How does your business coaching program work? This is a great question for anyone thinking about hiring a business coach… actually I’m going to try and be clever answering that by saying the coach and the program don’t work! Yes, that’s right, they never did work, and they never will! YOU will do the work, with the help of your team and the guidance of the coach.

Actually, that’s also not quite right. Any good business coaching program will have a coaching framework.  However, whether it is for business or life, all change has to be based on the ability of the person being coached to make changes themselves. Usually, these are small incremental changes towards a bigger goal or goals.

“If you always do what you always did, then you’ll always get what you always got”.

What this means is that your coach needs to be able to hold you accountable to find 3 to 4 hours each week to stop working IN your business, and start working ON your business.

Working IN vs Working ON

As the owner of your business, you’ll charge for your hours. At a good rate you might be able to charge $100 per hour or more, when you are working IN the business. On the other hand, working ON the business might realise $1,000 an hour or even more. Let me explain further. I once worked with an insurance company and the return on investment (or ROI) from working on the business was many times more than this. Firstly, the profits went up massively over the 10 years we worked together, by focusing the owner ON the business and not IN it. Further, when the business sold, the sale price reflected very positively on this growth.  We achieved this change by focussing the owner and the team on what they needed to do, and moved away from what they’d previously been doing. We focused on treating our team and customers well as part of this process, which is the only real way to build a great business and enjoy it along the way.

In addition we made the following changes:

1. Developed a written plan, and the…
2. Steps to execute this plan.
3. As the coach, I held the owner accountable to these steps. The owner had to stop doing so much of the day-to-day work (working IN) and focus on ensuring the team were trained with good systems (working ON).

So, to answer more directly on how a business coaching program works, I use a simple but I think brilliant process, shown in the diagram below to ensure we are arriving at where we need to, in order to “finish” the business ready for sale, or at least to find significantly more freedom and money for the owner.

Six Steps To A Profitable Business

The below diagram describes a system which is called Six Steps To A Profitable Business.

The system requires the coach and the business owner to examine key tasks at each level, but in reality, most small to medium sized businesses will work in the first four areas exclusively. That is, they will be working on the first four levels of the seven listed below – Mastery tasks, Niche tasks, Team and Leverage or systems tasks. In plain English, they will focus on the basics, starting at the “stability level” of the diagram and working towards the “freedom or diversification levels.”

The steps are:

1. Financial stability and profit.
2. Time management.
3. Delivery of the basics i.e. on time and good customer service.
4. Setting short and medium-term goals.
5. Marketing that works and pays for itself and by testing and measuring ROI as they go.
6. Training the team.
7. Writing the basic systems to run the business profitably and training the team to use these systems every time.

An owner who commits time to work on these levels will see the changes and freedom they want to achieve. For businesses that are more advanced and mature, the business owner will also focus on the top or last two steps of the diagram being Synergy & Results. Synergy is the process of handing much of the day-to-day control over to a general manager. The Results level is where the business can be franchised, licensed or sold.

The last step, Franchising, is not done by many owners. Most people don’t franchise their business. However, a lot of owners will appoint a general manager to run their business, and this step is still important and popular for a number of owners.

Ultimately, the Six Steps System, will leave a business better able to be managed without as much direct input from the owner, or alternatively, be developed to where it can be sold. For a copy of my book A Year of Profit – 52 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Business, email me today.

By Mark Daniels from the heart, no AI Used