Seven Tips for Selecting Your Business Coach

1. What is business coaching?

• Business coaching focuses on your business and your role within it – its objective is to improve overall business performance.
• ‘Coaching’ describes the way you and your coach will work together on issues that are important to you. This is done in a way that helps you understand these issues, develop solutions and take responsibility for a successful outcome.

2. Why might I need a business coach?

• Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself:
  • Is my hairdresser the only person who holds up a mirror for me?
  • Am I having difficulty getting away from my business?
  • Can’t decide what decision to make?
  • Am I having difficulty sorting out the important from the urgent?
  • Are there three people in my relationship – my business, my partner/spouse and me?
  • Am I – Short of time? Short of breath? Short of energy?
  • Does the same challenge keep coming back?
  • Are my people just not ‘getting it’?
  • There must be a better solution out there somewhere?
  • When do I ever get the time to do some proper thinking?

• You might, then, have some specific and immediate needs, a sense that all’s not well or a feeling that there are some things you could be doing better. Your coach will work closely with you at the beginning to ensure that clear goals are set and your time is well spent.

3. Finding a business coach

• As with many other things, word of mouth is very powerful. As the people you network with whether they have come across any coaches they would recommend. Have they had any coaches recommended to them?
• Local networking groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Ecademy, Refer on and the Institute of Directors are useful face to face sources.
• Go online and Google ‘business coaches’. You may want to restrict your search geographically, say, ‘business coaches thames valley’.
• When you search, try to get some idea of what coaching qualifications the coach has, Professional coaches will have invested in an accredited coaching qualification.  There are a number of top coaching bodies such as the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and the Association of Coaching (AoC).

4. First Impressions

• The essence of a good coaching relationship is rapport and trust. Rapport – such as shared interests – can happen quite rapidly.
• Have an initial face to face meeting with your prospective coach to see if the ‘chemistry’ is right – trust you ‘gut’ feeling.
• Trust takes a little longer but is important if you are to get the most out of your coaching relationship. Ask yourself if you could be totally honest and open with your coach.
• Ask your coach what a typical coaching session would be like – what might you expect of him/her and what might they expect of you?
• Double check that you are talking to a business coach rather than a life coach or therapist.
• This could lead straight away to the next stage of the coaching process or you could agree to call it a day.
• Don’t be reticent about doing this if you really don’t feel you and the coach will be able to develop a trusting relationship.
• If you feel you need more time to reflect on this and/or talk to other potential coaches, then that’s fine.

5. What questions should I ask?

• Usually there are four areas you will want to explore:
  • What business experience has you coach had? What industries? What level of seniority? Has he/she any experience of working with companies like yours? What issues have they dealt with? Views differ on whether the coach needs to know your industry inside out – you may prefer someone who relies on you to the subject matter expert.
  • What qualifications do they have? Education and professional bodies are important.
  • As previously mentioned, check out their coaching qualifications – have they been accredited by a recognised coaching body and/or academic establishment.
  • What coaching experience do they have? Again explore the clients, at which levels and whether 1:1 or groups.

6. So it’s OK so far – then what?

• At either the initial meeting – if the chemistry is OK – or subsequently when you’ve selected your coach – you need to agree how you will work together. The jargon for this is ‘contracting’.
• This essentially sets the tone for how you and your coach will work together and has a number of key parts:
  • What do you want to achieve from the coaching engagement – the goals and objectives?
  • What are your expectations in terms of how you and your coach will work together? Do you recognise, for example, that the responsibility for what is agreed lies with you, not the coach?
  • Are you committed to the schedule of sessions that have been agreed between you and the coach?
• A good coaching relationship relies on openness. You have a responsibility to provide open feedback to the coach as to what is or is not working in the relationship.
• A related issue is how long a coaching relationship should last. There is no right answer – typically it would run for six to twelve months – but there are a number of considerations:
  • Are we just having interesting conversations, but nothing new is coming out of our sessions?
  • Am I reluctant to share what I am really thinking and feeling?
  • Is the coach trying to push their view of the world on me?
  • Does the coach continually talk over me?
  • Am I not really committed – for whatever reasons – to the outcomes we have agreed?
  • Is it going to be difficult for me to pay the next invoice?

7. How will I measure the value of coaching?

• Frankly, it’s difficult to identify whether coaching has a direct impact on the bottom line because of all the other factors that influence business performance. However, studies have shown that coaching positively influences productivity, quality and customer service and helps you keep your best employees.

Source: ‘Coaching and buying Coaching Services’, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (www.cipd.co.uk) November 2008.

• The same report identified the following benefits for coaching:
  • 99% felt that ‘coaching can deliver tangible benefits to both individuals and organisations’.
  • 92% agreed that ’when coaching is managed effectively it can have a positive impact on the bottom line’.
  • 67% of respondents felt that coaching had been ‘effective’ or ‘very effective’.

• In addition, a report by the International Coaching Federation (2008) found a wide range of benefits  reported by people who had been coached which included:
  • Increased self awareness 68%
  • Better goal setting 62%
  • More balanced life 61%
  • Lower stress levels 57%.