Part 1: What is a Professional Business Coach? An Explanation of a Business Coach’s Role
It was October, and I had just finished my Money Flow Experience 3-day event. One of the questions that came up a lot is “what is a business coach?”
The participants were happy and relieved to finally know what to do in their businesses.
One by one, participants began to approach me and say things like:
“I wish I had known about you earlier. I didn’t know what a business coach really was.”
“There’s so much more to learn that I didn’t even realize.”
“I didn’t even know that I was running my business more like a hobby than a business.”
“I’m great at mindset, but I really need to learn more business skills.”
You see, I had explained things like measuring conversion rates, understanding the difference between offline and online marketing, how to do and track sales conversations and what kind of revenue to expect. Some might call this “hardcore” business training.
I combine my business training with my spiritual side — doing healings and deep mindset work along the way.
I could tell that so many people were confused about the roles of different kinds of coaches. I’ve been coaching full-time for 13 years now, and just in case you are thinking of hiring a professional business coach this year, I’d love to clarify.
How do you choose a business coach? And what role do coaches play in your business?
Let’s start with a few definitions.
What is a Professional Business Coach?
An experienced business coach is someone who helps you determine strategies in your business. Strategies like: what to offer in your business, how much to charge, how to brand your business, who your best customers are and where to find those customers.
This person is also able to help you figure out plan B when plan A doesn’t work and helps you move out of stuckness, confusion, or procrastination to keep growing your business.
The reason that experience is helpful here is because you want to find a business coach who has three areas of experience:
- Demonstrated monetary success in her own business.
- Experience helping lots of clients with their businesses.
- Training or schooling in business skills that have equipped them to work with all types of businesses.
I would also suggest staying away from business coaches who are going to instruct you in a “be like me” way. That is only teaching you how to build a business that looks like their business. This usually occurs with business coaches who don’t have a lot of experience or training in business — they have just built one successful business on their own. Just because someone has built one successful business model doesn’t mean they are actually good teachers for multiple models.
I also believe that a good business coach should provide both training and coaching. Training on skills such as making sales, generating leads, hiring team, etc. And coaching you specifically on how to implement these skills for your business.
Business is a language — and just like any language — you actually have to take the time to learn one skill at a time — and to do that you need solid training.
For example, at Revenue Breakthrough we have our RISE Business Academy which teaches solid business training and provides individual coaching and mindset support.
What is a Mindset or Life Coach?
Mindset or Life coaches vary greatly in their skills and their focuses. These are people that are awesome at giving you advice in all the areas of your life far beyond business. They help you work through past upsets, create a different future, and change your brain for the better.
What they don’t do generally is get down to the nuts and bolts of business, like teaching you which 7 numbers you should be tracking, or the 8 ways you could grow your list, or exactly how you close during a sales conversation.
Mindset work is incredibly important to help you take action in your business. However, you must be careful here because I’ve met far too many business owners who are strong action takers — but they are running in the wrong direction, because they lack a solid business strategy!
For example, at one of my last events, I met a spiritual healer whose coach told her to take 60% off her sessions because she needed money fast. She ended up selling 50 sessions and losing money on every single one of them! She came to me desperate, exhausted and wondering what had gone wrong.
I would have told her to limit the number of sessions she sold, made sure she wasn’t losing money on her price point and created an upsell on all of the sessions. And that’s just for starters!
Every business owner needs to learn true business strategies and skills at some point in their business. And then combine the mindset piece to help them to keep moving forward.
What is a Certification or Skills Training?
These are programs that help you build your skills. For a coach, it might look like a training program on how to deal with trauma with your clients. For a massage therapist, it might look like a continuing education class on a new method of massage that helps with weight loss.
These programs are incredibly attractive! The subject matter is amazing. The relationships you build are fun.
Sometimes my clients get confused and they say, “But Monica, If I take another certification and get better at my trade, then more people will hire me because I’ll be better.”
The only way more people will hire you is if you sell more and convert more. So the most important skills to get better at are generating leads (marketing) and converting those leads (selling).
I totally believe in advancing your skillsets. I’m in a coach skillset training right now and it’s amazing! But if you haven’t learned how to sell and market then you’ll end up spending the money on the certification and having no way to earn it back.
So What’s My Suggestion?
If you are at a day job right now and are taking business training courses to build your skills so that you can have your own business — awesome!
Then when you are done with your training program, hire a professional business coach to teach you important skills.
If you are in business already and are struggling with money or free time — hire a business coach to help you build a business that supports an amazing lifestyle. When you are ready to take that step, here is my article on How to Pick the Right Business Coach: 6 Key Questions You Must Ask.
If you’re already successful in business or have taken business training and find yourself stuck or procrastinating, lonely or blocked — a mindset, life or spiritual coach could help you move forward fast.
And of course, I always believe in the AND — not OR. Right now, I personally have a business coach, a spiritual/mindset coach and I’m taking a skills training. However, my cash flow allows that.
In the beginning, I focused solely on hiring business coaches until I got to 7-figures.
If you are ready to hire a business coach and would like to explore hiring someone who combines healing, spirituality and business strategy, and has 13 years of experience — please reach out to our team here.
Here’s to you creating an amazing support team around you and building a business that supports your dream life! I’d love the opportunity to help you on your way to your dream, join my Facebook group for support, encouragement, and the tools that you need to succeed!
