Business coaching thrives in bad economy.

According to the Spokane (WA) Journal of Business, business coaches are seeing increased demand for their services, especially from small-business owners who want to become more efficient so they can weather the difficult business climate.

Kevin Weir, a Spokane Valley franchisee of Australia-based ActionCOACH, says in a recently published profile that the tough economy has boosted his client load significantly, spurring revenue growth of 54 percent over the past year.

Rick Thorpe, a business adviser at the Small-Business Development Center (SBDC) in Spokane, which offers similar services for free to small businesses here, says he also has seen more clients in recent months.

“Because of the economy, more businesses are struggling,” Thorpe says. The SBDC offers what it calls business advising, including teaching business owners how to read their financial statements and doing other one-on-one consulting with them.

Personnel problems are among the top three problems local business coaches say business owners typically identify, along with time management and a desire to increase their business’s customer base.

Business consultants are also seeing the positive impact of a bad economy on the demand for their services.

The use of the term ”business coaches” instead of “consultants” is one side of the same coin, at least according to some consultants. Calling coaching a “buzzword,” Spokane consultant Bob Petet says “coaching differs from consulting simply in that coaching typically is tailored to smaller companies, while consulting generally is a term used to describe providing such services to larger companies.”

Although some might disagree with Petet’s definition, one fact is clear: more small business owners are reaching out for help and business coaches and consultants can benefit.

Weir says the cost for services from his ActionCOACH office range from $300 for a planning workshop to $4,000 a month for intense coaching. He says clients usually work with him for an average of a year and a half. Petet says that the cost of coaching services can vary widely depending on client needs. For example, setting up a health program for a client’s employees might cost between $1,000 and $3,000, he says.

For more on this story, click here.

Business coach Stuart Preston offers common sense metrics for measuring success.

In addition to my marketing consulting practice, I teach marketing and advertising to graduate students at a local university. My mantra to clients and students is the same: write down goals and make sure they are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-specific.

Usually our goals emerge from a great deal of research and analysis, not to mention soul-searching and gutty conversations with managers. But for small businesses, there are often some very basic, easy to recognize, answers to the question: “How’s business?”

In a recent blog post, Stuart Preston asks that question and came out with some common sense metrics for the small businesses.

“How’s business?”  It can be a tough question to answer because there are so many elements, some of which can be good and some not so good at the same time.  Sales might be up, but an employee is having problems.  Profits may be climbing, but a supplier is really dropping the ball on us.  So, while this question might be hard to answer when asked directly, I bet in your own mind, you are constantly answering the question based on one or two key observations of your business, or ‘metrics.’

Here are some of Stuart’s small business yardsticks:

• Cars in the parking lot
• Phones ringing
• Deliveries
• Butts in seats
• Presses running
• Invoices printed
• Email inquiries
• Website visits

As a coach, what are your common sense metrics? Are you satisfied with what they are telling you about your coaching practice?

Read Stuart Preston’s blog here.

Sole Proprietors and Small Business Owners Can Benefit from Coaching.

Many business people are under the impression that business coaching is only for highly-paid executives in larger corporations. Not true, according to this story from “My Small Business” in Australia.

After five or six months of “pottering away” on his own, a new home inspector, Eamonn Donnellan, met a business coach, Geoff Golding, at a small-business group and signed up for a six-month course at a cost of $1200 a month. He has spent $22,000 on business coaching and say it is the best thing that has happened to the business.

“Our business has increased seven-fold,” Donnellan says. “What you get out of it far outweighs the cost; looking back on it, it’s peanuts.” Donnellan says Golding helped set up systems and processes that are still the backbone of the business three years later.

Click here to read more about this success story.