It’s common for people to hire a business coach to teach them business knowledge that they currently lack. Most business coaches do have business expertise and experience. However, this is not the greatest value of a business coach. You will learn why you know more than you think, and the best value of a business coach is not being your business teacher.
Watch the video instead of reading on the Mechanics & Mindset Business Coaching YouTube Channel.
Why do Business Owners Seek a Business Coach?
Many come to me looking for training. Why? I have extensive business experience and am a business coach. After all, isn’t that why you hire a business coach? To learn how to do business?
The plain answer is NO. A business coach has questions, not answers. The natural follow-up question to this answer is, “Why on earth would I pay a business coach?”
The answer to that question is what this post is all about.
Business Questions Galore
Here is a list of questions I get from business owners who expect me to share my wisdom…
How do I set my prices?
How can I gain more leads?
How do I get my employees to show up on time?
How can I work fewer hours and spend time with my family?
Should I use overseas manufacturers or make my products locally?
How do I motivate my salespeople to get results?
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
A Typical Business Coaching Session
Let’s take the first question…. “How do I set my prices?”
Client: “How do I set my prices?”
Coach: “How do you currently set your prices?”
Client: “I look at my competition and try to keep my prices close to their prices, but I’m not sure if that is a good idea.”
Coach: “What is wrong with that?”
Client: “Maybe I could charge less and gain more customers than my competition.”
Coach: “How will you know if you can charge less?”
Client: “I can review our profit margins and costs to see if there is room to lower my prices.”
Coach: “Sounds good. What else bothers you about using your competitor’s prices to set your prices?”
Client: “Maybe I should charge more because our products are superior in quality.”
Coach: “How can you measure the difference in quality?”
Client: “I suppose I could ask my competitor’s clients for feedback, or I can buy their products myself to see how well they’re made.”
Coach: “That sounds like a good idea.”
You can see that this client answered their question. The coach prompts them to think beyond their question.
In full disclosure, coaching conversations don’t always go this way. Sometimes, the coach advises when clients struggle to uncover their answers.
For instance, on the pricing question….
If my client offers a new product, I may ask what their competitor charges. I will ask about their direct cost, indirect costs, overhead, and break-even points. This conversation may devolve into a pure exercise in mathematics.
This doesn’t happen with most of my clients because they know the basics of setting product prices.
In truth, they understand their prices much better than I do.
Why do I Need a Business Coach?
Why would you hire a business coach after the revelation that Business Coaches will not give you the knowledge you don’t already have?
The best way for me to describe the value of coaching is to give you a simple illustration.
A coach is hired to help clients move from Point A, where they are now, to Point B, where they hope to be someday.
Imagine the coach as a stagecoach transporting their client on this journey.
As fate would have it, most journeys worth taking are not a straight line.
Let’s put a bump in our journey and call it knowledge.
Mount Knowledge
Indeed, a lack of professional knowledge will prevent you from reaching your goal of Point B.
This is the first obstacle most people see. The fact is that you don’t know what you don’t know. This means you will pursue more knowledge than is necessary, not knowing where to stop.
I have encountered people with multiple Ph. Ds, licenses, certifications, and an alphabet soup after their names who still believe they need to learn more.
While this obstacle is genuine, it is often exaggerated compared to other challenges along this journey.
Mount Doubt
A much larger mountain behind knowledge is self-doubt.
Individuals can rarely scale this mountain because they are unsure if their doubt is justified. A coach helps their clients clarify doubt into truth. If their client is objectively unprepared for moving past this obstacle, coaches help identify growth opportunities to prepare them. If their client is creating a mountain where no mountain should exist, then the truth is revealed, and their confidence returns.
Mount Fear
A close relative to self-doubt is fear. There are two types of fear: rational fear and irrational fear. Most of us can’t tell these two apart without the help of a coach. Irrational fear can be eliminated by revealing the truth, while rational fear is overcome by mitigating risk.
Mount Confusion
Another obstacle is misinterpretation or confusion. We translate what we see into something meaningful based on past experiences or beliefs. Coaches help clients view events objectively, removing the filters their clients cannot see. By gaining clarity, business owners make their best decisions.
The Chasm of Limiting Belief
Limiting beliefs are ideas that we believe are real but are not. In business, such ideas as “I cannot find good employees,” “I can’t be profitable in this bad economy,” or “I failed when I tried this before, so it doesn’t work.” These beliefs may or may not be valid. A coach helps to bridge the gap between perception and reality.
Forest of Infinite Worry
The forest of infinite worry blocks your business growth journey to Point B. This worry grows as businesses grow. As a company grows, each decision matters more. Your choices will affect more people, and more money is at stake. This means that stress and worry multiply, making coaching much more valuable.
When you stack up all of these obstacles, the path from Point A to Point B looks like this. Knowledge is an obstacle, but it is the least of what is stopping most business owners from achieving their goals.
What Do Business Coaches Do?
Business coaches train skills when it’s necessary. However, business coaches are not omniscient. Frankly, you will know more about your specific market and industry than any business coach you employ.
Wise business coaches give you relevant knowledge when you need it and if they have advice that applies to your situation. However, as you can see from our journey map, the other obstacles need more attention.
When your decisions affect the lives of many employees and millions of dollars of wealth, clarity of thought is extremely important. Those who employ business coaches understand this.
A good friend of mine has a motto for small business owners, “You Are the Bottleneck!”
Reviewing the journey from Point A to Point B, we see this is true. A business coach smoothes out the journey so you can achieve that goal that has eluded you thus far.
Incidentally, if you insist you need business training from an experienced business coach…
I created the Starting Your Business from Scratch training series on Udemy for new business owners who need to learn business basics. You will pay less for this online training than you would for one coaching session with me. It is a great way to gain business knowledge and get a headstart on your business journey.
If you’ve been in business for a while and you’re stuck, I can almost guarantee you that more information and knowledge are not what you need.
Jeff Schuster is the author of this post and is a business coach with Mechanics & Mindset Business Coaching. Jeff has published several more blog posts, podcasts, and videos on business mechanics, mindset, and coaching. Please set up a complimentary coaching session with Jeff if you’d like to share your business situation and gain insight into what may help you grow your business to the next level.
