Why do I need a Business Coach?

Or to ask the question another way, ‘why hire/use a Business Coach?’ ‘Why might someone even want a Business Coach?’

People usually look for a Business Coach (or to use my terminology a ‘Business Sounding Board‘) or Business Mentor for a variety of personal and individual reasons. Each person is different, and is approaching this from a different position and varying perspective. But in general terms, it’s someone who is a Business Owner, past start up phase, who is looking for help and support to reach the next level. That next level might be growth, expansion, acquisition, sale or simply keeping everything moving in the right direction. But the key is that they have identified that they cant do it alone.

The first thing to note is that hiring the support of a Business Coach or Business Mentor is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of positivity; wanting to develop, improve and even to validate existing strengths.

I find people take on a Business Coach or Business Mentor for one or more of these reasons:

• You feel you lack experience or knowledge in a specific area/situation
• You feel something is ‘missing’ from your business knowledge, what you do or how you think, and want to learn from someone who can help ‘bridge the gap’.
• You want to mature and develop yourself in a business sense
• You have reached some kind of barrier or ‘roadblock’ and feel you need guidance from someone who has previous experience in your situation.
• You feel you would benefit from an open, trusting relationship with someone you can ‘look up to’, who you respect for what you have experienced and learned during their career.
• You simply need a trusted ‘safe space’ to download, vent your frustrations or someone just to listen to you.
• You need someone to be accountable to; someone to check that you have delivered what you said they would
• You need someone to ‘sense check’ your thinking or decisions
• You want to utilise the expertise of someone who has been there/done that, rather than trying to learn it all yourself from scratch

Does any of the above sound like you?

It is often said that we are the average of the people we surround ourselves with, and adding someone with ‘been there, done that’ experience can only add to this. Even the best of us have blind spots, and we can only see those blind spots when someone else, hopefully constructively and supportively points them out. All business owners, particularly owner/manager SMEs need open and honest feedback from outside their business. A Business Sounding Board or Business Mentor can do this.

Strategic growth and planning are key for any business. To have a Business Coach, Mentor, Sounding Board (however you term it), as long as they are the right fit, will work wonders to get any business owner where they want to be. And within ‘the right fit’ trust is huge; trusting their guidance and also trusting them to deliver on the initial plan is very important when choosing the right Business Coach or Business Mentor.

Cliché alert (apologies) Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. Getting in a fresh and supportive pair of hands to add support, in the shape of a Business Coach or Business Mentor, can only ever be a positive step forward for any SME.

PLEASE NOTE I’ve used the phrase ‘Business Coach’ in this piece. Please note I am NOT a Business Coach. I am a Sounding Board for SME owners (or you could term me a Business Mentor), but I have used the term ‘Business Coach’ because that is the phrase a lot of business people use, when what they actually need is a Sounding Board or Mentor.

What Next?

If any of the above resonated with you and you’d like to discuss how I could help you on your journey as a Business Owner, then please give me a call, drop me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn. I’ll be happy to have chat with you to explore how I may be able to help you. I’ll be honest and I may not be able to help you myself and in that scenario I’ll try and point you in the right direction. However, you might find a peer-to-peer business mentoring group is better for you.If you’d like to receive great advice, tips and tales to help you on your business journey, make sure you don’t miss out. Sign up to my free newsletter, and you can also see and hear my discussions, interviews and webinar appearances here.Still unsure if I can help you? Take a look at What you’ll get from me and what my clients say about me.