MANAGEMENT • 4 MIN READ

6 Reasons Why Every Business Owner Needs a Coach

Are You Stuck Working “IN” Your Business?

Hi, I’m Austin Netzley. I have been studying some of the top business gurus in the world for pretty much my entire life. I am so curious why some businesses make it and others don’t.

Why do we have the Amazons of the world?
And yet why do 9/10 businesses fail?

Was it the leader?

Was it the model?

Was it the time in the marketplace?

And how the HELL do you create your own empire?

Business growth is fascinating. Why do some companies have linear growth and increase by 10% every year, whereas others scale by 100% each year? I’m a student of growth, so I went on a journey to find out how the best business owners make massive, long-lasting success.

That’s why I started a podcast years ago. I wanted an excuse to interview hundreds of successful business owners and thought leaders, and learn the patterns of what it takes to be the best in the world directly from the source.

And within only a few weeks, it was apparent that there were a few core commonalities that were their “secret weapon”…

One of those commonalities among 100% of them…

They hired a business coach.

It took me a while to fully “get” this.

I mean, I spoke to people at the top of their game. Why would the likes of Ryan Holiday, Mike Michalowicz and Hal Elrod need a coach of their own?

I couldn’t make sense of it.
But then I thought back to when I played college football…

Back then, I’d hired several coaches. I was good, but I wasn’t so good I didn’t need a coach. No athlete is. In fact, the best athletes in the world have a TEAM of support guiding them.

Physical Trainers…
Mechanics Experts…
Position Coaches…
Psychologists…
Nutritionists…
Statisticians…
Managers…

NFL teams hire dozens of coaches, even though they employ the best football players on the planet. The same applies to Baseball, Basketball, Soccer and Hockey. Those who make it to the Olympics have them, including every record holder and gold medalist.

Each athlete who has ambitions to be the best has at least one coach, and it doesn’t stop at sports.
Actors have coaches and directors…
Musicians have coaches and producers…
Writers have coaches and editors…

It shouldn’t surprise you to hear the same applies to successful business owners, as they too all share one thing in common…

They have a business coach.

Actually, they have a team of business coaches, mentors, advisors and consultants to help them build long-lasting legacies that have a huge impact on their audience. But if you’re like a lot of people I speak to, you struggle to believe this.

Because until this point you’ve built your success on your own.

You wake up each day and “hustle” and, up to this point, it’s worked.

Yet let me ask you something… do you often get to the end of the day and think,
“is this it?”

You follow other entrepreneurs like you online and notice how happy they seem. They have money, time, freedom and passion, and you’re left wondering what the hell you did wrong, grinding away but the bank account just isn’t higher at the end of the month.

Well here’s the thing…

You only see what they show you. The truth is, those people you look up to are NOT doing it on their own. Almost every single one of them hired at least one business coach to help them turn good into great.

Here are six reasons you too should join them… and consider hiring a business coach.

1. Hustling isn’t enough for the next level

To get to the first level of success, you roll up your sleeves and WORK. You fail, figure stuff out and get some traction.

But what got you here to the first level won’t get you “there” to the next.

Grit and “hustle” just aren’t enough to separate yourself from your competition and scale to the 7-figure mark. There’s a better, faster, smarter path to success, and that’s what I’m most interested in.

If you’re like most business owners we work with, you’re having some success already.

You’re no longer in the early stages…
You know your audience and have validated your offer…
You’re making good money and growing each month…

But you’re also overwhelmed…
You feel like you don’t have control of your business…
You’re working harder and longer than ever, but it never feels like enough….

On the outside, you’re a successful person.

But on the inside, you’re not so sure.

Until this point, you haven’t hired a business coach and you’ve built your entire business on the back of pure hustle and grit.

You’ve put the work in…
You’ve broken things…
You’ve taken risks…
You’ve done most of it on your own…

That’s fine. This is how most great empires begin.
However, it’s not how great empires continue to grow.

You need to evolve from an entrepreneur into a CEO, meaning you need to start leading, strategizing and inspiring those around you to do a lot of the work for you. What got you to here was what you needed to do up to this point, but it WILL NOT help you scale and grow your business to the next level.

In fact, it will hold you back (which I see so many entrepreneurs doing). To scale faster than ever to big numbers…

The strategy changes…
The role you play changes…
The tactics and approach changes…
The processes change, as does who creates them…

This is the first reason to consider hiring a business coach; because they stop you from doing what feels safe. In the same way, you needed to take risks to start your business; you need to step out of your comfort zone once more to evolve from entrepreneur to CEO.

