Professionals that have signed up to coaching courses with The Coaching Academy in the pst 12 months include:

• Business owners/company directors (12% of people training to be Coaches own their own business)
• HR managers and directors
• Estate agents
• Personal trainers
• Doctors
• Trainers and Consultants
• Accountants
• Recruitment Consultants
• Counseller
• Teachers

Small Business Coaches can earn upto £1000 per day while Corporate and Executive Coaches can earn in excess of £2000 per day. Personal Coaches otherwise known as Life Coaches can earn around £100 per hour, and often work flexible hours between 5-9pm in the evening, after their normal day jobs, even on weekends.

Alternatively, some people decide to become full time professional coaches and find themselves deployed into businesses that want to retain new staff. They also provide ongoing support to leaders and managers to increase personal effectiveness.

The Coaching Academy, the UK’s largest school for coaches, have seen a startling 148% increase year-on-year in the number of people attending their Introductory Seminars on Coaching and an overall 20% year-on-year increase in the numbers of people going on to sign up to the Coaching Academy Advanced Diploma.

The Coaching Academy is the largest coaching academy in Europe, which has trained over 23,000 coaches and celebrates its 10th anniversary in September 2009.

People who initially set up small businesses don’t necessarily have the skills to manage larger businesses and the growing number of people they need to employ.  It’s also unlikely that they can be away from work for extended periods of time for development activities.

In this situation business coaching can offer targeted, timely development of identified issues and areas that can be fitted into the individual’s busy schedule.

Often senior managers or executives being groomed for leadership roles may be hesitant to attend training courses, as they may feel they already have the skills, expertise, and so on.  In this situation business coaching can be a suitable intervention as it is a confidential, personal and ‘safe’ development option where the individual is using an objective, external person to help them with their business development.

In the current economic climate where there is the need for major organisational change, business coaching can assist in changing the significant shifts in the behaviour and attitude of some employees in order to fit in with a new structure or culture.  It may be that individuals who are moving to a new job require different skills and abilities.  Business coaching can help individuals make these necessary changes.

Coaching is also beneficial in supporting expatriates who have to adjust to a new culture and country.  Often these people will have very specific requirements and they need immediate support as issues
arise.

Examples of business development needs when business coaching may be an appropriate solution:

Developing a more strategic perspective
As managers who for the first time find themselves in an executive position, assistance is often needed in gaining a more strategic perspective.  This involves taking decisions based on the best interest of the business as a whole, rather than an isolated area of the business.  Business coaches can help the new executive to become more sensitive to the business concerns and understand opportunities and problems that occur across the business.

Develop new skills
In a growing business the executive many be required to develop new skills very quickly.  An example is when an individual may need to move into a more customer-facing or business development role.

Poor interpersonal skills
New business owners may have previously been highly competent, technical experts who possibly had interpersonal skills that made them appear arrogant or stubborn to those they worked with.  They now find themselves in a role that requires diplomacy and the ability to ‘read’ interpersonal situations and be more effective in their interactions.

Conflict management skills
In some cases, managers may handle conflict situations in an aggressive and non –compromising way that antagonises their employees.  This may be quite intimidating to team members.  Coaching can help develop the skills of negotiation and compromise so that conflict is resolved more effectively.

For small businesses, coaching can deliver long-term performance improvements in individuals’ performance.  That is, future performance will greatly exceed current performance, which can be translated into business benefits.

For effective business coaching that suits your business needs, contact Carole Davidson Coaching.

The biggest single improvement you can make in a company is to get your people working more effectively.

This does not mean they are not already working hard – but could they be working more effectively?

The more skilled and effective each member of staff the more they will pass on to new members of the team and the higher the expectations are for successful outcomes.

Some steps you can take to develop your staff:

•    Ensure that training carried out either in-house or externally is in line with the company’s Business Objectives.
•    Check that the objectives for the planned training are SMARTER – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound, Exciting and Recordable.
•    Set up an effective communication system with all those involved with the development. This will be the key to getting people on board with any improvements you want to make.
•    Encourage input from employees about their job and how they see improvements being made
•    Check that supervisors, team leaders and managers have the necessary people skills in accordance with their job role.
•    Constantly review the skills that will be required to achieve the Business Objectives
•    Evaluate your return on investment (cost of development versus impact on business performance).
•    Ensure a consistent message of encouraging development is present at all levels in the business.
•    Encourage all learning and achievement and celebrate successes.

•    If they don’t know it now they never will
•    What’s the point?
•    If we train them they’ll leave
•    We can’t afford the time or the money to train them
•    They are not interested
•    They’ll learn from their mistakes

If it is any of the above you need to have a re-think about your business and recognize the fact that training people to be competent at the job you have employed them to do is as vital as you being competent to fulfill your role in leading the business into the future.

One Question Frequently asked is: “What if I train my staff and they leave?”

This is a great worry for those making decisions about who should and should not be up-skilled and attend training. How much will it cost and what return can they expect to receive from the time and money that has been invested?

The question that might be the more telling one to ask is: “What if we don’t train them and they stay?”

One of the biggest untapped company resources we have is our people. No longer are businesses able to compete in today’s market place without effectively managing and developing their workforce. Creating a culture that encourages learning is firmly in the hands of you and your managers.