Hiring a Business Coach? Do Your Homework!

If you’re an entrepreneur, chances are that you have either hired a coach yourself, or known someone that has hired a coach.

There are life coaches, business coaches, marketing coaches, spiritual coaches, nutrition coaches… basically if someone else can improve in an area, it seems as if there is a coach for it.

I have hired bad coaches and good coaches. I’m working with two good ones right now.

Bad Coaches = Bad Investment

The bad coaches made me feel like I had been duped by a smart sales pitch. They knew enough to tell me what they think I should do but they didn’t know how to actually DO any of it. With these coaches I felt like they just “threw up” their knowledge in my lap and left me to clean it up, organize it, and prioritize it myself.

Good Coaches = Good Investment

The good coaches on the other hand make me feel like I can do and achieve anything. They actually DO things for me and help me make the progress I am looking to make. They are invested in my success and dedicated to helping me achieve my goals.

In my experience, there is a catch when it comes to working with business coaches… You must do the homework your coach assigns you. The good coaches will hold you accountable to make sure you do your homework, the bad ones, well not so much. Your homework assignments are the things that you need to do to get to the next level, to reach farther, to achieve more. Sometimes, you can’t get to where you want to go without the homework.

A recent discussion I had with a prospect is a great example. The prospect wanted to hire me to optimize their site and manage their marketing efforts. The problem was that their site was ugly and unprofessional. It wouldn’t matter how much traffic I drove to their site, once the visitor got there, they would leave! So, before I could agree to manage their marketing, I told them they needed a website redesign.

Another great example is a conversation I had at a recent networking event. Another guest asked me if I could guarantee a specific percent income increase if they hired Bourn Creative. My answer was no because he could not guarantee that he would do everything I recommended no matter what.

Now, I don’t call myself a coach – but the similarity is there. If you hire a good coach, trust in their expertise and DO what they tell you to do and you’ll begin to see the progress you’re making toward achieving your goals!