A business coach guides you to business success through powerful insights, a plethora of creative options, and innovative yet practical solutions that result in more, profitable sales.
The coach is a mentor who hones in on the weighty issues - the ones you may be ignoring.
She will focus you on the crux of the issues, to bring out your hidden wisdom about the matter at hand.
With a willing client, this process yields dramatic improvements in results.
What a coach does for you has much to do with the key issues of your business, and where it is in resolving these issues.
Sometimes the issues are completely transformed, even shifting the issue to something completely new.
At other times, when you are so close to the solution, the coach can usher you to the gold.
As such, there are at least five ways a business coach can help you increase profitable sales.
1.
New Paradigms Offer Powerful Insights for Transformative Solutions.
The business coach encourages you to notice your perspective, and to examine new perspectives.
From this, a shift in paradigm can happen in an instant or over time, depending where the client is.
For example, one client found they were focusing on the sales techniques when the real issue was the lack of a meaningfully unique value proposition for their target market.
As Stephen Covey points on in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, "the way we see the problem is the problem.
" A paradigm shift leads to insights that transform the landscape and generate transformative solutions.
2.
Move to an Upward Spiral through Encouraging the Best in You and Your Company.
So often the world focuses on what is wrong - what can be improved.
For example, one client was concerned he did not have the extroverted chit chat of a sales representative.
However, a new, more advanced coaching practice deeply considers what is working or what is right.
As a result, the client realized that he liked to ask questions, to listen and to help - all critical to excellence in sales.
By focusing on the good or what we are doing right, we generate more enthusiasm and energy to build on that good and attain even more good.
Understanding what is right about ourselves grows our self-esteem and creates even more strengths.
Focusing on the positive in the reality of ourselves and the reality of what is happening results in an upward spiral of more and more good -- interestingly, for both people and businesses.
Several studies demonstrate the positive effect of this approach, including one by David A.
Jones in OD Journal demonstrating that training in positive management techniques retained 32% more managers in a 94-restaurant fast food chain in a major metropolitan area.
3.
Generate a Multiplicity of Creative Options.
Sometimes our brains become stuck, and we see only one option - or maybe two.
Usually they are black and white, do or die.
This limited view often brought on by fear significantly limits the effectiveness of our solutions.
A coach can create the environment to free your brain, and generate numerous ingenious solutions, where you weren't previously able to come up with much.
The stream of ideas gives you more real choices, which often equates to power in this world.
4.
Guide Client to Revolutionary Solutions.
Theplethora of creative options and new perspectives give us the ability to view a problem from many angles, with many possible solutions.
From these, the coach will draw out what is important to you and your business.
A true understanding of their important criteria will allow the client to sift through the options and decide on the most effective solution.
5.
Help Client Act on a Specific, Realistic Plan.
Coaching for business is real.
The end result is an implementation plan that includes the who, what and by when - determined to be realistic by the coach and client.
The coach will require accountability.
If the client is not working on the key items, the focus will change to understanding the reasons for this, and addressing those.