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Featured Resource

25 Ways To Revolutionize Your
Virtual Assistant Business

In a collaborative effort to advance the VA Industry, Dale, Becki and Heather spent countless hours delving into 25 different topics of import to Virtual Assistants to make this e-book an invaluable tool of the trade. There are 74 information packed pages based on their collective experiences and know-how.

While there is no magic pill that will make your VA business effective, each topic
provides insight on how you can make your business revolutionary. The key is that
this information will be good for nothing more than tinder if you do nothing with it.
It is a guideline and a how-to. The success that you attain using any information
provided, within these virtual pages, comes from you doing it.

This e-book is also a tribute to Janet Jordan who passed away January of 2006.
She was and continues to be an inspiration to the VA Industry. Her raw talent for
bringing out the best in all of us continues to shine through the lives that she has
touched. Janet, we love you.

Coaching Your Way to Success: Why a Coach?

by: Dale Noles

What is Coaching?

The word coaching, even in the remotest usage of the word, implies a trust between at least two individuals, the mentor and the player. Our society is so used to hearing the word as it relates to sports that when you tell others that you have a coach most will assume that it is a personal trainer or that you are on some intramural softball league.

A business coach maintains the same role to a business owner that a sports coach shares with each player. While the game that business owner plays is different to the game a football player interacts in, the playing field and the manner in which the game is played has striking similarities.

A football coach can be awe inspiring to the team or a hard-nosed, kick you in the, well you know. A team has very little direction without a coach there to call the plays and help strategize the outcome of the game but is rarely seen on the playing field taking the shots and running the plays. The coach can see the whole playing field and can help the team navigate through the opposing team's line.

Much like a football coach, a business coach is on the sidelines, calling out the plays that will help you maneuver through the business playing field avoiding the barrage of marketing mishaps and a slue of rough turf toward the goal posts of your success. The coach is not playing your game for you but provides the experience to help you win.

A coach can help you start your business the right way, the first time out or have you scrap your playbook and help you rewrite it based on your talents. In addition to getting you moving in a direction that is best suited for you, a coach can help to enliven your business growth; help you understand your business and your market; help you develop a strong set of goals that will keep your business alive and thriving; help you deal with any underlying issues that are preventing you from making success happen; be the cheerleader for your business successes and help you streamline your business.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the leader in the coaching certification industry and is recognized by all other certification programs as the premier forerunner in its industry. The ICF website provides their description of coaching as the following:

Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.

How Can Coaching Benefit You?

Finding or qualifying Return On Investment (ROI) from a coaching relationship is difficult and problematic at best. The main issue with determining ROI for a coaching relationship is the whole confidentiality barrier and managing a true financial breakdown of how effective coaching is. Let me explain by providing two scenarios.

Scenario 1

Entrepreneur 1 hires the Coach to aid in business organization and marketing development. They meet via telephone once every week for a one-hour telephone call. After four weeks of coaching, Entrepreneur 1 has been very participatory on each call but has not done the assigned homework that the Coach had given at the end of each call.

Entrepreneur 1’s business is in the same place financially as it was at the beginning of the month and made no forward progress. The ROI for this relationship is negative and is not reflective of the Coach’s abilities.

Scenario 2

Entrepreneur 2 hires the Coach to aid in business organization and marketing development. They meet via telephone once every week for a one-hour telephone call. After four weeks of coaching, Entrepreneur 2 has been very participatory on each call and has completed each homework assignment that the Coach had given at the end of each call.

Entrepreneur 2’s business is in the same place financially as it was at the beginning of the month but has made much forward progress in developing a solid marketing strategy. The ROI for this relationship is positive and is not reflective of the Coach’s abilities. The progress or lack of progress made by each Entrepreneur has no bearing on the Coach’s abilities.

The Coach provided the same tactical instruction and feedback to each of the Entrepreneurs. The results attained by the individual (or group) that is being coached and by what they have done individually to advance themselves are only significant if the methods and tactics provided by the Coach are followed.

While there is not (that I could find) any hard and fast statistical analysis that has been done to reflect true ROI for what benefit coaching can produce for entrepreneurial businesses, several organizations have divulged results from polls and assessments that identify accumulated coaching results from those that have been coached already.

