When is the right time for a business coach?
For many financial advisors, one of the most common roadblocks to engaging a business coach is ‘now is not the right time.’ Maybe later, I am too busy, when I have more time, not during a pandemic, once I have a more stable base of clients, and so forth.
As the leader of a financial advisory firm, you are in business for yourself, and must be a visionary in managing the overall success of your operation. During times of crisis, however, the most urgent focus can often be on reducing expenses - whatever it takes to remain in business.
But here is the thing. Business coaching is often thought of as an expense, when actually it is better understood as an investment. What if you invested $15k in coaching and that produced a 10x return to your bottom line and an improvement in your life? Would you make that investment?
Here are the three most common scenarios where making this type of investment is crucial - even though they sound counterintuitive at first.
1. When you are too busy (and occasionally overwhelmed)
Ironically, the single greatest excuse for not using a business coach is possibly the biggest reason to hire a coach. And sooner than later.
“I’m too busy to spend time with a coach.” You probably had the thought earlier today. Who doesn't already feel over-committed?
It is so easy to become consumed working in your business, that you neglect to work on the business. Is it possible to be too busy for a business coach? Too busy is more often than not a sign that you are too intertwined in service delivery.
Many times, this can actually hurt your business and your health in the long run. If you want personal margin, if you can’t delegate, if everything is urgent, if your team is stagnant, overworked, or stuck in a rut, then it's time to consider how coaching could help you and your firm.
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business—you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic!”
If you feel like there is too much to do and too little hours in the day, you are too deep inside of the business and could benefit from stepping back and working on how the business runs. Instead of reacting all the time, coaching can help you make proactive, and implement effective decisions to grow in the long term.
Surprisingly, to maximize the benefits of a coaching relationship does not require a huge amount of time from you. In fact, if you spend as little as 5% of your time with a coach, it's common to increase your overall productivity by 25-40%, not to mention improvements in other areas like profitability, cash position, and brand awareness.
2. When you are successfully growing
When your business takes off and begins to scale, it feels great and then, it can be stressful. Growing is wonderful, but it brings with it new challenges. As you grow, you may question if there are best practices, proven models and tried-and-true approaches out there that would help you as you scale. Is there already a system that can ensure you reduce friction, create more value for clients, increase profitability, and add shareholder value?
If this sounds like you it might be time to hire a coach.
Despite the exciting feeling that comes with growth and forward movement, now is actually a pivotal time to ensure the foundation you have in place is as strong as it can be. Refining your model for better revenue and less overhead is never simple, but doing it in growth mode can have tremendous ramifications down the road.
3. When you are stuck
With as many online resources, webinars and expertise freely available, it’s tempting to think that you can find the solutions to your problems with a little online sleuthing. Thankfully, this is often the case for some business questions. The challenge, however, is that most webinars and books are not tailored specifically to the unique DNA of your business. They can certainly help, but hardly can be compared to a strategy customized to your firm with clear, actionable steps.
The real value is having an on-demand guide to help ensure you objectively evaluate your current state and execute without undue complexity. It is the mix of custom-designed strategy and personal accountability that turns a coaching relationship into a transformative experience for financial advisors.
One-on-one coaching does more than provides fresh ideas to take advantage of your firm’s talent and relationships to fuel the growth engine. Coaching helps you avoid reinventing wheels and ensure that proven processes are at your fingertips for fast tracking your goals, whatever they may be.
What are the costs of NOT hiring a coach?
The best question you can ask yourself as a successful financial advisor is not is this a good time, but instead “what if a coaching investment could help me regain control over my time?”
What if you could routinely bounce ideas off of a coach with decades of experience serving the financial advisory community? How might an expert with outside perspective help keep you accountable with an easy-to-follow system of best practices?
What if instead of standard increases in revenue year over year, what if you could achieve over 30%? If you’re open to hearing more about this, and you'd like to explore if business coaching could be a good fit for you, there has never been a better time to book a time here.