Business Coaching for Small Business Owners

As one of the UK's leading business coaches, Robin Waite has one simple goal; to make running a small business as simple as possible. We do this through our two signature business accelerators providing accountability and first class business knowledge and experience.

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Small Business Coaching

When hired, a business coach’s responsibility is to help corporations, small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs implement goals and achieve them. Business coaching services can take your business to a whole new level and generate more profit and success for your company. Many people invest in business coaches for mentorship to be held accountable and help them kickstart or help fix their business.

Starting up a business is a difficult task for anyone and having a helping hand along the way makes all the difference. A business coach doesn’t just handle the more significant tasks; they also can provide help with the day to day tasks. Their ultimate goal is to help your business to keep moving forward.

Even business coaches know the value of coaches, as many have invested in one themselves.

Robin Waite - Business Coach and Speaker
Image | Robin Waite ©

The Fearless Business Coach himself, Robin Waite, highlights seven benefits that come with investing in a business coach:

  1. It can help you see yourself more clearly - According to research results, most entrepreneurs struggle to gain a sense of self and see themselves more clearly. As an entrepreneur being self-aware is incredibly important. Just one business coaching session can help you focus on self-improvement and mindset whilst offering you an objective, unbiased perspective
  2. It can change how you respond to problems (for the better!) - To learn how to tackle the issues and productively deal with them is integral to any business person. Drawing from their own experiences and the practices of other business coaches, your chosen business coach can train and help develop your reactions to problems, so it doesn’t impact your business. For example, Robin also provides mindset training to his clients. He believes that if you don’t show up to work on your A-game, then you can’t expect your business to reach its full potential.
  3. Small Business Coaching can help you explore your strengths - Having one to one coaching sessions can help you understand your core strengths and capabilities. Also, they can provide you with new ways to revamp and utilise them effectively to gain more potential clients. Whereas if you have group coaching sessions, you may understand the strengths of others and how they can help gain more potential clients.
  4. It can help you achieve your business goals - Investing in a great business coach who regularly engages with you can play a huge role in achieving what you want for you and your business. A regular coaching engagement can help you draw up a plan of the daily tasks you need to complete to achieve your long term goals.
  5. Small Business Coaches can help bring you out of your comfort zone - Many entrepreneurs can get stuck in the same routine with many aspects of their business, doing the same thing day in day out. Often, this happens because the entrepreneur isn't pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. A Business Coach can help you take more risks and find new ways to do things. They do this by looking at your competitors and how you can learn from them.
  6. It can help you learn new ways to make your ideas a reality - Sometimes, you can have brilliant ideas for your business but struggle to make them a reality. Business coaches can evaluate plans and goals and provide their clients with the best opportunities to accomplish them.
  7. It can gain you more confidence - GREAT Business Coaching is essential in taking your business to a whole new level! When starting out, a lot of Robin’s clients struggle with communication and interacting with others. But if you want to be successful in business, ultimately, you need to be more fearless as you interact with a lot of people in your daily routine. Business coaching works wonders for those who lack confidence as you have someone on your team who is routing for you and your business.

How Does Small Business Coaching Work?

Typically, business coaches are experienced entrepreneurs and business owners who decide to use their talents to build and grow a business to help other business owners reach their goals. Most information for starting up your own business can be found online; however, with the vast and contrasting amount of information on the internet, it can be hard to seek advice suited to your businesses niche. This is why it’s a great idea to invest in a business coach as they can provide clients with specific information and observations related to their business.

Once you have invested in a business coach, the process will be as follows:

  • Your Business Coach will discover your strengths and weaknesses.
  • They will then work with you to resolve any issues and help outline your goals.
  • They will then help you work towards those goals and provide you with more productive methods and techniques for dealing with any problems that may arise in future.

Businesses often struggle when it comes to productivity or profits since each company desires never-ending revenues. A Business Coach helps the management of a company to meet its requirements. It works and facilitates the business and introduces the processes, tools, and concepts necessary for growth. The main goal of the Business Coach is to shift the views of the teams that will enable them to work in favour of the business and ultimately achieving the goals set out by the Business Coach and the business.

