6 signs you might benefit from working with a business coach

Whether you’re a manager, employee, business owner or are looking to set-up a new venture, working with a business coach can be hugely beneficial. Helping to develop and hone your skills, a coach can help improve your chances of success.

Offering an external, objective, constructive perspective on your unique situation, coaches specialise in a wide variety of different areas. From public speaking to strategy, management to start-ups, picking the right person for you is key.

Other business coaching terms commonly used can include executive coaching, start-up business coaching, management coaching, staff coaching, or interview coaching. Each focuses on helping clients explore their strengths, improve on their weaknesses, as well as discover and implement techniques that can help them excel with their career goals.

Whether you’re a business owner, an executive, manager, employee, freelancer, or are looking for a new job or career, coaching may be able to help.

Signs you may benefit from working with a business coach

The thought of public speaking makes you break out in a cold sweat – whether public speaking is your worst nightmare, you just don’t feel confident, or you want to take your presenting skills to the next level and go from informative to interesting (or interesting to inspirational), working through things with an outside perspective can help.

If your nerves are getting the better of you, a coach with expertise in public speaking can help teach you techniques to feel more calm and confident. If you are already comfortable presenting at work or delivering talks during bigger conferences, a coach may be able to help you improve the efficiency, delivery and performance, helping you take your presentation to the next level.

You’re worried you waffle, rather than communicating clearly – let’s be honest. Even the best communicators can have a bad day where they aren’t quite sure if what they are saying and what they mean is really adding up. If you think your communication skills – in person, on the phone, by email, or over video conference calls – could use a brush-up, a coach may be able to help build your confidence and uncover areas you could work on.

For many of us, good communication skills aren’t second nature. Shyness, awkwardness, low self-confidence or low self-esteem can all hold people back, no matter how creative, innovative, or intelligent they are.

You keep second-guessing your decisions or feel unable to move forward towards change – as a business owner, it can be hard to see things impartially or as a whole. As something you are passionate about and likely have an emotional bond with, worries over making the wrong decision or jeopardising your success can take hold, making it hard to continue moving forward, making progress.

Recognising when change could improve things or may be vital to the success of your business is key. While staying true to your original goals and aims is important, if you feel unable to make necessary changes, you risk becoming stuck, stagnant, and out of touch with what your business and clients truly need.

A business coach can offer an objective, unbiased outsiders perspective. Often coming from a place of experience, talking things through with someone who has been there, done that can help turn decision making into an easier process with the support of someone you can talk things through with, spark new ideas, and gain an alternative perspective you may not have considered, all without the emotional attachment you have to your business.  

You want to make a big change in your career, but you aren’t sure where to start – maybe you want to switch career paths, go freelance, or become the boss and start your own business, but it feels like something is holding you back. If you are looking to make a big change but are having trouble getting started, a coach may be able to offer support, guidance, and expertise.

If you are looking to launch your own business, working with a start-up business coach can give you a huge advantage. Notoriously risky, almost half of all start-ups fail within the first three years which (understandably) can seem daunting for anyone. With the help of an experienced coach, together you can create a plan for success, helping you avoid many of the more common (and not-so-common) mistakes that can spell trouble for new businesses.

Work/life balance is something you long for, rather than practise – it’s easy to get carried away by demanding or stressful projects. It can be even easier to forget to aim for a healthy balance when you are passionate about what you do, run your own business, or are striving to establish yourself as a freelancer.

Prioritising your workload, implementing time frames, and developing better time management skills are all areas an experienced coach should be able to help you work on. With a little extra support and time spent structuring your schedule, you can learn to work smarter rather than harder, allowing more time for family, friends, and hobbies.

Your motivation levels are erratic or hard to maintain – perhaps you are brimming with ideas on Monday, but by Wednesday you are struggling to maintain your motivation and focus. Persisting through the good and bad times can be difficult.

A business coach may be able to help show you tips for keeping your own motivation levels high, setting short-term goals and milestones to help you celebrate success along the way, as well as uncovering your true goals to help you hone in on what you really want to achieve rather than what you think you want to achieve.