What is An SME Coach? 5 Reasons You Need One And More

As Patrick Mouratoglou is to Serena Williams, and Jürgen Klopp is to Liverpool so is an SME coach to a small business owner.

Whether they’re coaching a football team or an athlete or an entrepreneur the job of the coach is to help bring out the best.

There are things a growing small business can do without – but an SME coach is not one of them.

Who is an SME Coach?

An SME Coach is an experienced small business owner that uses knowledge and skill to help other small business owners to achieve their business goals – typically to grow SMEs.

The SME Coach uses his or her wealth of experience, network and specialized business knowledge to provide hands-on guidance for small business owners.

You often hear many reasons why getting a coach or even a mentor is an unnecessary expense. And that may be true if you don’t want your business to grow, or you have all the answers to the challenges of running your business.

5 Reasons You Need An SME Coach

If not, a few reasons are getting an SME coach may just be the best decision you can make to grow your business.

Here are 5 reasons you need an SME coach:

1. You Want to Grow Your Business

The best business owners have an insatiable hunger for growth.

They always recognize that their business can do better and that this is room for change.

If this sounds like you – I bet it does if not you won’t be reading this – then you need an SME coach.

 The SME coach can help grow your small business because he or she has the advantage of experience needed to identify growth opportunities in your business and how you can execute them effectively.

2. You Want to Achieve Financial Freedom

Many employees left their jobs to start businesses only to create more work for themselves.

They spend more hours than they would normally spend on a job and yet their finances are not any better, they have more headache.

That is because they are not running their businesses as they should.

The SME coach provides you with everything you need to run a profitable business that runs itself and allows you time to work on it instead of in it.

All that is required is that the business owner is motivated and ready to put in the necessary work.

3. You Want to Make Better Decisions

You cannot grow or run a profitable enterprise if you can not make sound business decisions.

Sure, you will make mistakes, but you must be able to make better decisions if your business must grow.

This is why you need an SME coach.

The SME coach not only provides advice based on their years of experience running profitable small businesses, but they are also your critical voice; often telling you the truth whether you want to hear it or not.

Because they are detached from your business, they can provide honest appraisals of your decisions, and business generally without bias – something that is, unfortunately, lacking in many small businesses today.

4. You Want to Focus on What Matters

It is easy for an entrepreneur to get distracted.

There is so much they have to do, and many times they all seem so urgent.

Only business owners that can identify and block out the noise can focus and achieve their goals.

The SME coach helps the entrepreneur to set their most important business objectives and plans.

Then they make sure the business owner is focused on achieving those set objectives by holding them accountable.

5. You Need Help Tackling Specific Challenges

The SME coach is typically very skilled.

With expertise in various aspects of day-to-day business operations, they are your best partner when you need help resolving specific business challenges.

Whether you want to improve your sales, your profitability or even reposition your business to take advantage of changing customer needs, the business coach has a wealth of practical strategies and network to draw from to make sure your business challenges are dealt with swiftly.

But that’s not all, the SME coach’s impact is not limited to your business, the business owner becomes a much better manager and leader.

Because the SME coach realises that for the growth in your business to be sustainable you have to grow in your capacity as a business owner too.

Three Easy To Follow Steps To Find An SME Coach

1. Start By Digging Deep Into Your Problems

The best place to start when looking for an SME or small business coach is to understand the issues, you’re currently facing in-depth.

Start by describing the problem you are facing on a piece of paper. You can outline up to five or ten of them.

Then try getting to the root of those problems.

This is very important because sometimes, what we see as problems are symptoms.

To get to the root of the issue, find out the main cause of the issue by asking why until you can’t (it usually takes five why’s, though).

For instance, say one of the problems your business is facing is high employee turnover, try asking why repeatedly until you get a much more specific issue.

This process is important to gain clarity on what you’re currently facing before you can map out where you want to go.

2. Define What You Want.

From the little analysis you have done in the first step, you must have enough information on the number of problems you need help with.

The next step is to set the goals and objectives that you want your coach to help you achieve.

This is very important because setting a goal at the beginning would serve as a guide to measuring your performance over time.

To do this, take a look at the problems you have already listed and then draft out a corresponding goal to tackle it.

Say one of the problems you outlined in the first step was that your sales were poor (more specifically because your prices were too high), then a good example of a corresponding objective would be to increase your sales by 10% in the next 12 months (more specifically by repricing your products in tune with market demand or targeting a new customer segment that can afford your products).

One tip to note here is that we have set goals that are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely).

In essence, your coaching goals should be clear, easy to measure, realistic and have a defined time frame.

3. Picking A Coach

There are hundreds of business coaches out there and there are many ways to get one.

But that is not the issue – the issue would to get the right one for your small business.

As I said at the beginning of this article, picking the run coach can cause more problems for your business, so it is a good idea to pick one carefully.

How TO Pick The Right SME Coach For Your Business?

Use these questions to evaluate your options:

1. Would the coach be able to help you achieve the goals you’ve set above? Do they have complementary skill set and experience?

2. Would the coach have a genuine interest in your business?

3. Can the coach hold you accountable?

4. Do they have niche knowledge of your specific industry or business category?

The answers you get to the question is important to help you get the right coach for your SME or small business.

Where To Find Small Business Or SME Coach In Nigeria.

If you are a small business owner in Nigeria, the best place to get a coach that meets the criteria above is The SME Coach.

Of course, you can do your research, but here’s what you would find that within the SME niche, there’s no other coach that can boast of years of experience with success across several businesses in Nigeria. And that is amazingly affordable too.

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