How much does business coaching cost in the UK?

This is the cost question most potential providers face. In my sector of business coaching, there are a range of costs that coaches charge. These start as low as free advice from a friend to around £1000+ VAT per session. For full disclosure, as of January 2023, I charge £625+VAT per coaching session. These sessions are up to two hours long and can be delivered face to face or using technology remotely.
When I am asked about cost of business coaching, I feel it is important to get the person asking the question to distinguish between expenses and investments. What do I mean by this?
An expense is where a purchase is made for the enjoyment or experience it delivers and there is no expectation of any pay back in future. An example may be when deciding what to eat when you next go out for a meal. You could spend around £3 per head for a fishcake and chips or go to the Michelin star restaurant down the road and spend up to £200 per head, or a variety of other meal options in between these extremes. The factors you consider will be, what can I afford, what is the occasion I am dining out for, what do I think the quality of the meal and experience will be, what have others told me (this could be people you know or rating websites such as Tripadvisor etc) and other emotion based factors.
An investment is when you spend the money and expect to get a financial or other tangible return as a result of spending the money. Examples of this may be when purchasing a machine that should improve the labour cost in your business. It would be perfectly appropriate to spend £100k on a piece of machinery that reliably produces what four manual workers, each costing you around £25k per annum could achieve in a factory. This would give a return on investment of one year. In my manufacturing days we used to be able to justify spend where a return on investment could ne seen within 18 months to two years if the cash position of the business allowed it.
When people choose me as their business coach, they do not do so because they like the idea of having a chat with me every week, two weeks or a month – although that may be a pleasant experience for them! I ensure during the complimentary coaching session that I offer all clients before they choose their coaching program, that they consider what value coaching will add to their business through a mix of increased gross profit, increase in business value, improvement in work life balance or a combination of each of these. Based on the value of the outcomes that we agree to focus on the coaching program they can then select the frequency of coaching required and thus determine the annual spend they will make. I use this as a minimum performance standard for my coaching and will get clients to check that they are achieving a return on investment from the coaching they receive.
My definition of business coaching is a combination of education and accountability. As a result, I help clients to achieve their return on investment by offering some education so they can see what the next actions should be in their plan and then hold them accountable to achieve the result they expect from carrying these actions out.
When discussing cost of business coaching with prospective coaches I would advise that you spend time considering what the return on investment is likely to be and use this to select which business coach you work with.
If you would like to book a complimentary coaching session to see what the return on investment would be for receiving business coaching from me please email me on rogerpemberton@actioncoach.com or call me on 07511969690.