Business coaching is becoming more popular, and the number of folks hanging up their shingles to provide the services associated with this activity has escalated tremendously, in the past few years. This article explores a few more of the reasons coaches are adding value, especially to smaller enterprises. In a prior writing, I noted that coaching addresses the loneliness of business owners, who just dont have anyone they can turn to in order to discuss their challenges. If we examine the word, coach and think of sports, we ask, how do coaches function to enhance the performance of their athletes? One way is by imparting new skills, tricks of the trade that they learned or figured out for themselves, that arent intuitively obvious to their players. For example, just this week, one of my clients is involved in building a tele-sales unit and is trying to recruit college students for its part-time positions. Its a good idea, but the plan is to advertise in newspapers within student intensive zip codes. At best, this is an indirect way of going about recruiting, when for no outlay of cash, you can post help-wanted ads in college placement offices. You KNOW students will see the ads, that way! And, as it turns out, there are major colleges within blocks of their office, and one proprietary school is housed in their building! Ive done recruiting of this type for years, as a telemarketing job provider, and on behalf of my coaching and consulting clients. This example demonstrates just one small way that a coach enhances performance. Sometimes he has a cheaper, more direct, and more effective method of doing something that you simply dont know. But presuming you know all of the basics, what else can a coach do for you? Back to athletics, for a second, coaches get their players to play harder. They do this through all kinds of means, among them goal setting and encouragement, to name a few. Left to our own resources, were be tempted to kick back, especially after achieving only moderate success. This can lead to backsliding and to a downward cycle of achievement. With a coach, youll get the prodding, pushing, and occasional kick in the pants that you need to outdo your prior peak in performance. In our era of expanding coaching services, no small business owner needs to be an island. Thats good news, isnt it? In future articles, well explore even more of the functions served by coaches. |
