How to Choose a Good Business Coach

What is a Business Coach?

Seems like there should be an easy definition for Business Coach, but there isn't. Some business coaches specialize in certain functional areas of a company, such as in sales, marketing, or operations and only at certain management levels. Other coaches can help you with many, if not all functions within the company and at any management level. Of course this all depends on his or her experience.

While there are coaching schools out there that will give a person a certificate to be a coach I find it not to be as simple as getting certified. You can ask why not? The reason is this, while coaching schools will provide you with tools and guidance to ask that right questions, and provide a potential business coach with methods, structure and documents to become more professional in the field of coaching, real world experience is the one key ingredient they cannot provide.

Experience

Let's face it if you are new to football, or any sport for that matter, and I taught you all about that sport and its rules and regulations, and what a coach does your becoming certified as a coach will do little for you or the team in having success. The reality is this, if you don't have the experience of coaching, or having been engaged in that specific sport your ability to be effective as a coach is marginal. Without experience you cannot be as effective as someone who does have the experience, and your chances of being a success are the same as going to Las Vegas and gambling.

Back to School?

A good Business Coach is not just someone who can lay out a plan for you from a textbook, but also someone who knows what it's like to be on the field and play the game. If you have seen the movie "Back to School", with Rodney Dangerfield you will remember the scene when Rodney (Thornton Melon) is in the classroom speaking to Dr. Phillip Barbay. In a classic textbook environment Dr. Barbay is talking about how business is done, and Rodney (Thornton Melon) chimes in with the realities of doing business by explaining the nuances of what it takes to communicate with all parties involved in the business. Here's the line from the movie:

Thornton Melon:Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff.

Dr. Phillip Barbay: Oh really? Like what for instance?

Thornton Melon: First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long-term costs, such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business, but I assure you it's not the Boy Scouts.

While this is a humorous scene, it's not that far from the truth. The point is this, if you don't have real world experience, years, or decades of experience, you chances of being effective for your client is slim. Having credentials, or a degree, it does not make you an expert in the field. Expertise only comes from experience and the more experience you have the more effective, and helpful you can be.

Other Skills

Another key ingredient to being a good business coach is the need for a business coach to also have life coaching skills. While we may try to separate our personal life from our business life it is all intertwined. Many times a person needs to know more about how they operate in their personal life to be able to build relationships within a business to have success in that business. So coaching someone is not something that you can just learn in school, it is something you must have the experience of doing. To be a good coach, a great coach, you must be passionate about what you do. You not only need the skills, the aptitude, and the experience, but you must truly want to help somebody whether you get paid or not.

One last line from the movie emphasizing the importance of real world experience when Thornton Melon says to Dr. Phillip Barbay: Hard work? Listen, Sherlock! While you were tucked away up here working on your ethics, I was out there busting my hump in the REAL world. And the reason guys like you got a place to teach is 'cause guys like me donate buildings.

So how do you choose a good business coach?

Do your research

Check out testimonials

Check out his or her business history/experience

Call and have a conversation (most coaches will give you 30 minutes free to find out if you're compatible)