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FAQ
Often, some people come back for a quarterly or annual strategy refresh, or they come back for another few months because their business has changed, or they want to change it again.
But business coaching isn’t a quick fix. Most people work with me for an average of 6-12 months, and although I’ll be looking for some early wins (especially ones that generate fast cash flow), you should count on it taking that sort of time to transform your business.
Of all the people I have coffee and cake sessions with to talk about business coaching, about 20% of the time, I end up either telling them that their business wouldn’t be able to give them that kind of ROI, or that, sadly, they’d be better off closing it down and starting something new.
With one of my group coaching programs, on a weekly basis, I run a 1½ hour coaching sessions with suitably matched other business owners and managers, with a max of 6 people per group.
But it doesn’t always work. Sometimes a business has great potential, but something outside of the business happens to disrupt this. This might be competition from an area we could never have foreseen. Or more often, it’s some big challenge that comes up in the business owner’s life, which means they can no longer concentrate on what they need to do to grow the business.
Once or twice, I’ve misjudged things, and I’ve taken on a client who doesn’t actually want any advice or input, but just wants a sounding board. My coaching style is challenging, and it’s not for everyone, so if you already know what you need to do and just want someone to agree with you, I’m not the right choice for you.
To have a successful business, you really need to be able to free up time to work on the business and to do those important things that are going to make all the difference in the long term. You can book me for just for a couple of hours on a one-off basis to talk about a specific issue in your business. But in the past, when I’ve worked with people on an ad-hoc basis, it hasn’t had the impact on the client’s business I wanted it to, so I really try to avoid this.
The regular, two or four time a month sessions, and keeping in touch in between sessions, are what makes the business coaching process work because the changes you need to make to your business are cumulative and take time to put into place.
Sometimes people work with me as a replacement for a business partner. But you’re in charge. You get to make all the decisions and do the work. I won’t do your marketing for you, although I will definitely help with your marketing strategy, and I might recommend some good people to outsource some of the marketing tasks to. Often, I am able to make great introductions to people who can also help you in growing your business, but I won’t be doing your sales meetings for you.
No. I know that’s the way some business coaches work, but I don’t see the point of taking up your time for a whole day, and I’d have to charge you a lot more money.
Yes. I work with about 80% of my business coaching clients over Zoom, including clients in Bristol, Wales and Birmingham who could come to my office but prefer the convenience of online business coaching. Plus, I work with clients in Wakefield, London and Spain who I’ve never met face to face. We can share documents, draw diagrams, plot timelines for action and do almost everything we could do in my office, but be much more time-efficient.
No. I would rather find a way for you to be able to invest in us working together, or for you to defer part of your payments to me until you have more cash flow, rather than cut down on the frequency of our meetings. Your business is going to move fast, and we need to get together at least twice a month to keep the momentum going. Again, I’ve done this in the past, and it hasn’t had the same impact that meeting weekly does. If the price for one-to-one coaching is putting you off, take a look at my group coaching program.
Definitely. I always recommend getting together first, either over Zoom/Teams or face to face for a coffee and cake meeting. That way, you can work out if I’m the right person to help, and we can work on some early actions for you to get going on.
And I can give you an honest assessment of whether you would benefit from business coaching with me. Sometimes, I do tell people that either they don’t need me because they’re doing fine as they are, or I have to tell them that their efforts would be better spent running a different business.
I would never give any guarantee, but I am confident that together, with a full commitment from yourself, you will have a much better chance of saving and having a thriving business. And of course, it also depends on why it’s a mess.
Many of my coaching clients say that they wish they had started working with me earlier because they’d gone down the wrong path with their business. Sometimes this can be as simple as knowing what kind of margins you should be expecting, or it might be that they’ve wasted time with trying out too many different things because they weren’t sure what to focus on when they first set up. Even if we only do 3 months’ work together to get your business starting in the right way, it could save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.
I can definitely help with all of those areas, but only by helping you to get your business into shape so you have more money to afford a good lawyer, vet, or financial coach.
If you’re going through a seriously difficult time in your life right now, it might not be the right time to start business coaching, because you could be distracted by all of those other things going on for you. You need to be in good shape to be able to really concentrate on the things we need to do to get your business on track. Do think about whether you need to get some counselling or life coaching first to get clear about where you want to go with your whole life, and then come to me for some support in making more money and having fun in your business.
No. I would charge a lot more if I did. There are lots of actions you can take to make dramatic changes in your business, but they are all actions. That means that they are things you have to do. I can help you to avoid the actions that are unnecessary or counterproductive in your business, but there is no getting around it – transforming your business will take time and hard work. It is my job to make sure that you are working hard on doing the right things for you.
I wouldn’t look at it in terms of time – it’s not like a session at the spa where you want to spend as much time as possible in the hot tub for your money. Business coaching is all about achieving results for your company, and we want to do that as efficiently as possible. You’ll get 2 – 4 sessions a month with me, each one up to 1 hour, and you can email me as much as you like in between sessions. Most people don’t need that – they’re too busy putting into practice what they need to do to transform their business.
