The truth is both business mentors and business coaches are great options if you’re looking for business help. They both serve different purposes, however, A business coach makes clients focus on the results of the job, and extends the time span of attention to months rather than days. They explore the problem with the learner and set up opportunities for the learner to try out new skills. A business mentor focuses on the individual learner developing through their career or life. A business mentor acts as a friend willing to play the part of an adversary in challenging the learner to widen their view. As the world of business moves faster and gets more competitive, it is difficult to keep up with both the changes in your industry and, the innovations in sales, marketing and management strategies as well. Having a business mentor helps with all these changes. On top of all this, it’s difficult to get a truly objective answer from yourself. A business mentor will provide valuable insight, help you develop long-term and short term goals and strategies, as well as improve your business in areas that you might have overlooked. A business mentor: *will make you focus on the game and your long-term strategies.*will make you run more laps while making each round easier and more efficient.*will tell it like it is.*will give you small pointers based on years of experience.*will listen.*will help you develop long-term plans that will allow your business to function more efficiently and make even more profit. What is a Business Coach? A Business Coach is just like a sporting coach. A sporting coach pushes an athlete to achieve optimum performance, provides support when they are exhausted and teaches the athlete to execute plays that their competition does not anticipate. That’s what a business coach does – through business advice and coaching, a business coach teaches small business owners how to be successful and anticipate what other business owners don’t. The role of the Business Coach is to coach business owners to improve their business through business advice, guidance, support and encouragement. Business advice helps owners of small and medium sized businesses with their sales, marketing, management, team building and so much more. Just like a sporting coach, your Business Coach will make you focus on the game, and prepare for the game with business advice, guidance and support. For more information on Brad Sugars please visit: http://www.actioncoach.com/bradsugars -or- For more information on Business Mentor http://www.actioncoach.com/business_advice_and_business_help_mentor/Smartphone Software

Start a small business today and US Small Business Administration (SBA) statistics say that the odds are your business will fail before four years have passed. Thousands more limp along not making much money and dumping stress on the owner.

Why does that happen? Tom and his business are a good example.

Tom liked being a carpenter and he figured that he could make more money working for himself. So he started a carpentry business.

Tom didn’t have any problem with the carpentry part of the business. He got along well with people, so that was never a problem. Where Tom got in trouble was with all the things he didn’t know.

According to Hector Barreto, former Administrator of the SBA, that’s where lots of small business owners get in trouble. And there’s a lot to know.

Tom got a lot of it right. He had an accountant and so he got help with tax questions. And he had an attorney to ask about legal issues, but he kept discovering things he needed to know.

“I found there were dozens of things I’d never learned how to do, like write a formal proposal. And there seemed to be a lot to think about to build the business and make payroll. It’s a good thing I like sports, or I might never have found the answer for me.”

Tom was reading about Michael Jordan and came across the fact that Jordan used a personal coach to help improve his performance. Then, just a couple of days later he was watching golf on television.

“I love watching Tiger Woods,” Tom remembers. “He’s probably the best golfer ever, but that day wasn’t one of his good ones. His swing was off and he was pretty far back in the pack.

At the end of the match, an interviewer asked Tiger what he was going to do about his poor play and Tiger said he was going to get together with his coach the next day.” Tom shakes his head. “That’s when it hit me. If great athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods used a coach to improve their performance, maybe that would work for me and my business.”

Tom was in luck. A decade or so ago, no one knew what a business coach was, but now businesses of all sizes use them to help individuals improve performance.

Business coaching is not exactly the same as sports coaching. I describe it as a co-active relationship between a coach and a client. When I work with a business owner like Tom, both of us need to work at making him successful.

My clients are usually pretty good at whatever it was that convinced them to start their small business. My job is to use my experience starting and developing successful businesses, my training that led to my certification as a coach, and the developed intuition from years of coaching to help them improve results. I help them develop what I call the “persistency and consistency” that will make them successful.

Obviously, my clients want to improve their financial results. But I often help improve other things, too.

Small business owners often feel isolated. At work, they’re either the boss or they work alone. When they get home, their spouse may not want to hear about business problems. That may be why so many businesspeople who use coaches really like the experience.

In 2006, the Ivey Business Journal published a study of what businesspeople liked about coaching that they received. The researcher asked them what the benefits of coaching were. Here’s what the businesspeople said, along with some of my own comments.

- They got continuous one-on-one attention. In my own case my clients are my number one priority. I’m available to them all the time, not just during scheduled sessions.

- Dialogue with the coach helped expand their thinking. I’m not just a coach. I’m an experienced and successful small business owner. I can share my experience and the experience of my other clients.

- The coach helped them increase self-awareness, including knowledge of blind spots. This is following Hector Barreto’s advice to find out what you don’t know. I act as a mirror to show you what you are inside both personally and professionally.

- The coach was an accountability partner. When I work with a client we set goals for what the client will accomplish. Part of what I do is follow up to make sure he or she does what was promised.

- The coach was a source of “just-in-time learning.” Usually, when a client calls me between sessions it’s because they need to know something specific right away. If I can’t answer their question off the top of my head, I can almost always help them find an answer.

Those are the things the study listed, but they missed something important. A good coach is also a motivator. I encourage you to stretch and be more than you are at present. I strive to help you realize the untapped potential that we all have inside.

