Guidelines To Consider Before Hiring A Business Coach For Female Entrepreneurs

Sep 17, 2018

Are you considering hiring a business mentor or coach to help you grow your established #femaleentrepreneur business?

If you are, from a veteran female entrepreneur here is some guidelines to consider before you do this.

Vetting out potential members of your entourage is very important. Especially. If you are brining in business mentors or coaches to help you expand your business, vet them thoroughly to make sure you'll not get taken for granted.

Unfortunately, there are a number of con artists out there who will sell you on champagne wishes and caviar dreams in growing your business. These individuals’ intents are to make money off of you and not to help your #businessgrowth.

Their #MO is to enable you to be dependent on them to continue to buy their services and not offering you the guidance you require to grow.

They are equivalent to proverbial vampires. Once you sadly let them in your house, they will suck you dry.

A mentor or coach’s role is to help you see the power you have already inside of you, and help you ignite it to shine brightly. As well they help you remove any obstacles, roadblocks, or prevent you from getting sidelined by anything life throws at you.

As a coach myself I got into coaching by working with many mentors and coaches who have helped me grow and expand. I benefited so much from my mentors and coaches, I decided many years ago to become one myself to see others grow and expand too.

I share this as I wish for you, if you are looking to bring on a mentor or coach, to know what signs to watch out for.   Before you make this investment not only in your business, but also for yourself assess why you are making this decision in the first place.

I sadly know too well the repercussions of letting this type of vampire in my house it almost sucked me dry.

When I hired this vampire I was in a low place in my life. I was in a dead end romantic relationship with a man who encouraged me to get into massive debt. I was desperate to grow my business to help support me and when a vampire popped up sharing champagne wishes and caviar dreams, even though my gut screamed NO!!!! I sadly let them in.

Allowing this vampire into my house proceeded to suck me dry. Even though I was diligently doing all the work they had me do, I was getting no traction on where I was trying to grow. Then when they would sense me getting concerned, I would be given more false promises of a better life if I upgraded here, or upgraded there. Halfway through my allocated time of working with them, I really started to question what was going on and I started to reach out and connect to other communities. This was where I sadly found my worst nightmare to be true. This person was a vampire, who had done this same act to many other victims. When I tried to assert myself to get rid of this vampire I was bullied, verbally attached, and threated. In the end I lost all I had invested, had no more money and was nearly ruined.

All of this was a very hard lesson I had to learn back then. Which is why I share it now, because it is not something talked much in the coaching industry. There sadly is a low barrier of entry in this industry for many folks to come in and call themselves business mentors or coaches. The buyer must be super vigilant when considering to hire someone like this in helping them grow a business.

Too many people have sadly fallen into this trap and have been tricked into racking up massive debt in the name of trying to either grow their businesses or themselves.

If you are considering hiring a business mentor or coach to help you grow your business, I suggest following the below guidelines. This will help you be able to vet out the vampires from the true business mentors and coaches:

 

#1 – Assess & Know Your Situation

Take a moment to reflect on where your life is.   Seek out advise from someone you trust or if you don’t have this person readily available to you, most of importantly trust your gut. Especially if you are at a low point, like I was when I had hired this vampire. 

Ask yourself:  Am I making an emotional decision or a tactical one? To bring on a business coach to help you grow your business, this is a tactical move. If you are in a low place, you might not be thinking this way. Thus, if you are in a low point and considering growing your business by hiring a mentor or coach, my biggest suggestion is get involved with a free community group first. Like for example my free private FaceBook Group: Next Level StarBoss or any other free community female entrepreneur group out there. Seek out a support group of women entrepreneurs like yourself you are there to lovingly support you and help you get past this low point.

Once you are in a better state of mind, this is the time to look at if this person will be the right fit for you. This also will allow you to do the next two guidelines below.

 

#2 – Do Your Research

Information is at the tip of our fingertips and takes your time doing some thorough background on this person. See if any reviews are out there that note things like “con artist”, have ghosted people, have bullied and harassed people. Check out the better business bureau to see if they have been reported.  When in the free coaching or mentoring community groups and ask others in the group if they know of and recommend this person. These groups are very valuable now as more and more people are hiring mentors and coaches and you are more than likely to have found many in these group who are familiar with the person you are looking to add to your entourage.

 

#3 – Ask A Ton Of Questions

Get on the phone or email the mentor or coach and ask them a ton of questions about what exactly are the services they will be providing you. If they offer you a yearlong program, ask if they plan to upsell you during this time to any add on services, etc. Most importantly ask if they have a money back guarantee especially if they are offering a long-term package or program. If they don’t RUN!!! Legit business people understand a happy customer is well taken care of both when using or has decided to step out from using their products or services. If a customer is unhappy with their services, you as a business owner know, their job is to make sure customers don’t leave unhappy.  Because this is a reflection of the business, and like all the yelp reviews out there, people will avoid companies who don't take care their customers.  Con artists don't care if you are happy or unhappy with their services because they are more concerned with taking your money.  Legit business are ones who respect you as a paying customer. 

Remember these guidelines the next time you are considering bringing on a business mentor or coach to your business entourage. These guidelines are your garlic to help you avoid letting a vampire in your house to suck you dry.

 

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