4 Things To Look For Before Hiring An Online Business Coach
Deciding to hire an online business coach is easy. Finding the right one for your business is hard. In today’s world, everyone claims to be the expert coach who can give you the magic solution to grow your business. Who do you trust? How do you know that the solution will work for you?
This is why I wrote this article to give you the 4 steps I have used to simplify my decision-making in the past. In this article, I cover the things you should absolutely avoid and the things you should desire while hiring an online business coach.
Do They Understand Small Business Coaching?
The first step is to always hire for experience, and not just for potential. One of the things that has always helped me choose the right partner, right client and the right coach is that I have never been enamoured with the marketing and packaging of a product. I have always looked deeper into who is teaching the course, what experience does the person have, and how can I, and my business benefit from this person’s experience?
Every small business is very different, and so one solution may not fit all. Small business coaching is vastly different from coaching larger high growth businesses, or coaching managers and leaders of a team. When looking at the experience of the online business coach, and his or her team, these are the 3 things I am looking for:
Have they structured small businesses before, provided solutions for them, and if so for how long?
What are the goals and values of their business, and does it match with mine? (If our values do not match, chances are we won’t work well either)
Do they know the challenges a small business brings? Can they give me a solution not just for my business, or my marketing, but also breakthrough in the mindset needed to grow my venture?
Is The Online Business Coach Focusing on Goals, or Systems?
The author of Atomic Habits, James Clear says, “Commit to a process, not a goal.” He talks about the mindset of a person who sets a goal and wants to achieve it. Choosing a goal puts a huge burden on the shoulders of the entrepreneur. With this mindset, the entrepreneur is pushing their happiness and success away till they reach their milestone. It creates unnecessary stress.
On the other hand, systems allow you to have a goal, but work on daily practice of doing the tasks needed in order to achieve it.
An online business coach who can provide you the systems and processes you need to succeed along with giving you the clarity on your vision and your goals would help you grow your business quickly, and with the right foundation.
How Do I Know If A Business Coach Is Providing Systems?
Every coaching business is different and their delivery methods will differ as well. Some will provide you content through a mastermind, others through automated videos, and yet others through live or virtual events. Whatever format coaches use, check if the program has the following services as part of their package:
- Business and marketing processes and flows
- Templates
- Checklists
- Planners and Trackers
- Swipe Files
How Much Support Does The Program or Service Offer You?
Is the program or service provided done with you, or do it yourself? What is the level of support when it comes to implementing what you learn directly in your business? Here are 5 questions you should ask your online business coach or service provider:
- What level of training is provided at the course/program?
- How much guidance time do you have with your online business coach? Can you, if you want, get one-on-one coaching time to breakthrough challenges?
- What kind of additional support can you get from their team?
- Can you access additional resources that will help you implement your tasks?
- How long do you have direct support from the team during and after the course/program?
Ultimately, you need to see what support you need to get the job done. Once you know that, you can communicate it to the program or service manager.
Is Your Online Business Coach Focused On Results?
For a coach, consultant, practitioner, or a service based business looking to grow their revenues, find more clients, or organise themselves so that they can grow, just information-type coaching programs will not help. Having a bunch of videos and a workbook won’t help either. The biggest challenge for a small business is to breakthrough and get to results.
Results coaching in business is very different from other types of business coaching. It has 5 key components that help the entrepreneur not just learn about something, but also achieve results by implementing the system.
The 5 components of Results Coaching are:
- The entrepreneur has a very specific target to reach, and typically it is achieving the next level of their business
- There is a tangible financial, time or growth result attached to the target, and it can be measured
- The online business coach asks the right questions to help the client clarify their process, and the resources and people they need to complete the process
- If there are mindset or leadership breakthroughs required, it provides tools
- The right amount of accountability is provided to make sure the processes get done
When choosing your online business coach, always consider, is my coach taking me towards a result, or is this program just another information based learning program.
Equipped with these 4 steps, would it now be easier for you to hire the right online business coach?
Ahana Lara Coaching helps coaches, consultants, and service based businesses organise their marketing processes in 8 weeks so that they can consistently, and authentically grow their clients, boost their revenues, and build a leveraged team that helps the company grow.
Get in touch by either doing a Power Call to find the gaps in your business, or use our Revenue Booster Bundle to check 20 different ideas that could give your revenues a boost in the next 30 days.
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