What comes to mind when you hear the word COACHING? Could it be a sporting coach, helping to direct a team on the sports field or is it a personal trainer helping someone to shift some weight? Or perhaps it’s an individual who has a greater knowledge of a path previously travelled? Whatever it is, coaching helps people to reach their goals much faster than they could themselves. This is the real value of coaching.
The role of any coach is to get the best out of someone. If you can get the best out of someone, they are more inclined to reach their full potential. Business coaching is much the same. As the business owner progresses with coaching, their business knowledge and skills develop and as a result, they can then realise the full potential they have within themselves and their business.
Coaching comes in many forms and is found across many different industries. From the sportsfield to life coaching, to bookkeeping coaching and even baby sleep coaches, it’s fair to say that there is an expert to suit almost any situation. However, even with so many coaching forms, the process of coaching is usually the same throughout. The process is as follows:
- Observation
At this first stage, the coach really wants to see what the current environment or situation looks like. They’ll observe the challenges their client faces and what actions their client is undertaking to experience their current outcome.
- Outline the Objective
Next, the coach will find out where their client wants to go. This is an important step as it creates the goal or the objective to work towards. Think of it like setting up a goalpost to run to, without the goal, there is no way to measure progress or success.
- Strategic Direction or Strategy
Now the coach will set up a strategy in order to achieve the goal. The coach relies upon their knowledge, experience and tools from their coaching “toolbox” to help outline a plan for their client. In most cases, the coach has helped many clients before, so they understand the path that their client will need to take, plus, they know what the client should do and what they should not do to get to their goal much faster.
- Action
This is where true results are made. Now the coach helps their client take their first steps from the plan, keeps them accountable and provides support to help them create momentum. Success follows momentum, so the coach will help the client stay focused, motivated and ensure they hit key milestones in order to reach their goal.
Once the client is taking action, those key milestones are measured to ensure the strategy is working. If required, the plan can be adapted, to reach the desired goal. This is how coaches help their clients reach their full potential, and achieve higher levels of success throughout the process.
So what does a business coaching session look like?
This is a common question that we often receive and usually one of the first questions prior to a new small business owner joining UpCoach. In much the same way as the above example, the Business Growth Coaches at UpCoach use a structured framework to help small business owners to reach the results they deserve.
Initially, we start with a Discovery Session where we unpack the clients business, their challenges and areas of opportunity. Next, we set out a plan, using strategic direction and goal setting. Then the coach directs the client following a proven format that ensures progress, education, motivation, and most importantly, results.
A typical coaching session will then look like this:
Pre-session form:
Prior to the client beginning their session they must submit a pre-session form sharing their wins, challenges and a few things they need help with. This primes the coach to ensure they are prepared for the session and helps save time by targeting EXACTLY what the client needs help with, at that moment.
Progress Review:
When the session kicks off, the business growth coach reviews the progress from the last week by checking that the business owner has completed their to-do list items and has the client explain, in detail, the challenges they may be facing.
Current Challenges and Strategies to Resolve:
Now the coach is crystal clear on the issues, they get to work by providing solutions, strategies, resources, tools or advice on what the next steps are for the business owner to continue on their plan. As mentioned previously, sometimes the plan needs to be adjusted in order to get to the goal. This is the most constructive and valuable part of each session, where the client will learn skills and implement ideas in an effort to overcome the obstacles so they can continue to grow their business
Something NEW:
This is a unique inclusion for each session where the business growth coach will introduce something new for the business owner to learn or invest in over the next seven to fourteen days.
Education is a strong focus at UpCoach, so something new could be a book to read, a skill to test, a method to practice or a personal growth principle to apply. This also ensures that as the business grows, the business owner grows too.
Action steps:
Lastly, the coach will then outline a set of action steps that need to be applied before the next session. This could be a summary of what was covered in the session or a list of items the business owner must complete to see progress and quicker results.
Ultimately, in order for any form of coaching to be effective, one must be open to coaching and of course, be coachable. This means that the individual is willing to listen and take on board new ideas, strategies and apply new tactics in order to reach their goals. Our clients at UpCoach achieve the results they want, because our coaching method above, has been applied to hundreds of businesses over the last seven years. As the late great business coach Dan Kennedy once said: “Your mind is like a parachute, it is far more valuable to you when it is open”.
