Get Your SME Nursed by a Coach

Owning and growing a small business is a challenge. But the good thing is that there are many qualified mentors and coaches around who can guide and help your business achieve new milestones of success and prosperity. Whether you deal in gifts and novelties or run a handicrafts business, consider the following tips to help you with selecting a business coach.

Go for a qualified small business coach – Just because someone calls herself a coach it doesn't imply that she has the necessary skills, education and the expertise it takes to be an effective small business coach. Since the industry isn't well regulated you'd find many unqualified “coaches.” So it's better to consider someone that's graduated from a recognized and a reputable coaching institution.

Ask for referrals – Bank upon your trusted sources such as your friends and business associates, lawyers, financial advisors, HR consultants, your vendors, etc to suggest to you some competent and reliable business coaches.

Conduct a thorough interview of potential coaches – To begin with, gather a fairly large pool of prospective coaches and then throughly interview each one learning about their qualifications, past assignments, etc. Also, don't forget to focus on their personality and communication style to ascertain their compatibility with you. Use similar yardsticks and processes for hiring a coach as you would for a lawyer or computer consultant.

Assess your needs before making a choice – Different coaches have different specialties. While some have expertise in motivation, behavior modification, emotional intelligence, others may deal in helping your profitability. Also, some coaches focus on solo entrepreneurs, small and medium sized businesses, others on large corporate organizations, so you need to match your requirements with the specialty of the coach.

Learn about the consultation fee in detail – The prospective coach should candidly discuss the remuneration she expects for her services. Find out whether she offers the first consultation free so that you can know whether there's a good fit or not, and whether the coaching experience matches up to your expectations or not.

Find out about the availability – Ask about the coaches' service details to know when she'd be available and are those time slots and schedules suitable to you. For example, while some coaches work only on weekends, others can be consulted during morning or evening hours.