Because what got you here won’t get you “there”.

Too many entrepreneurs trick themselves into thinking it will, which leaves them on a ‘hamster wheel’ they cannot escape — and one that eventually ruins either your sanity or your business (potentially both).

So you might think “ok great, I get that I’ve hit my max in hustle mode and I physically can’t muscle to grow my company past where I’ve been… So now what?”

Well, the great part about hiring a business coach is that this is someone that’s been there before — someone that has a background, failing 100x more times than you.

They can guide you along the way, showing you the 80% of things you need to cut out, and say ‘I’m not guessing here, this has worked in the past’.

2. Business doesn’t have to feel like a hamster wheel

My friend Scott Oldford talks about how entrepreneurs get stuck on the ‘six-figure hamster wheel’. I’ve been there myself, and I’ve worked with A LOT of entrepreneurs who have got stuck on it too.

This is how it tends to look:

After a lot of “hustle” and hard work, you enjoy a few five-figure months…
You feel great because you’ve validated your business, so you double down and hustle harder…
More customers, more referrals, and more money…
You now have a legitimate and successful six-figure business…
You achieve one goal after another, and start to build a team…
Meaning more even more customers, even more referrals, and even more money…
But everything runs through you…
Which means you’re busier than ever, and you’re close to burning out…

You’re stuck, but you keep saying yes to every opportunity that comes your way because you find it hard to turn down the money. You see money ‘right now’ as good, even though it steals your time and takes you away from strategic activities that builds long term growth.

This hamster wheel continues to go around-and-around until YOU do something about it.

I meet a lot of people who can do low 6-figures per year without too much trouble, but they always seem stuck at the same level even though they put in the hours.

It’s a grind, and although people glorify the idea of hustling, it isn’t the end game. You didn’t start your business to work 18-hour days for the rest of your life, right? You didn’t dream of building an eight-figure business only to never have the freedom or time to enjoy it!

I’ve yet to meet a single entrepreneur who says, “I love working 18-hour days. The fact I haven’t spent a full weekend with my family for three months is great, and it’s definitely helping our relationship.”

Hustling is a means to an end. That’s it!

Too many people treat it as the end game, which leads to a lifestyle that keeps you on this hamster wheel.

The good news is, escaping this hamster wheel isn’t as hard as you think, and it comes back to you no longer doing what you always have done. Until now you have been the main driver of all your success, but at this stage YOU are your biggest obstacle.

You are the bottleneck.
You are the crossroads.
You are the problem.

You need to simplify and delegate, because right now you do not have a business… you have a ‘hustle’.

You created a job for yourself.

Getting off the hamster wheel once and for all means that you have a real business – one that runs without you muscling it each and every step.

Hiring a good business coach helps you escape this hamster wheel. A coach will give you insights to simplify your entire business so you’re no longer the obstacle in your own way. They show you what to get rid of and what to double-down on.

Business coaches help you step back and create the processes and systems you need so other people can do the work for you. They stop you from doing so much, and more importantly, help you get out of your own way.

3. The answer isn’t more… it’s less.

When I work with a new client, I ask them to tell me about their business, what they’re working on and their plan for success.

They explain their various income streams, and this new idea they have, and this other cool project they’re excited about…

It’s a lot!

It’s overwhelming to hear, let alone do. It’s no wonder they’re overwhelmed by their business day in and day out.

Fact of the matter: They’re doing too much, and most of it isn’t stuff they should focus on at all. They’re doing nothing more than burning themselves out, and I’m guessing that’s the case for you, as well.

One of our first jobs when training clients is to cut out at least 30% of what they’re doing. We save people time, energy, money and help them focus more on what actually matters.

This alone is priceless when it comes to scaling your business.

Business owners often laugh at or blame “entrepreneurial A.D.D.” but a good coach doesn’t think that’s funny. A good business coach knows that the single best way to create a thriving business is with FOCUS. Like my friend (and my first official business coach) John Lee Dumas says, the key is the acronym of F.O.C.U.S. – Follow ONE Course Until Success.

We continue this at 2X with a mantra we talk about every single day:

Simplify + Strategy + Systems = SCALE

That’s the formula.
And it starts by simplifying your business model.

Yet keeping things simple is something most business owners are terrible at doing, and it comes down to that ‘hamster wheel’ from earlier (and the fact everyone obsesses over the “hustle”!)

As I said in the last section, the “hustle” is a means to an end, but so many people NEVER escape this. The reason is simple… YOU don’t keep things simple:

You take on too much…
You refuse to let go….
You run everything through you…
You are too busy to implement systems…
You micro-manage the small team you build…
You are your business!

