If You’re Asking Your Business Coach for Advice, You’re Missing the Point
Four steps to get the most value out of your coaching relationship.
As a business coach to early-stage entrepreneurs, I talk to many aspiring business owners during discovery calls. Many of them have the wrong idea about what a business coach does—at least a trained one.
Unfortunately, coaching is still an unregulated industry. That means there are many self-proclaimed “coaches” out there with absolutely zero coach training.
When it comes to untrained business coaches, the only thing they can do to help you is give you advice based on what they know or have done in their business, which is closer to mentoring or consulting, not coaching.
That sets up an unfortunate misconception for newer business owners: you come to your business coach with a problem, and they give you the exact solution to follow step-by-step.
But when you go to your coach and ask for advice or to “pick their brain” on a topic, you only get their opinion based on their business or clients’ businesses. This is fine, but it’s not really helping you.
You’re not learning how to make your own decisions; you’re learning how to listen to and copy someone else’s strategy. And if you use a strategy that aligns with someone else, it doesn’t mean you will enjoy doing it.
To illustrate this point: When I was new to business, I took a course on Instagram marketing. I thought it was about learning how to use that platform to grow my business. It turns out it was more about sending cold DMs to strangers, hoping they’d work with me.
When I realized what I had signed up for, I felt cheated. Trying to give the business coach the benefit of the doubt, I still followed their strategy for a few weeks, even though every bone in my body didn’t align with it.
Most of the people I reached out to either ignored or blocked me, and the strategy felt yucky because it didn’t align with everything I knew about attraction (or inbound) marketing, which is the philosophy that when people are ready, they’ll reach out to you. So, I dropped it and moved on to strategies that actually felt good to me.
Learn how to make empowered decisions.
If you want to get the most value out of your coach, don’t come to them asking for advice. Come to them with an actual coaching topic you want help on.
This could still relate to your overall strategy. You may want help choosing between two marketing channels or want to build a strategy around something you’ve already chosen.
This is a great coaching topic because your coach can help guide you in brainstorming and making a decision around these things. They’ll help you weigh the options and make the best decision for you and your business.
You’ll end up with a strategy you’ll be happy to implement and stay consistent with over time. Consistency, not your chosen marketing channel, is what gives you results.
Set clear, realistic goals.
Another issue I often encounter is aspiring business owners who have no idea how long it takes to sign clients and grow a business. They’ve bought into the false belief that both are easy.
They’re not. Listening to the voices that tell you that you can sign clients and make tons of money overnight will only set you up for feeling like a failure when you don’t reach your goals as fast as they say you can.
If you fall into this bucket, I’m not here to shame you. I’m here to tell you to open your eyes and see beyond the marketing copy you’ve read on someone’s website trying to sell you a get-rich-quick scheme.
Building a business takes time, and that’s okay. It means you spend a few months building a solid marketing foundation so that sales become easy later on.
If you have yet to launch your business or take any steps in that direction, then your business is just an idea. And that’s fine. But you need to adjust your expectations.
If you have taken steps towards your goals, you’ve built momentum already, which means your goals may be more realistic.
So, when developing your business goals, you must always consider where you are now and where you want to be. If there’s a big gap, you may need to adjust your expectations and timelines.
And regarding creating clear goals, what exactly are you trying to build in your business in the next few months?
Are you trying to get more clarity in your marketing so you can start to attract clients, or do you want to build a website so it’s easier to promote your business?
Either of these goals is fine, but they have very different follow-up steps.
It’s also good to check in occasionally and see if you’ve made progress towards your goals. If not, you may need to change your plan.
Take action to grow your business outside of your coaching sessions.
This should be pretty obvious, but if you’re not working on your business and promoting yourself between your coaching sessions, you won’t reach your goals in the timeframe you want.
It’s important to work on your messaging, website, and marketing. But it's just as important to put yourself out there and talk to your community and potential clients.
When you’re new in business, staying behind-the-scenes in your business is tempting. But that doesn’t help you sign clients.
So, you have to push yourself to do the things that will move the needle instead — going out and talking to people you know, introducing yourself to strangers at a networking event, telling them about what you do — or pitching that podcast host even when you don’t feel quite ready.
Those activities will get you in front of your potential audience, not tweaking your website for the thousandth time.
Do some self-reflection.
My clients who make the most progress are the ones who take the time to self-reflect between sessions, whether it’s through journalling or getting quiet and listening to their thoughts.
This means examining their beliefs, old patterns, and any other obstacles they face while working on their business.
They either work on these things on their own or bring them to our sessions so we can move through them together.
In closing
You want to think of your business coach as not just an advisor or mentor but as a partner. Someone who will empower you to make your own decisions around your business and help you become the person you truly want to be: a CEO who creates whatever they want on their own terms.
Want my help launching and growing your business? Book a free 30-min. discovery call to learn more about my 1:1 coaching programs and see if it makes sense to work together.