Robin Delivering a Presentation
Image | Robin Waite©

When working with his clients, Robin ensures there’s a sense of accountability between both coach and client. Through his coaching business, Fearless Business, Robin manages to treble businesses income with a turnaround of three to six months. He is so confident in his abilities that he even offers a money-back guarantee. If a client is unhappy with his services, they can claim their money back.

A business coach is a worthwhile investment as they offer you a non-biased, objective perspective. They are one of the very few figures in life that can communicate hard truths comfortably to help fix your business. Robin emphasises that business coaches aren’t therapists; they will hold you highly accountable as it’s the only way clients will ever see any improvement within their business. Ultimately, the value that clients gain through investing in a business coach is entirely down to them. It takes two to tango. At the end of the day, business coaching is costly, don’t invest in one if you are going to be passive.

What Is The Difference Between a Lifestyle Coach and a Business Coach?

The coaching industry is heavily oversaturated with many niches. As a result, a lot of people are confused about what a Lifestyle Coach is? And What a Business Coach is? So what are the main differences between the two? Ultimately, the main differences are:

A lifestyle coach is a coach that focuses on the more personal aspects of your life/career/relationships and typically takes a more holistic approach to dealing with problems. They are the perfect people to go to if you are looking to improve within your personal life.

A business coach is someone whose primary objective is to provide their client’s advice and mentorship throughout their entrepreneurial journey. In addition, a business coach can mentor individuals or departments, and teams within a company.

Robin’s speciality is business coaching. However, like many other coaching companies, he merges some practices of lifestyle coaching. Through hiring his mindset coach, Kate Hunter, clients that work with Robin also get access to ‘Mindset Tuesdays’, which helps them deal with personal stresses that could be impacting their business performance.

What are the Different Types of Business Coaching?

Although it’s probably straightforward to find all sorts of coaches for every businesses niche, these are the main types of business coaches you’d typically find in an entrepreneurial environment:

  • Lifestyle Coach - Coaches who focus on the more personal aspects of your business, e.g. exploring what could be going on in your personal life that affects performance, such as finding the perfect work-life balance.
  • Mindset Coach - Coaches that help you become more confidentand help clear any mental blocks regarding your business. Regardless of their speciality, many coaches incorporate mindset practices into their sessions as it promotes business productivity. For example, within his coaching group, Robin has a weekly mindset call every week so others going through the journey can seek advice for their stresses and frustrations and not feel so alone.
  • Executive Coach - Coaches that work in a more corporate environment. They tend to help company CEO’s or execs develop their communication and management skills.
  • Sales Coaching - Coaches that work with clients to help them negotiate, price and close deals better. This is Robin’s speciality. Helping clients to confidently charge more through knowing their worth.

Typically, with most business coaching companies, clients will notice a merge between most of the types. It’s pretty uncommon for business coaches to be offering solely one service these days as people are looking to get their value for money. This is why researching and comparing business coaches is integral. Robin recommends all wannabe coachees must be thorough when looking for their ideal business coach. Look long and hard at online reviews, network and talk to other business owners about who you should invest in and most importantly, look at their results and how they can help benefit you and your business.

Alongside the different types of business coaches, there are also different styles and approaches. Ultimately, everyone learns differently, and knowing what mentorship you need will be highly influential in your whole coaching experience. See the examples below:

  • Authoritarian Coaching - Where the coach makes all the decisions, and the client simply follows suit. It’s great for producing quick results but not so great if you are prone to feeling micromanaged.
  • Holistic Coaching - Commonly associated with life coaching, coaches that use this style tend to take a more personal and spiritual approach. They encourage their clients to find their balance through a range of holistic techniques that can be utilised in moments of high stress. This is a particularly great approach if clients are seeking solutions for stress management and behaviour.
  • Vision Coaching - The coach and the client speak openly and honestly about what they want to achieve, set goals and work towards achieving them. Coaches with this style often set daily objectives and rely upon constructive criticism and feedback.

Where to Find Small Business Coaches

When searching for your ideal business coach, you must look in the right places. Most business coaches can be found through the likes of local networking and online search engines. Chambers of commerce meetings are a great place to start as you can gather first-hand, personal experiences about many business coaches from like-minded business owners. Another great way is through word of mouth and referrals.

