A Coaching Model Created by Paula Sgarbossa
(Business Coach, AUSTRALIA)
Bringing together the 2 parts of a Small Business – the Business Owner & the Business Entity
In my experience, many small business owners jump into starting a business without understanding themselves or planning out clear outcomes for their business. Each business is a living entity that requires time, specific skills, capital, cash flow, possibly a location and staff, record keeping, book-keeping, business systems. It often requires a great deal of emotional strength, patience, strategizing, and constant personal growth on the part of the business owner. Yet many business owners aren’t fully prepared to take on all of these requirements.
This is where working together with a coach can make a big impact. People need to know their ‘WHY’ in business for it and them to be a success. This is the journey that I want to take my clients on. It’s as much about self-discovery as it is about business strategy.
This is the foundation for my Coaching Model.
Determine – Explore – Business – Achieve – Plan
Determine Outcomes – this is the beginning of my sessions with business clients, where we determine what their outcomes will be in our time together.
What about these outcomes are important to the client? What will it mean for the client if they are achieved? How will it look if these outcomes are achieved?
It is important to discover what the clients thinking is around our sessions together to best make use of our time and achieve what they are looking for.
Explore – Firstly we need to look at the main part of any business – the owner, and find out about them as a person. Who is the Business Owner?
Finding out about this person using DISC, strengths Finder and the Wheel of Life tools will give myself and the client a deeper understanding of themselves. This will help uncover if this is the right business for them, or how we can link the business to their values and life goals. Are the business goals and the client’s personal goals aligned? There is always a price to pay for a certain level of success. It can mean more hours at work, missing out on time with family or on keeping fit. Sometimes there is a conflict between what the business owner wants to achieve and how much time they are willing to commit. A business owner who goes into a business looking for a high financial result yet is only willing to put in a small amount of time or effort may end up disappointed with the outcome.
What personality type are they?
What are their weaknesses?
What’s important to them?
What are their Values in life?
How do they spend their time?
Is this business a good fit for them?
How do they picture their life in the next 1 – 5 years?
Business – next I explore the current situation within the business
What does the business look like today? What’s going on within the business? What are the biggest challenges? Businesses Strengths? How much time do they spend within the business? Staff, premises? What marketing do they currently do? What do they feel is lacking within the business? What do they feel needs to change? How would they like it to be?
Achieve – this is where we determine what results the business owner is looking for.
How do you want your business to be? What do you want the business to look like – describe – what does your day/ week look like? How many staff? Location? What income do you need & want? In the next year – 5 years what do you want to achieve? How do you want your business to fit in your life? What work / life balance are you wanting to achieve? What’s stopping you from currently having that? What can you do to achieve that?
Plan – setting goals for the business is the last step
Here we develop a plan and action steps for the next 1 – 5 years.
How will you keep on track? How will you keep yourself motivated? How will you know you have achieved these goals? How will you celebrate your success?
Coaching Reflection
As a coach I believe it is very important that I offer a non-judgemental session where I listen intently to that client and go with them on their coaching journey. This journey is all about discovering what this client wants. What are their deeper needs? How does this person fit with their business and how can we refine the business to be a better fit for them individually and as a result have better business success. My role is to guide clients to gain clarity on what they want and how they can achieve it.