Benefits of Business Coaching
Business Coaching is a process that is many times misunderstood and confused by someone offering ad-hoc advice, which is not the case at all. Business Coaching helps to guide you and teach you the skills to make the right decisions. It has a defined process and methodology with goals and deliverables. You are the one performing the actual work and assignments using the concepts and skills taught during the coaching sessions.
Business Coaching and Mentoring are not for everyone. You have to be ready and to be open to change and immerse yourself in the process. This is why we must speak to business owners before they take on a coaching engagement. Business Coaching is best suited for those that have been running a business for 2 years, so there is some historical data, with the exception of start-up coaching.
Business Coaching is about teaching you the skills needed that you will use within your business. Though personal goals and skills are a part of the business coaching engagement as they relate to the business, this is not life coaching. If you require a life coach, let us know, we might be able to refer you to one depending on your location.
If you aren't quite ready for the commitment of a full Business Coaching engagement, you might consider our Advisory Services which still provide you with the help you need but is only for the topic for that session. You book the engagement when you want. There is a one-hour option over the phone and a two-hour option over Zoom.
Our Business Coaching Process
Our business coaching process is the same across all of our coaching engagements. The information we gather and analyze upfront may differ by engagement, but the process and methodology we follow will be consistent. The homework that is given is to teach the participant how to utilize the skills they have learned during coaching. The results will then be used in the business.
Example: A construction company does not know how to do proper job costing and wants to learn how to use its accounting system. They are using QuickBooks. During the session, the skills have been taught on how to input jobs utilizing job costing within their system, as they are currently losing money on each job. The homework is to input new jobs that they are currently quoting into the system.
Our Coaching Engagements
GENERAL BUSINESS COACHING
Ideal Customers
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Business Owners looking to learn business skills in order to help them manage and improve their business performance who have been in business 2+ years.
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Multiple-Partner businesses who want to work on setting common goals and objectives.
General Business Coaching is a customized structured coaching engagement where the business owner will work one on one with their business coach to set goals, obtain the skills they need and gain better insight into their business.
The initial engagement is six sessions plus an initial up-front analysis of your current situation within your business and a follow-up session one to two months from your final session to ensure you are keeping on track and you are following through on implementation.
We follow our methodology where we assess the business and the business owner's current knowledge of where the business is today. This helps understand the goals you wish to achieve through coaching.
We analyze two years of prior financials and the completed business coaching survey, which is filled in before the sessions. The owner then chooses their six sessions and is expected to attend sessions every one or two weeks to maintain momentum.
We only require that you are committed to the process, complete your homework after each session, and set aside the time uninterrupted.
START-UP BUSINESS COACHING
Ideal Customers
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Entrepreneurs who started their business 6mo-2yrs ago and are not sure what they need to know about their business and how to move it forward.
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Entrepreneurs who have been in business less than two years with minimal revenue who are now wanting to understand what changes they should make in their business to move it in a positive direction.
Start-up Coaching is a six-session coaching engagement that is focused only on start-up businesses with at least six months in business generating revenue. We find many times new entrepreneurs get overwhelmed and sometimes miss what is needed to get them on solid footing. If more help is required after the six sessions, additional sessions may be purchased to address other start-up concerns.
We will first have you answer a start-up coaching assessment about your business, where we will ask questions about where you are in your business. In the first session, we will provide analysis and recommendations of where we feel you need help based on your assessment. The business owner will then choose six sessions. The final session is provided one month following the last meeting to review the efforts underway and provide guidance.
As with any coaching engagement, we require that you are committed to the process, complete your homework after each session, and set aside the time uninterrupted.
If instead, you are looking for advisory help, you can sign up for our advisory services.
STRATEGIC PLANNING BUSINESS COACHING
Ideal Customers
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Business owners who are looking to take their business to the next level, but require a strategic plan to get them there.
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Businesses with multiple partners who want to work on together on a strategic plan to help them get on the same page.
