Anyone running their own business or thinking about starting one knows that it can be a rollercoaster of emotions, from where to go next, to uncertainty about the future, the vision, the day to day running of it, and ultimately will it make enough money to be sustainable? These thoughts, and many more, are pretty universal, regardless if you’re flying solo or you’re The Boss. So what can coaching do?
Coach the person, not the problem
This is actually one of the most basic foundations of coaching. A coach doesn’t look at the problem, all we can do is coach the person in front of us. In the case of a business, it’s the business which is the “problem”. There’s often a tendency in coaching for clients and coaches who are similar to gravitate towards each other; we sort of assume that someone needs to have prior knowledge of a certain sector or profession in order to be able to coach someone. However, nothing could be further from the truth; I don’t need to know the ins and outs of a certain industry in order to coach the person in front of me.
It’s the same with a business; a coach doesn’t need to know the intricacies of the creative industry, the legal industry, or even the paper pulp industry. How can they? How can someone else truly understand what you want to do with your business? If you need an industry expert, what you need is a mentor. However, all a mentor would be doing is dealing with the business, not the most important person in the business: you.
Why you are your biggest asset
There’s only ever one person who has the full vision of where the business is going, the one with the idea, the one who one day decided to go ahead and start a business. And that goes for every single business, from a burger van to Amazon. Eventually the business might move into a direction where you need more people to help define it, but in the early days it’s only you who knows what they want to achieve.
There are always elements of a business we can get help around: we get an accountant to sort out the tax, maybe a social media manager to handle the social side of things, a mentor as mentioned above. In short, we hire experts to deal with the parts of the business where we feel we need help. However, we often forget to focus on ourselves. No matter how good your tyres are, or your sound system, or how nice the paintwork is, without an engine a car isn’t going anywhere. And without you, the same is true for your business. You might have the coolest website, a logo you’re proud of, the best product in the world, but if you’re not performing at your best, the rest won’t come together.
Coaching the ‘u’ in ‘business’
When I’ve talked to people who run their own businesses, the actual things that keep them up at night are universal; Am I doing the right thing? What do I need to do next? What will I get from my business? What do I actually want from my business? What if it fails? What’s my vision? And do I actually have what it takes to run a business?
These are just some questions, and there are countless others. The thing about them though is that everyone has the same ones. They’re fundamentally human. Although it might not be immediately obvious, they’re actually all thoughts people have around everything in life, it’s just that when focused through the lens of a business, they can seem larger and almost insurmountable. The fall would be longer if we fail for example. But what is “failure”? Have you even defined failure?
This is exactly why a coach doesn’t need to know your business. You already know it better than any coach ever will. Concepts I’ve already written about like Confidence, Living with Fear, Impostor Syndrome, and Procrastination are all issues which affect us universally. It’s just about applying the same techniques around your business.
