Episode 204: How To Hire The Perfect Business Coach – with April Beach

You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. Hi there. And welcome back to the show. I’m April beach, your host and founder of the sweet life company. And we are here to help all of you experts, entrepreneurs, and small business owners scale online,

develop your signature offer and become the undisputed leader. How we do this here on the show and in the suite life company is by providing an experienced, proven business consulting firm over a decade of working with entrepreneurs, just like you and helping you grow and scale your business with online services, programs, digital products and programs on today’s show. We’re talking about how to hire the perfect business coach.

This is episode number 204, and this is what you can expect. First of all, should you tune in, should it hang out here for me, with me for another 20 minutes? So this show is for those of you guys that are considering hiring a private business consultants, but you need to make sure your money is well spent and you want to make sure that you’re going to the next level.

Here’s the deal. You know, that what got you here to this point is not going to be the same strategy, or maybe even the same self-teaching that can get you to the next level in your business. But hiring a business coach can feel really risky, especially now that everybody under the sun is calling themselves a business coach. Most of them who haven’t even built and scaled their own companies.

And so there are some things that you really need to be careful for. You know, if you’re thinking, how am I going to get results? How do I know if I can trust this person? How’s this person’s style going to meet my needs? Is this person really legit in this episode, we’re diving in to give you massive clarity on how you can hire the right person for you and you know,

the right questions to ask, to make sure that potential coach is going to be the one that delivers you, the results that you’re looking for at the end of the show, you’re going to know, first of all, whether or not you actually need or are ready for a private business coach. And you’re going to be equipped with the right questions to ask when interviewing a business coach.

And of course give you a ton of clarity to find that perfect fit coach for you. Along with this show, we have a download for you. They are 26 business coach interview questions, and you can go grab that, download it totally free. Just visit the show notes@sweetlifepodcast.com forward slash two zero four. And you can totally grab that it’s a free download and really important questions.

I want to make sure we’re not only giving you the strategies and talking about the important things here on the show, but I’m actually giving you two pages of questions. You can sit down during your interview with the coach and just ask them in, go ahead and make sure that you are getting the results that you’re looking for even in the pre-interview time. So if you’re ready for that,

let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show<inaudible>. So we’re going to break this show up into two parts, cause I want to make sure I’m giving you exactly what you’re looking for in the answers you need. First of all, again, we’re talking about how to hire the perfect business coach for you and the perfect coach for you is different than the perfect coach for me,

everybody is different. And so it’s really important that you have your own strategies to figure out who that perfect fit is going to be for you. The first one we need to do is talk about whether or not you actually need to be investing in a private business coach. And if your company is actually ready for that. And then in the second half of the show,

I’m going to help, you know, the questions to ask, to find the perfect fit coach for you. So let’s go ahead and dive in again. You can grab the download for the 26 interview questions to ask a business coach by visiting Sweetlife podcast.com forward slash two, a four, or you can download it instantly with no opt-in when you join our free community,

you can join our community over@sweetlifecommunity.com and all of our podcasts downloads have no opt in there to really give you speed and efficiency. Okay? So here we go. First of all, are you ready for a private business coach? Just because we all want to individual attention doesn’t necessarily mean that your business is at the point where you’re really ready for that level of coaching.

So let’s go ahead and talk about that together and make sure it’s a good investment for you. First things. First, number one, if you feel like you’ve been trying everything on your own, trying a bunch of different things and failing that them, or if you’ve been self-taught with little games, it may be time for a business coach for you. Although here’s the deal.

I am a huge advocate for failing. Failing is part of what makes you smarter and increases your entrepreneur IQ and helps you find confidence in yourself as a business leader. So when it comes to business growth, failing is part of the process, but we also need to help you make money faster and smarter. We don’t want you to failing forever all the way through.

If you’ve tried something on your own, you can’t get through, you can’t push past a barrier or you don’t understand something, or you like me value not recreating the wheel from scratch. Then private business coach is probably what you’re ready for. Number two, instead of being confident and proactive in your business, you’re starting to follow and copy other people’s success.

So maybe you’re confident in the beginning, but now you’re, you’re starting to kind of copy cat what other people are doing. And that’s never a good thing because even though it might look good on the outside for you, somebody else’s business model might seem like it’s perfect, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right pathway. And it’s going to get you the same results.

So if you find yourself starting to copycat what other people are doing and you’re lost, then certainly a private business strategist is something that’s going to be wise for you to get wisdom. So if you’ve been trying to do this on your own for a long time, you see other influencers and you see other businesses, and you’re trying to duplicate what they’re doing without any strategic wisdom of your own.

