When you enter the planning phase – whether it is business planning, launching a product, or marketing plan – you cannot be limited. You need to be willing to explore untried paths and find inventive ideas. There should be no sacred cows and you have to put blinders over the “not invented hear” crowd. This video discusses what goes into great planning and how you need to free your mind.
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When you engage the services of a business coach you want to be assured that you are getting the best return for your investment. The financial returns are easily measured by how much you put in and how much you earn after your business coaching engagement. There are other benefits, that could be considered less tangible, that result from a business coaching relationship. These tend to be considered soft skills or soft metrics that are measured more in how you feel and how others perceive your actions.
Primary Benefits (80% positive change or higher): This is a benefit that results from virtually all coaching regardless of type or primary objectives. — International Coach Federation 2009 Study
To understand what the benefits of are coaching, you first have to understand why individuals are selecting a coach. This article will not delve deeply into why individuals choose a coach. That article has already been written. Instead think about why you or someone else seeks the services of a business coach. Typically it is because they want to change behavior, improve upon a new career transition, or build better lasting teams. Of course there are many other reasons a person will choose a business coach but for the purposes of this article will look at the benefits to the individual.
Assume there is an executive that seeks to change their behavior. Perhaps they are too authoritarian or they tend not to listen to the needs of their employees. They hire a business coach to help them overcome or improve upon their weaknesses. During their sessions with the coach the executive discovers other areas in their professional life can use improvement. This is a benefit of the business coaching relationship. Helping the client understand that many areas are affected by the poor performance in the problem area. Through the action plans agreed upon by the coach and the client, improvements manifest themselves in those secondary areas as well as in the main problem. Unlike other services, the coach typically does not charge extra for these improvements.
During their sessions with the coach the executive discovers other areas in their professional life can use improvement.
The executive that started out seeking an improvement in the poor behavior or team relationship begins to experiences in improvements in other areas of work as well. Typically new career opportunities open up, better performance is seen at work, and their life outside of work improves too. If you have some doubt about all this, there is data to back it up.
Benefits of Business Coaching
The data behind this is very strong. In a study funded and published by the International Coach Federation that examined 2130 global responses, it was discovered that 80% of those coached saw improvement in their primary reason for being coached. What was interesting in the study is that the responders also saw benefits in other areas. Many of them while seeking professional services saw benefits in self-esteem (80%), communication skills (72%), interpersonal skills (71%), improved work performance (70%), and an overall improvement in their work/life balance (67%). The responders also noted that when it came to niche areas, such as team effectiveness and/or corporate culture improvement, the coaching resulted in benefits that could be considered unrelated to the event. Such as improvements in wellness (63%), organizations (61%), and increased career opportunities (61%). The overall conclusion of those studied was that a business coaching relationship was a holistic approach that improves teams and individuals. Unlike consulting, which focuses on a specific problem, a business coaching relationship addresses all problems related to the primary concern. This resulted in their reply that 96% of them would use a coach again if the need arises.
The take away is that coaching provides more benefits and improvements to teams and individuals. Business coaching is a service that seeks to understand the overall individual recognizing that their environment and behaviors are typically interconnected. That improvements to one skill and/or set of behaviors can have a lasting impact in other areas for individuals as well as teams.
So when you seek out a business coach for a particular item to be improved upon, you will know that you will receive many benefits in return.
Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army. He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079. You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin
The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small. The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.
This perhaps is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when you are seeking out a business coach. The good news is that there is plenty of data out there that help you paint a full picture of who seeks a coach.
In the middle 2009 the International Coach Federation published a worldwide study on coaching. This study looked at the demographics of who chooses a coach, why they seek to coach, and what was her overall return on investment. Some of the data is quite surprising as to who chooses a coach and for what reasons.
…it is typically the individual who seeks out a coach.
First, let us look at who chooses a coach. The conventional wisdom is that a coach is hired by corporations to help their executives. The study discovered that it is typically the individual who seeks out a coach. These individuals tend to have university or postgraduate degrees. Many of them are in leadership positions, if they are not business owners themselves. When it comes to gender 65% who select a coach are women. This tends to make sense as more women have increasing management responsibilities in corporations and are the leading founders of small businesses.
Second, the conventional wisdom would tell you that a business coach is hired primarily by corporations. While in the past a corporation would hire a coach to curb the bad behaviors of a particular executive, it has now become a badge of honor for many executives to hire a business coach. The reasons for hiring this coach are many but if you come in ones stick out. The number one area for hiring a business coach is to improve their work performance of the executive or of their team. This was followed by improving conditions for career opportunities and improving business management or relationships.
The business coach is no longer seen as a stigma or a stain on a permanent record.
Looking at the data clearly demonstrates that those individuals and companies seeking on a coach realized that interpersonal or “soft” skills that are important to successfully take advantage of any business or career opportunities. Business coaching helps transfer the important fundamentals necessary to have their clients achieve these goals. Coaches are seen as delivering action plans that deliver value as opposed to an “on the couch” process. Unlike therapy or other methodologies, business coaching is a contractual relationship. Sessions last an hour in duration and the business coaching relationship is typically under six months. This appeals to the business owner and the busy executive who must juggle multiple responsibilities.
The business coach is no longer seen as a stigma or a stain on a permanent record. Establishing a business coaching relationship is seen more as a badge of honor and pride for many business owners and executives. As shown above the use of a business coach is not the exclusive province of large Fortune 500 companies. Instead it is a tool for the individual who wishes to exceed their current position and achieve new goals. It is a small business owner and individuals that are seeking a business coach.
Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army. He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at http://www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079 and receive a free hour of business coaching. You can follow him on twitter @Erroin.
Many businesses and entrepreneurs are great at making plans. While it is one of the toughest things to do initially, it is easy to create plans once you get the hang of them. Where things go wrong is the failure in execution of those plans. The problem is trying to execute too many things at the same time spreading resources out with no depth. Success comes from practicing and executing on your strengths, which are only a few items, with intense depth. Therefore you are executing a mile deep and an inch wide.
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What Have been your experiences?
