MBA2293 When to Hire a Coach + Free Ride Friday

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Hey O. Welcome to the hundred dollar NBA Show. No fluff, just the good stuff. 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 co founder back in 2014 and today is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. We're giving away our $100 MBA live program. It's a two day live program where we show you how to improve as an entrepreneur. 100% guaranteed. If you want to win a free ride to the live the recordings lifetime access to those recordings. Just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that easy. We announced this week's winner a little bit later in the episod. In today's episode, you will learn when is the right time to hire a coach. In previous episodes we talked about why you'd want to coach, how to find the right coach, and even when you don't need a coach. Like when it's time for you to graduate from your coach. But in today's episode, we're going to talk specifically about when. When is it a good time for you to start looking to hiring a coach? Many people wait too long, meaning they get to a desperate situation where their business is about to go under and they're like, I need a coach to turn this around. This is the worst time to hire a coach because it's going to take time for you to implement what the coach is recommending. And you might not have that time in order to do it quickly enough to save your business. Some people try to hire a coach when they're just getting started, but unfortunately, a coach can't help you if you have no direction, you have no goals, you don't actually have a business or product on your hand for them to help you improve. There is a sweet spot, though. There's a great time to hire a coach where they're going to make a huge impact on your results. They say timing is everything. This definitely applies when it comes to hiring a coach to help grow your business. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I've hired several coaches over the last 20 years. Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, some coaches helped me for a short period of time, three, four months. Some of them helped me for two, three years. Some of them I worked with on just a project, and once the project was up, our agreement together, coach and client was over. But in my several experiences, I've noticed that the timing actually matters when I actually hire the coach. Sometimes it doesn't matter how brilliant of a coach they are, they just can't help you because you're hiring them at the wrong time. I mentioned a few of those times at the start of the episode. You see, this is something that people don't talk about. There are certain things that you need.

To figure out on your own.

And then once you figure those out, your coach can help you tick, take you to the next level. Here's another secret. The expert, the coach, the mentor, the whatever. They don't have all the answers. All they have is some skills and some experiences that they gain throughout their own life that they can share with you to help you along the way. So in my opinion, and in my experience, it's a great time to hire a coach once you just passed the traction phase, meaning you have a business, you have a product or service for sale. You've sold this product or service to customers. You've proven people actually, actually want this. And now you want to scale the business so it could be successful, so that you can earn a healthy living, so that you can expand it and grow it and hire a team. This is great timing. Why? Because you have a lot of things already established. A coach can come in, look at your business, and help you build the next steps. You have a foundation, you have a mission, you have a goal, you have a product, you have a differentiator. People know what you stand for, you have customers you can ask and get feedback from. And you're early enough in your journey for you to make some serious foundational moves that can help you move in the right direction and build upon solid ground. I did this several times in my own software company, Webinar Ninja. We had different stages and I had different coaches in different stages of the business. I wanted to get to another, bigger stage of my business, so I hired the best SaaS coach in the business. Who's Dan Martell? He is probably the expert when it comes to SaaS business. In my opinion, he is the best. So when we hired Dan to take us to that next level in our software company, did he just like sprinkle some magic dust and we all of a sudden blew up and grew 500%? No, he held us accountable. He pointed out some of the weaknesses in our business. He saw things that we didn't see because he's been through this before, several times, built several companies, had two exits, sold two companies. He's been through this before and he basically just helped us move in the right direction. We did a lot of work to do that, made a lot of changes, took a lot of risks. But I can wholeheartedly say that his coaching at that time helped us a lot. And I noticed that we did a lot better than other companies in different stages. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. You know his coaching program, SaaS Academy, it's a group coaching program. So there was like over 100 different SaaS companies in the program with us at the time. I got to learn from other companies, see what they're doing, see how they're growing. And you know, we weren't the best company there, but we definitely weren't the worst. And the ones that struggled the most were the ones that really were wishy washy on their mission, on what they're trying to do, on their differentiator, on their unique selling proposition, on how they acquire customers, who their target avatar is. They haven't established the basics and therefore the concepts and the strategies the coach was offering really didn't make sense because they didn't have the foundation. So you really need to have a solid foundation. And this is why I believe that in terms of stages of development, courses and training are great in the beginning for you to get traction and get your first customers and establish those foundational pieces and concepts in your business. And then once you get that, having a dedicated coach to take it to the next level is the next course of action. And there's lots of courses out there in entrepreneurship, there's free ones, there's paid ones, there's the hundred mba. You know that this is my program, but no one's going to really be able to coach you through that. You got to do the work and that's just the secret of it. And people don't want to talk about this, but coaches don't want to work with people that haven't established themselves. They want to have a good track record. They want to have clients that actually are successful and they're going to be picky. They're going to be like, hey, I want somebody that is actually have proven themselves already and has a product or service that's selling and doing well and I want to help them get better. They don't want to help somebody from zero to one because that's the hard part. That's what you have to do first. And it's super risky. And there's a lot of variables outside the coaches realm of influence like how hard you work and if you actually take those risks and take those bets on yourself to put your products out there, put yourself out there, they want you after that stage. The best coaches that you could find actually are the ones that you are going to find after that stage. And that's kind of the funny part about it. You know, some of the best coaches will only take on clients that are making at least $10,000 a month first. And you want one of the best coaches, right? And for those who are trying to get to that point, it's actually kind of hard to find a lot of materials. This is why if you ever take my course, the hundred dollar mba, it's actually just six workshops, six modules and it's the fundamentals. This is basically the strategies and the mindset and the systems you install in your business to get going to actually have a business on your hands. Everything else is up to you. You got to do the work. I basically give you what really matters. This is what you need to focus on. So what happens if you hire a coach outside of this kind of period? Nothing disastrous. But I'm just saying where you going to get the most value, like the highest value per dollar you're spending on a coach. I've had coaches where I wasn't at that timing. I was past that point or before that point in a project or business and it was still helpful. I still had somebody who held me accountable. I had somebody to ask advice, bounce ideas off. But if I'm going to talk about like exponential growth, you want to hire them when you are in the flow, when you're actually in traction and you're not stuck. Now I've been doing this for a very long time, so I kind of could predict when it's going to start getting stuck, meaning we're starting to slow down or not growing as fast as we used to. This is like a red alert for me. Time to get a coach to take me to the next level, whether it's a short term engagement or a long term one. And I did this. Even sometimes having short term engagements can really get you out of rut and push you to the next level. I had one of those with Ayman Abdullah, the former president of AppSumo, who took their company from 3 million to 200 million. And he unlocked a whole bunch of things for me in the few sessions we had and it was enough for me to move on so, and improve and get to where I want to go. I know I will need another coach along the way. I know this is going to happen because I've seen it throughout my life, throughout my entrepreneurial career, through different projects, through different products, through different businesses. This is just the nature of business. It's levels, right? Certain levels. You're going to need certain assistance.

