To learn how to hire a business coach, I spent thousands of dollars on three different coaches over the last two years. With the mistakes I made, I’ve been able to figure out what to look for in a coach and I’ve summarized it into five tips below. I know hiring a business coach can be scary, when you’re a new entrepreneur, but with these tips, you can make it much less intimidating and you can set yourself up to make a better decision on who to hire.

Tip #1: Hire a business coach based on what stage your business is in.

If you’re totally new to entrepreneurship, you need to learn the basics of making money and attracting clients first. And in my opinion, when you’re learning those beginner-level basics, you shouldn’t have to invest $10,000+ in a business coaching program.

So when you’re just starting out, I recommend that you hire a business coach who will teach you the strategies you need to know at an affordable rate. Typically, these types of programs and online courses cost around $1,000 or $2,000, and should be no more than $3,000. It’s especially important to stay around this price point as a beginner because at this stage, your business is making little to no money, so you don’t really have profits from your business yet to invest in coaching or education.

Once you’re making an average of $5,000 a month consistently in your business, you’ll be at the point where you can invest in more expensive $10,000+ coaching programs that will teach you advanced strategies to grow and scale your business. Anytime you invest in a program at this rate, make sure they’re going to teach you advanced strategies and not beginner strategies!

Plus, once you’re making an average of $5,000 a month, you should have an LLC or S Corp set up and you can write off coaching/courses on your taxes, too! This way, you can pay for the higher end programs out of your business money, not your personal bank account or credit cards! You don’t want to go into credit card debt because you’re investing in a $10K program too soon, when you really just needed a $2K program to learn the basics to bring money in first — to allow you to pay for the $10K program!

Tip #2: Be wary of “generalized” business coaches and lofty financial promises.

If a coach is marketing themselves as a general business coach of “all businesses”… BEWARE! The strategies to grow each business type are DIFFERENT, so there’s no way one business coach can be a true expert in growing EVERY type of business.

I know this from experience because the strategies that I used to grow my service-based business are completely different from the strategies that I’m now using to grow my online course business. And the strategies to grow e-commerce businesses are completely different from the strategies to grow service-based businesses and course businesses.

So if your coach claims they can help you do ANY of those things, instead of ONE of those specific things, you’re probably not going to learn much from that coach. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be some generic, watered down business info that won’t move the needle much in your business. I’d recommend continuing to seek out other options, who are coaches specifically for your business type.

Also, beware of coaches who are always taunting the numbers of huge sales months that THEY’VE had or only a select few of their clients have had. And beware of any “get rich quick” promises, like “learn how to become a millionaire” or “be a six figure entrepreneur in a year.” Usually, people like that are selling business coaching programs that lack substance and real strategies that you can implement and they try to appeal to gullible people with these promises of large amounts of money to cover up for that lack of substance.

When you hire a business coach, make sure you consume as much free content as possible from the potential coach you’re considering. And notice whether or not you learn anything that you could go out and use right away from their free content. If the free content is only inspiring, but not USEFUL in your business, that’s a red flag. It’s great if their free content inspires you, but it also needs to teach you something useful that you can actually implement in your business if they’re calling themselves a “business coach.” So if their content only “inspires” you and you don’t learn anything from it and you notice they’re always talking huge sales numbers without a lot of substance on HOW they made the money, don’t hire them.

You should be able to learn from a coach’s free content and they shouldn’t have to use all the financial hype to sell their program if it’s really effective and it teaches a specific skillset, which leads us to our next tip….

Tip #3: Understand the curriculum of what the business coach is going to teach you.

It’s easy to follow someone online and to really get intrigued by their “brand.” You may love their personality or you may think their events look fun, but when it comes down to it, you’re not spending thousands of dollars for personality and fun.

You’re spending money on hiring a business coach to actually learn strategies that you can implement to get results in your business. So don’t let getting caught up in someone’s personality or image of “fun” on social media cause you to not do your research on what’s actually included in their program.

When you hire a business coach, you want to make sure you understand EXACTLY what’s included in the curriculum and understand exactly what you’re going to learn from the coach every step of the way. It should be SUPER clear and easy-to-understand! And if it’s vague, that’s a red flag that it may not be a coach who you want to hire, if you can’t understand what type of knowledge and skills you’ll walk away with.

You also want to understand what type of support is included, especially when it’s a $10,000+ investment. Usually 5-figure coaching programs are priced higher because in addition to teaching more advanced strategies, these programs also include more support. So be clear on what type of support are you going to get if you’re investing 5-figures and will it be enough?

Some of the support I’ve received that I liked in 5-figure coaching programs included weekly group coaching calls, where my questions were answered and reviews of my work so the coaches could let me know what I needed to improve.

In cheaper programs, under $3,000, they usually include client-only communities, like private Facebook groups and group calls once a month to get your questions answered.

Tip #4: Hire a business coach based on skill-specific things you want to learn and where you want your business to go.

It’s a much smarter investment to hire a business coach when you’ve noticed a specific gap in your business and you want to fix it. So this requires a bit of self-awareness first before you just go out and hire some random person from social media who has a catchy tagline. LOL

Get clear on exactly what you’re having trouble with in your business and what gap is holding you back from getting the results you want. Get clear on where you’d like your business to be in a year. Get clear on the type of business model you want to build (high end services, online courses, e-commerce, etc.).

And once you’re clear on those things, you can intentionally seek out coaches who specialize in helping you with the specific area you need help with. This will turn out to be a much better investment!

My best two coaching investments were when I invested in coaches who were going to teach me specific skills. For example, when I wanted to learn how to attract high paying clients using Facebook ads, I hired a coach specifically for that. And when I wanted to learn how to scale my course, I hired a coach who specialized in scaling online courses. Both these programs taught me exactly what I needed, based on the gaps I had in my business.

The worst investment I made was when I invested in a generalized business coaching program that wasn’t necessarily for my specific business type and it didn’t necessarily address a specific problem I was having. It was just a program where I liked the coach’s personality and she promised she’d teach us how to become millionaires — and I learned very little and wasted my money. But looking back, I should’ve taken it as a sign when the program sounded so generic and she was making big financial promises with little substance.

Tip #5: If a coaching program is a $10,000+ investment, ask a past client if the program was worth it.

If a coaching program is a $10,000+ investment, it’s nice to be able to check with someone you may know who was a past client in the coaching program to see if they thought the investment was worth it. This way, you could get sort of an “inside peek” on what was taught in the program to make sure it’s worth the money before you invest such a large amount to hire a business coach. Sometimes past clients can give you more insight into what a program entails, so you can be sure you’re making a great investment that you really need before you officially pull the trigger!

So that’s it, the five tips to hire the right business coach! Again, investing in business coaching truly does have the power to accelerate your business growth. But just make your decision wisely on which coach you choose to hire, so you can make the most of your investment.

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