The world is changing rapidly, and so are the needs, purchasing habits, choices, sophistication, access and knowledge of people. In order to keep up with new business trends and developments, many entrepreneurs, business owners and managers all over the world are engaging the services of coaches. They are proving the point that going it all alone is no longer an option for entrepreneurs, business owners and managers that desire to be competitive, and want to continuously improve their business performance.
Today, budding and established entrepreneurs and business owners, as well as those in diverse business-related professions are engaging knowledgeable, skilled and experienced professional coaches. This is because they are discovering that they can achieve business, career and life goals faster with a specialist coach. And, for many others that wish to achieve all-round success, having a specialist coach as a loyal partner has been found to be indeed a worthwhile investment.
With specific regard to the engagement of a professional business coach to help facilitate improvement in key areas that determine optimised business performance, the focus is often on critical business success determinants. These include business operating process efficiency, team effectiveness, brand improvement, operational sustainability and overall profitability. As a result, business coaching has become just as popular and essential as both life coaching and executive coaching have become in the recent past.
The Growing Prospects for Business Coaching
Business coaching is a professional service provided by an experienced practitioner, who works within the business as an outsider. The business coach in this regard is responsible for providing a fresh perspective for the business owner(s). In addition, the coach will be expected to provide the client with easily adaptable business building tools, growth action strategies, management techniques, feedbacks, business insights and needed guidance from an outside vantage point.
A business coach normally works with businesses of any size, as long as there are growth opportunities to develop, in order to achieve the twin goals of increasing the value and impact of the business for both the owners and the target market. The main purpose of business coaching is this regard is to improve
all round performance and bring about a beneficial business transformation where and when needed.
The business coach would often also work with the individual business owner to increase his awareness and understanding about what would motivate better growth in the business. In doing so the coach is fully aware that the business owner holds the key to the company’s success as the final decision maker. In this regard, the coaching focus would also likely involve goal setting and hindrances to achieving the goals.
Business coaching is therefore a particularly great business solution for small and medium sized businesses that have potentials for growth, but are hindered by their lack of knowledge, resources and time. Business coaching is however specifically tailored to suit a specific business, solve a particular problem or achieve a definite goal. The greatest power of business coaching in this respect is in unveiling the uniqueness of a business and, differentiating it by brand profiling and the introduction of systems.
This makes business coaching an almost indispensable business building, growth and development strategy in the developing economies of the world. This is because it uses all of the core processes within the business building and development schemes. It also presents the greatest potential of return on investment (ROI), which could be as high as 300-500 percent, compared with training that produces 65 – 120 percent.
Why You May Need a Business Coach
Generally, the overall purpose of coaching is usually to achieve any or all of the following objectives:
- The facilitation of professional and/or technical expertise
The idea here is that you already have technical knowledge, as well as certain professional skills in your area(s) of core competence. The professional coach understands that, and therefore does not attempt to teach you what you already know. Rather, the coach works with you to enhance those skills through a myriad of structured processes, in turning your strength to excellence.
Turning your strength to excellence in this regard is all about supporting you to be the best “you”, as you are supported to confidently manifest your unique knowledge, technical wisdom and professional genius. For example, if you desire to expand and enhance your professional skills by engaging your internal resources to unlock new and bigger possibilities, coaching is definitely for you.
- Assistance to set and achieve desired outcomes
The central theme of coaching is facilitating the achievement of specific goals and/or outcomes, and without such defined outcomes there would be no need for coaching. As a result, the very first few questions that must be addressed in the process of coaching are: “What is/are the goal(s) that you want to achieve”? The process of coaching thereafter ensures that these are “SMART” goals. They are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
The coach not only holds you accountable for achieving the goals, but supports you to access all the internal and external resources that you may need to achieve your desired outcomes. This is especially if you’re a team leader, manager and supervisor, since you often need to work with and through other people, relying on their personalities, abilities, knowledge, skills and support to ensure your success. You may in fact go beyond being coached, to being a coach to others.
