Business Coach?

If you are working too many hours, making too little money, dealing with too many issues related to your team and employees, or simply feeling that working in your business is little better than having a job, then you probably need a Business Coach.

In today's economy, that is the state of most business owners. It's also why more than 80% of all businesses fail within five years, even when run by smart, bright and highly motivated individuals.

The good news is the gap between what people think they know about business and business reality can be filled very effectively by a good Business Coach.

Why?

Because good Business Coaches are generalists, as opposed to business consultants, who tend to be specialists, or who tend to be highly skilled in a particular area or expert in a particular industry.

Not that there is anything wrong with that ... but for most small businesses (and that accounts for more than 98% of all businesses), owners are looking for exponential changes in their companies very quickly (typically in terms of six to eight weeks).

While a business consultant is used to delivering incremental results (which, for a large corporation can mean millions to the bottom-line), a Business Coach's results can deliver tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits to a small business owner (which, for a small business and its owner can literally be business - and life - changing).

In addition, as the world of business change becomes more rapid, most business owners have more questions about how to run their companies than they have answers. Business coaching is the perfect solution to this ... because answers to issues are arrived at and strategies executed in real-time, with the Business Coach serving to guide the process instead of just writing up a report and leaving it for the owner to implement.

In this way, a Business Coach shares many similarities with a sports coach. Both use strategies and tactics to guide others to victory. In business, this takes the form of a business plan; in sports, a game plan.

A good Business Coach will also see each team member as unique, and will work with the owner to find more effective and efficient ways leverage existing resources to get better results. He or she will also motivate, inspire and challenge a business owner to succeed, becoming an "unreasonable friend" to achieve a goal or outcome.

This idea of accountability is important for small businesses for a number of reasons, and it is one of the reasons business coaching is so successful. For many owners, running a company means "freedom," and it can be liberating to work as an independent owner.

But true freedom is only attained after the business has become a commercial and profitable enterprise that is able to operate without the owner being physically present in the business.

In large companies, this level of accountability is provided by a board of directors. In a small business, the owner is on his or her own. Not only can a Business Coach provide a "sounding board" for new and current initiatives, he or she can hold the owner to knowing the numbers of the business, creating and delivering on 90-day plans, and testing and measuring marketing efforts - from increased leads to higher profit margins.

So if you are a small-to-medium sized business owner (and by that I mean any business with revenues up to $50 million), and you are looking at outside help for business, consider business coaching as an alternative to business consulting.