MBA1729 Should You Hire a Business Coach?

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Hey O welcome to the Hunter, our MBA show, giving you straight, honest business insights every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my partner back in 2014. In today's episode we answer the question, should you hire a business coach? Many entrepreneurs, whether they're beginners or they've been doing it for a few years, will raise their hand and say I need help. And they ask themselves, is it worth it to hire a business coach to help them through their business journey? Well, in today's episode I'm going to discuss is it worth it when you should consider using a business coach? How to know how much to spend on one and how to get the most out of the experience. If you choose to hire a business coach, this is a big investment and you need to make sure you're making the right choice. Sometimes we'll spend money on things we just don't need yet, and you'll also spend on things that you should have done a long time ago. So I'm going to clear that all up. I'm going to make sure you know if your timing's right and how to move forward with the business coach. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Hey, Fidelity, Can I get a second.

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I want to start by saying that business coaching is a market like any other market. If you were to hire a contractor to renovate your house, a songwriter to write you a song, or even attend a yoga class, you're going to have good, highly qualified, good value people that deliver their service and you're going to have people that don't. So understand if you are going down this path and you're going to hire a business coach that you should be doing your due diligence. You have to look for the right coach, not just somebody who gets results, but can get results for you. Sometimes in our eagerness to improve and to see our business go to the next level, if somebody just approaches us with a coaching offer, we say, yes, this sounds great without doing any due diligence. So this is my first tip to you. If you're gung ho about getting a business coach, then you really need to do some due diligence before you sign on the dotted line. I've worked and know a lot of coaches. I have a business coach, Dan Martell, who's our business coach and I've worked with him for a couple of years now. And before we worked with him, we did a lot of research on the kind of companies he works with, other companies that were at the same level as us, maybe even in the same industry, to find out was he able to help them out and to what degree, because your coach may be able to help you get to point A, to point B, and maybe even to point C. But rarely does a coach know how to get you all the way to Z. Okay, they're able to get you through certain stages. So understand when you sign up with a coach, they're not going to be the answer to all your problems. They're going to help you if they're qualified. But it's almost impossible to find somebody who can really specialize in all stages of business. So I wanted to say off the bat that this is going to take some time, you have to vet that person. It's like hiring somebody on your team. And during that time you can ask yourself the question, do you actually need coaching? So the first thing I want to talk about. Finances. Yep. Can you afford to have a coach? Because these business coaches, they're not cheap, okay? They're expensive. Sometimes there are hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month. And you have to see this as an investment. If you put that money up, will you be able to get that in return with a profit? You know you need to make more money than you're spending, right. And how will you know that? How will you actually know that equation? How would you actually know if you're going to get a return on investment? Well, you have to ask. You can ask the business coach to give you examples, case studies, or you can actually go ahead and ask people that you know were coached by that coach and say, hey, tell me what you did. What was your investment not only in terms of money, but time and effort? What did you have to implement to get the results you got and what are those results? They got to give you specifics, actual dollars and cents. Otherwise you're just not going to know how much this is worth it to you. Number two, if you can't afford the coaching, if you're going to be in a tight spot because of the coaching, I recommend you do not do it. Because you're almost guaranteed to be disappointed. Because it's going to take some time to get results. And if you have to pay month after month and you're getting really, really uncomfortable financially, you're not going to be a happy camper. You're not going to see the benefits. So if you can't afford coaching right now, if it's not money that you can part with and it won't affect your business or your life, then don't do it. Just flat out wait until you're in a better financial situation so you can invest in that. Now, if you can't afford it, the best coaches will have some sort of trial run or guarantee where if you don't see a result in a certain amount of time, a couple months, three months, four months, six months, they will either give you a refund or just cancel your contract. The point here is that they put their money where their mouth is. If a coach is not willing to do that, then they're not really worth even considering. The great coaches will do that. But of course you got to do your part and that's where it gets really interesting. The coach can only do so much. If I'm a basketball coach and I'm coaching a bunch of basketball players, if I tell them to do certain drills and they don't do them, if they don't actually run up and down the court, they're just not going to get better, period. So there's going to be a lot of work involved on your side for the coaching to work. So if you don't have the time, the bandwidth, the energy to do it right now, then you're asking for trouble, you're asking for disappointment. You need to make sure that you carve out that time, whether that's in person, events or coaching that the coaching package includes, or online learning videos you have to watch, live calls, homework. I know when I do my business coaching with Dan, there's a lot of work involved. There's a lot of time I need to put aside to just get through a few of the strategies he implements or he actually recommends I implement, I should say. So it's not just, I'm going to pay this person money and magic will happen. No, you're going to have to put in a lot of effort, a lot of time. Make sure you have that time and effort. Otherwise you're not going to be really getting a lot out of it. Next, I want to share with you a secret, okay? Even the best coaches in the world don't know 100% what's going to work for your business. That's just the straight up truth. They're going to give you some recommendations. They're going to tell you, try this, try this, try this. But they don't know for sure 100%. Even if you give it 100%, if it's going to work, if it's going to affect your business, but they're going to try to guide you in the right direction. You have to understand your business and your experience of your business is totally different than the next person's experience of their business. If you came to me and asked me to be your coach, it would take me months to really, really understand what your business is like. The marketplace, your customers, who you're serving, how you're serving them, the history, your financial and technical debt, all that kind of stuff. Understand your reputation in the market. Even if I knew all that, it would still be hard for me to give you a surefire strategy that I know I would bet my life on it would work. And if I spend all that time, I'm no longer your coach. I'm The CEO of the company. I know everything now, so you get my point. Understand that a coach can make recommendations, they see patterns, they have other clients have similar struggles, that maybe their solution to those struggles will work for you. But there is no such thing as a miracle worker or a silver bullet. You might think if I just have the right coach, I could just tell me what to do and that's that. I'm here to tell you that's just fantasy talk. Even if that coach jumped into your position and said, I'm going to take over as your CEO, there's no guarantees you'll be able to do a better job. There might be things out of their control that is affecting your business. The marketplace, the economy, you know, the traffic to your website, the branding that they have to rebuild their reputation. There's so much and there's so many variables. If I'm going to be 100% honest with you, my advice to you is that when a coach gives you advice, take it on. Think about it. You know your business best. Ask yourself, is it worth trying? Do I lose anything by trying? Of course I lose time and opportunity costs, but is it worth it? If so, let me implement. Let me do it. That's a better way to take on things rather than just say, I'm just going to do everything they say and if it doesn't work out, they're a horrible coach. No, that's just not the reality of the way business works. And I can tell you this because I had to get honest with myself throughout the years about what really matters in business, what really can be recommended, what really can be advised to me. I have to make those choices myself. I'm ultimately responsible for the success of my business. I hire a coach to help me get there, but they're not responsible. I am.