- Promotion of development in desired areas of change
The fundamental beliefs that drive coaching are rooted in the understanding that inside of a person resides unbelievable resources, which when unlocked and unleashed bring about great transformation. This is the same whether coaching is applied to personal development, team leadership, business building or organisational performance.
Do you want more for yourself? Do you truly believe that there’s more for you? Are you willing to do what it takes to attain greater heights in life, business and career? If your answer is yes, then coaching is for you. It is all about uncovering hidden personal, business and organisational wealth bound in latent talents, resources, knowledge, and untapped powers.
What therefore makes coaching such a powerful transformational and success-activating process is its philosophy of supporting individuals, businesses and organisations to turn their strengths to excellence, while at the same time supporting them to mitigate areas of discernible weaknesses. An experienced professional coach or coaching organisation must have such an approach as one of its operational principles.
An experienced business coach can bring great transformational changes and benefits to a business by helping to avoid costly mistakes and by maximizing its opportunities. Unfortunately, not many small business owners are aware of the concept of coaching and the benefits that coaching can bring to them.
As a result, several business owners struggle unnecessarily with decisions and problems that someone else has either experienced or solved. Moreover, they can benefit from other knowledgeable people that can easily provide perspectives that bring about improvements. Below are some coaching solutions that may benefit your business and bring about massive transformational changes.
- Beneficial business partnership
You may be an expert in your business, but bringing in a fresh outlook and new ideas can dramatically transform your company. By having an “outsider view” of your business, a business coach helps to uncover its hidden wealth and untapped resources. This helps you to reach the top and retain a comparative advantage in business.
- Business growth strategies
For a business to survive stiff competition, it must be unique and posses easily identifiable comparative advantages. A business coach is especially equipped to help in unveiling business uniqueness. The ideas and knowledge of the coach would expectedly translate into the provision of practical and easily adaptable cost-effective business building business tools, which help to differentiate and grow your business.
- Sound business knowledge and experience
The business coach is usually someone who has the knowledge, expertise and experience of entrepreneurship and/or executive directorship. These become of obvious advantage to your business, helping to facilitate improved business performance.
- Cost-saving relationship
A business coach is a low-cost alternative to other business consultants and “experts” that provide advice on what to do and charge high fees, but hardly ever stay around to implement solutions and monitor the results. A good business coach works with you step-by-step through the implementation of the business growth strategies and action plans. The coach also helps to introduce new ideas for future growth stages.
- Business auditing and diagnosis
Every business, no matter the size must have some inherent strength and potentials, which when properly harnessed ensure its uniqueness and ability to differentiate itself in the market. The business coach helps to unearth real potentials within the business, which would be developed to ensure a strong competitive and comparative advantage. This in particular focuses on major areas of current challenges, weaknesses, deficiencies, and possible future needs or problems.
- Personal and business goal setting
Most of what is done by a business coach is the provision of assistance to a business owner to set and achieve realistic personal and business goals. The coach also assists clients to be more aware and convinced about the necessity for the intended changes that give rise to the setting of goals. The conviction for a desirable change in the business would therefore always drive the development processes of personal commitment and strategy consistency needed to achieve the set goals.
- Personnel Development
Most business coaching interventions would have programmes designed to improve personnel performance, because they are the real “producers” of profit. The business coach would therefore be required to work with the personnel in the business to produce real profit. Where necessary, the coach provides cost-effective methods of recruiting, developing and retaining personnel that would inspire enthusiasm within the team. All of these factors always show up in the bottom line profit.
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Dr Emmanuel Imevbore is an executive coach, management consultant and business strategist. He is the CEO of International Coaching and Mentoring Institute, a specialist coaching and coach-training organisation. He can be reached by email:
emmanuel@ic-mi.com; and WhatsApp: +27 79 259 1768.
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