Article originally published in Life & Style News.
Whether you are running a small, medium, large business or looking to build a worldwide company, the benefits of business coaching cannot be undermined.
Managing. Leading and Growing a business can be incredibly challenging. Engaging with an experienced Business coach that you can count on is one of the most significant decision you may make as a business owner. This could be the best investment you may ever make in the business and on yourself.
Who Is a Business Coach?
Business coaches are generally experienced entrepreneurs, business owners or business leaders who have led their businesses/ organizations to great heights who know what it takes to make a business successful, and who decide to use their talents, skills and experience for building and growing a business to help client business owners/ leaders reach their vision and accomplish success.
A new breed of experienced business coaches are also certified coaches from Gallup BP10 tool, Builders of Business Profile, evaluating top 10 talents of entrepreneurs and working on these talents and convert them into strengths for the business owners/ leaders.
Business Coaches work with the business owners on the business with the leadership team to co-create the vision for the business covering all aspects of business i.e. revenue, markets, products, geographies strategies etc. ensuring that the business owner and leadership team in in it together to win it.
Irrespective of the stage of business i.e. struggling, reviving or growing engaging a business coach is one of the best options open to you as a business owner/leader.
What Does A Business Coach Do?
Business coaches start by learning everything that they can about you, your company, business model, to its target customers to the challenges it may face in future.
Once business coach has learned everything that they can, about your business, processes and systems, they’ll learn about your vision for your company and the goals, the rationale behind those goals and help you refine, redefine in case needed.
Every business owner’s vision is unique, and a business coach asks tough questions to know and understand your resolve whether you are want to grow your business up to a level where liveable income for you and your family and the next generation shall not be an issue or to be part of fortune 500 list.
Based on your vision as the business owner, a business coach works with you to set SMART goals for your team. These goals will be ones that you need to achieve within agreed timelines in order to efficiently grow and achieve the vision you had visualised.
Once goals are set, the business coach is there to help, support, guide and if need be push you to accomplish them, by working collaboratively and formulating a set of strategies and action plans to push the business to meet the set goals and helping you navigate your way to overcome the challenges that may crop up suddenly. The business coach stays objective and unbiased.
Business coach also acts a mirror for the business owner and can ask tough questions to the business owner and the leadership team when he sees there is a deviation from the agreed goals/ vision or the agreed timelines. However, the way these questions are asked are non-threatening.
What Can a Business Coach Help With?
Business coaches generally are very flexible and agile in their approach and services they offer, i.e. whether the business owner is attempting to revive a struggling business or taking an already successful business to the next level of growth.
Business coaches help build a new business from the scratch, advising leaders and owners as they go through the process of setting up their business, defining its goals, mission and vision for the organization, Developing and defining values and competencies for the people and designing and communicating through the business owner/ leader the short-term, medium-term and long-term strategies for the business. Providing support in growing the business, business coaches are also able to ease some of the burdens on owners to make their journey easier and more enjoyable by supporting them by making them improve the skills of communication, delegation, negotiation and succession planning.
While running the business can be very rewarding for the business owner/ entrepreneur there’s no denial that, it is also demanding, challenging and stressful at the same time. This becomes more suited if the business owner is running the entire company by one’s own.
In this VUCA world, working with a business coach provides you the timely support and ideas from someone whom you trust. The business coach also acts as a sounding board. Proactively, the business coach prepares to face the challenges and you as a business owner/ leader are ready to be tough when the going gets tough.
A Business coach makes life of a business owner less stressful and journey more enjoyable which is a priceless for any business owner.