Unless you build your business to run without you, it will always be reliant on you.

It doesn’t matter how good you are, how amazing your service is, and how talented your virtual team may be. Unless you create a structure so your business runs without you, every piece will run through you.

This is not the reason you built your company, right?

I’ve yet to meet a single person leave the corporate world and start their own business so they can have less time, less freedom, and less happiness. But this is what happens to most business owners once they build a little momentum and scale to six-figures.

On the outside they look like a massive success story, but on the inside they are:

Burnt out…
Stressed more than ever…
Unhealthy, losing energy and running on fumes…
Scared deep inside their business is going to collapse…
Losing touch of the people they love the most…

It all stems from YOU doing too much and NOT keeping things simple! Lucky for you, the solution to this is simple:

You need to delegate!
You need to outsource!
You need to remove YOU from the process!

And:

You need to simplify!
You need to strategize!
You need to set up the right systems!

Until you do, you will never escape the hamster wheel, and you will continue to have good months followed by bad months (always on-edge and worried about what comes next). Overcoming this obstacle doesn’t come down to learning new skills or hiring a COO, it all centres around you and your mindset.

You need to better optimize your time.
You need to leverage your skill-set and talents.
You need to optimize your internal operating systems.

Look at Amazon, and the empire Jeff Bezos has built over the last 25 years.

Today, Amazon offers a lot of services in a lot of different ways. You can get practically anything you need through their online store, and you can have most of it delivered to you the next day. It’s a massive business made up of many smaller businesses.

But this is not how it began.
For a long time, it sold books. That’s it.

It created a simple system with a simple strategy and stuck to it until it dominated its industry. Over time, it created further systems and added new pieces to its puzzle. But all the while it’s remained a business centered around systems (from its online store to its smart warehouses, to its delivery system.)

Today, you may look at Amazon and see a business built on ‘more’.
But for a long time, it remained a business built on “less”.

Growing like Amazon grew takes time and a major benefit of business coaching is an outside perspective so you can double down on the “right” strategies, systems and processes.

4. Your business model needs fixing

I spoke to 100+ successful entrepreneurs, investors and thought-leaders for my podcast, and what I learned from them fundamentally changed how I built my own businesses. I wanted to learn how they scaled successful empires, but I also wanted to understand what not to do.

I would ask them what they would do differently if they had a chance to start again, and one of the most common responses was that they would take a much more strategic and direct approach. Having been through it, they realized they could have achieved the same result much more quickly if they simplified their business model.

Now at 2X, we officially get started with the 90-day sprint only once we review and optimize the client’s business model first. And…

100% of the time, it needs fixing – often a lot of fixing.

This practice alone saves the client so much time and energy down the line and ultimately helps them get to the end result in a fraction of the time. We cut things out and double-down on the 80/20 of the business that is working best and make that scalable.

Hiring an experienced business coach can be the one that shortcuts this learning curve so you don’t have to go through all those years of ‘testing and breaking’ before you find the right business model and strategy. I’ve seen this firsthand with the clients I work with, and I’ve experienced it myself when coaches of my own have either helped me set up new ways to monetize or cut out things that were waste (and saved me hundreds of hours of wasted time and energy).

The problem here is, nobody really talks about “business model” much or breaks this down 1-on-1 for entrepreneurs. Most business coaches and mentors just assume that your business model is what it is. Wrong.

And they’re focused on helping you in other areas, thinking that will be the best help they can be. If you go to conferences today, it’s:

Tweak your Facebook by doing this…
Optimize your SEO by doing that…
Get on Instagram and follow this process…
Create an automated funnel and use this new tool…

Who talks about the business model?
Who talks about the margins of your core products and services?

What about your retention rate, or the lifetime value of your customer?

Hardly anybody, and because these things are BORING compared to a new Facebook ads campaign or marketing tactic!

But if you don’t have your ship headed in the right direction with the right strategy, then you’re going to be working way too hard for way too little.

Make sure your ship is headed in the right direction… First!

This is where hiring a business coach benefits you in a BIG way. They take their years of trial and failure, package it up into a session and can save YEARS of frustration. This is what we do when we work with our clients at 2X.

Literally 100% of the businesses we’ve worked with so far have needed their business model optimized. They’re stuck in the ‘hamster wheel’ and doing too much, and using a complex strategy that either isn’t scalable or is way too much work.

Fix this. Simplify and validate it. THEN start to get to work driving the results. Do not waste time until you work on your approach and have the numbers to back it up.

