IS A COACH REALLY NECESSARY?

Wow, talk about a question I hear all the time. The first time I heard it, it was coming out of my own mouth, when someone suggested to me that I should get myself a business coach. What will they do? Aren’t they just a waste of time and money? Well if you pick the wrong coach all of this will be true. If you pick the right one, you will wish you would have hired those years ago.

Hiring a coach revolutionized my world, business and even my personal life. I still work with business coaches to this day, continuing to learn, expand and push myself. I couldn’t imagine where my life would have been had I not had coaches. Wait, that’s not true, I know exactly where I would have been. In the same spot I was seven years ago, stuck, miserable, frustrated, and broke. Working with a coach has brought me inspiration, growth and such an abundance of happiness it’s been the best thing I could have done for myself and my business.

A coach needs to push you. You need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If your coach is only a cheerleader without the push forward, you won’t be getting from them what you need to be. Don’t get me wrong, we all need cheerleaders. A good coach, however, will push you forward. A great coach will encourage you to move past the limits you’ve never pushed past before. It’s scary - trust me! But when you break through that wall and come out the other side, the rewards make it all worthwhile. When I let go of what was holding me back, it felt as though I dropped the mental weight I was carrying on my back.

What can a coach do for you? Well that depends on what you need from the coach. Many times when I’m working with entrepreneurs, what they want is not what they need. They often want help to get consistency in their social media, but what they need is a clearer message. It always makes me smile when I see how simple the wants are to achieve when the true needs are addressed. Let’s take travel as an example. A client wants us to help them create a way to post about travel consistently. When we sit down with them, and ask what it is that they want to focus on, they say “travel”. Okay, well what kind of travel or where? “All kinds, anywhere. I want people to know I sell everything”. Okay… well that’s a lot of information to process, for both you and your consumer. We work with them to narrow their field a bit.  We create the message that we want to convey and create a path to tell the story. As we drill down we come up with themes. These sometimes are themes or destinations or even travel styles. From there we can break that down into smaller pieces. From that we find the right medium for sharing that message. You can have the most perfectly constructed message, however if it isn’t being executed in the right platform it won’t land with the clients it’s intended to attract.

This is just one example of the many that we help clients with each and every year.

If you’re thinking of hiring a coach, do your research and not just on their price. Find out what they can offer to you, how they operate and if their methods/personality aligns with you. Not everyone is intended to work together, but don’t let that be what stops you from seeking guidance. Hiring a coach is not a sign of weakness or failure, but rather is an indication of an entrepreneur taking back the control of their own business, and steering it in the direction they want to go. It is choosing to live your life by design not default. If you’re ready to start living by design, connect with me to get started.