You’ve heard about business coaches for entrepreneurs, and you also have a business idea or a launch in the making. Most of my clients are usually not sure exactly how hiring a coach would benefit them. And of course, they often wonder if it makes sense to invest a portion of their capital in a coach.
Those are all valid questions. In this post I’ll give you the information you need to make the right decision for you.
As a coach who works primarily with entrepreneurs but also an entrepreneur who hires business coaches, I believe I have an insight you may find valuable 🙂.
So—How Does A Business Coach For Entrepreneurs Accelerate Your Launch?
#1 Clarity Creates Motivation
When we’re on our own (speaking from experience here), we tend to get tired from work and all our adult responsibilities. We want to spend our weekends recharging and getting ready for another busy week. We love our business idea, but we rarely get around making significant progress.
I’ve been there, and I get it.
I had this coaching business in my head for months before I launched it. The website you see, any logos, blogs, and even pictures were all created in the safe container of working with my own business coach.
I too had limited time, multiple competing priorities and practically no budget.
A great business coach for entrepreneurs will help you get very clear and specific about your personal purpose, your vision for your life, and the mission of the business.
Once you know exactly what you are creating and how it fits with your vision of success, you’ll find the time and energy you’ll need to invest to make your dream a reality.
A great coach will help you find areas of your life that drain you. Step by step, you’ll eliminate energy vampires and create new ways to make time.
I know it sounds like a hefty promise but it’s continued to be true for me each time I was creating my three separate brands. For a while, they seem impossibly challenging to bring to life and dreamy, but with the right support, you’ll find a way to bring them to life.
#2 Alignment Brings Inspiration
You and your business coach for entrepreneurs should know exactly what your top four-five values are (BTW—here is a link to a detailed post I wrote about this with an exercise to help you identify your values if you’re struggling).
When you know exactly what’s important to you, you can see what makes your business idea special to you.
Sometimes we forget why we decided to start our business. Usually, my clients haven’t talked about why they started the business to begin with in a while. The more we uncover their motivation and how it fits in with their values, the more inspired they feel.
When we align our actions with what’s most precious to us (your mission) that’s when we become unstoppable.
For example, my values are family, well-being, wisdom, connection and fulfilment. Being a professional business coach for entrepreneurs is in perfect alignment with my values.
The flexibility of the business allows me to spend quality time with my family. It’s in the best interest of my business for me to be in an exceptional physical, mental and spiritual shape- that’s well-being.
My passion for wisdom drives me to be constantly learning about myself, universal truths, the human experience which is in perfect alignment with being a great coach.
My love for connection makes supporting others in their own pursuit of fulfillment extremely satisfying. Being in that kind of alignment makes me feel fulfilled.
#3 A Strategic Plan Drives Consistent Action
Together with your coach, you’ll create a strategy for your business. From that strategy, you’ll set goals and priorities. Then, you’ll break down the goals into tasks that you can execute weekly.
If you’ve been procrastinating working on your business, it’s because you were overwhelmed and you didn’t know where to start.
It seemed so big and confusing, it made you open a can of hard kombucha, a bag of popcorn and turn on an episode of Schitt’s Creek. This is a fictional scenario. The details were not inspired from personal experience.
When you start working with a coach, all of this ambiguity will go to the wayside. There have been so many times I hung up the phone with my coach and I was ready for action. When you know the exact step that is in the right direction, you’re 1000% more likely to take that step.
#4 A Well-balanced Life Priorities Increase Performance And Results
If you spend some time finding the right coach for you, they’ll probably have a holistic approach to business and success. They wouldn’t allow you to go all out and grind at any cost.
Having a business is more like a marathon, you have to pace your energy. And as a long-distance athlete you’ll have to hydrate, eat healthy, exercise daily and have a team of professionals supporting you.
A great entrepreneur coach will make sure you’re enjoying a good work-life balance and you’re having fun while you are on your journey.