The International Coaching Federation surveyed 11,000 people who had been coached. These are the results:

• Most asked for help with time management, their careers, their businesses and their business relationships
• 50% said they now have a more balanced life
• 50%+ experienced greater self-awareness, higher self-confidence and improved goal-setting and results against business targets
• 40% asked for help with goal-setting - financial goal-setting in particular
• 40% felt it had enhanced their communication skills (communication is much talked about inside organizations yet it is a key area that lets most organizations down)
• 33% said they had more fun as a result of coaching (whilst people are having fun in the workplace they're also producing to much higher levels - tasks become much more enjoyable and much more sustainable)
• 78% said that they wanted a motivator - someone they knew they could call who would be independent and talk to them about the goals they said they would achieve and what they actually had achieved
• 85% said they wanted a sounding board (leaders of organizations find it difficult to talk to their team of directors and they can't talk to their shareholders. Therefore, a Coach is the ideal person to take them through any blocks or issues they have surrounding their jobs.)
• 57% said they wanted an independent friend
• 25% said they felt that coaching had increased their income
• Most said they used their coach as a Task Master
• 98.5% said that their investment, whatever it was, was well worth it!

The research also produced ROI for a corporation that used a coaching program to enhance its retail sales department.

FORTUNE magazine [http://www.fortune.com/] (May 2002) reports on the return on investment (ROI) of Metropolitan Life Financial Services' intensive coaching program with part of its retail sales force. Metropolitan's experience found that productivity among those salespeople coached increased by an average of 35%, while 50% identified new markets to develop.

Perhaps, most importantly, Metropolitan has retained all of the salespeople who had the coaching - a big deal, since industry statistics show that each representative who leaves a company with three years' experience costs $140,000 to replace. In all, the coaching program, which cost about $620,000, delivered $3.2 million in measurable gains.

While the results from this coaching program resulted in $3 million plus gains for its client it represents a 500% increase. The gains that participants of our VA Training program have had produced similar results. One VA started out with no clients and was planning her re-entry to the corporate arena when she started VA Training. Now she has a gross monthly income exceeding $4000 per month. $500 to $600 of that per month is residual income, which means she is not working for it and is still getting paid. Her example indicates a 4000% increase.

Another example would be a VA who had a gross monthly income of $3500 while in her corporate job. She has left the corporate world and is generating over $3000 per month. She spends $625 less per month in gasoline and food and $1000 less per month on child-care, which equates to almost a 200% increase. Plus, she is able to work from home and spend more time with her family

Still another example is a VA who started with two project clients making less than $250 per month. She is now grossing $3000 plus monthly. This example shows a 1200% increase.

Steps to Choosing the Right Coach for You

If you have started thinking that coaching might be a potential in your business future, then you will want to consider how to best choose the coach that is right for you and your business. First and foremost, you need to find a coach who is either where you want to be financially or professionally. In other words, do they walk the walk or just talk the talk?

If you choose a coach who is working from famine you get famine based coaching. If you choose a coach who is working from abundance you get abundance based coaching. Let us examine this thought process.

In the interest of simplicity, we will assume that Coach A is struggling with finances. They are motivated to coach you based upon how much you can pay them for their services. Their main concern is feeding their family and paying the bills, not helping your business expand or succeed. While they might have good intentions and even good strategies for implementing what they coach, if they are not following their own coaching and thriving with it, how can you be expected to thrive?

Coach B is financially secure and taking you on as a client would be based on an educated deduction as to what your situation is and whether or not they had the knowledge to help you rise to your potential. The place where they coach from (metaphorically speaking) is one of abundance and success. Your decision to partner with them, at worse, could produce a new perspective of your situation and a way to grow. The results that you could expect, at best, may be how to effectively and quickly you get to the success that you envision.

Another key component is finding the right coach is determining as to how well the coach understands the business that you are in. If the coach is used to coaching CFOs of corporations, they may not be the best fit for you. Your needs are specific. Your coach should also be specific. What are they best at? Who is their target market or ideal client? Are they in tune with what you need from the relationship? If they do not feel like a good fit, they probably are not.

In a case where you are unsure if they will be ideal for your business, ask for references. Check out the testimonials, do a little research and get the information that you need to make an educated decision. Not every coach will be right for you. It will be your responsibility to find the right coach for you.

