It’s a perfect moment to get a business coach or become one because business is growing, especially in the training and mentoring industry. Here, we’re going to discuss steps in becoming a business coach, key differences between consulting and coaching, and major reasons to coach.
What Makes a Successful Business Owner?
Before we get into the role of a business coach and the reasons to become one, we need to discuss what makes a successful business owner. These traits will make you a better business coach because a coach, much like a successful business owner:
- Aims to collaborate: To do business, you need to be good at working with others. You have employees that need to know they can rely on you for collaboration, and you have partners that collaborate with your business. It’s a priority trait for a business coach.
- Looks to the future: We base the actions of today on the outcomes we might foresee in the future. Think about what you can achieve in the long run. It’s an important trait for a business coach to plan the outcomes of their coaching.
- Strives to self-fulfillment: There’s nothing like being self-fulfilled. It means that you have realized your potential and that you can use what you’ve done to help someone else realize their potential.
- Radiates curiosity: You’re a successful entrepreneur and business owner if you’re curious about new methods and skills in your sphere. Being curious can also help you stay on top of your coaching game as you aim to develop your client’s skills.
- Turns to action: As a business coach, you’ll mostly rely on this trait that you’ve gained as a successful business owner. There’s no room for words only. You need to take action and do the same with your client.
- Develops technology skills: Never stay behind the current technologies that might help you do business. These technologies will be important for your coaching clients and help them develop their business as well.
- Delegates: Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to the employees you trust or to do the same with the person you’re coaching. Also, teach them how to delegate effectively and communicate effectively.
The Role of a Business Coach
Key responsibilities revolve around coaching and mentoring, as the name suggests. This involves advising your clients on their plans and encouraging a sense of responsibility and motivation. They also make sure that the business owner is accountable in decision-making.
A business coach engages in communicating with the owner of a business to understand their aims and guide them while they’re advancing the business. Also, coaching involves bettering the client’s authority in their field.
Reasons to Become a Business Coach
As a person who knows how to run a business, one of the likeliest reasons you’d like to become a business coach might be networking. However, there are quite a few more than practical reasons to start coaching:
- Well-paid profession: The average, quite admirable, business coach salary is around $85,000. The salary range in the US is between $71,000 and $103,000. It’s quite an attractive sum.
- Boosts inspiration and confidence: By coaching others in business matters that you had success in, you get a confidence boost and get the inspiration for new ideas for becoming better in your field.
- Contributing to the community: Another substantial reason to consider becoming a business coach is the contribution you can make to the business community by helping new business owners make progress with their ventures.
- Improves organization: As you get to organize and plan your coaching approach, your organizational skills improve. Also, you might get a chance to reevaluate and improve the organizational structure of your business.
- Develops self-assessment skills: A major reason to start as a business coach is the possibility to evaluate your moves and plans, and improve on them. It will surely improve your self-assessment skill.
Business Coach vs. Business Consultant
These are two different professions that have overlapping responsibilities. A business consultant will give you the answer they think is right based on their assessment. A business coach will provide the necessary guidance to the right answer and hold you accountable.
A business consultant is impartial and focuses on the organization while providing the answers. Also, consultants rely on a quantitative analysis of the issues at hand. As a business coach, you help bring someone’s business idea to life.
How to Become a Successful Business Coach?
We’re going to discuss six points you may look at as steps towards becoming successful as a business coach. However, it’s a long road to becoming a pro, and after enough experience in coaching, you can buy an existing business and try mentoring someone to manage it.
1. Choose Your Coaching Type
Before you think of becoming a business coach, you need to consider what type of coaching you’re going to do. We’re going to list all the types, although opinions on them may vary depending on the business coaches you ask:
- Skills coaching: This type of coaching involves you building on the existing skill set of your client, expanding and developing new skills and competencies in organization and management. It can take a few weeks or a few months, depending on your ability to coach.
- Development coaching: Depending on the position that the client wants to develop into, you need to design the method of your coaching to fit the needs of the position. Rather than expanding their skill set, your job is to focus on enhancing it so that the client becomes better at what they do.
- Executive coaching: This is a type of coaching reserved for industries and enterprises because you’ll usually focus on someone that’s working as an executive in the company. You can start your career in executive coaching by gathering insight from other executive experts.
- Performance coaching: The first thing that comes to mind when you read the type is the performance, being better at something you already do. Well, that’s what it is. You’ll be coaching people to become more efficient in the tasks they have already performed many times.
- Team coaching: If you choose to focus on this type of coaching, you’ll end up coaching teams that have trouble working together effectively. This usually happens because there are individuals within the team that have outstanding performance and they’re used to working alone.
- Transformational coaching: It’s perhaps one of the most difficult coaching types because you might need to study your client and their behavior, which leads to the lack of effectiveness in business so that you can work together on transforming those habits.
- Leadership coaching: When someone is an expert in their field, and they know how the business bureaucracy works, and the logic behind the mechanisms that run the business, but they don’t know how to lead effectively, you’re there to coach them.
