The Importance of a Coach/Trainer or Mentor
This past weekend I was painfully reminded of how important regular coaching is. I have been involved in a specific sport for years and had always had access to regular weekly coaching. Last year I moved into an area where coaches are not as accessible so I have not had any coaching for about six months. This past weekend we had a fairly high level coach come in for a training session and I was shocked at how much I had slipped back into my old habits in such a short period of time. I really didn’t hear anything new but I was reminded of how lazy I had become while practicing this sport on my own.
You might ask what this has to do with your business. Anything you do in life or have a passion for takes a lot of work and consistency. Consistency means nothing though if you’re consistently doing the wrong things. Have you ever heard the saying that it not “Practice that makes Perfect” but “Perfect Practice that makes Perfect”. Having regular coaching or belonging to a group of Experts or Masterminds can bring many benefits to both your business and your personal endeavors.
When people work on their own they naturally tend to become complacent. It’s easier to work on the things that come easy to us and we avoid the things that are harder. A perfect example of this is in a Sales role. We all know that in sales roles customer service is a huge part. How many sales people do you know that would rather speak to people they’ve already developed a relationship with, helping them with their problems rather than making a dreaded cold call to someone they don’t know. How about when you go to the gym? If you don’t have a personal trainer are you one of those people that will work on the easy exercises? Or maybe you are the type that stops as soon as it starts to hurt. As the saying goes, no pain, no gain and this is where a coach can help. A coach can help you to push the envelope and move outside of your comfort zone where normally you might not.
Having a coach, trainer or a mentor keeps you honest with yourself. They remind you of the things you need to be doing consistently (even if they’re things you don’t necessarily like or want to do). They bring new and fresh ideas and they give a different perspective on things that you see and touch every day. Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s happening if you’re too close to it.
The other benefit that a regular coach provides is they confirm the things that you are doing correctly. Confirmation comes in many forms. Concrete proof comes through reporting, tracking and testing. Social proof and acceptance comes through things like customer testimonials and referrals, but what about your ideas, concepts and strategies on new projects? A coach or expert will be able to confirm whether you’re on the right track and moving in the right direction. This is especially important for small business owners who do a lot of work on their own. The other benefit that comes from regular coaching is that you are provided with a framework and something to strive for. It helps with the often much needed motivation especially when things aren’t going as well as we might like them to.
Regular coaching or training also helps us to become good listeners. We practice listening because we listen most intently when we’re trying to learn something that’s going to benefit us directly. Regular coaching gets us into practice for listening to others which we all know is so important in sales and maintaining good customer relationships. The best sales people are the greatest listeners.
Often people don’t know what they don’t know. We get in our own way and when we stop learning we stop moving forward. Learning is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and our business!