There’s no way for you to know in advance everything that you need to grow a successful business. But there’s no reason that should hold you back. With a good small business coach, you can be one of those few small businesses that succeed. David Mason is President of Mason Performance Development Inc., a performance coach, marketing strategist, and Business Coach. He is the author of the international best seller, Marketing Your Small Business for Big Profits. Find out more about David and how he can improve your results at http://www.yourbigprofits.com/
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A coaching skills training course delegate was recently explaining his frustration at the lack of interest and motivation his staff were showing when being coached. He explained that the normal reaction to being coached was for his staff to cross their arms, lean back in their chairs and adopt an almost ‘bet you can’t coach me!’ attitude. No doubt these same people would leave the coaching conversation thinking ‘See. I’ve won. You can’t coach me!’ How sad.

I suggested that he adopt a less well known coaching tool called Transposing to help him work this through.

Transposing works by getting you to adopt another person’s viewpoint and ask: What am I thinking, what am I feeling and what do I want?

I asked the manager to think of one particular individual – let’s call him Doug. Transposing Doug made us realise that he was thinking “Oh God, what have I done wrong? If I’m being coached, I must be seen as underperforming!”

We also figured that Doug was feeling anxious and uncertain. His interactions with management at the company in the past had usually resulted in a ‘telling off’ in some shape or form. No wonder he was acting like a beaten dog and holding himself stiff until the next beating arrived.

The real revelation happened when we considered what it was that Doug might want. We realised that given his prevailing thoughts and feelings, he would want to get out of the meeting as soon as possible; with his dignity intact.

The real reason why Doug was so reluctant to get involved was now obvious and the manager and I were able to devise a way he could position coaching to overcome these thoughts and feelings. It happened that Doug was a massive sports fan and so his manager pointed out that Tiger Woods, David Beckham and so on were all incredible performers with very little wrong with their games, and yet these same people valued their relationship with their coach above all others. He also pointed out that sports coaches were rarely, if ever, better performers than there clients, but that this was not the point. This lead to Doug realising that coaching was not about his manager just telling him what to do, how to do it, and pointing out all his mistakes. Instead it was an opportunity for Doug to explore his working life and find ways forward in the areas he found he found difficult or frustrating. In fact at a subconscious level Doug began ‘transposing’ his boss, appreciating how difficult it must be to provide coaching to such a truculent group. This mutual empathy is a wonderful by-product of the transposing tool and I’m happy to report that Doug’s relationship with his manager is now flourishing.

By the way, another good reason for walking a mile in your coachee’s shoes is that if things don’t work out, you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes!! Matt Somers is a leading voice on coaching in the UK where he writes, presents, trains and consults on all aspects of Coaching at Work. An author and regular conference speaker, he is currently producing a range of resources to help with the people side of working life; many of which can be accessed for FREE at http://www.mattsomers.comfree wii console

Ask anyone to define the word coach and you will get a wide variety of responses. Some will say a coach is a sort of tutor or instructor, but others will say it’s a large, multi-wheeled railway carriage. Unfortunately, the second definition is about as helpful as the first in deciding what coaching at work is all about.

To receive ‘coaching’ and to be a ‘coach’ are both very popular terms right now but they are both widley misunderstood. Coaching is ultimately about raising the levels of human performance and, as such, has connections with teaching, training, counselling and mentoring. However, there are subtle but important differences that we need to understand.

Essentially, coaching comprises two main facets. First it is performance focused. It is about doing the job as well as it can be done, hitting targets, getting results and doing the right things in the right way. Secondly,it is person centred which means that it is the individuals being coached who are seen as having the important insights. In the most fundamental terms then, coaching is not about ‘putting in’, rather it is about ‘drawing out’.

By using coaching we can tap into the huge reserves of talent and potential which lay dormant in most people. As managers, we can develop people without having to rely on passing on our own skills and knowledge, which may already be out of date. Without an ability to coach we are left to trust the tired old methods of teaching and instruction which are proving increasingly ineffective in the world of constant change to which we are all having to adjust.

When most people think about coaching, they think about a sports coach shouting and yelling at the players and trying to help them succeed without being directly involved. In sport,the role of coach is crucial in helping people perform at their peak, and even the most accomplished sportspeople such as Tiger Woods or Roger Federer still gain huge benefit from a good relationship with their coach.

The role of the organizational coach is much the same. Whether the coaching is delivered by a manger as a general part of their duties or by a specific coach, they will still be trying to achieve results through others. In thinking about coaching in this way we can see that there is great benefit to be had from having someone in the organization who has the skills and abilities to draw the best out of others. If it were possible to have everyone in an organization improve their performance by as little as one or two per cent then the results would be staggering.

Many organizations are now taking the power of coaching very seriously and appointing people to the specific role of coach. Whilst managers may have the skills and abilities to coach well they are often preoccupied with more task oriented matters and can struggle to find the time to coach effectively.

Increasingly we are able to tap into coaching outside our organizations. There are many small consultancies offering Executive Coaching, where top-level managers in organizations can have regular weekly or monthly sessions with a trained coach to help them work through their current issues. It can often be of great benefit to have a coach who does not work in the organization and who is, therefore, not involved in the same issues. Similarly, some people are now seeking the services of Life Coaches to help them work through personal problems, achieve goals and strike an effective work/life balance.

Whatever the context, we can see that coaching is intended to be a means by which one individual seeks to help another move forward and develop in some way. Matt Somers is a leading voice on coaching in the UK where he writes, presents, trains and consults on all aspects of Coaching at Work. An author and regular conference speaker, he is currently producing a range of resources to help with the people side of working life; many of which can be accessed for FREE at http://www.mattsomers.com whitesmoke software