Often left on our own devices, we forget to embrace the journey. We wait to be happy and proud until we reach a certain milestone.
Your business coach will make sure you remember who you are and what’s truly important.
When you are at your best physically, mentally and spiritually, you make great choices that save you money, time and energy.
Your business coach will identify areas where you can grow, stretch or change your mindset around. They’ll watch out for blind spots and they’ll challenge your current perspective. Often, this will result in saving a TON of time and money.
If I get a dollar each time a client had a breakthrough and made a different choice that saved them time and energy, I’ll have a few hundred bucks, lol.
#5 Coaching + Support + Accountability = Courage To Be Bold
Self-doubt creeps in even in clients who I’ve worked with who already have 7-figure businesses. When you do something new and big, there’ll be overwhelm, imposter syndrome, fear of criticism, fear of competition, and a few more unique limiting beliefs that you’ll encounter. A coach will be there every step of the way to help you with what you need to move past them.
Working with the right coach will provide you with the space to think everything through, to feel supported and confident in your decisions. After working with your coach for a while, they’ll just get you. Moreover, they’ll know you so well that when they encourage you or they assure you that you’ve got what it takes, you’ll know in your core that it’s true.
Hearing from my own coach what he thinks I do well and hearing his words of encouragement are always a superpower. Coaches don’t B.S. you. If they are good, they speak little and what they say is impactful.
#6 Managing The Shiny Object Syndrome Saves Time And Energy
One thing that entrepreneurs have in common is great new ideas and passion to pursue them. In a way, that’s a blessing and a curse. Having multiple competing business ideas or projects makes it hard to bring even one of them to full fruition.
Working with a business coach will help you choose your main priority and stay on track with that. You can still entertain all your other new and shiny ideas. But a great coach will be curious. They’ll ask lots of questions to help you uncover your drivers and motivators.
Sometimes we are so inspired, we come up with a ton of new ideas. But not all great ideas are in alignment with our mission and values. We just have to write those ideas down and revisit them again later to see if they feel more relevant.
#7 Spotting Self-sabotaging Behaviors Save You Lots Of Time And Money
It’s very intriguing that sometimes we self-sabotage by creating new distractions. When our current project is starting to feel overwhelming, we tend to find something else that seems easier, more financially lucrative or suddenly more exciting.
The opportunity to play smaller or to have found “an easy way” could be energizing and therefore blinding. A great entrepreneur coach will help you spot what’s really going on so you can stay the course.
But that doesn’t mean that success has to be difficult.
Just the opposite. Sometimes clients find the longest and most challenging line between A and B because they have an established belief that they have to struggle to get to what they really want.
Working with a great business coach for entrepreneurs is trained to recognize that pattern as well. They’ll help you find new ways to achieve your goals without the hustle and the struggle.
Another self-sabotaging practice I’ve seen as a business coach for entrepreneurs is that clients attract expensive shortcuts that promise quick results.
For example, a client with a small practice was approached by a marketing company. They had convinced her that if she invested about $3,000 a month for 6 months with them, she’d have hundreds of new clients.
In general, there’s nothing wrong with online marketing and finding a ton of new clients but that’s not what my client was trying to build.
She already had a great practice and she was looking to increase her impact in other ways. She could use a couple of extra clients to help her fund her other projects but having any more than that was going to take her off track her bigger purpose.
When we spoke in depth about this opportunity, we identified the reason she got so excited about the prospect of dozens of new clients. She felt as if she needed to have a full practice for credibility for her other projects.
But by asking her the right questions, she recognized that a full practice wouldn’t allow her to have the time to invest in the other projects. And those projects were her main priority. Also, she didn’t need a certain number of clients to be more credible than other experts in her field.
I hope by now you are quickly trying to navigate towards my Get In Touch page so you can send me a message or schedule your free consultation.
I have an extraordinary passion for business and marketing and I’d love to talk shop with you. Especially if you liked my GIFs.
