Over the past several years business coaches and mentors have become more common with those who are looking to develop their business. They have evolved from being a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘necessity’ as business owners and leaders begin to realise the importance of having a coach or mention to ensure they continue to grow and be the best they can be both from a professional and personal perspective.

Typically, there are two types of coaches you can engage. The first will involve one on one sessions with your business coach, which is great if they are dynamic and experienced in all areas of busienss and know your industry well. The disadvantage of this type of coach is that they are extremely difficult to find and they can be expensive to engage on a long term basis. An alternative to this to joining a group coaching program, where you will have access to content online and a vast support network. Whilst you won’t get the regular attention associated with one on one sessions, if it is a quality coaching program with a network of contacts you will still be able to achieve a similar outcome. What you will find is that the other members are all experts in their own spaces, and will be keen to share information and answer any questions based on their experience.

Regardless of which one you go with, any world class coaching program will give you access to all the tools, ideas and knowledge that will allow you to develop and take your business to the next stage in its development.

Below are the top five reasons why everyone needs a business coach:

  1. Goal Setting. An effective business mentor/coach will be able to give you the necessary skills to plan and set goals both for short and long term, and professionally and personally. If you don’t have a plan how do you know what you are working towards? Or how will your team know what the long term vision of the business is if you can’t summarise it into a 10 second elevator pitch?
  2. Having plans, goals and objectives in place is one thing, but having the ability to effectively carry out your plans is another. You will need a business coach who makes you accountable for achieving your goals and questioning you when you don’t. If you part of a group program – such as the one we mentioned before – you may be assigned a buddy to keep you accountable who you will briefly catch up with every week, share ideas and make sure that you on target to reach your goals.
  3. Anyone who wants to be successful will always thrive when a challenge is thrown their way. They love to be given the chance to prove that they can grab an idea and turn it into a success. This is exactly what a great business coach should be doing. They should be listening to your dieas, stimulate your thinking and assisting you in generating ideas that will create many opportunities, provide solutions, extend yourself and make you think outside the square when evaluating any new ideas.
  4. Tools, knowledge & a network. Everyone has at least one great idea, but you need to access to those individuals with the different areas of expertise who may be able to help bring your idea to life. You are never going to survive on a much bigger scale, adapt to change or build a sustainable business if you try to do it all yourself. Surround yourself and network with people who believe in you and your business and are wanting to be part of your journey.
  5. Any great business coach or coaching program will be able to ignite the passion inside you to want to continue to find new opportunities, whilst taking your business to that next stage and inspiring you to want to improve yourself. Without the right motivation and a positive mindset you will continue on the same path to mediocrity.

By Eddy

Eddy is the editorial columnist in Business Fundas, and oversees partner relationships. He posts articles of partners on various topics related to strategy, marketing, supply chain, technology management, social media, e-business, finance, economics and operations management. The articles posted are copyrighted under a Creative Commons unported license 4.0. To contact him, please direct your emails to [email protected].