Most business coaching programmes cover three things: where the business is going, how well it runs day to day, and how well you lead it.
The useful ones start with your business rather than a syllabus. Here’s what good business coaching programmes actually contain, how to tell whether one is working, and what to ask before you commit.
Core Components of Business Coaching Programmes
Three things make up effective
Knowing where you’re going
This is about making sure what you do this month actually moves the business towards where you want it in three years. Most owners have a rough sense of the destination and no plan connecting it to Monday.
Joining up the day-to-day with the long term
Plenty of businesses work hard on things that don’t move the needle. The test is simple: if this task went undone for a month, would it matter?
A reason customers pick you
If a customer can’t say why you rather than the business down the road, you’ll compete on price forever. Working out what you’re genuinely better at is one of the more valuable conversations you’ll have.
How well the business runs
This is the unglamorous part, and usually where the fastest money is. Most businesses have an hour or two a day going into work that doesn’t need doing, or doesn’t need doing by the person doing it.
Tightening how work gets done
Cut the steps nobody can justify, automate what genuinely repeats, and stop double-handling. Usually two or three changes account for most of the gain.
Cutting cost without cutting quality
There’s a difference between waste and things customers actually notice. Cutting the second sort costs you more than it saves.
How well you lead
Once you have staff, your ability to lead sets the ceiling on the business. Most owners came up through the trade or profession and were never taught this part.
Learning to lead
Setting expectations clearly, giving feedback that lands, and handling underperformance rather than working around it. These are learnable and most owners learn them late.
Building a team that works
People need to know what they’re responsible for and be able to disagree without it turning personal. Both come from how the owner behaves, not from a values statement.
Why the Programme Has to Fit Your Business
A programme built for a 40-person manufacturer will sink a three-person trade business. The starting point has to be your actual situation.
Working out where you actually are
Before any plan, an honest look at the numbers and how the business runs. This is often uncomfortable, because it puts a figure on things owners have been avoiding.
What you’re good at, and what you’re not
- A proper look at how the business runs: margins, where your time goes, how you win work, and what your cash position actually is.
- Naming the two or three things holding you back, rather than producing a list of twenty.
Benchmarking against industry standards
- Comparing your margins and cost ratios against others in your industry. The ATO benchmarks are a useful free starting point.
- Setting targets from that comparison, so they’re grounded in what businesses like yours actually achieve.
A plan built around your problems
For one owner the constraint is pricing. For another it’s that every decision still runs through them. The plan should go after whichever one is costing you most, not work through a standard curriculum.
Starting with your actual constraint
- Work on what’s actually stopping the business, not a generic checklist.
- That might be leadership, pricing, systems or getting you off the tools. It differs for every owner.
Setting up for growth
- A route to growth that doesn’t depend on you working more hours.
- Documented processes, so more volume doesn’t break quality. Do this before you grow, not after.
Measuring the Impact of Business Coaching
You’re paying for this, so it should show up somewhere you can see. Here’s how to tell whether business coaching is working.
Performance Metrics
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Pick a small number and track them monthly: sales, conversion rate from lead to customer, gross profit, net profit, and how many hours you’re working. Take a reading before you start so you have something to compare against.
Evaluating Return on Investment (ROI)
Set the fees against what changed: extra margin, costs removed, hours you got back. On a thin margin a single overdue price rise often covers a year of coaching.
Feedback and Continuous Improvement
Saying what isn’t working
If a session isn’t useful, say so. A good coach would rather change approach than have you quietly disengage.
The habit outlasts the programme
The real sign it worked is that you keep asking yourself the questions your coach used to ask. Some clients stay for years because the outside view keeps being worth having.
Why Some Owners Keep Coaching Going
Ongoing business coaching isn’t about still needing the basics. It’s that the problems change as the business grows, and a second opinion stays useful.
Markets keep moving
Reacting to change
Interest rates, costs and customer expectations all shift without asking you. Small businesses can turn faster than large ones, provided someone is watching.
A team that can handle change
If every change has to be driven by you, the business can only move as fast as your attention allows.
Better ideas
Getting solutions from the team
The people doing the work usually know what’s broken. Most don’t mention it because nobody asked, or because the last suggestion went nowhere.
Training that’s worth it
Spend the training budget on the gap that’s actually costing you, rather than whatever course was marketed to you this quarter.
Surviving the bad stretches
Holding up under pressure
Every business has bad months. Someone who has had the same month can tell you whether it’s a blip or a signal, which is worth a great deal at the time.
A business that can take a hit
A cash buffer, more than one source of work, and a decision made in advance about what you’d cut in a slow quarter.
Getting ready to grow
Planning the next stage
Growth breaks things. The systems that coped at ten jobs a week won’t cope at thirty, and the cracks show in quality or in your hours.
Keeping it going
Growth periods are tiring for everyone. Keeping the team clear on where it’s heading matters more than usual.
Working With Business Coach Mark
Mark has been running business coaching programmes for Australian owners since 2007, after 35 years running businesses himself. Here’s how it usually starts.
An honest look at the business
Margins, systems, team, and where your time goes. No guessing and no assumptions.
Agreeing what you’re aiming at
Specific targets with dates on them, pitched where they’re uncomfortable but reachable.
A plan you’ll actually use
Short, prioritised, and built around your constraint. Not a fifty-page document.
What you get
Advice from someone who has done it
35 years of running businesses, and since 2007 coaching other owners through the same problems.
Practical tools
A dashboard for your numbers, frameworks for pricing and delegation, and structures for running your team.
Growth that holds
Quick wins where they exist, but the aim is a business that keeps working when you step back from it.
Getting started
Get in touch
Through the website or by phone. You’ll speak to Mark, not an assistant.
The first conversation
Around 45 minutes on where the business is and what’s in the way. No charge and no pitch.
If it’s a fit
Usually fortnightly sessions, with clear actions in between. If it isn’t a fit, Mark will say so and point you somewhere better.
If you’ve been stuck on the same problem for months, that’s structural rather than a matter of effort. Business coaching programmes only work if you’re ready to act on what comes out of them, but if you are, the first conversation costs nothing.