And if you hated my GIFs but you still want to hire a coach (just not me), here is a link to another helpful post I wrote about How to Hire A Business Coach.
As a life and business coach in San Diego, I work with a lot of professionals who feel like they’ve been struggling with getting unstuck in their business as well as in life. My clients are people who want to reach their full potential, but are stuck at a plateau and they’re seeking the right support to help them move forward. From many years of business coaching working with clients that deal with this internal struggle, I have a good idea of the beast that “stuck” is.
Sometimes we feel stuck in our small business—we feel like we’re not able to clearly see how we should be moving forward. And sometimes we feel stuck in our personal lives. Some of my clients share that they’ve been in a rut and they want to feel better but from their vantage point, they’re not seeing a way out of their current situation.
They reach out because they feel stuck and they have no idea what their next steps should be. Often, being stuck may feel like you’re trying different things but you’re not getting the results you want. Other times it may feel like you just know that you’ve taken a detour from the “right” path for you and something in your life just feels off.
In short, feeling stuck means that you want to experience life differently but you don’t know how to get there.
There is good news. You can get unstuck and get out of a funk. I’ve had the privilege to see clients finally feel like they are back on track and in alignment.
QUESTIONS THAT WILL BE ANSWERED
How do I get my business unstuck?
How do I get myself unstuck?
What should I do when I’m stuck?
What does becoming unstuck mean?
How to get over a business plateau?
I’m going to share 3 keys to overcome this challenge. You’ll learn 3 simple keys to employ and why they are so powerful in helping you get yourself unstuck.
Getting Unstuck Key #1: Change your environment
I’d argue that one of the most powerful ways to get unstuck is to change our perspective to gain new clarity. If a fish swims in a blue-colored water, it probably won’t notice it. But if you change its environment to clear water it would start seeing things differently.
See, our environments are similar. They provide “the color” or different filters that determine how we see our lives.
Therefore, to see more clearly and without the usual filters of our reality, we need to remove ourselves from our usual environment.
Travel is one of the most powerful weapons against the beast Stuck. Stuck hates new lands, climates, cultures, languages and new living conditions.
Do not panic. You don’t need to book a safari trip to Africa each time you feel Stuck is looming around. But Stuck probably starts hanging out with you because of the lack of novelty, exploration and variety in your life.
Here is an example from my summer. I just came back from a four-day trip to Idaho. I am a business coach in San Diego who loves all things business, marketing, personal development and beach. Just 4 days away from my usual environment of the city, driving, child care, my usual food and daily routine made a huge difference.
Before I left I was really frustrated with a marketing issue. The day before departure I had to cancel an agreement with a freelancer who I had hired for this specific marketing job. I was frustrated and confused. I felt overwhelmed with the specific issue I was having and I felt like burying myself for 4 days until I figured it out.
Thankfully, I had a scheduled trip out of state to a place that was very different from my usual life. I stayed with a friend in a small town surrounded by nothing but nature and mountains. We spent our days relaxing, sleeping, trying the local food, hiking and canoeing.
I had zero responsibilities other than keeping myself alive. I know that to many of you that feels like luxury, and trust me—taking time away from my business coaching and family is a huge deal for me as well.
What made the efforts to get out of town worth it is that I came back energized, optimistic and well-rested.
Coming back to my office this recharged made it easy to resolve my marketing issue.
First of all, removing ourselves from the situation with distance or time helps us feel as if it is more manageable than we originally thought.
Secondly, active rest acts like a reboot to our brains. It closes all the tabs and starts processing everything much faster.
Lastly, the novelty of travel expands us. It literally adds more to us than we were before. We come back changed and enriched by what we learned and experienced. We learned something new about life and ourselves. That learning experience is not directly relevant to our challenges in work and life but the key is that we come back with that expanded perception about what’s around us. And that added perception is energizing and refreshing—exactly what Stuck hates the most.
