You may never attain the tips for business coaches or the legendary status of business guru, coach, and best-selling author Brian Tracy. A more attainable, yet vitally important goal, is to become the best business coach possible for your clients. Business owners turn to you for advice on how to grow their companies. Naturally, the more information and guidance you can offer them, the more loyal they’ll become. How can you offer more value to your clients and expand the products and services that you offer them? Consider the following tips for business coaches to help your clients succeed in 2019 and beyond.
1: Seek Knowledge Always
Think about how much more you could offer your business clients if you knew more about the latest trends. From accounting to marketing to product development to other news that affects their industry, there’s much to learn. Consider going back to school to gain new insights. While physically attending classes has some advantages (networking, for instance), you could also take classes online. Web-based classes make a great alternative if you don’t have the time or you can find no classes in your local area.
Most local colleges offer a variety of business-related courses covering topics you may not be familiar with or skills you are not adept at. For example, look into classes on social media, improving communication skills or how to manage conflict in the office. You can then pass along the skills and knowledge you learn to your clients. There are also a number of workshops and seminars offered through government agencies and organizations, such as the Small Business Administration, SCORE, and a local Small Business Development Center office.
You can help your clients by learning specific industry information and passing it along to them. If, for instance, your clients are interested in expanding internationally by exporting goods, take a look at Export.gov, where you’ll find downloadable guides, market information, and a schedule of events you can attend. If your clients belong to industry associations, consider attending a meeting (with or without them) to learn best practices. Doing so can help you find out what others in their industries are doing to grow their businesses. Also, look for and subscribe to industry e-newsletters that will deliver up-to-the-minute information right to your inbox.
2: Understand Corporate Compliance Basics
A vital element of your services is helping your clients keep on the right side of the law by being compliant. The specific compliance obligations vary from state to state and depend on the legal structure of a business. Encourage clients to stay on top of deadlines for filings, keep corporate meetings, fulfill licensing requirements, and complete other responsibilities. They should seek the guidance of licensed legal and accounting professionals to understand their obligations. To give you an idea of the types of compliance issues they need to watch are:
- Maintaining good corporate standing in a state by initial and annual reports and documentation.
- Filing Articles of Amendment if they make any changes to an existing corporation or LLC.
- Filing conversion documentation when a company converts one entity type to another. (such as going from a corporation to an LLC)
- Filing a Certificate of Authority (sometimes also referred to as a Statement & Designation by a Foreign Corporation) with each Secretary of State’s office a client conducts business in.Â
After your clients have gotten the proper legal and tax advice regarding their compliance responsibilities, you can help them fulfill those obligations by providing compliance services for your clients through the CorpNet Partner Program. It’s a wonderful way to bring in the new revenue and provide additional value to your clients without adding overhead.
3: Learn About Women-Owned Business Certification
Thirty years ago, there were close to 4 million women-owned businesses in the United States, and today, there are over 11 million. If your women business clients are running their own businesses and not officially certified as woman-owned businesses, they may be missing out on viable opportunities to gain new customers and clients. Federal, state, and local government agencies must give a certain percentage of their contracts to women-owned businesses. Many large corporations are also seeking to expand the types of companies they subcontract to and hire more diverse contractors. Getting certified as a woman-owned business could open the door to obtaining new contracts.
Here are the two types of woman-owned business certifications:
- Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) certification: For your clients that want to do business with the private sector, nonprofits, and state or local governments.
- Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) or Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) certification is necessary for a women-owned business that want to conduct business with the federal government.
To be eligible for certification your client’s business must be a for-profit operation, meet the SBA size standards, be at least 51 percent woman-owned, and be controlled by a woman or women who are U.S. citizens or Legal Resident Aliens. The business’s daily operations must be overseen by a woman or women and the certifications must be renewed every year. To help your client get started, visit Certify.SBA.gov and find out what documents are required and then be on hand to help them through the process, which can get a bit complex.
A successful coach is all about anticipating your client’s needs. It’s essential you keep up on the latest issues, news, and information relevant to women business owners. You can do this by reading the latest research reports from the National Women’s Business Council or attending a local NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) event in your area. As a bonus, attending events is a great way to find more clients.
Continual Learning and Development = Successful Business Coaching Â
The best business coaches are the ones who never stop learning. They spend time keeping up with the latest trends so that they can share that information with their clients. And they look for business coaching tips that will help them become better and more effective. I hope these tips for business coaches will help you in your efforts to help your clients succeed.
