Tag: Coach

Business Coaches – Qualities to Look For in a Business Coach

Gone are the days when the field of business is reserved only to those people who have degree in commerce, business management, accounting, and other related fields. Today, you can start your own business even if you don’t have a college degree. How? By simply hiring a business coach who can offer you with relevant information, expert advice, motivation, and guidance.

To make sure that you’ll get your money’s worth, carefully screen the business coach that you are going to hire. Look for these qualities before you sign up:

1. Look for business coaches who are sought after internationally for advice. People who are truly good in the field of business are known worldwide. When looking for your own coach, research for those people who are making contribution in the global market; those who are being invited to speak on issues revolving building and running a business. If people world wide trust this person, you can be assured that you are in good hands.

2. Your business coach must have proven track record. Look for coaches who have managed their own business and who were successful in this field. These people can surely offer you with tips, techniques, and even personal stories as to how they were able to reach the top. These are what you exactly need to jumpstart your business and later on, grow it exponentially.

3. Your business coach must be a sales and marketing professional. The most crucial part in business is marketing and selling. If you can’t properly market your products and if you struggle to make a sale, your business will be doomed. So, hire a coach that can help you in these aspects of running a business. Your coach must know the ins and outs of marketing and selling.

4. Go with coaches who listen. Avoid signing up with business coaches who are doing all the talking. You need someone who is patient enough to listen to all your problems or issues even if they have heard it one hundred times before. This is to make sure that they get a clear picture of what you want to achieve and later on, offer you with the best possible solutions or recommendations.

5. Go with coaches who involve you in the process. I am pretty sure that you would like to know everything that’s going on with your business. So, go with coaches who will not mind working hand-in-hand with you.

7 Mistakes, Missteps, & Muck Ups That Cost A Business Coach Big (And How To Avoid Them)

As the old year comes to a close, I always look back to see what I did well and what could be improved. Below, I share with you my mistakes, missteps and muckups that I experienced in my business over the past year.

Many of these mistakes, missteps and muck-ups cost me money, so I share them with you so you can avoid these as you make your own New Year’s resolutions.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #1 – Spending way too much time on my computer, instead of meeting people face to face. Networking online is great, however, it can never take the place of meeting face-to-face or having a conversation over the phone. Sending emails are so darn easy, but I found that I got too wrapped up with the ease of this technology. I even had a huge argument with one of my vendors because I tried to “break things off” with him over email. I should know better.

    LESSON LEARNED – Compliment online networking activities with face-to-face and phone meetings.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #2 – Spending way too much time on the technical side of my business. I worked in the technology sector for close to 10-years and I pride myself in being a chick that knows her techie stuff. However, my digital knowledge kept me up late at night as I took responsibility for updating the content on my webpages, creating new autoresponders and creating new HTML pages for new products, instead of farming things out to others. For every new product or teleclass I would launch, it would take me 8-hours to get all the technical pieces ready.

    LESSON LEARNED – Hire a techie expert to maintain my website. Let it go.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #3 – Not delegating my administrative tasks. There are certain things I hate doing in my business – updating documents, making them look pretty, writing content and writing sales copy for new information products. I just can’t stand doing these things and it would take me eons just to write one sentence. Then, that meant I would have to rush and write something quickly because I sat on it for too long and the deadline was an hour away.

    LESSON LEARNED – Hire a virtual assistant or copywriter to do all this stuff for me.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #4 – Spinning my wheels targeting the wrong market. When I first started coaching, I was on a mission to inspire women to create the career they deserve. Although I was making money, I didn’t feel passionate about helping women climb the corporate ladder. It wasn’t until my mother came to one of my speaking engagements that she gave me the clarity I needed. With her wisdom and her keen eye, she helped me craft my current mission – to help business owners make more money using online media.

    LESSON LEARNED – Really listen to what my clients (and mom) are telling me about the problem they’re experiencing.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #5 – Creating a bunch of cool information products all at once. Just because I can bang out 5 special reports in a weekend, doesn’t mean I have the manpower or energy to promote them all at the same time. I realized that in order to make sales on an information product, I really need to market them. Until I do that, they’re going to sit on my website, look pretty and go stale.

    LESSON LEARNED – Focus on one product for at least 3-months and use my affiliates to help promote the new product.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #6 – Attending networking events that weren’t producing results. While networking is about building relationships, it should also lead to some quality contacts. Unfortunately, I attended too many networking events where everyone was like me – an entrepreneur looking for business. Although I made some great contacts, after attending the same networking events for 12-months straight, I noticed that my networking circle was stale and lacked any power.

    LESSON LEARNED – Stick with a networking event for no more than 4 consecutive events, analyze the results, then move on. Also, attend more networking events that puts me in touch with my target audience.

  • Mistake, Misstep and Muck-up #7 – Not spending enough on educating myself. As a entrepreneur, it’s so easy to forget that I have to invest in myself by taking courses that can help me learn how to do things better. In the first half of the year, I didn’t spend a dime and my progress showed for it. However, in the latter part of the year, I started to spend a bit on educating myself on new techniques and processes. Doing this put me in touch with how to do things better in my business, as well as meeting some phenomenal people and trainers. Plus, I noticed a spike in sales.

    LESSON LEARNED – Set aside at least 10% of all business income in a savings account to spend on educational materials.

These are what I consider to be the 7 mistakes, missteps and muck-ups that cost me money and I trust that by reading this, you will avoid them as you make your New Year’s resolutions.

Better yet, if you have a mistakes, missteps or muck-up that you experienced in your own business, list them, then write down the lessons you learned from that experience.

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