Business Coaches: Your Options

If you want to start a career as a business coach, you need to make an important decision. That decision is how you want to operate your business. Business coaches educate and train operating managers and business owners on the key components of running a successful and profitable business. These components are all the same, but there are many ways to teach them. What are your two best options?

1 – One-on-One Training

One-on-one training is when you work directly with your client. You consult with them via email, through the phone, or meet with them in person at their office. When working with small to medium sized business owners, your involvement starts at the top. You will then later want to work with all staff members. Remember, a good manager is important to a business, but that well-performing manager means nothing if their staff does not back them up with good results and speedy productivity.

One-on-one training has many benefits. For starters, you usually visit your client at their place of business. This gives you a lot of insight. Not all business suffer from the same problems. Some have a poor marketing plan, some have poor leadership, and others have organizational problems. Visiting your client in their place of business enables you to examine the situation. You can determine exactly what is going wrong. For example, a business with poor office organization, but a strong marketing plan, does not need marketing help. They need organizational help.

One-on-one training also allows you to show by example. In keeping with the above mentioned example of an unorganized office or sales floor, you can physically walk to the problem and point it out. Show the store manager that because a large display is in the middle of the aisle, it is difficult for customers to get a shopping cart through. You get better results when you show business owners and operating mangers how to make changes, not just tell them.

2 – Hosting Seminars

As a business coach, you also have the option to host seminars. This is when you choose a specific location, like a hotel conference room, take paying reservations, and hold a class. During this class, you will go over the key components of running a successful and profitable business. These components include marketing sales, time management, no workplace conflict, organization, and teamwork.

Hosting seminars is nice because it expands your profits. When working one-on-one, you work with one paying client at a time. When hosting a training seminar, the room can be filled with a hundred business owners. They all paid. In about the same amount of time or even less, you make more money! Unfortunately, those same business owners will take your class once and they will not need it again. To work in this aspect full-time, you will need to travel to teach seminars, targeting new business owners and managers each time.

As you can see, both one-on-one training and hosting seminars have their pros and cons. Which option should you choose? It depends on your personal preferences. Moreover, you do not need to choose. Why not offer them both as an option? On your website, list your ability to meet with clients one-on-one. Then, mention you occasionally host seminars. Host two or three a year. List these seminars on your website and cross promote.