The Importance of Coaching for Small Businesses

Here’s an interesting statistic – 84% of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs. This cannot be a coincidence. Time and time again, life has proven that having a guide along your journey speeds up your success rate. No matter what industry you are in, coaching for small businesses is crucial.

Here’s a short story to prove to you that business coaching is necessary for entrepreneurs.

Does the name Eric Schmidt ring a bell?

Well, let me fill you in…

Eric Schmidt is an accomplished technologist, famous entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was CEO and chairman of Google (from 2001-2011) and Alphabet  (from 2015-2017).

Under his leadership, Google acquired Youtube which today serves as the most popular video-sharing website and the second-largest search engine in the world.

In 2008, when Eric was the CEO, Google Chrome which is more than just a browser, was launched. It was also under his tenure that Google Adsense came to be, which changed the game for the online advertising world.

In short, under Schmidt’s leadership, Google, while maintaining a strong innovation culture, diversified its product offerings and scaled its infrastructure.

Lesson – Business Coaching is Important for Entrepreneurs

As a successful CEO of a rapidly growing company, Eric was initially resistant to hiring a business coach. Eventually, and after a lot of convincing, he did. Later, he admitted it was one of the best professional decisions he ever made.

Eric Schmidt says, “Every famous athlete, every famous performer has somebody who’s a coach. Somebody who can watch what they’re doing and say, “Is that what you really meant? Did you really do that?”  Coaches can give them perspective. The one thing people are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them. A coach really, really helps.”

Behind the uber-successful Eric Schmidt was Bill Campbell.

Bill, Eric’s coach, was regarded as “one of the people who made the biggest difference in every key decision involving the structure of Google.”

As Eric Schmidt recounts, what made Bill such a great business coach was that he saw talent. He listened carefully, and he could work with you. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? When you were doing the wrong thing, he wouldn’t say, “That’s terrible.” He’d say, “Is that consistent with your values?”

6 Reasons You Need Coaching for Your Small Business

So what made Bill Campbell such a great coach?

Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle wrote a book on Bill Campbell; Trillion Dollar Coach, which became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. 

The book can be summarised by this great quote:

“Coaching is not being told what to do. Coaching is a way of getting you to see what you should be doing and getting you motivated to do it. It’s a very special skill.”

Here are 6 reasons why coaching for small businesses is important:

1. Develop a Vision for Your Business
2. Achieve Clear Goals
3. Push Beyond Your Comfort Zone
4. Gain Great, Independent, Impartial Advice
5. Improve Leadership Confidence
6. Increase Your Productivity
7. Reduce Costs and Expenses

1. Develop a Vision for Your Business

Where do you see your business in 5 years? How about in 10 years?

A vision is a vivid picture of where your business will be in a few years to come. It can help you to develop goals and work towards them.

Once you set your vision, it becomes much easier to make decisions by answering just one simple question – does this align with my vision?

Having a clear vision is really important for two reasons. It helps you to:

• Focus on Your Goals

A business coach will direct you towards a clear, concise path that aligns with your personal values. You will also have a chance to discuss the things you need to do to get there, which is where setting goals comes in.

• Avoid Getting Sidetracked.

It’s really easy to veer off the track when you’re running a business. To get caught up in new projects and forget the core of your work. That’s where having a vision comes in.

2. Achieve Clear Goals

Once you have a vision, your coach will help you to break it down into small, achievable goals.

What do you need to do today to get to where you want to be tomorrow?

If you use the motto, my day is my life, you will wake up each morning and work to the best of your ability, every day. Each day should be a representation of who you are and what your life is all about.

So, what goals are you setting for yourself today that align with where you want your business to be in 10 years?

Writing down your goals in a clear manner is really important as it:

• Guides Your Business Operations

A business coach can help you to create a business plan, provide guidance or obtain outside funding, learn how to address meetings and network etc.

Through business coaching, you can be more in control of your business, monitor your progress, adjust accordingly, and get the best out of your staff.

• Provides a Benchmark for Success

Once you have clearly jotted down goals, it’s easy to measure your progress. You can tell whether you are moving in the direction. Business coaching is important for small businesses in keeping them accountable to these goals which they set for themselves.

3. Push Beyond Your Comfort Zone

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

Similarly, your business success is on the opposite end of fear.

We all like to be in control of things, and this makes us want to stay within our limits. We choose to go with the tried and tested way of doing things because anything contrary to this could lead to failure.

What a hoax!

You may feel your business is doing well, but a good business coach can focus on targets and help you raise them. 

A business coach is best suited to push you beyond your comfort zone because they:

• Assess Your Potential and Push You Towards It. 

Business coaching can push you to do so much more and achieve more results than you would alone. Sometimes we stay stuck in a state of comfort because we don’t believe we’re capable of so much more! As an outsider, they are able to gauge how much potential you have to succeed and gear you towards that success.

That’s the importance of coaching for small businesses.

• Keep You Accountable

Let’s be honest. We’ve all said we’re going to do things which we just didn’t end up doing. We’ve written down plans, but set them aside and never gone back to them.

