How to select a business coach

ICF Global2020 coach research shows that business coach is one of the most popular three coaching majors at present. For you, this means that you have a wealth of coaching options to help you with your entrepreneurial journey. With a business coach, you can better guide yourself and help yourself focus on business construction, both of which will lead to successful guidance practice.

With so many resources on the Internet and elsewhere, it’s easy to find a business coach. But finding the right coach is different. So, how can you wander among the weeds to find a suitable commercial supervisor and change yourself and the enterprise?

Are you a general doctor or an expert?

Business coaches usually practice in one of two categories. They are generalists and experts.

Generalists treat your business as a whole, focusing on business objectives and realization. As a starting point, they can help enterprises of all sizes develop solutions, strategies and action plans.

Experts work in specific business areas, such as marketing or sales. Business coaches with HR background can help employees improve their achievements or solve problems such as high employee turnover, low morale, employee burnout or poor communication. Therefore, if you need help, experts may be the best choice.

Many business coaches combine coaching with other products or services. For example, coaches specializing in SEO can help you understand SEO goals, connect with ideal customers, and develop in-depth strategies to implement SEO tasks and functions to achieve these goals.

Choosing a business coach is not an immediate decision, nor is it a rush. When reviewing business coaches, the following factors should be considered:

How do they express themselves online?

Check out online games, websites and social media of future coaches. By looking at how coaches’ websites are combined, we can understand their values and keep their words in line with their deeds. Business coaches will find it important to design websites and turn visitors into customers. Therefore, if you don’t see the website that you want to know more about this coach, please exit!

How do they express themselves when they see them on social media? Are they talking about you? Do they offer good value? Are their posts consistent? Do they seem to walk and talk? Is their online brand consistent with the goal of helping customers achieve? Read articles, books and blogs, and watch videos. Can you get in touch with them? Are they sharing high-quality insights, or are they just “old ways”?

This is a clue to the professional ethics of future coaches, and we can see whether it resonates with their content. In other words, there are still many coaches who don’t use social media as a marketing tool, so don’t put all your decisions in this part.

What are their qualifications or certificates?

Please remember, this seems to be common sense, but the coaching industry is not officially restricted, and anyone can coach. If possible, find a coach with ICF certification. It can be seen that they must go through the coach training recognized by ICF and at least 100 hours of coach practice to obtain certification.

What do they know about business?

The experience of most business coaches starts from large enterprises or from running their own enterprises. Look at their history on Linkedin, their website, how they gained business experience, and in which fields.

Who recommended them?

Seeking recommendations from peers is not a foolproof way to find business coaches, but reliable recommendations are much better than searching online. In addition, don’t be afraid to look up references on websites or social media pages, contact some of your customers and ask for advice.

Once you are satisfied with several coaches, study them and think they are suitable for you, you should contact them and feel more personalized. Most business coaches have 15 to 60 minutes of free consultation appointment, where you can better understand each other. This is an opportunity to learn how to provide you with value and solutions to drive your business.

An ongoing relationship.

Let’s be clear that hiring a business coach or some type of coach means starting a relationship. A good coach who is deeply focused on change with you will indeed become an individual. Just like any relationship that requires the efforts of both parties.

It is not uncommon to experience a coach several times before finding the right one. In addition to the above factors that help you choose a coach, you should also recognize how you work together. The consistency of your communication style and your overall goal is also a factor determining your relationship with the coach. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to understand without experiencing it.

Some coaches will hold small paid coaching/consultation meetings to make the “trial before purchase” stage easier. Before you agree on the charging items or packages, you can first experience the coach’s style. This reminds me of the difference.

Look for a business coach with a fee or package.

A good coach knows you can’t make changes overnight. It takes a lot of coaching to create momentum. If the coach allows you to book courses at any time and pay you every month, in my opinion, this is not a good way to manage the coach’s schedule.

Ultimately, it determines what kind of coach customers want to be and how often they want to be coaches. But excellent coaches know that responsibility is an area where they provide a lot of support. In order to get results, they must put customers at the edge of the fire.

Therefore, if you want to get specific results in the training, you can find coaches who can provide packages (provide better value) and/or projects, cooperate with others and build relationships.

Create value

It’s not how expensive coaches are, but how much value they can offer you. If they can’t find the improvement of the rapid caulking cost in your work, or even the rapid success, they should find a way to reduce the loss and caulking cost. If you think your tutoring class has become a “prostitute class” and has not progressed, take time to re evaluate your configuration. Coaches are not cheap. At present, the average cost per hour is about 250 dollars, but a good business coach will help other areas recover these costs.

Is there any connection?

Without contact or respect and trust, the coaching process is doomed to fail from the beginning. “Whether it’s personal or business, you should make sure that your values are consistent with those of your coach. Find people who really care about your success. As you know, the coach is asking questions about your service. If the preparatory coach is just talking about their own achievements, they will ask themselves.” You can focus on yourself rather than change.

Firm and fair

The coach does not always have the right answer, so if the coach suggests taking inconvenient actions or thinks the current direction is wrong, don’t be afraid to say something. I used to sit with a business coach. They said that during my free consultation, let me raise my price by 5% as the first strategy to make my business more profitable. At that time, they knew nothing about my customers, my values or my business model. Needless to say, I didn’t hire those coaches in the end.

That is to say, at the other end of the scale, you really need a courageous coach. Even if you prefer option a, you can also be told to choose option b. Coach who agrees that your coach will not push you out of the comfort zone. We all know that personal growth is outside the comfort zone!

After all, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your ideal business coach. Keep your eyes open and don’t let others say you are uncomfortable. As Oprah said, “Your intuition is always right.” But you must prepare for a wrong journey and find the perfect business coach to help you transform! I swear it’s worth it!