And that’s not working. Then it’s time for a private business coach. So really consider hiring a consultant and somebody who will roll up their sleeves with you, dive into your business with you and really hear what your struggles are. Your areas of expertise, how much money you bring to the table. What you’ve already tried. It’s really important that you don’t hire somebody.

That’s just going to teach you things you’ve already done. And this person should help you come up with a customized plan. That’s going to work for you. And here’s some things that I want you to consider. If you’re building a six to seven figure business and it’s not a side hobby, then it’s probably time. If you’ve met the previous criteria, we’ve just talked about to invest in a business coach,

business coaches are worth their weight in gold. They can absolutely change and transform your business. Literally, almost overnight. Now, no, there are no overnight fixes, but your understanding of your plan and your strategy can go from completely murky to very, very clear, almost instantly with the right coach. There’s nothing that feels better than that. Now you still have to go and implement it,

but that Mindshift alone can truly lift a million pounds off your shoulders and give you the clarity and focus you need. Now let’s talk about what you should invest or expect to invest with a business coach. And the first question starts with you. What can you afford? There are a lot of business coaches out there. I’m a said there are a lot of bitches out there.

There are a lot of bitches out there too, but there’s business coaches out there. I’m laughing. Cause I know my producer is going to leave this in here and you can have an hourly rate with a consultant anywhere from $50 an hour, $500 an hour, up to $5,000 an hour and really beyond. I don’t even know who those coaches are, but I know that they exist.

And I’m hoping this podcast episode can help you sort, the great coaches from those that are truly a sham. This is also why I’ve included the 26 questions to ask a business coach, download with this podcast to help you guide your conversations in interviewing a new coach to help make sure you aren’t getting taken to the cleaners. Okay? And so the deal is,

make sure your investment aligns with the money you have projected to make in your business and make sure it aligns with the value of your offers, your courses, your services, your programs, and what you can expect to recuperate what your ROI is. So the reality is is if you’re selling something for $200, it’s hard to recuperate an ROI. If you invest in a business consultant,

that’s going to cost you 30,000. How long is that going to take you? The amount of investment in my opinion should be relative to your ability to recuperate with an ROI. And that really starts with your offer. How valuable is your offer? You might be hiring a business coach to help you develop your offer, but you generally know the value of what you’re going for the target audience that you want to reach.

And so make sure that the value of what you’re selling is going to help you recuperate in a reasonable amount of time, your investment with a business coach. Now, just aside plug, if you need help developing your signature offer or program, or course consider joining my next upcoming masterclass called your signature offer, and you can add your name to the interest list for that by visiting signature offer.com

will really help you build something that’s highly valuable. And I say this because honestly I’ve heard a lot of people who have invested a lot of money to work with coaches and they put everything on the line and they lose their ass. Some of them have quit their jobs. They can’t pay their mortgage. I don’t want to see that anymore. I don’t want to see that heartbreak.

I don’t want to have any more phone calls with entrepreneurs saying I have nothing left. I spent $20,000 on this coach on this mastermind and I have nothing to show for it. I don’t want that to be you. And so be smart about what you’re investing and make sure that you’re working with the coach. That’s going to deliver the results that you’re looking for.

So if you have money to invest in mentorship, I highly recommend that you do it. The ROI is there. As long as you find the right coach, that can get you the results. And so one of the things to look at is how many trainings are you currently sitting on? If you’ve collected a ton of business courses, if you’re sitting on business downloads and listening to tons of podcasts,

you’ve been in a bunch of different masterminds, but you still don’t have any Results then certainly it’s probably time for a private business mentor for you. Although, as I’m saying this out loud and I’m as I’m recording this, I do know that very few coaches offer private one-on-one. So I would start there if you’re feeling already like, gosh, I really want to work with somebody and I want to get close to them.

Definitely start looking for coaches that even have that as an option. Everybody’s so into scale, scale scale, there are very few coaches that will give you their one-on-one time anymore. And frankly, that’s just a shame. And in that process, you want to ask yourself, how close do I want to be to this coach? If it’s important to you to have a personal relationship with the professional relationship,

with a business coach that knows your story, they know your profit plan. You know, you want them to know what’s on the line for you. You want them to know then, you know, you have the names of your kids and where your dream house is going to be located your vision and the purpose for what you’re doing. Then the best place you are going to find that is in a perfect private relationship.

Okay. So here’s your breaking point if you’ve listened to this so far and you’re like, yeah, no, I’m not ready for a private business consultant. I, I still want to DIY that’s great. You can go ahead and stop listening to this podcast now and tune into maybe another sweet life entrepreneurial podcasts that you’ve missed. If you’ve determined that yes,

it’s time for me to invest in a business coach to grow my company more strategically and faster. Now let’s talk more about how to find the right coach for you. So Denise Duffield-Thomas was on the show a few years ago, actually she’s a money mindset, coach and author of the book, chill preneur. She was a guest here back in 2018 and she wrote a great article a few years back.