Sometimes all you need is a little nudge – Someone to remind you about the things that you said you would do. That’s where business coaching comes in. Through accountability, you’ll be sure to get to your desired results one step at a time.

4. Offer great, independent, impartial advice

69% of small business owners seek advice from family and friends, and many of them end up regretting it.

Why? Because when your loved one is advising you, they’re doing it from an emotional perspective.

In itself, this isn’t a bad thing. However, they are more likely to view solutions through a personal lens, which isn’t very helpful. Admittedly, it can lead you down a spiral of problems.

Good business coaches have probably worked with a variety of businesses, and know what works well and what to avoid. They also know your business almost as much as you do.

Since they are independent and not emotionally attached, they can analyse and give insights you may not have thought of.

As a small business owner, it can be scary and hard to make the call on tough decisions. But with a business coach to guide you, you can be more confident in your decisions.

Here’s why you need impartial advice in your business:

• Impartial Advice Is Honest

People who love you will try to sugarcoat the reality when they’re around you. In business, you can’t afford to do this. It can lead you to massive losses. A business coach is less emotionally invested in your business and more likely to tell it as it is. 

Business coaching helps small business owners to find solutions which assist in growing their businesses and meeting the objectives as you define them.

• Impartial Advice Is Unbiased

Business coaches are usually highly experienced in the field. They don’t advise you from an emotional perspective but rather from a place of facts. 

A good business coach will not advise you based on what has worked for them or others. They will advise each of their clients on a case-to-case basis. Therefore the likability of biasness is removed.

5. Improve Leadership Confidence

Confidence is an invaluable skill in business.

Convincing other people to buy from you is hard(er) when you don’t believe in your own prowess.

As a small business owner, you probably handle a lot of moving parts within your organisation. Between administration, sales, logistics, customer service and finance, you may feel overwhelmed.

Being swamped gives you little to no time to learn the skills that are needed to take the organisation to the next level. It decreases confidence in your business. 

This is where business coaching comes in.

Being supported by a great coach and giving yourself the space to work out challenges enhances your confidence when going into major situations, dealing with crises, or handling conflict.

How does business coaching increase your confidence?

• Offering Valuable Insights

A lack of confidence comes from a place of uncertainty. A business coach helps you to deal with this issue by staying on top of the problems. 

They help you to see a different perspective which, in the long run, will increase your self-confidence and self-worth.

• Decentering You

Sometimes when you have a problem in business, you tend to think that you’re on your own and it’s completely unique to you.

A business coach will help you to decenter yourself and see that your problem is a normal part of the business. This instils confidence in you knowing that just like other people solved similar problems, you can too.

6. Increase Your Productivity

Small business owners often head multiple departments of their organisation. Because of this, every second counts. You don’t want to spend too much time on things that are unnecessary when this time could be much more better spent on other things.

It all boils down to productivity. 

There are times when small business owners spend weeks working on something but the results seem negligible. A business coach will help you to increase your productivity through these two ways:

• Time Management

How do you manage your time? And how many times, as a small business owner, do you find yourself to be less productive than usual?

Proper time management is crucial for a business to thrive.

It helps you to balance your work and personal life, as well as create time for the things that matter.

• Work Smarter, Not Harder

Through coaching for small businesses, you can learn to work smarter, not harder, and get things out of the way in the shortest time possible.

This frees up your time to do more important tasks. You’ll end up ticking more things off of your to-do list.

To add to that, they also create the culture of making SMART goals, which helps to narrow in on what you actually want to achieve and set a time frame for it.

Read more about setting SMART goals here.

7. Reducing Costs and Expenses

Managing your cash flow is an essential part of any business. It could be the difference between your success and your downfall.

Ironically, a lot of us small business owners take this for granted. We are so concerned with making money, but we are unsure how to manage the money when it comes in.

A business coach can help your business make more money.

An article on Forbes magazine states that “The financial data in your business is telling you a story and it’s up to you to take that financial information and interpret the data.”

How can a business coach help you to reduce your costs and expenses?

• Determining the Money Leaks in your Business

A business coach can help you to see where money is being wasted or misused. They can also help you to create a financial plan for your business and commit to achieving the financial goals.

• Increase your Money Management Skills

Coaching is invaluable for small businesses – it helps you to become a better financial manager. The business coach will help you to develop financial literacy skills and acquire knowledge of best practices to manage your finances effectively. 

And isn’t that every business owner’s dream?

Conclusion

To sum up, coaching should be a crucial part of all small businesses. Business coaches can help to steer your business towards the right direction. They can easily lead you towards what you truly want for yourself and your business.

A business coach is like a trusted advisor who leads you to success.

Here are 7 reasons a business coach is good for you:

1. Develop a Vision for Your Business
2. Achieve Clear Goals
3. Push Beyond Your Comfort Zone
4. Gain Great, Independent, Impartial Advice
5. Improve Leadership Confidence
6. Increase Your Productivity
7. Reduce Costs and Expenses

Need help with any of the things above? We are always happy to help you. Get in touch with us for a FREE 30-minute conversation. Let’s talk about you and your business, and what needs to happen to get you to the top.

Do you have a friend who you think could benefit from our services? Feel free to let us know!