Should I Choose a Business Coach or Lead System to Build my Business?

You have made the first step in growing your business… you have decided that you could use some help. Great! Now what?

This article & video goes over the pros and cons of business coaches, lead systems, and introduces a new concept: a hybrid of both, a coaching resource epicenter combined with a personal touch.

Pros of hiring a business coach:

• Both start-up entrepreneurs and long-time business owners hire coaches for the same reason: the promise of receiving key advice and shortcuts to success.
• Get great benefits from having a business coach. Utilize them for everything from their unique/outside perspective to simply having someone to help you flesh out ideas.
• ability to help you create change in your business, overcome obstacles, and grow your business through frameworks that hold you accountable.

 Cons of hiring a business coach:

• As valuable as a business coach can be, most have the same Achilles heel: sales, differentiation, and niche marketing strategy.
• In most cases you need more help than most business coaches can provide.The average business coach reports their number one problem is finding clients: if a business coach has trouble growing their own customer base, how helpful can they be growing yours?

• Coaching leaves a glaring gap between the help most business coaches can provide and the number one need most linked to business survival: sales and marketing.

So that leads us to “systems”…

Pros of using a lead system:

• Affiliate sales leaders inside the lead system company have videos you can watch, webinars you can attend, and you can copy their methods. This all comes with your fees to use the system.
• Some lead systems offer you capture pages that are pre-built to allow you to get leads without having to learn how to create pages yourself.
• They have affiliate programs so you can earn income from pre-written copy on Facebook, Instagram etc.

 Cons of using a lead system:

• Tough to get a straight answer. If you Google “lead system” you will see millions of reviews telling you why their lead system is the best. These reviews are written by affiliates for that system.
• All benefits are paid for services
• Leads are not magically given to you, you must still do the work and implement what you have learned.
• Costs are high. As much as $150 a month.
• No personalization, this is not a personalized coaching system.
• Many times your lead system sponsor will drop away because they are not committed to working the system themselves.
• You do not learn how to do critical business actions for yourself. Essentially you are cutting and pasting pre-designed templates. Almost like cutting out a picture from a magazine and trying to sell it as your own.
• There is no training for leadership or ownership in your own branded business. When you quit the system all the work goes with it.

In order to determine whether you need a business coach or a leads and marketing system, consider your current business goals.

If you believe your needs primarily lie in learning how to build your business yourself, execute the strategies yourself, and truly be an entrepreneur, then you need a personalized resource center and access to one on one help from live coaches.

This is the best of both worlds. You can access your teaching library 24/7 where you find every bit of material you will ever need to build your business yourself. No one can take that away from you! The definition of an entrepreneur is:

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

synonyms:       businessman/businesswoman, enterpriser, speculator, tycoon, magnate, mogul; dealer, trader, dealmaker; promoter, impresario; wheeler-dealer, whiz kid, mover and shaker, go-getter, high flyer, hustler, idea person

To me this sounds like a person that takes their business in their own hands! Not a copy and paste type of person!

BUT! Hold on! Not everyone wants that and we get it! If you are the type of person that wants to use the power of group to follow literally in their footsteps, then a lead system will likely be best for you.

If you have a new start-up and you don’t want to spend the time learning how to run your business, a lead system is perfect. They are literally plug and play. They are designed for people who are not eager to learn. This is why systems make their top paid affiliates millions of dollars a year, because the same people who don’t want to learn and the same people that will pop down money.

Don’t get caught up in the hype of either method of coaching. What is going to work best for you is the method which addresses your greatest weakness.

Let’s end with that entrepreneur definition again, one word that stood out to me was “a go-getter”. See true entrepreneurs would rather eat a rock than follow someone else. They want to understand and grow every aspect of their business. There is a time and place for personal coaches and a time and place for systems. But true entrepreneurs take what they learned, implement it and improve upon it.

No matter what your goals, picking the right method at the right time can make a substantial difference to the success of your business.

So, do yourself a favor. If you are thinking of hiring a coach, joining a system, or finding the best home business resource option with a personal touch, consider your current major business goals.

Ask yourself whether a business coach, or a hybrid resource business group, or system, is the right choice for you and your business. Keep in mind that the answer may be, “both.” Then remember to continually reevaluate this decision as your major business goals change.