Getting Unstuck Key #2: Change your experiences
The best thing next to travel is new experiences. Feeling stuck usually comes from having too much of the same. Switching up your hobbies (or starting to have hobbies, um hello!) is a fantastic way to break a rut with life or business.
Think about sports or hobbies you enjoyed as a kid or a young adult. Is there an activity you can bring back on weekly or even monthly bases that brings you joy?
It could also be something you always wanted to learn but you never got around to trying.
Make a point to discover what you want to try at this point of your life. All things that bring you fun, excitement or enthusiasm count unless they are harmful in some other way.
Step One
Do your research—don’t just “say” that you’ll start piano lessons or join a beach volleyball league. Go ahead and find all the information you need to get started. Having all the details and everything ready would set you up for success. You won’t commit to salsa lessons unless you have a studio picked out near you.
Step Two
Then, put it in your calendar or schedule and follow through. New habits, however fun, are hard to incorporate into an already busy schedule. It would take effort and discipline to show up consistently for your new activity. Adding something personal to your calendar is the best system you can set in place to make sure you actually do it.
You can also set reminders on your phone at the right day and time to ensure you won’t forget. Make it harder not to go than it is to skip. Put your gym bag in the car or set your Spanish books on your desk.
You’ll experience yourself differently, you’ll be challenged, you’ll have to use other parts of your brain and your body. You’ll probably laugh at yourself or get frustrated, you’ll set new goals, you’ll start getting results and feelings of accomplishment. You may meet new people or reunite with old friends. You’ll have more things to talk about with friends and co-workers. Stuck will be nowhere to be found.
Step Three
Set yourself up for success by setting the right attitude. Remember why you’re engaging with this interest to begin with—more joy, clarity in life and new perspective. Show up with an open mind, and be ready to play.
The best way to make the best of anything is to stay present. That means that you won’t let your mind be like a sports commentator in the background, judging you, comparing you, pushing you to be better or telling you it was a dumb idea. Too many times we screw up the fun as adults because we are used to taking everything so seriously.
Instead, show up to your hobbies and interests with eyes wide open and soaking up the moment exactly as it’s appearing in front of you. Accept the experience you’re having and let it unfold the way it’s going to unfold. Let go, release control and have FUN!
Getting Unstuck Key #3: Change your accountability
Working with an accredited or a certified business coach can be the exact remedy you need to make a change in your life if you’re feeling stuck. One of the biggest values that coaches bring to the table is the new perspective.
Here is why: life and business coaches are trained to have thought-provoking conversations, to be open, curious and unbiased. As an outsider, we don’t experience your environment the way you do or the way your closest people do.
These coaches have methods to help you think outside of the box and come up with creative solutions. This is especially true of business coaches for entrepreneurs, startups and creatives.
In several short months I see so many clients have more enthusiasm, energy, results and confidence. After overcoming that initial hurdle of being stuck, their lives start flowing naturally. It’s like you’ve removed a big rock off of a stream and now the water moves faster. It doesn’t have to go around those big boulders any more.
Of course, working with a life/business coach also takes time, effort and resources. Nothing magical will happen overnight. But it’s also my personal experience that when I work with a coach I tend to come up with solutions I never thought of before. I always move on with my life much faster and with a peace of mind.
Business Coaching Extra Tip: Things NOT to do when feeling stuck
I’ll just list them for you in case you forgot that shopping, drinking, smoking, binge-watching TV and overeating are all unhealthy ways to cope when we feel stuck. The rewards of those habits are short-lived and dependent on constant repetition. They’ll leave you feeling more stuck, heavier on the scale and lighter in your wallet.
Just remember that we humans are just as much creatures of habit as we are invigorated by novelty, challenge, learning and joy. Take some time today to carve out time for something fun whether you do it alone,with friends or your family, and watch how that beast of “Stuck” begins to cower away.
If you are interested in having a conversation about working together, schedule your complimentary and no-strings-attached consultation. It’s about 45-min and over the phone. Check the schedule here…
