The life of an entrepreneur can be fulfilling, exciting, innovative and collaborative – it can also be challenging and incredibly lonely at times. Balancing the immediate needs of the business with planning and forecasting for future growth presents a whole range of challenges that often bring even the best people down. 80% of businesses fail in less than two years but there are safeguards available to help ensure that yours isn’t one of them. In particular, working with a business coach can be transformative, thanks to the range of roles such a professional can fulfill.
Bigger picture visionary
Any entrepreneur will recognise the challenge of balancing the day-to-day demands of the business with the broader perspective in terms of where the business is going. Often, it’s the bigger picture vision that gets lost among the chaos of driving the business forward every day. A business coach can help to provide this broader perspective, ensuring that no matter how intense things get you never lose sight of where the business needs to go in the longer term. This is not only useful in terms of progress and growth but also ensuring that opportunities for development are not missed and strengths are always being leveraged.
A mentor who provides feedback
Feedback is essential for entrepreneurs but this can be difficult to obtain. Family and friends may give honest opinions but lack the expertise to really identify issues or impediments to progress. A business coach is not just able to provide useful feedback but also to do it in a way that ensures it is motivational and objective. Previous experience, combined with in-depth understanding of a business and its market enable a coach to steer you towards the right path.
Positive encouragement
The positive encouragement a business coach can provide relates specifically to the challenges that many entrepreneurs face. Self doubt can be a big problem for business owners – it can undermine decision making and prevent action. Hesitation, fear and self-judgment can also be crushing, particularly if you are the only person shouldering the burden of moving the business forward. Having a business coach at your side delivering positive encouragement can be crucial at any stage. A professional coach can work to identify what is holding you back and help you to find opportunities to overcome issues.
Practical advice
One of the main reasons many businesses fail is because entrepreneurs struggle to connect where they are now with where they want the business to be. Steps between the two may not be clear at first – or there may be substantial obstacles that appear to be standing in the way. A business coach can provide essential support here, both in terms of identifying the practical actions that will achieve desired results and strengthening your conviction that getting there is possible.
These are a few of the key roles a business coach can fulfill when coming in alongside your business, illustrating just some of the ways in which this kind of support can help to drive your enterprise forwards.
