I often times get asked whether or not I have a coach. I usually respond by cracking a joke about how every coach has a coach (it’s true), but then I get more serious. The reality is I’ve had several different kinds of coaches throughout my career.
The reality is that depending on what stage of your business and your life you may be in, you may need different coaches to help you with different things. I once learned this the hard way because I’d hired someone who I thought they would help me with a challenge because they’d been so great in the past, but in reality I needed a different kind of coach.
Here is just a small sampling of the different kinds of coaches I’ve had throughout my career as a I build my business.
A coach to help me quit my job.
Quitting your job is a pretty gutsy thing to do when society tells you to go to school and get a regular job. While it’s certainly more normal now to quit your job and forge your own path, that wasn’t the case back in 2012.
So what did I do? I hired a coach who specialized in working with gutsy people. I was already a pretty gutsy gal, but I needed help taking it to the next level.
A coach to help me with sales and negotiating.
Out of all the different kinds of coaches I’ve had, this is by far one of the important ones as it pertains to business. I underwent a training program run by a top notch sales coach who specialized in helping women get more comfortable with sales, follow-ups and ngeotiating.
This program alone has helped me move past my fears about asking for money. It also helped me put systems in place for sales and email correspondence.
A coach to help me with my health.
I’ve seen a common theme with many of my colleagues lately as it pertains to hiring different kinds of coaches – we’re all hiring health coaches!
I hired a health coach at the end of 2015 after I found out I was having some health issues. My issues were nothing serious, but they were starting to affect me and my business.
As it turns out, business owners are pretty bad at taking care of themselves. We work hard. Sometimes all the work we do comes with a cost – our health.
By working with a health coach I was able to put systems in place to make sure I was taking care of myself as a business owner – from the food I was eating to how I handled stress.
A coach to help me with relationships.
Want to know another common theme among ambitious business owners? Sometimes our relationships suffer.
Let’s be real, starting a business from the ground up is like having a newborn. It can really consume you. That was the case with me, and now that my business made it past the three year mark and I have more space in my life, it’s time for me to start paying attention to my relationships again.
Since hiring different kinds of coaches has always worked out for me in the past, I asked for help from a colleague who does relationship coaching.
What kinds of coaches have you worked with? Let us know in the comments.
