By Alexandra Cain
You hear some horror stories about coaching franchises: coaches with no real business experience; clients being pressured to sign 12 month contracts who are then sued when they want to end the relationship.
But not all coaches that belong to a franchise offer little value. Franchise coaches are often great when a business is starting up. They can help the business owner put together a mission, vision and plan for the business, as well as offer practical advice such as how to register a business name and structure the business most appropriately.
Physiotherapist and business owner Marnie Douglas says her coach is "like a business partner without the legalities".
Some franchise coaches also become an integral part of their client's businesses.
Take Belinda McLean, who runs human resources consultancy Human Resources Focus and is a master licensee with coaching franchise HR Coach. She acts as an external HR manager for the Comfort Inn at Casula, NSW, and is an invaluable resource to the business, especially given how complex industrial relations laws have become and how tricky it is for a small business to ensure they comply with these laws.
Business owner Harry Hunt says: “In years gone by we could hire and fire as required. Now there's so much red tape I just have to have the budget for someone like Belinda. There are so many rules and requirements now and she takes all the worry out of it so I can get on with running the business”.
“She interviews staff, develops employee agreements and conducts performance reviews. A lot of people want to screw their staff but it's important to me to encourage them, and that's part of her brief,” says Hunt, who says a number of his staff have been with the business for 10 to 20 years.
Udo Doring, national business manager for HR Coach, says a coaching franchise “offers sustainable coaching models, tools, patented methodologies and access to ongoing research. We also spend a lot of time helping clients create business plans and go-to-market strategies so they suit the individual.”
An alternative to a franchise coach is an independent coach. Independent coaches often offer the most value when a business is more established, and can become a key mentor to the business owner.
An example is Owen Joyce, who operates independent coaching business Your Business Success. For the past five years he has coached Marnie Douglas, a physiotherapist and director of Ergoworks, which provides ergonomic advice to businesses, and has also developed ergonomic assessment software.
“We had a standard business coach relationship at the start but this has morphed into more of a mentoring relationship; he's like a business partner without the legalities,” says Douglas.
Douglas says Joyce's advice was invaluable when she began to develop her software. “Owen helped develop the marketing strategy and get developers in place. He's been able to assist me to take the business to another level,” she says. Douglas has plans to roll out the software nationally and, eventually, internationally.
When it comes to choosing a good coach Joyce says business owners should do their homework before agreeing to enter into a relationship with a coach, be they part of a franchise or independent. This is especially important as research by US coaching firm Evan Carmichael estimates the majority of coaches earn less than US$20,000 (about $22,200) annually and fewer than 10 per cent earn more than US$100,000 (about $111, 280) annually.
“Being in business is tough and you need someone with experience of the good times and the bad times, especially if you're encouraging a business owner to take a risk or do something outside their comfort zone,” says Joyce.
“Business owners really have to check the coach's background and not just fall for the sales pitch. If the coach has never had their own business it's a bad sign. You're really looking for someone who can prove they have already been successful in business,” he says.