7 Reasons Why You Need To Invest In A Business Coach
Why Do You Need a Business Coach?
Here are my top seven reasons why business coaching is so impactful for you and your business.
1. Self Belief
Your self belief and your confidence. So many people experience impostor syndrome and so many people struggle with their self belief.
Many of my clients and potential clients that I've spoken to this year, have talked to me about comparing themselves on social media to other business owners and competitors, not feeling good enough, and not feeling confident.
Ultimately this has caused them to be in a state of analysis paralysis, so they end up doing nothing. This really affects our confidence in business.
When you've got a business coach, they should be there for you on those challenging days, they should be there to be your support, and to bring you up in those difficult moments. But also to help give you techniques and tools to minimise that happening. With the aim of minimising those limiting beliefs and helping you grow for the future.
2. Strategise
You started a business because you love doing a certain thing, or a few things, but everyone has tasks in their business that they don’t enjoy doing. Guess what, they get left until the last minute. It’s human nature.
As a result, we don't pull ourselves out of that day to day of running our business to think about the strategy, and taking a step back to look at the overall health of the business.
This is what I love doing with my clients, it's taking them out of the day to day, taking that step back and thinking about the answers to these questions:-
Okay, what is the long term direction of my business?
What are my financial freedom goals?
What are my lifestyle goals?
What does success look like to me?
And then making sure that the actions that you're doing on a daily basis are all directing you towards that end goal, because let's be honest, a lot of us just get into the detail. And we just go with the flow, and actually, that can be detrimental longer term in your business.
In my opinion every single business should have a business plan. But there are lots of businesses out there that don't, and I understand why. Working with a business coach will help you develop your business plan, take a step back and develop that strategic mindset.
3. Time Management And Productivity
A business coach will help you look at your schedule in a completely different way, and think about your time differently.
You can bounce ideas off of one another, they will challenge you and cause you to think about how you can be most productive with your time. How you can spend more time focussing on the most important tasks in your business - the revenue generating tasks.
So often we spend our time maybe checking emails, or posting something on social media. Don't get me wrong social media is great. It is a marketing tool, it should be driving your revenue overall. But it is not going to directly get that money in your pocket.
By working with a business coach, you can really really focus on where you are spending your time. Are you actually growing your business? Or are you just managing a hobby, and I think that is really important.
4. Valuing Yourself And Your Business
My fourth reason to invest in a business coach is because they help you to value yourself truly, as a business owner.
I have found this more with the women I work with, we need to value ourselves massively. We know there's a gender pay gap, and there is opportunity for women to elevate themselves. I have heard so many stories about business women realising that when a man is doing the same thing, they are earning or charging a lot more.
So the reason that for women in particular, working with a business coach can be powerful, is because it can help them elevate themselves. It can help them elevate their pricing and elevate their brand.
You should feel comfortable with your prices and confident in your prices. I'm not suggesting that you need to double or triple your prices. But working with a business coach will give you more insights into the wider market. It will help you to benchmark, understand where you're at and make sure that you are properly valuing your service or product.
5. Cheerleading and Accountability
Your business coach will be your biggest cheerleader. One of the most exciting things about being a business coach is when I get messages from clients and they say, ‘I've just achieved this’, ‘I've just sold that’, or ‘my business has grown by X%’.
I love hearing those success stories, and speaking to my clients hearing that beautiful sparkle in their voice because they're proud of what they've achieved, it truly is one of the most rewarding things.
Your business coach should be someone that motivates you and inspires you to be the best version of yourself in your business and to grow your business.
6. Recognise Weaknesses
Your business coach will help you through the challenging times, and recognise any weaknesses that may have caused those challenges, so you can learn and grow from them.
If you have a challenging day, if things are going wrong for you, they can be there for you. They can call out your weaknesses, they can be honest with you. And you can figure out a way forward, you can figure out how next time, you can stop that thing affecting you so badly.
We all have bad days in business, we all have those times when a client turns around and says, actually, no thanks. Or where your product sales are nowhere near what you want them to be that month.
By working with a coach, you've got someone that's holding your hand, that's cheering you on and can really help you build that plan to get back on track.
Having family and friends in our lives that we can talk to about our business really helps, but one of the things that I always say, from experience, is don't speak to people that don't understand your industry, or that don't understand where you're at fully.
Your business coach is completely invested in you and understands your world, your ecosystem, like no one else. So please take advice from people that are industry experts, or experienced in the field. Try to avoid taking business advice from people that don’t necessarily fully understand the circumstances.
7. Focus On The Bottom Line
Your business coach will help you lean into your finances…
When I work with my clients. Typically the finances can be the scary part. And I've definitely felt that in my business before, but we have to be open, and we have to be honest and look at those numbers. You need to be looking at them regularly.
When I work with my clients, I encourage them to look at their figures. For example:-
What is your turnover?
What is your profit margin?
Let's face up to these numbers and be real about it. Is it where you want it to be? And if it's not let's build a plan to get you to where you want it to be.
We've all got financial goals. And sometimes I don't think we're open enough about that. Women in particular, we should be proud of the fact that we want to be at a certain financial level, we shouldn't be shying away from it.
Summary
So there you have it, my seven reasons as to why you should consider investing in a business coach.
Confidence and self belief.
Strategising.
Time management and productivity.
To make sure that you're valuing yourself.
So that they can be your biggest cheerleader, and provide accountability.
To help you recognise your weaknesses.
To help you lean into your finances.
I really hope that that was a useful summary of what the benefits can be about working with a business coach.
For most of 2022 I have been working with my clients one to one, and I absolutely love this. But in October I'm launching my very first group strategy coaching programme.
If this is something you're interested in, take a look at my group coaching page on my website, jenlister.com or follow this link to join the waiting list to join my group strategy programme.