Be wary when it comes to Googling for the worlds best businesses coaches, though. Unfortunately, thanks to the likes of the internet, anyone can claim that they are a business coach without proving any kind of legitimacy. Because of this, Robin recommends that you invest in a business coach who has at least earned their ILM (Leadership and Management) or ICF (International Coach Federation) qualifications. However, just because a coach has obtained these accreditations doesn’t mean they are the best at what they do. The results speak for themselves, be sure to look at reviews, ratings, case studies and recommendations wherever possible.

This is especially relevant for those looking to invest in coaches with specialisms in mindset, body and health-related coaching. Coaches with these niches need to have the most relevant and legitimate qualifications as they’d be directly impacting your personal health. For example, Fearless Businesses Mindset Coach, Kate Hunter, has Animas Coaching Qualification ensuring that she’s more than qualified to host weekly mindset calls with clients and help mentor Fearless staff and crew.

The Animas Coaching Qualification is a training course that is fully accredited by the world’s leading coaching bodies, the International Coach Federation, the European Mentoring & Coaching Council, and the Association for Coaching.

Ultimately, the perfect coach should always put their clients first before the money. At least, that’s how Robin sees it anyway. If a client approaches him interested in his services but doesn’t necessarily deem them a good fit, he will refer them to someone more suited within his coaching network. Coaches shoot themselves in the foot when they take on clients that aren’t suited to their services. This is because it directly impacts a coaches results. Of course, there will be coaches that take on clients regardless but a real coach who’s passionate about what they do CARE about the client first. At the day, it’s not just the clients who are investing in the coach. The investment is reciprocated. If a client does not get to grips with what the coach provides for them, the coach is also wasting their time, effort and money.

What Types of Businesses Work With Business Coaches?

The types of businesses business coaches work with is entirely dependent upon their niche. As previously mentioned in ‘Types of Business Coaching’, you have executive coaches, for example, that strictly work in corporate environments.

At Fearless Business, Robin’s clients are coaches, consultants, small businesses and freelancers. He has provided excellent results for a variety of clients, including Dog Walking Businesses and Beauty Spas. Check out some of the stories below

Insight 101 - Phillipa Haynes (Brand and Marketing Consultancy)


Phillipa Haynes - Brand and Marketing Consultancy
Phillipa Haynes - Brand and Marketing Consultancy
“I am now thinking in a much more business focused-way, especially with financials. That has been so important to me. And since I have joined, I have taken on ten new clients, so gaining that confidence, the understanding and nailing my sales pipeline has proven invaluable to me” - Phillipa.

Phillipa started her journey with Robin back in January 2019. Phillipa invested in Robin with the goal to ‘be more purposeful’ with how she ran her brand and marketing consultancy, Insight 101. Throughout her time with Fearless Business, Robin helped Phillipa achieve her personal goals and helped her with marketing her business by inducting her on Facebook Ads and Web Design. Phillipa has described her time with Robin as invaluable, highlighting that Robin has increased both sales and confidence within her business.

Cheltenham Martial Arts - Matt Rudman (Sports and Fitness Centre)

Cheltenham Martial Arts - Matt Rudman (Sports and Fitness Centre)
Cheltenham Martial Arts - Matt Rudman (Sports and Fitness Centre)
“I feel like Robin is a very genuine person. Whose principles resonate with what we do at Cheltenham Martial Arts with that genuineness of helping people and bettering ourselves. I highly recommend Robin’s business accelerator for whatever stage you are at with your business.”

With Matt, Robin helped both him personally refining his goals and coaching and mentoring his staff with new sales techniques and strategies. Both Matt and the team commend Robin for his work with Cheltenham Martial Arts because of their newfound success.

The Pet Professional Network - Helen Motteram (Coaching Programme For Pet Professionals)

The Pet Professional Network - Helen Motteram (Coaching Programme For Pet Professionals)
The Pet Professional Network - Helen Motteram (Coaching Programme For Pet Professionals)
“I’ve never been the most confident of people, but I am incredibly ambitious. Robin has just been my absolute rock. He’s been there for me all these years, and I definitely couldn’t have achieved what I have today without him.”

Helen is a Dog Behaviourist and Trainer and the Founder of The Pet Professional Network - a coaching programme for other Pet Professionals. With Robin’s help. Helen has halved her working hours, vastly increased her income and gained confidence in running her business.