And I just want to reference this article because I think it’s really important as we dive into this. I also want to make sure I’m operating and recording this podcast with integrity and ethics because I am a business coach. So I want to make sure I’m bringing you outside expertise and resources. In addition to what I’m delivering you here on the show to help you find a business coach.

And that it’s just not all coming from me. So it’s not me saying, Hey, you know, here’s the questions you should ask a business coach, but there are so many different, great coaches out there and that’s really the truth. And so I want to make sure that I’m giving you enough resources. You can ask wise questions during your interview process.

So I’m referencing Denise’s article here and I’m going to talk about some of the things that she brought up in this article, as well as the strategies that I’m giving you here on this show. So a few points that she brought up and they are very, very valid. The first question to ask yourself is where are you at right now in your business?

Take a really good look at the current plain field. What does it look like right now in your marketplace? What does money look like for you? What is your money look like right now? How clear are you and what you want to build? How clear are you and where you want to go? What do your services look like? Or what do you want them to look like in what’s happening right now and have just a real serious come to Jesus with yourself and just say,

this is where I am right now in my business. I’m not clear on this, or I’m not sure about this, right? I don’t know what decision I want to make about something. Just get really clear and understand where you are right now. This is before you ever get on the phone with a potential coach, this is what you should be doing throughout the process as you’re looking for a coach.

So the first question is really to take a personal inventory after you’ve identified where you are and say, okay, where do I want to go next? What does that look like to me financially? What does it look like? As far as what impact I want to have on a market or on a niche? What does it look like in my business model?

Generally? What type of business model am I looking to build and what sort of marketing and PR do I want to bring in and tap into my business first, take that personal inventory of figuring out where you are and then get really specific on the results that you’re looking for from a business coach, the results you’re looking to achieve in your business and hiring a coach to help you do that.

And then the third part of that is to ask yourself questions like what skills do I need to get from where I am now to where I want to go? So identify the skills you’re missing, or you need to do better at no more. What resources do you need? What systems do you need and where actually am I going? And do I even have a roadmap to get there?

This is pretty standard goal setting strategy, identifying where you are identifying, where you want to go and understanding what’s missing to get you there. But this is absolutely imperative for you to go through this process first to the best of your ability. I understand if you’re hiring a coach, you need a coach to help you figure a lot of this out, but you need to have an understanding of your own individual desires and your current place.

Where are you anchored right now? And where are you going to set sail to? And then you want to go look for a coach that you’re considering hiring. And so here are some questions. Here are some really important things that you should look at in addition to the black and white. Okay. Number one, what sort of life does that business coach have?

Because a lot of coaches have a business model that doesn’t necessarily align with the business model that you want to have for your life. So if you’re looking for somebody to teach you what they know, the tricks of the trade, their area of expertise and their strategies and the plan in which they use to get there, if you don’t want what they have,

they are not the right business coach for you. And I’ve seen that again. And again, I’ve seen midlife women hire younger business coaches, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but totally wanting a different outcome, totally wanting and currently having a different life and wondering why they didn’t get the results that they were looking for. And I just think it’s incredibly important because just seeing somebody there and they might have millions of Instagram followers or a group with thousands of followers and a membership community,

it doesn’t mean that they’re the right business coach for you, just because of a lot of other people follow them. Or a lot of other people work with them. Doesn’t mean they’re the right fit for you. So really take a look and ask that business coach, number one, you should ask them, what is their business model? If you can’t identify this through your own research research.

So what is their business model? How many hours a week do they work? And really what was the process? It took them to get there and do they have kids? That is an important question. You guys, I, this isn’t a mom prenuer podcast or a dad preneur podcast. But if you have kids, you guys that are listening, I’ve said this a trillion times here on the podcast of building a business with kids is totally different than building a business without kids,

your business systems, your model, your scale plan, your launches, your marketing are all driven by business and life strategies. When you have a family, it matter if they’re one or if they’re 18 years old, it’s still, there are different strategies you implement in different things that you put value on when you are building a business for lifestyle Results around family.

So if you’re spending thousands of dollars investing in a coach, who’s unaware of how to build a business in a true travel lifestyle family. It’s probably going to backfire on you. Don’t be surprised if that happens. So that’s just a little side note there. So another great question to ask is what is their coaching style teach versus tell? So this was a question that was going on in a group that I was involved in.

And the question posed was how much do you teach your clients versus how much do you tell them what to do? And I’m reading the comments in this group. And half of the coaches were saying this, no, no, no. You never tell your clients what to do. You only teach them how to find the answer for themselves. And the others were saying,

Nope, I totally tell them what to do. I totally give them the direction that they’re looking for. And here’s what I say. I absolutely tell my clients my expert opinion on what I believe they should do. It’s my personal coaching style to actually do both. Sometimes people hire me and they just want to know the dang answer. They have been searching for years and they just want somebody to tell them the answer.

