Why You Cannot Find a Successful Business Coach
Professional coaching is a hot career. By “professional,” we don’t mean coaching a major league baseball team, a national football team or anything like that.
We mean coaching professionals. There are many varieties – life coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, career coaches and more.
The coaching industry is so hot that it even got Merriam-Webster’s attention. They added the term “life coach” to the dictionary earlier this year.
Not only is coaching growing fast, it pays well. About 20% of coaches make over $100,000 a year, according to Forbes.
Yet you cannot find a successful business coach. Why?
Because there is no such thing.
A true coach – the kind we think of in sports – hangs out in the dugout or stands on the sidelines. A real coach directs others who play the game.
That’s not how it works with coaches in the business world. There are no dugouts or sidelines.
You may be a business coach, but you run a business of your own too.
So you can’t just be a business coach. You’re a player-coach.
While this may be rare in athletics, it’s just part of the deal for business coaches. Understanding this distinction between coach and player-coach is critical to your success.
Sure, there are times when you are coaching. It’s the operational side of your business.
But much of your time must be spent actually playing the game – just like your clients do. The game is business and all that it entails:
- marketing
- finance
- public relations
- accounting
- information technology
- leadership
- project management
- pricing
- and on and on
You may don the coach’s cap some of the time. But you must wear many more hats than that if you are to succeed in your career, business and life.
Coaching – in all its professional forms – is a business. You can’t just be a coach. You also have to play the game.
What do you think? Are coaches in the business world actually player-coaches?
Image in this post from stock.xchng