2. Start Mentoring
You probably know the saying “learn by doing”, so start mentoring. Choose a person in your family that you’re planning to hand over your flourishing business, or someone you think might be competent enough to take charge.
This is a great way to learn to guide someone in the right direction. Remember, the future is important, not what happened. Try to advise on important business matters. Learn by doing, and do well when you learn enough.
3. Practice Public Speaking
Coaching will require you to become an excellent public speaker. To practice public speaking, accept that nervousness is normal, and practice will make something perfect. Thorough preparation will get you ahead in public speaking.
Second, try filming yourself so you can practice and see what needs improvement. Another way to practice is to practice continuous talk. To get superb at public speaking, avoid using fillers in all conversations.
Take a page out of the book of other mentors and coaches. Copy their public speaking methods, and try to improve them if you can. Finally, it’s always good to polish your coaching with a bit of humor and storytelling.
4. Become Great at Planning
Operating a business successfully and going for the business coach path is going to require great organization skills and impeccable planning. To do so, you might need to follow a few rules, and use some great apps:
- Setting priorities: Prioritize your tasks so that you can dedicate yourself to your business and your coaching. There’s always something more important at a time.
- Resource coordination: Think about the resources you need to complete a task and gather those things. Like with all projects, do the same when you’re coaching. Try to divide it into stages.
- Delegation: When you’re busy coaching, you need to delegate, but you’ve probably learned how to do this because you own a successful business. There’s always room for improvement.
- Apps: If you’re an iOS user, get the best planner apps for iOS. Windows and Android are not lacking in terms of organizational apps. We recommend picking one and studying all its features.
5. Focus on Your Field
Don’t misinterpret this step. Focusing on your field doesn’t mean focusing on the field of business coaching. Be specific when coaching in business. For example, if you run a marketing services business, focus on mentoring people in said field.
Get ahead in business coaching by putting efforts into coaching in your business field. You must put your focus on something you know well, not something that requires you to learn. This way, you’ll also expand and nourish your reputation.
6. Network and Get Certified
It’s important to network for the success of your business and also the success of your business coach career. One of the best ways to do so is to join the ICF. It’s a community of coaches where you can get certified.
Certification will certainly give you an advantage in coaching because you’ll have proof of worth. The International Coaching Federation is not the only way for you to network when you become a coach. You need to consider different platforms:
- LinkedIn: This is the no. 1 networking platform for any kind of business, including business coaching. Get your LinkedIn profile noticed by being active and providing excellent posts regularly to improve your networking chances.
- Instagram: It’s a bit more difficult with Instagram because it’s not a business networking platform. As with any social media platform, the users come to look at engaging content, so be sure to post catchy stuff on your profile.
- Facebook: It’s kind of an all-in-one platform where you can find engaging entertainment and serious posts at the same time. Try joining groups that are focused on your sphere of coaching and business.
- Twitter: Getting an insightful tweet out there two or three times a week might get you noticed, and people might ask for your services. You don’t have to tweet frequently, but doing it regularly might be worth your while.
Lucky for us, the internet is a medium of information that can get you noticed within a few clicks. The only thing you need to think about is your target audience. Again, keep step 4 in mind and focus on your niche.
Bonus: Online Business Coaching Options
We’re going to recommend two possibilities for doing business coaching online. The first way is providing one-on-one sessions to your clients, and the second way is providing a course in terms of business coaching videos.
It’s more likely that people opt for one-on-one sessions because it’s tailored to their needs, and you can focus on their particular business as a coach. Then, familiarize yourself with video calling software.
A more profitable option is recording niche-specific videos of you as a business coach. This way, you can have multiple clients at once within a similar sphere. Pro-tip, use the Mac screen recorder for detailed videos where you explain what you’re doing.
How to Become an Online Business Coach?
Once you’ve covered all the steps regarding regular business coaching, there are still some fundamental things to consider that might determine your online business coaching career, and these include:
- Charge for services: You need to consider the scope of your coaching if it’s going to be one client or more. Don’t exceed the number of clients you can coach and determine the price based on the number. Don’t be greedy, make it acceptable.
- Structure: No matter the number of clients you opt for when doing business coaching online, discuss the structure with them individually. If it’s a group coaching session, you can discuss the form with all of them.
- Client opinion: Never dismiss the opinion of your clients. It’s important to conduct surveys continuously and ask for feedback so that you can improve your coaching style and skills. There’s always room for improvement.
- Platform: Depending on the method you choose, you might need to select a platform for your course. If you choose to make a business coaching course, learn how to create an online course.
Conclusion
As a business coach, you’ll guide the success of someone’s business. There are significant benefits. To be successful at coaching, you need to plan, speak in public, and network. Going online can improve the networking aspect and maximize your business coaching profits.
If you choose to go online, take into account how much you’ll charge for your coaching services. Also, consider the type of coaching you’ll conduct, group or individual work, and don’t forget to ask for feedback. It can only make you better.
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