A business coach can be a key asset in your business by helping you to increase your opportunities and to navigate through challenges. A coach is similar to a business partner who provides support weekly and helps you to identify and manifest your intentions. They reduce your learning curve, saving you time and money. Here are some tips for working with a business coach.

Intention Alignment
It is important to choose a coach you can relate to and someone who is in alignment with your intentions and believes that you can achieve them. When you temporarily lose focus or forget your goals, your coach is there to remind you and keep you on track to achieve the results you had set out to accomplish.

Experience of the Coach
The coach that you choose to work with should have real-life experience in the area he or she coaches.

Coaching and Honesty
Honesty helps progress; so you should be honest with your coach and your coach should be honest with you. Let your coach know the areas where you are not productive or need improvement. These can be things that are obviously related to your business, such as your accounting system, or things that are not so obvious and less tangible, such as time management.

The coach will be able to give you guidance more effectively when they know all of the areas where you need improvement and how they may tie together. Since the job of a coach is to help you to improve, do not expect them to always agree with you, but do expect them to help you increase your profitability.

Coachability
You must be open to being coached to get the full benefits that coaching offers. This means being open to and considering the suggestions that your coach offers. If you don’t immediately agree with a suggestion offered by your coach, taking some time to think about it after your consultation may lead you to reconsider. By trying new ideas suggested by your coach, you can open doors to new possibilities.

Accountability
A coach helps you to make decisions in your business and keeps you accountable. So, although you may develop a friendly relationship with your coach, the relationship is not the same as one that you may have with a typical friend. As a client, you agree to be accountable to the coach.

With the help of a coach, you can get all of the areas of your business lined up, geared for profit, directed by a clear plan, with a system of accountability, driven by knowledge, and guided by expert support. When all the areas of your business are headed in the right direction, then you can move quickly and effectively to achieve your intentions and success.