5 Questions to Ask A Business Coach

What do I want from my time working with a business coach?

Business, success, performance coach… it’s all the same service, designed to support you to grow or scale an existing business or start something new.

What you want will be unique to you, but likely you want clarity, you want a sounding board, you want to hold yourself accountable to your goals. 

• A business coach will most likely have experiences of their own that are relevant to supporting business growth, scale or star-up endeavours. They enjoy working with businesses – small to large, independent to corporate. 
• They aren’t necessarily an expert in your business – you are the expert. There are times when baseline industry knowledge is helpful – when you’re starting out and there’s a lot you know you don’t know – but most often your coach can be industry agnostic. 
• Prepare to open yourself to learning and feedback, expanded thinking and new action. The relationship with your coach is one of support and trust. But, prepare to also feel uncomfortable – your coach will encourage you to take more risks, act boldly, adopt new habits. Do the uncomfortable work and the results will follow.

You do the work. The biggest difference between a consultant and a business coach is who does the work between sessions. Consultants provide reports, recommendations, action plans based on their extensive experience with businesses just like yours. A business coach supports you to deliver something to yourself. You decide what you want. You put your action plan together. You hold yourself accountable. You produce the result.

Types of business coaching structures

Coaching comes in many forms. The following structures can all be effective, depending on your needs. 

ONE-ON-ONE

This is the most traditional form of business coaching. It is completely structured to your individual needs. You as the client direct the engagement based on what you want to achieve through coaching. Business Coaching sessions generally range from 30 to 60 minutes in length with frequency ranging from weekly to monthly. Coaching contracts on average run for a little as 3 to 6 months and can go much longer. Coaches offering one-on-one sessions will often have a standard model to offer clients and may or may not customize their model to you. One-on-one has the flexibility to be conducted virtually or in-person, depending on geographic distances.

GROUP

Group coaching has become more popular in recent years. Often structured around content, it blends a bit of training with coaching. Content is most likely a combination of mindset and business practices. Group size can vary from intimate (6 to 12 participants) to large (50+). Group size can determine the extent to which an individual receives attention from the coach. You as the client either join a ‘cohort’ where participants engage together for a set period of time or a ‘rolling enrolment’ (generally the larger group size) where everyone’s start and end dates varies. As a ‘public’ offering, group coaching is almost always virtual. 

PRE-RECORDED

Many will argue that coaching requires the coach to be ‘live’. While there are certainly benefits of real-time feedback to client questions, there’s nothing to say that a pre-recorded coaching program can’t be effective. This is a self-study approach to coaching. You as the client must hold yourself fully accountable to the work for the impact and results to occur.

Should my coach be ICF certified?

The International Coach Federation (ICF) is the longest standing self-regulating body in the coaching profession. Coach training programs can seek professional accreditation; individuals can seek credentialing. 

It must be noted that the field of coaching is unregulated. While a professionally trained coach who abides by a code of ethics and standards is a valuable resource, there is no discernible difference between a trained and accredited coach.  I have worked with both over my twenty years of being a coach. I have received tremendous value from ‘coaches in training’ and master certified coaches.

Why do I need 6 months with a coach?

You don’t, necessarily. That said, business coaching is most often about creating a sustainable positive outcome in your business resulting from changes in your habitual ways of thinking, problem solving and acting. Habits – paradigms – take time to change. Results can happen almost immediately, or they too can take some time. You wouldn’t expect sustainable results from joining a gym for only 3 months. Give yourself the gift of time with a minimum of 6 months of coaching.

What does business coaching cost?

Simply put, as an unregulated profession, prices vary greatly and it depends on all of the above – the structure, the length of engagement, the qualifications and/or experience of your coach.

It’s easy to think of cost, but I encourage you to think of the return on your investment and the invaluable education in YOU that you receive through business coaching. If the goal is to double your profits, scale your business, get ready to go public, then what is doing that with ease, efficiency and confidence worth to you? What are you worth?

Of course, you will have a budget in mind. Coaching is still an expense line in your business. But don’t treat hiring a coach like an exercise in shopping end of season sales. Instead, talk to several coaches – interview all of them first and DON’T ask ‘how much’. Return to the coach, or coaches who you felt most connected to, who you believe is the best fit for where you want to take your business. Only then have the investment conversation. Ready to start thinking into results and work with an experienced business coach who will positively influence your business? Get in touch with Libby.