A colleague recently asked us for advice about hiring a business coach. Our response? “DO IT!”
We started investing in coaches during our first year in business. (We’ve had three coaches to date, each with different areas of focus and expertise). It’s nearly impossible to quantify how much each coach has helped us. Beyond growing our company and our team, we’ve been supported, encouraged, guided, and challenged.
We both remember logging into our People Spark bank account to check the balance (there wasn’t much) and calculate just how quickly we’d need to earn back our investment.
We were nervous. We knew it was risky. And we did it anyway.
Why? We had to.
Make a big, bold move
Investing our money and time (both precious resources) felt like a big, bold commitment to ourselves and our fledgling business. Even though our goals were pretty clear—to increase revenue and profitability, scale our offerings, and figure out when we needed to bring on more team members.
Specifically, we didn’t know the right actions to take at the right time. This lack of knowledge kept us moving pieces around on the chessboard without advancing. We were analyzing (and, often, overanalyzing) things that weren’t getting us in front of new clients or bringing in new business. In other words, we were stuck.
Hiring a coach got us unstuck.
Now, six years later, we help clients overcome similar struggles and challenges. Our clients have specific goals in mind, like increasing revenue and profitability, retaining employees, and equipping managers to resolve issues themselves. When they’re not sure how to take action—and when there seems to be an infinite number of options—they wind up paralyzed.
Your concerns were our concerns
Our clients expressed the same concerns when we thought about hiring a coach.
“We’re really busy right now, so this isn’t the right time.”
“I don’t know if everyone will prioritize this work in a way that justifies the investment.”
“This work all needs to be done. I don’t know how I’m going to give all of it the attention it needs.”
Quantifying the coaching ROI
The question our clients and prospective clients often forget to ask is, “How quickly will our investment pay for itself?”
It may seem hard to gauge the ROI of your coaching investment, so think of it this way. What’s the value of an employee who didn’t leave to go work for a competitor because your company culture is built on trust and respect? What’s the benefit of the game-changing conversation you had with the underperforming employee? Or the value of having managers who can pinpoint and effectively communicate the goals for your team?
Another huge benefit that came from our own coaching investment, and one which our clients quickly discover, is the accountability it brings. Investing in coaching is a significant step toward taking meaningful action, even if it’s an imperfect action. Your actions show you’re no longer satisfied with the status quo, and that you’re ready to take new and different action. As we see clients begin to shift into this mode, the real fun (and progress!) begins.
When you break it down in these terms, suddenly, your ROI in coaching skyrockets.
We’ve got your back (and front and sides)
We had all these great outcomes in mind when we developed our People Spark People + Strategy Roadmap. It’s a key tool for helping our clients understand where they are today, where they want to get to in the future, and how, precisely, to get there. And just as our coach has done for us for all these years, we support, guide, encourage, and challenge our clients as they turn their goals into reality.
After all, we want you to make back your investment—and then some—too.
Ready to get an accurate picture of your business so you can move ahead with insight and confidence? Email Erin today to learn about our new People + Strategy Roadmap.