Business Coaching – From Stability To Growth For Small Businesses
Business Coaching
Running your own business, depending on the size, can mean learning to be a Jack of all trades and inherent in that notion is the danger of becoming expert in none. For small business owners managing (and on occasion micro-managing) every arm of their business while also finding time to conduct the crucial activity of growing the firm, can seem like an impossible dream.
There’s been a rise in small businesses during the last recession and it’s often small firms that are best placed to negotiate the particularly choppy waters of economic downturns. However, while small is undoubtedly beautiful, growth is the lifeblood of any firm.
Alongside the rise in small firms there has been a growth in business coaching. Although it’s a trend that has been growing for some time, the fact that the role of business coach is seeing a rise in popularity is in part a symptom of the large number of small to medium firms that know there are opportunities for growth, but lack the time and skill to harness them.
So what exactly can a business coach do for your company and is the return worth the investment?
Opportunity Blindness
Even in relatively large businesses the owner can often find that they are working long hours (probably the longest hours) and yet not achieving the results that they are hoping for. This is usually a good sign that a business coach may be of use to your firm.
Business focused coaches come from backgrounds that offer them insight into the process of running a company and achieving results in growing firms regardless of the industry.
One aspect in which they can benefit a firm is that they can help to bring perspective to problems or challenges. It’s easy when running your own company to lose sight of a wider perspective beyond your own area of operations, this lack of perspective can leave you blind to opportunities and its here that a coach can help to broaden your horizons.
Bored, Bored, Bored
Motivation is one crucial requirement for success in business. While it’s usually not in short supply during the early days of running your own firm it can wane with time. Even if you’re passionate about what you do long hours (and the isolation of life at the top) can leave you drained and not only lacking motivation but beginning to become bored and disinterested in your own company.
Again, a business coach can help to reinvigorate your passion for what you do and help to identify causes for lack of engagement. This can be crucial to a company on a surprisingly broad basis.
Dissatisfaction at the top quickly feeds down to all levels of the company and can be deadly. Reinvigorated managers and owners will soon find that enthusiasm is also growing across the board.
Right People, Wrong Place?
The broader perspective into business management that a business coach can bring is also crucial for developing the team structure of your company. Expertise in this area can identify weaknesses and, importantly, strengths at all levels of your company.
While you are already well placed to know your employees’ aptitudes and skills, an outsider with excellent business coaching experience can often spot further opportunities in individuals. Team building and development is essential to your firm’s success and a business coach can help to identify weak links in your firm – or links with skills that are being woefully underused.
Getting the Basics in Place
Many reasons why businesses struggle is down to a lack of infrastructure, opting instead to attempt to save a little by running inferior equipment and systems rather than investing in state of the art machinery and hardware that will allow them to scale their business.
Infrastructure like connectivity is essential for any small business and fibre opting networking will let your business deliver data, information and service on time and fast.
Cloud computing puts all your business data from many different desktops and terminals in one central location where you can safely and securely access it on demand in real time. Cloud server maintenance and management is an essential, but there are many low cost providers who take care of all your data for you.
Alarming Results
Business coaches come in a range of shapes, sizes and, significantly, price brackets. This can lead business owners to worry about the actual value of their services and one problem is often that it can be hard to quantify the return on the investment. While this is certainly true, most business owners that have worked with a business coach have quickly seen the benefits on both a personal and company wide level.
By building robust teams with ongoing training, identifying opportunities and developing the business owner’s own skills and insight, growth and profits often follow at an alarmingly pleasant rate. In many cases, business owners wonder what exactly held them back from establishing a business coaches one of their essential assets.