Starting a business is hard. It takes a great idea and the grit to see it through. If you are like many entrepreneurs, the idea isn’t your problem – it's the actual running of the business. You have to think about building a profitable business model, for instance, as well as learn how to manage your company’s accounting, marketing and HR.
While it’s easy to think that you’ll figure it out on the fly, it’s important to know what you don’t know and when to ask for help through a professional business coach.
Are You Feeling Overwhelmed?
One of the biggest signs it's time to hire a business coach is when you begin to feel overwhelmed. While running a business can be stressful and time-consuming, you will know you have begun to become overwhelmed when little things start falling through the cracks. It starts as a nagging feeling that you are missing or forgetting to do something. Before long, you are going through the motions and leaving heaps of things undone – and those are just the things you know about!
Hiring a business coach helps take away these stresses. The right professional will listen to your goals and assess where your company currently stands. He or she will also lay out a game plan so that you know exactly what you need to do and the order you need to follow as you complete those steps. Moving forward, your business coach can help you decide whether it is time to hire more help or start outsourcing non-core functions.
Do You Not Know How to Implement Your Ideas?
You may also need to hire a business coach if you have ideas but are not sure of the steps you need to take to make them happen. After all, having a great business idea is worlds apart from knowing what needs to happen in order to bring that idea to life and follow through on those activities. You can do everything right and still not get the results you want. Some of those shortcomings are going to come from the fact that you may not be an expert in every area of your business. Knowing your business isn’t the same as knowing all the operational things you need to do behind the scenes. Moreover, when you look at your business and try to figure out where you could improve, you are looking at it from a subjective point of view. A business coach can give you a more objective perspective to your company and its issues.
At the end of the day, hiring a business coach can help save you time and money over trying to go it alone. Even the most seasoned professionals benefit from bouncing ideas off other people and exploring business models, and a business coach can help you do that. It is all about helping you find the best way to make your concept happen and achieve your business goals.
How to Find the Right Coach
When you decide to hire a business coach, it’s important to hire the right one. You need someone with a variety of experiences and some skin in the game. Just as importantly, you need someone who will take the time to listen and understand where your company stands right now, then tell you what you need to do to achieve your goals.
Denver-based business coach Chris Hallberg is a great example. He has worn many hats in his 24-year career. The man has been a squad leader with the National Guard, a Deputy Sheriff and a successful salesman. As a Sales VP, Chris took one company’s revenue from $9 million to $20 million in just one year. Plus, he knows what it takes to start a business. Chris launched a startup that was valued at $2 million in 2009 and he sold it successfully two years later, so he understands the selling process as well.
In 2011, Chris began working with entrepreneurs and company leadership teams to help them achieve their goals. He shows his clients how to identify their purposes and develop plans to fulfill them using a system called Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS. Under this framework, Chris breaks down bigger concepts into attainable and measurable goals, then introduces tracking and accountability systems to make overseeing changes and new initiatives simple. After all that, he provides ongoing support while his clients achieve their business dreams.
If you need business coaching today, contact Chris! It is never too late to hire a business coach to take your company to the next level. Get started now and make 2017 the year your business truly succeeds.
The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) was created by Gino Wickman (Author of Traction-get a grip on your business) and is a registered trademark of EOS Worldwide. Chris Hallberg of Traction Inc. is a Certified EOS Implementer(tm) that helps business owners and their leadership teams get more of what they want from their business.