Diary Detox - Paul Holbrook (Mentor and Author Diary Detox)

Diary Detox - Paul Holbrook (Mentor and Author Diary Detox)
Diary Detox - Paul Holbrook (Mentor and Author Diary Detox)
“I decided to join the Fearless Crew around a year ago. I was particularly attracted to the concept of doubling my revenue, and with him, if I weren’t happy, I’d get my money back, which was brilliant! He has easily doubled my revenue. The three main takeaways I had from him were goal setting, productising your service and increased confidence in pricing.”

Paul joined the Fearless Crew as he figured it was a no brainer; Robin could improve his business or his money back. With Robin, Paul discovered he had been underselling himself massively, which eventually doubled his revenue. In addition, Paul found that Robin’s group coaching style helped him implement lots of feedback from different perspectives and provided great opportunities for him to network himself.

How Much Does Small Business Coaching Cost?

The price of business coaching is entirely dependent on the type of coach you invest in and their style. The average business coaching costs are:

  • Group Coaching: typically ranges from £90 - £800 per month.

Refresher: Group coaching is when a coach mentors multiple clients simultaneously. It allows you to network with like-minded individuals and can offer a range of perspectives for your business. It’s ideal for companies or start-ups looking to get coaching services for small teams.

  • One to One Coaching: typically ranges from £1000 - £3000+ per month.

The price of one to one coaching is entirely dependent on a client’s requirements and the amount of time they are willing to invest in a coach. In addition, one to one coaching enables the coach to be a lot more thorough with their clients.

These days, most business coaches offer a free taster. For example, Robin offers a free 30-minute diagnostic call. This allows both coach and client to see if their working relationship has any potential and if their business is the best fit for the services the coach provides. Unfortunately, as mentioned in ‘Where to Find Business Coaches,’ the coaching industry is oversaturated with individuals falsely claiming that they're qualified coaches.

Before investing in a business coach, make sure they have:

  • A money-back guarantee (not mandatory, but a great mode of reassurance for both parties)
  • Relevant qualifications such as an ILM or ICF credential
  • Authentic Client Testimonials / Case Studies
  • Decent Reviews
  • Word of Mouth - ask around. Reviews and testimonials can be biased. If you have discovered this coach through networking, try asking around about their services.

If money is an issue, be sure to ask whether the coach you are interested in has a payment plan. Paying in instalments is the more common method of paying for a coaching service, although some clients like to pay the total cost upfront.

However, if you view business coaching as a cost to your business rather than a worthwhile investment, then it isn’t the right avenue for you. If you invest in the right business coach, the money you will invest will eventually be made back.

Robin claims that business coaching is like any service you pay for. If you go for the cheaper option, you won’t reap as many benefits and vice versa. This is also why he recommends clients invest in a “results-based” pricing outcome rather than a time-based one. Charging hourly or monthly increases the possibility of time-wasting, which can cost you more money. Results based are the best foot forward as you can pay depending on the outcomes you received.

If you’d like to know more about how much business coaching costs and what goes into it, check out the video below:

Is Business Coaching Worth It?

Robin Waite - Holding a copy of Take Your Shot
Image | Robin Waite©

Of course. As business coaches ourselves, we think small business coaching is absolutely worth it.

Here are some reasons why we think it is

  • Coaching can change your business for the better
  • Offer new and exciting networking opportunities
  • Can increase your businesses revenue within a short period of time
  • Business coaching can help you optimise your time better and free up your schedule

But if you are looking for a non-biased perspective...

The entire process is completely subjective. When deciding whether investing in a business coach is worth your time and money, many factors come into play.

To ensure success, you must take accountability. There is no point in paying for a business coach to not put in the groundwork and expect them to do the work for you completely. Ultimately, coaching is a partnership. You get what you put in and vice versa. This emphasises the importance of doing your research and making sure you are one-hundred percent certain before investing in a business coach.

Furthermore, you have to make sure you are investing in the RIGHT business coach for your company. If you get to the end of the programme and feel like you haven’t achieved the outcomes you desire, this could be down to the fact that your chosen business coach didn’t specialise in them in the first place. This is why you should have an ultimate goal in mind when searching for your ideal business coach and make sure you communicate it clearly through any diagnostic calls or free taster sessions.

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