This can be a big question and a big decision you make in your business; knowing when it’s the right time to hire a coach so that you actually benefit from it.
I think there’s a misconception out there that we need to have everything figured out. If we just try harder, we can figure out how to be more successful. Let’s just all agree that this is so far from the truth. Trying harder does not equate to more success. We put so much pressure on ourselves and a lot of times this pressure ends up being a roadblock to our success.
I want you to visualize something for me. Picture you’re standing in the middle of a forest right now, surrounded by thousands of trees with foliage so thick that you can’t see through an open space. All you can see are the individual branches on each tree. Sometimes we become so focused on the tiny little individual branches on the trees that we lose sight of the entire forest. We get so in our own head that we need someone to pull us out of the trees and show us what the forest looks like from a birds-eye view. Does that analogy make sense?
A coach is someone who is there to guide you and help you grow. Someone who can help develop your skills as a business owner in order to create a wildly successful business.
If you’re in the very early stages and have no idea what you’re doing or your business is taking off and you’re feeling overwhelmed and overworked, a business coach will help you get on the right track.
I hired my very first business coach when I was 25. I had been running my health coaching business part-time on the side for a little less than a year and was looking to leave my corporate job and trade in my title of Packaging Engineer for Entrepreneur. I was feeling a lot of things at the time, but mostly I was just overwhelmed and didn’t know how to get from A to B.
I worked with my business coach for 6 months and since then I have joined a Mastermind and hired another business coach as my business continues to evolve. I can say with 100% confidence that I would not be in the place I am now with my business if I would not have hired a coach.
Now, let’s talk through the five signs it’s time to hire a coach. These are things that I have experienced personally and have heard from my own coaching clients.
Sign #1: You feel stuck
You feel like you’re just at this standstill and don’t know how to move forward. You don’t know what’s getting in the way of keeping you stuck. Most of the time it’s ourselves, but even then, we don’t know how to get out of our own way. It could be fear of failure, fear of judgment, or lack of confidence. A coach can help you knock down these barriers you’ve put up that are causing this feeling of being stuck. Don’t discount the power of creating space and freeing up energy to think clearly. Sometimes all it takes is a trusted person to help us sort out these swirling thoughts in our heads and start creating momentum.
Sign #2: You need accountability and motivation
You know what you should be doing, but you need someone checking and holding you accountable for meeting your objectives and reaching your goals. When you’re the heart and soul of your business, especially in the early stages when it’s just you running the show, it can be challenging at times to hold yourself accountable. Having someone there to ask you what you’re working on, when you’re going to complete certain things, how you’re doing working against your goals, etc can give you an extra boost of motivation.
Sign #3: You lack vision
Remember the example of not being able to see the entire forest? That’s what this one means. You’re so bogged down by the nitty-gritty details that you’re missing the big picture. As the CEO of your business, you absolutely need to have a vision. A vision is like a guiding light. A coach will help you come back to that vision that you once had or help you establish a solid vision for your business. This will help you become more decisive and confident in decisions you need to make, such as your ideal client, brand partnerships, the type of content you create, etc. Everything must tie back to your vision.
Sign #4: You aren’t getting the results you want
One of the most common frustrations as a young entrepreneur is feeling like you’re working all the time and not seeing any return on your investment. Now, some of this takes time and patience, however, it’s absolutely essential that you have a clear plan and well thought out goals in place to track your business growth. If you feel like you’ve tried everything to hit these goals and you’re still not getting the results you want, it’s time to bring in a coach. A coach can help you improve in many different areas such as rearranging your priorities, improving your branding, help you with sales, funnels, collaborations, marketing, content creation, website conversions, etc. Sometimes tweaking a few things in your business can open up the flood gates and the clients and revenue will just start pouring in.
Sign #5: You want to save time and money
A coach can significantly cut down on the time and money you could spend trying to figure things out on your own. Regardless if you’re a young entrepreneur or have years of experience, sometimes doing things on your own can mean that you’re short on both time and money, so having the outsider perspective of a business coach can help you get on the straight and narrow.
Time is your most precious resource. You can’t make more of it, and you can’t replace what’s spent or lost. All you can do is to make better decisions about how to spend what you have left.
A business coach will help you do that. Not by telling you what to do per se, but by helping you develop your priorities and stick with them.
A business coach will serve as a sounding board, giving you feedback on your ideas.
A business coach will keep you accountable, asking what you’ve accomplished toward your goal and helping you make progress without getting off track.
You don’t waste your valuable time on false starts and spinning in circles.
Coaches are an investment in yourself and your future. Hiring a business coach is a strong step on your road to success, helping you to make the best use of your time and focus to build momentum for the long term. With a good coach, your whole life will be better, more balanced, more prosperous, more successful.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your business and feel like the powerful boss that you are, let’s chat! The doors to my Business Breakthrough Academy are officially open for enrollment and we start as a group in mid-May. If you resonated with the 5 signs that we talked about, the academy might just be the program you need to get your health coaching business off the ground and completely transform your life.
You can find more information about the Business Breakthrough Academy here.