Should you become a holistic business coach?

Coaching for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs optimizes the potential of a new or existing business by focusing on the company’s founder. Serving business owners and entrepreneurs, you enable your clients to sharpen their presence and leadership skills, develop or expand their business, and elevate their people to success. As with health and wellness coaches, a business coach typically has previous knowledge, experience and expertise they are building upon by using coaching to help others.

Your mission is to evaluate your client’s present business condition, as well as their role as an influencer within it. From there, you work to help them more readily understand and advance their chosen business agenda. At the same time, you instill within them the tools necessary to become a highly effective leader and business owner in line with their personality and individual strengths.

Who hires a business coach?

As a small business/entrepreneur coach, clients come to you for your ability to champion them to self-discover and create the business they really want. Your clients are seeking to be more effective in their communication, strategic in their decision-making, and want to develop their time and people-management skills.

Depending on your area of experience and expertise, you may also be called upon to help them with everything from marketing and social media to speaking, trade show presentations, and other forms of public address. In the broadest terms, your goal is to enable individuals and their businesses to prosper.

Almost without exception, your clients want to be more self-confident, optimistic and motivated as they create ease and flow in the fast-paced, ever-demanding business environment. Many are also looking for more effective ways to be successful in their business endeavors while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

The best part of becoming a business coach is that the tools and philosophy associated with your services almost always spill over into your clients’ personal lives. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you stop to think about your whole being – mental, emotional, physical, social and spiritual – how many of these five aspects affect your work and vice versa? All of them… and often more than some people would like! So, by considering each of the core elements of a whole person, you immediately extend the benefit you offer your business clients while elevating the scope and value of your services.

Why you might love being a business coach…

Should you specialize in business coaching? Yes! Especially if you value addressing the needs of the whole company and the deeper dimensions that block an entrepreneur or business owner from truly flourishing.

It’s also worth noting this branch of coaching is highly valued in North America. The International Coach Federation recently published the 2016 ICF Global Coaching Study in which they reported 3,100 business managers and leaders are now using coaching skills within their daily workplace interactions. That number jumps to 10,900 when you take into account business owners and entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Many who become business coaches are already business owners themselves (yours truly among them). This unique experience enables them to support their clients through the full spectrum of business challenges. It typically includes upstarts, business launches, day-to-day operations, business development and growth, and even succession planning.

What does a business coach do?

While certain clients may call upon you to wear several hats, some coaches choose to specialize in a specific subset of this niche. This enhances the value of their services, positioning them above those who opt to provide only standard business coaching. Almost always based on the coach’s individual strengths and experience, popular subsets include:

• Work-life Balance/Mindfulness
• Product Research and Development
• Speaking for Professionals
• Sales Effectiveness
• Leadership and Communication Skills
• Training and Development
• Family-Owned Businesses
• Speaking/Presentations
• Franchises
• Branding and Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• Content Development and Marketing
• Employee Training and Development

Who are the most successful business coaches?

Typically the most successful small business coaches are those who have previously laid the tracks of a successful entrepreneurial venture or have direct inside business experience to draw upon. They know the road a business owner must travel and are thus a highly valuable resource. Now they want to give back to the next generation of business owners. For this reason, small business coaches frequently originate from within the corporate arena or their own entrepreneurial ventures. Your experience essentially qualifies you to offer knowledge on a wide variety of topics and considerations encountered in the daily routine of business operation.

But there are exceptions to this rule. If you are someone who possesses generalized knowledge, such as the experience and skills related to a specific need for a new or small business, you can still become an asset in their business success tool kit as their coach. Perhaps you have a degree or advanced training in speaking and communications. Maybe you’re highly organized and can prioritize a lengthy to-do list in your sleep. And if you are one of the rare few who have a natural ability to defuse potentially explosive interpersonal situations, you’ll find your powers of disarmament have tremendous value in the business arena.
Small business or start-up coaching is for you if you love working at the ground level to help business clients achieve their best while bouncing around a few topics throughout your conversations.

Here are just a few additional items that business coaches assist their client’s with:

• Set clear business priorities and goals
• Define, design useable business and marketing action plans
• Significantly increase revenue and grow resource networks
• Improve time management and reduce stress
• Eliminate self-limiting behaviors that slow or halt the mechanisms for success
• Sharpen skills, attitude and increase confidence
• Brainstorm more creatively
• Enjoy guilt-free time off while continuing to generate income
• Upgrade client base
• Delegate more often and more effectively
• Learn to communicate powerfully
• Discover new techniques for problem solving and conflict resolution
• Take responsibility for follow-through on declarations made for desired business plan
• Enjoy a more satisfying personal and/or professional life
• Create a balanced, harmonious life

Business coaching certification

As a business coach, you start by developing a strong foundation in holistic coaching. By training with our Whole Person Coaching method, the services you will eventually offer touch upon the business needs of your clients. Additionally, your work will also extend into the personal lives of your clients as well. This may facilitate work-life balance or give them the tools necessary to take time out and enjoy a vacation.

What is small business coaching?

One of the more popular niches within this segment of professional coaching is the small business coach. Sometimes called start-up coaching, small business coaches typically work at the ground level to help business clients achieve their best. Top results are often achieved by bouncing around a few topics throughout the coaching conversation.

This is ideal if you like to work with smaller companies who are more agile and often on a first-name basis with each other – from the CEO to the new hire.

Small business coaches frequently originate from within the corporate arena or their own entrepreneurial ventures. This experience essentially qualifies you to offer knowledge on a wide variety of topics and considerations encountered in the daily routine of small business operations.

What is a business coaching program?

As a credentialed professional coach, you can deliver your own business coaching programs. You offer clients the benefit of your valuable experience in an educational format. From webinars to conference presentations, the format is entirely up to you.

The goal of a business coaching program is to extend your reach and profitability. To do so, you coach your business clients toward accountability and the successful pursuit of their stated business goals.

Here at Coach Training World, our CoachPreneur Academy is one such business coaching program. It helps coaches start their own coaching business by building and marketing upon their authentic skills and passions.

What business coaching qualifications do you need to become a business coach?

Many successful business coaches are previous business professionals. As with any other form of specialized coaching, a business coach typically has previous knowledge, experience, and expertise within a business environment. This background gives you the empathy and understanding necessary to work through the needs and obstacles your clients face. More importantly, it ensures you have the aptitude to offer valuable insights that can save a business time and money.

Most successful business coaches are also adept at networking. This has a superficial connotation to it. But here at Coach Training World, we see this as simply the process of establishing and maintaining authentic business relationships. The genuine rapport you create with clients and prospective clients ultimately determines your success.

Leadership skills, strong organization, and excellent communication are also key tools you’ll need. More often than not, these are the issues you will be called upon to help address. Advanced degrees in business fields like sales, marketing, finance, or management may position you above others and allow you to charge more for your services. But there is currently no required education level for business coaches.