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Businesses who have limited staff to help implement a strategic plan so would like to work on the strategic plan over time themselves while getting guidance and support through the process.
Strategic Planning Coaching is a defined coaching engagement which is provided over a 4 month period whose goal is the actual development of a strategic plan for your business. Our strategic planning engagement only used to be offered through facilitation on site, so was created for a client who wanted to learn to do this themselves over a period of time Going through the process yourself allows you to learn the skills to maintain and develop your strategic plan going forward.
This is a long engagement and an endurance exercise in making sure you have a developed strategic plan in place. If you are not committed to the end goal or do not have 2 hours every week for a minimum of 16 weeks, this is not the engagement for you and should consider facilitation where we help you through developing your strategic plan in 2-3 days onsite.
Through this engagement, you will define where you want your company to be within the next 3-5 years. Developing or updating your strategic plan is first about establishing goals and objectives and then determining the gap from where you are today to where you want to be, as well as developing the steps needed to meet your goals.
For Strategic Planning Coaching, we suggest that you have been in business for a minimum of 2 years with two years of financials. You also must be someone that has insight into your current business to know that to get to your goals for the future, change has to occur in your business. You have to be ready to get started on making that change to get to the future.
SALES AND MARKETING BUSINESS COACHING
Ideal Customers
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Businesses that are having trouble choosing the right marketing for their business.
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Businesses who have not developed a sales and marketing strategy for their business.
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Businesses who are not receiving a return on investment for their marketing and sales efforts.
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Businesses who are struggling with sales and who do not have developed processes or tracking of deals in place.
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Businesses who are looking to bring on sales personnel, but need to develop the processes, management responsibilities, and ways to track sales before hiring staff.
Sales and Marketing Coaching is a customized yet structure coaching engagement where the focus is entirely on sales and marketing. We find that many businesses struggle to grow the business and need a helping hand at times. This is a six-session coaching engagement where additional sessions may be purchased at the end to address other sales and marketing concerns.
We will first have you fill in a sales and marketing coaching assessment about your current sales and marketing efforts, and based on the answers; we will then ask you some additional detailed questions about your business. There is an initial session that is up and above the six coaching sessions where we will provide you with analysis and recommendations of where we feel you require help to improve your sales and marketing efforts.
The business owner will then choose the topics for their six sessions. A final follow-up session is provided one month following your last meeting to review your sales and marketing efforts since the coaching and give more guidance to ensure you are implementing the solutions which will help you grow your business.
For Sales and Marketing Coaching, we suggest that you have been in business for a minimum of 2 years, and have at least two years of financials.
SELL YOUR BUSINESS READINESS BUSINESS COACHING
Ideal Customers
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Businesses who are looking to increase the value and performance of their business.
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Businesses who are starting succession planning and want to prepare their business for selling in the next 3+ years.
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Businesses who have tried to sell their business and have not received an offer for what they thought their business was worth.
Sell Your Business Readiness Coaching is a coaching engagement that is customized based on the requirements of the individual business owner who is looking to sell their business within the next three to five years. In order to receive the value wanted for the business by the owner, there is usually work that needs to occur a few years before selling the business.
This engagement includes an initial business performance assessment, along with a basic valuation of the current business. The estimate will be provided in each of the following methods: Net Book Value, Discounted Cash Flow, Earnings Multiples, Enterprise Value and Share Purchase Value.
The focus of the engagement is on improving the overall performance and value of the business in addition to lowering risk factors. The business owner takes an initial business performance assessment. Based on the assessment and the valuation, an analysis will be performed, and recommendations for improvement are provided to the business owner. It is at that time that the business owner will determine what areas they would like to work on during coaching.
The business owner will determine how many sessions they will need and at that ti, the coaching part of the engagement will be set up. The minimum for this engagement is one year with one 2-hour session every month. Once the commitment is completed, and all items are implemented, a second business performance assessment and valuation will be performed.
For Sell Your Business Readiness Coaching, we suggest that you are looking to sell your business in no less than three years.