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So let's wrap up. Should you hire a coach? Number one, if they're well vetted, if they're well qualified, if they got results for companies similar to yours in a similar stage, in terms of where you are in your revenue, where you are in Your growth, all those boxes are ticked. They're ethical. They're known for getting results. Awesome. Hire them, test them out. Maybe go for six months a year if you can afford it. If you can part ways with a year's worth of coaching and it won't crush your business or you financially, go for it because they're highly qualified and you're going going to learn a ton in that time. If it puts you in any kind of financial strife, do not do it. In the meantime, you can take some courses. You can go really deep on some YouTube videos. If you're in the SaaS world, you can find Dan Martell's free videos on YouTube that you can learn a lot from. And there are other Dan Martells out there in different markets. Do your research and work with what you have right now. Financially, if you go with a coach, understand the responsibility of success is on your shoulders. They can make recommendations, but you gotta make it happen. A coach can write up plays on the basketball court, for example, for a last minute shot. You make it, you win, you don't, you lose. The coach can't shoot the shot for you. At the end of the day, you have to execute. The plan can be perfect, but if the execution is not, then the plan is worthless. Well, it's not totally worthless because you can always try again and execute better. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 on VA Show. If you love it here, don't forget to hit. Subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. A lot of people get discouraged because they hire a business coach. It doesn't work out and they say, you know what, forget business coaching, it stinks. I'm going to go back to that, you know, sports analogy. Michael Jordan in the 90s had Doug Collins as a coach. He was a good coach. Not a great one, but a good one. He got replaced by Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson implemented an offense that worked for his players, including Michael Jordan, and he went off to win six championships with Michael Jordan. So sometimes you just need a better fit. Don't feel discouraged. Feel empowered. Take smaller commitments. Try the coach out for a few months. If it doesn't work out, if you don't get the results, just say goodbye, it's okay. And then move on and try another one again. If this is within your financial reach, do it. But don't get discouraged. The right coach can make a difference. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and a Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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