Americans are always looking for new ways to make money. If you are one of those individuals and have a business management degree or experience in business management, there is a good opportunity waiting for you. That opportunity is working as a business coach. With today’s struggling economy, once profitable businesses are losing money. Unless help is sought and fast, those businesses may have to close their doors.
As nice as it is to hear that you can make money working as a business coach, you need more information. Most importantly, you need to know what is expected of you. What job responsibilities do business coaches have?
Education. As a business coach, you are the expert. You have schooling or experience that makes you qualified to run a business. You know what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, many home based business and small business owners did not think their plans through. They realized they could make money and jumped in with both feet. Action is good, but having knowledge and experience is even better.
It is your job as a business coach to educate them on how to properly run a successful and profitable business. To do this, dissect the key components of running a business. These include leadership development, proper communication, teamwork, organization, resolving workplace conflict, sales, and marketing. Those who started a business on a whim may not see the connection between these important components and profits. You need to show them.
Setting examples. As a business coach, your job is to educate and teach a business owner how to run a successful and profitable business. You are just like a sports coach, you teach the team plays to run. Do not do the work yourself. You can however, set examples and give continued instructions.
For example, organization is key to business. In the retail industry, an unorganized sales floor turns off customers. They want to shop where it is easy to find what they need, easy to walk through the aisles, and so forth. If your client’s retail store is unorganized and unclean, give team members a shopping cart and a list of items to pickup. Let them see for themselves how hard it was to shop. Then, give them a few suggestions, such as removing bulky displays from the middle of the aisle. Run through one play yourself, but let the team do the rest of the work.
Reviewing. You can educate your clients and show them ways to improve productivity, organization, marketing, and sales, but there are no guarantees. As soon as you leave or end a training session, your client and their employees can revert to their old habits. Include a review in with your fees. Return a week or two after your training sessions. Have things changed? Did the company utilize your tips or did they return to normal habits?
If you return to a client’s place of business and do not see improvements, don’t start the process again, especially for free. Verbally repeat the important components of running a business and restate some of the tips you shared. Before leaving, warn your former client about the dangerous path they are headed on. Unless they offer to pay for your services again, your hands are tied, but at least you made an attempt.