We've all been there. You hold onto a coupon, hoping to cash it in at the store. But then you forget about it and suddenly you've got a mountain of useless expired coupons.

Do you think this one's still good? Free milk.

Oh, mate, that expired in 1993.

Dang it.

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So to wrap up today's lesson, here's my advice. If you're just getting started, you don't have any business on your hands. You don't have any customers, you don't a brand, you don't have a direction, you don't have a mission, you don't have a usp, you don't have any of that. Get started with some training and courses. Shameless Plug Check out the hundred dollar MBA. It might be right for you. We guarantee 100% of your money back if you don't feel like you've improved at the end of the two days of training. I also recommend picking up the classic books that will help you change your mindset. Autobiographies. Biographies. There's tons of must reads here on the podcast. Just search must reads over@100mba.net, I recommend books constantly that you could read to improve from there. Once you have traction, once you're making money, once the business has proven that there are customers that want what you have, it's time to find a coach. We have episodes in our archives about how to choose a coach, how to find them, all that kind of stuff. And as you keep growing, once you start seeing your growth not going in the same direction, meaning you're not growing as fast or not growing as fast as you did the last three months or last quarter, this is time to call on a new coach to take you to that next level before it's too late. That wraps up today's lesson. But today's episode's not over. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is Green Solitaire. That's the handle on Apple podcasts. Green Solitaire says everything I wish I'd known. After 20 years of running a business and about 10 episodes into the $100 NBA show podcast, I wish I had a time machine to send these episodes back to my former self when I was getting started. There's so much business advice out there. Often veteran business owners that are spouting things are either obvious or downright incorrect, but the 100 MBA show nails it. Thank you Green Solidaire for that amazing review. Your mission is to email me over@omar00nba.net so I can make sure I hook you up with the lifetime membership to the $100 NBA program over at 100mba.net if you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random we call Free ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like right now to see if you won. It's that easy. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to continue to hear amazing business lessons, just hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app. It's the best way to support the show and show those podcast apps that you love. This podcast. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I'm a big fan of actually joining group coaching programs instead of one on one coaching. Why? Because you not only learn from the coach and the advice they're giving you, and you know the direction they're giving you, but you're also learning from the experiences and the mistakes and the advice that the coach is giving other entrepreneurs in the group. You also learn from their wins and what worked and what didn't. It's like a think tank. It's like a collective experience that you can just grab and use in your own business and your own journey. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Of.

We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon, hoping to cash it in at the store, but then you forget about it and suddenly you've got a mountain of useless expired coupons.

Do you think this one's still good? Free milk?

Oh mate, that expired in 1993.

Dang it.

Fortunately, there are better ways to save money. Like by switching to Geico, you could save about 900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

Ooh, how about this one? Half off floppy disks.

Now you should try a bit of spring cleaning.

It feels good to save big it feels good to geico.