subject: What Makes a Great Business Coach? [print this page] What Makes a Great Business Coach? What Makes a Great Business Coach?
Business owners tend to harbor a feeling that they live on an island due to the nature and number of roles and responsibilities that they must fill within their organization. A great business coach acts as a bridge for their clients. Rather than "a bridge to nowhere", a great business coach builds a bridge to clarity.
In a nutshell, the goal of a great business coach is to help his client move from where they currently are to where they want to be. He accomplishes this by helping his clients set and achieve realistic goals, overcome obstacles while identifying and capturing opportunities.
A great business coach serves many roles:
Mentor
Sounding Board
Teacher
Trainer
Drill sergeant
Beacon
Partner
Motivator
TRUSTED ADVISOR This is the ultimate goal of every great business coach.
Why would someone hire a business coach?
Everyone needs advice and counsel at some point; business owners are no different. However, the problem is that many business owners turn to the wrong people for business advice spouses, family members and/or friends. Unless that person is a successful business owner in his or her own right with a patient teacher's heart and spirit, this is probably not the best approach.
A great business coach should be able to help you:
Take your business to the next level
Get organized
Work smarter not harder
Generate more leads
Close more sales
Improve profits
Motivate your employees
Enhance customer service
Delegate more effectively
Gain market share
Make better hiring decisions
Increase customer retention
Become a better leader
Develop an exit strategy
Implement process and system improvements
Write an effective strategic plan
Set realistic goals
Create and refine strategy
Follow through
Measure results
Maintain your motivation
Hold you accountable
Develop structure and balance
Coaching Sessions
Typical business coaching sessions are a series of conversations between the coach and client, moving along a predictable process of making incremental improvements to their business. A great business coach asks questions, listens, and makes suggestions. They explore, challenge, encourage, probe, facilitate, focus, stimulate, and hold their clients accountable. They supply a much needed, outside perspective and provide the discipline needed to march toward sustainable, improved performance.
A great business coach looks at the whole business model from marketing to sales to customer service to human resources to financial management and business systems and processes.
In addition, a great business coach works to help improve the business owner personally by working on leadership development, communication and interpersonal skills, time management, goal-setting, and the planning process through the execution of the plan.
