A Case Study and How Business Coaching Helped
Roger Engelau
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowJay was ready to walk away from his business. He’d grown it from 3 people to 18 and it had gotten too complicated. Everyday someone was upset, a crucial deadline was missed, equipment broke down, or a myriad of other problems occurred. He was sick of it. He was arguing with his brother who worked in the business, working 60 hours, and hadn’t taken a vacation in 5 years. Jay had read a few of our blogposts and liked the practical nature of the content so, as a last-ditch effort, he hired a business coach.
Within 2 weeks, he had a way forward. He had solved his immediate cash flow problem and had identified 3 big tasks he could delegate, freeing up 5 hours a week. He and his coach used those first 5 hours to create a future-focused organization chart and a 90-day action plan. He began to feel confident, even inspired. By the end of the 1st month Jay had applied more time mastery techniques and was going home for dinner with his family every night by 6pm. He’d created a small leadership team and they adopted a meeting rhythm and shifted their focus from fire-fighting to building profitability. He had heart-to-hearts with two key team members who hadn’t been carrying their weight. They became accountable and engaged.
Three years later, the company’s doubled in size and almost tripled in profit. Jay’s load is reduced, his family life is better, and he has a strong leadership team largely operating his 35-person business. While he takes a lot of the credit deservedly so, he reminds his business coach regularly that he wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him.
This is only one of dozens and dozens of examples that our business coaches can share. We’ve been blessed to connect with business-savvy, coachable, and grateful business owners who took us on as trusted partners.
The BBB has confirmed – Inspire Results’ clients get 300-700% ROI on their coaching fees in the first year, often in the first months.
Bill Gates has said, “Everybody needs a coach.” Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO hired a business coach and said it too, and so did Anthony Robbins.
“Business coaching is attracting America’s top CEOs because, put simply, business coaching works. In fact, when asked for a conservative estimate of monetary payoff from the coaching… managers described an average return of… about six times what the coaching had cost their companies.” FORTUNE Magazine
So if everyone needs one, and you get a strong return, if it pays for itself and you make more money and you get a better life, why doesn’t every business owner hire a business coach? You have valid reasons that are perfectly understandable. Lack of time, belief that if you work a little harder you can turn it around, not wanting to be accountable to someone, not wanting to share your perceived “failures” with anyone, not wanting to have to change the way you do things, or thinking coaching is too invasive or too much like therapy.
Here’s the thing — a good business coach can overcome any one of these reasons. How?
- Lack of time – When you owned a small company, you could micromanage every detail of its operations. You wore all the hats and your name was in most boxes of your organizational chart. But, as the business grew, what made you successful was now sucking the life out of you. A business coach has tools to help you identify where you can make the most impact by doing what you love. Then, helps you employ tools to successfully delegate everything else to a leadership team and/or administrative assistant. You’ll experience the passion you had at the start of your business and have an even bigger impact on it.
- You can turn it around yourself – It’s not about how hard you work or how smart you are. You’re in it up to your eyeballs. A business coach brings a new perspective, sees things from the outside that you can’t possibly see because you’re inside. And a business coach has a deep knowledge of every aspect of what makes a company run great, plus, they’ve seen deeply inside many, many businesses and can share what works and what doesn’t.
- Not wanting to be accountable to someone – Inspire Results coaches look to you as both the expert and the driver. They come alongside you as a trusted advisor working on the issues you want to work on; not the issues they want to work on. They see your strengths, what’s made you successful, and they shine a light and build on those. They’re not there to beat you over the head… never would they do that.
- Not wanting anyone to see your “perceived” failures – You haven’t failed. You wouldn’t be where you are if you had. Sure, maybe you’ve made some mistakes but those are valuable learnings. A business coach has made mistakes too. We’re business owners ourselves so we’re sensitive about the pride and sense of personal ownership a business owner has. Often, the business owner “gave birth” to the company, grew it like a child, and has its success knitted into his/her very sense of self-worth. We get that.
- Not wanting to change the way you do things – Well, you may have to give a little on this one! But you’ll only change things that YOU decide to change. The business coach doesn’t decide what you should do differently. S/he’ll tell you what s/he thinks could make a difference and you’ll decide whether you agree or not. It NEVER works if someone changes their behavior because someone else asks them to. We each must choose to change because we truly see the benefit. A good business coach will show you the benefit of the change.
- Too invasive; too much like therapy – Honestly, we sometimes hear a bit about marital issues, family squabbles, or feelings of inadequacy. We’re not therapists or even life coaches. We keep our advice practical and focused on maximizing the performance and the profitability of your business. Sometimes personal issues get in the way and if they do, we’ll observe it, we’ll be a great sounding board, and we’ll offer practical advice. We’ve been known to refer a client to a practical coaching psychologist on our team or to say ‘we’re out of our territory on this one.’ Usually, though, people squabbles and feelings of inadequacy stem from factual misunderstandings that we can help clear up. “Business coaching isn’t therapy. It’s product development with you as the product.” Fast Company
It’s a curiosity that business coaching first got big and well-established in other countries, especially the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and South America. Business coaching has finally taken hold in the U.S. and is growing fast. As more and more business owners benefit from their business coaches, it wouldn’t be wise to be among the business owners who don’t have one.
We sincerely hope you’ll raise your hand. We’d love the chance to help you take control of your business, improve your operations and unlock your team and your business’s potential.
Roger Engelau is the owner of Inspire Results Business Coaching.