I’m not going to sit them down. Like my mother did when I asked her how to spell a word and she wouldn’t give me the answer. She’d say, now, honey, now spell it out. I don’t want to spell out the damn word. Right? I literally paid you to give me the answer. And sometimes that’s just what people need and that might be what you need.

But then sometimes my clients need these strategic answers and it’s really, really important. And I’m a firm advocate, making sure my job is to teach my clients every single thing I know as it pertains to their business. So they don’t need me anymore. So basically my job is teaching my way out of a job. And I want my clients to fully say,

you know, Hey April. Yeah, I worked with her. She taught me everything I needed to know, and I don’t need to work with her anymore. And so that’s really the goal. And I share that with you. Obviously it’s a little bit of my own coaching style, but I share that with you because the reality is, as some business,

coaches are not going to give you quick answers. Some business coaches want you to go through the discovery process. Some are almost giving you so much information. It’s like an MBA and funnel building. When you, you know, when you might be a nutritionist, it’s totally irrelevant to the end result that you’re looking for. And I know many of you that listen to this podcast are really strapped for time and you want results.

So do yourself a favor, decide, do I want a business coach that’s going to teach me and tell me when I need an answer or do I just want somebody to teach me how to do things in the style is going to vary across the board. We could get into a whole different conversation between a coach versus a versus mentor. I’m not going there.

The reality is it’s just no, the best way that you learn and know the results that you’re really looking for. And really the happy medium is being able to have the wisdom to make your own decisions based on the coach, guiding you to the response that’s best for you. So just kind of think about that a little bit. And now here are a couple of other tips.

I highly recommend that you’re able to speak personally, one-on-one with the person who’s going to be coaching you before you hire them. You have this opportunity, whether it’s for five minutes or 50 minutes to sit down on the phone or do a video call and make sure that the energy is right to make sure that the relationship giants and it’s really somebody that you can believe that you can learn from you can lean on and you can trust.

And I think that that is super, super important. Particularly with business coaches that require a higher investment to work with them sometimes are these funnels that are built, where you pay a lot of money to hire a coach without ever really having an opportunity to speak to them upfront. And I would personally say that you have a right to speak with anybody who you’re about to invest in to guide your business relative to the amount of investment they’re asking.

If you are joining. For example, one of my business mentorship programs is $10,000. I won’t even take you on as a client until I make sure it’s a good fit for both of us as well. And you would have that same opportunity to interview me back. And I think that that’s very, very important for any business coaching program that requires a higher investment.

So just to share that now, let’s go ahead and dive a little bit in, I gave you the download four 26 interview questions to ask a business coach. I’m going to share a couple of them here as we wrap up this podcast episode, but I really want to make sure you get all of them. They’re asked in a strategic way so that as you go through the interview,

you really get the answers you’re looking for. And so here we go. Question number one is how long have you been coaching number two? How many clients have you coached? Number three, what transformation can I expect after working with you really important one right there. If they cannot explain the end results, you should stop the conversation right there. Number four,

how long will it take to see these results? Number five, how many hours outside of your coaching time do you recommend? I work on the action items that you give me six. Can I speak with others? Who’ve worked with you seven. Do you provide a guarantee of any kind eight? What are your areas of expertise? And this is you asking the coach nine,

how will I contact you 10? How often will we meet 11? This one’s really important. What if I have an emergency question, make sure that you know, their availability to you during emergencies, especially if you’re hiring a coach with a particular launch or a strategy that you really, really need an immediate answer for that might come up. Are you available in person?

And the 13th question is what is your business model? And there are 13 more important questions, maybe not more important, but there are 13 additionally important questions that I recommend that you go through and a business coach interview. And I want to make sure that you have those resources so you can download all 26 business coach interview questions by visiting and sweet life podcast.com

episode two Oh four. So that’s Ford slash two Oh four. And of course you can get all of our downloads with no opt-in by joining our community@sweetlifecommunity.com. And of course, if you’d like to know about working with me privately, I would love to interview with you. You can cruise over to Sweetlife co.com and schedule with me anytime let’s have a chat.

Thanks so much for tuning into this show. I really appreciate your listenership. I know as we wrap up 2020, all of us are eager to get this year over, but I also know that there are a lot of investments that you’re currently making in your business. As you look into 2021. And my job is to make sure that they’re wise investments and I’m equipping you with the tools you need to make wise decisions for yourself and your business and your future.

All right, thanks so much for tuning in here. I’ll talk to you guys next week.