Why It’s Beneficial to Open Your Business Core to Your Coach

A business coach who understands the core of your business is more able to help you over the hurdles that you face on a regular basis. Again, while your coach is your cheer leader, egging you on to make gains in your business, they are also there to be a sounding board for potential new systems, services or products that will enhance your business as it evolves into the vision that you have for your business.

Your coach will know your business goals because of the relationship that you have built and will be better able to help you mold yourself and your business within the boundaries that you have pre-determined. Upon achieving new levels for yourself and business the proper coach will continue to drive your thinking toward growth and advancement.

The key is trust. The bond that you develop with your coach will deepen as you both work through or break through the strongholds that are preventing growth or advancement in your personal life or business life. Without the proper trust for your coach, you may doubt activities or homework that you are given. Exercises that are designed to get you to overcome your obstacles will not be as effective because there might be mental blocks that could prevent you from taking those steps of breakthrough that you need to understand the concepts of intricacies of the coaching curricula.

Assuming that the trust is present in your coaching relationship, If a coach really “gets” what your business is, there is no end to the potential that your coach can help drive you toward. In the end it will be a win-win situation even if failure happens. Failure is a valuable learning tool as well as a beacon to gauge your growth.

Why All Businesses at Some Point in Time Need a Business Coach

If every person who owned a business already had the knowledge that they needed to start, brand, build, market, expand and accelerate their business as well as troubleshoot, correct, adjust or reface it there would be no need for a coach. However, not everyone has the knowledge or the business savvy to handle all aspects of their business on their own. That is not to say that it cannot be done.

The prospect of being the entrepreneurial genius from the start is unlikely. Even with much gusto and guts you could still benefit from an outside party looking in to examine your business with a fine toothcomb. Almost no one gets it right the first time around. With the success rate for entrepreneurs being at 50% in the first five years only goes to prove the point that you cannot do it all yourself. Are you willing to be that statistic?

Whether the issues you face are in the start up phase or the redevelopment phase of your business does not really make a difference. An effective coach should be able to help you through most all of the phases of your businesses life. Hopefully you will not have to experience the death phase of your business. How many of the 50% of entrepreneurial business that fail within the first five years might have made it had the used a coach to aide them with their business? I have yet to be able to fathom or find an answer to the question.

So, if you decide to use a coach, do not be frightened to bare it all. It can only help you to be forthcoming and truthful about yourself and your business. A good coach will figure it out anyway. A great coach will get you through it.

Does that mean that everyone should have a coach? No. Some people are not coach-able. The walls that are thrown up are impenetrable to the prodding of a coach. No amount of encouragement or support is accepted.

The crux of the matter is that every business at some time or another would benefit from the expertise of a coach. They may just need to be present to listen. Occasionally for some business owners, the biggest hurdle is not being able to talk something through with someone who is on your side. They may encounter physical or verbal opposition from other business owners, managers, co-workers, friends and even family. Having a friend in your corner to give you pointers and provide you with a “bird’s eye view” of the situation may be just enough to get you through to the next hurdle.

What Kind of Coach Is Right for My Business

Similar to finding a compatible coach on a personal level, you will need to examine the strengths of the coach. Everyone is born with a talent. Do you know what your talent is? How to tap into it and harness it? The right coach will have the talent that you desire.

Different kinds of coaches are represented by large categories. There are life coaches, business coaches and executive coaches. Within each category is a sub-category that further details where those coaches are best suited to do.

For the Life Coaches group, there may be a career transition coach, relationship coach, spiritual coach and so on. This group typically stays away from business and focuses more on personal issues or general “life” issues. Additionally, the group commands less of a financial commitment.

Business Coaches are represented by career coaches (cross-over group), marketing coach, branding coach, leadership coach, customer service coach and all things pertaining to small business. These coaches have varying price ranges and may work with clients who are on a limited budget.

The last group of coaches works with “C” level executives (I.E. CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, etc.). With this group, there is typically a year-long (or longer) contract that is required and the price tag is pretty hefty but priced accordingly for the results gained. This particular group, on average, produces the highest salary levels for all three groups. The drawback for this group is it is extremely difficult to break into and build a strong clientele.

Be careful how you select the right coach for you. Be choosy and pick a clear winner for your situation. Just remember that you are worth it and so is your business.

Disclaimer

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