The coaching and mentoring industry is exploding, and for good reason. Entrepreneurs have blind spots. Entrepreneurs need support, accountability and sounding boards. Entrepreneurs succeed better with guidance. Even if a coach hasn’t faced the specific challenges you’re going through, their commercial awareness and ability to see your situation from afar means they can ask the questions you hadn’t considered
I asked entrepreneurs to tell me about a coach or mentor who had been responsible for some of their key career milestones. The answers were extensive. Coaches had made a difference to their business. For these entrepreneurs in various stages of business, the key reasons to get a business coach fell into two clear categories: gaining clarity and removing limiting beliefs.
Gaining clarity and making a plan
It’s easy to be so busy with the day-to-day of your business that you don’t stop to think where you’re heading. Are your actions aligned with your goals? What’s the destination you’re barreling forward so vigorously to?
Some professionals start to work with a coach during a clear breaking point. Their sense of unclearness is so apparent, they know where they need the help. Caroline Joynson, founder of Cheerleader PR, said she was “coached by the HR officer when [she] was made redundant and was deciding what to do next.” This resulted in her going freelance, which she describes as “a huge step, and change” that led to her setting up the business she now runs. Without the coaching, she might have been lost for far longer.
Some professionals start to work with a coach during a clear breaking point. Their sense of unclearness is so apparent, they know where they need the help. Caroline Joynson, founder of Cheerleader PR, said she was “coached by the HR officer when [she] was made redundant and was deciding what to do next.” This resulted in her going freelance, which she describes as “a huge step, and change” that led to her setting up the business she now runs. Without the coaching, she might have been lost for far longer.
If you’re not in a dip, a coach can still be valuable. For brand strategist and designer Emma Lemon, the support leveled-up her existing work. “I worked with coach Amy Leighton on mindset and confidence to help with my freelance career. I finally figured out what success means for me and started to attract more of the clients I actually wanted because I was being the ‘real me.’” Game-changing breakthroughs.
Gaining clarity about what you want might lead to a radical change, one that you might not have made without a coach. For Fiona Walsh of Imagine Coaching, mentor Kate Rooney “gave me the confidence to quit my job earlier this year and helped me clarify my business offerings and nail my elevator pitch.” Having “never met someone with so much energy,” Walsh made a drastic change that she never regretted.
Similarly, founder of Actually, Sara Price’s coach Doctor Joanna Martin, from One of Many, mentored her to “step back from the business I had cofounded and brand out on my own with my new business.” Martin realized Price wasn’t happy and asked the questions that helped her see a clear way forward.
Identifying and removing limiting beliefs
If you had to write down the one main thing holding you back from insane business success, what would you single out? Many entrepreneurs don’t know. They don’t know because they have held some beliefs for so long, they cannot comprehend that they might not be true.