The point is, most business owners have a complicated and outdated business model.

The problem is, you only know what you know.

And you can only see what you can see. You take the work you do for granted, so you need an outside perspective to help you hone in on what works versus what doesn’t.

A coach gives you this, forcing you to think beyond your current business so you can figure out the “right” one (getting rid of everything else and focussing only on what you need to).

5. You need accountability to create systems

So why else hire a business coach?

Accountability.

When I speak to highly successful business owners, I often find they weren’t the most talented kids in school. Most of them weren’t considered the hardest working students, yet today they own massive companies that have a huge impact on the world.

I struggled to make sense of this for a long time.
Surely the most talented people come out on top… right?

Not always!

What I’ve found is, success doesn’t come down to being smarter than everyone else (or working harder than them), it’s about working smarter.

And “smart working” centers around two things:

Observation (looking for lessons in everything)
Application (actually applying what you learn)

Successful business owners appreciate they won’t get everything right. They know they will make mistakes and fail, and they know they can’t be the smartest person in the room all the time.

So instead of trying to be the smartest, they commit to working SMARTER.

So how does working smart translate in business?

SYSTEMS!

Dialing in your systems is another major benefit of business coaching. Your business needs to work like a machine where each piece of it runs as part of a system. It needs to run smoothly and efficiently, allowing each aspect of it (and the people inside it) to do their job with as little friction as possible.

Take one of the most impressive systems of all time….

McDonald’s.

This multi multi-billion dollar company runs like clockwork each day, despite having a team of teenagers who get paid $15 an hour doing most of the work. How is this possible?

Simple… they have a system.

Everything is mapped out, tested, backed by data, simplified, analyzed and more…

This is how McDonald’s grew into one of the most powerful businesses of all time. They started with a simple system and built on this over the years. So… can you do the same?

Yes.
You can! (And you should.)

It doesn’t matter what your business is or what industry you’re in. Start with a single system, and add a new one step by step. Constantly search for bottlenecks and ways to improve, and when you find one… systemize it.

Do how do you mold your business into a McDonald’s?

Answer the simple question: Do you do it more than once?

If the answer is yes, it needs a system.

Hiring a business coach gives you insights on where the key bottlenecks are that you need to be removed from, but more importantly, they hold you accountable to build these systems.

Because here’s the truth:

As a business owner, you’re busy.
As a business owner, you don’t report to anyone.
As a business owner, nobody tells you what to do.

This is great.
But at times, it isn’t.

Because often you will keep yourself busy doing the work you do not need to do.

A business coach puts a stop to this.
They help you hone in on what you NEED to do.
And then they make sure you follow through.

We often know what we need to do, but yet we don’t always do it. It comes down to accountability and execution.

Different business coaches bring different skills, ideas and experience to the table, but each one provides you with accountability. You need this. I need it. Every business owner does. Without accountability, you will chase that shiny object or busywork, and you will focus on the ‘could’ instead of the ‘should’.

This is the case whether you’re making 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8-figures. Whatever you do, pay someone to hold you accountable ASAP and that alone will drive your results up.

6. You need guidance on what the “right” path is

There are a million ways to make a million dollars. There are a million businesses you could create. There are a million lives you could live, and a million people you could lead them with.

There are a million paths you could take, but often only one or two you should.

It’s about priority and focus, and a good business coach helps make sure these two things become your strength.

I don’t know about you, but when I work on a new idea I get excited. I dream big, think about everything I can achieve, and am scheming up plans that are way too far in the future instead of focusing on what is right in front of me as the best step.

I was always great at starting things, but following through to completion…. This is a skill I used to lack (to say the least).

I mean, with my first business I planned out how I was going to make $1 million before I even made one dollar. How insane is this? What is the point of thinking about the finish line when you have no idea where the start line is…

Can you relate?
You ever felt like this, or get too far ahead of where you’re at right now?

I’m sure you have, and I won’t lie, this was me for a long time (although I’m happy to say not anymore).

Why?
Simple…

I have a business coach!

A coach gives you an outside perspective. They listen to you and hear your ideas, but because they aren’t invested in them like you are, they stop you in your tracks and keep you accountable.

Forget about the million paths you could take.
Instead, focus on the one or two that will make the biggest impact and drive the real results you want.

The fact your business coach has already been there and done it, gained the experience and traveled further down the path than you helps, but the simple fact they provide an outside perspective is often enough.

On your own, you complicate matters and choose the wrong path, whereas your coach ensures this does not happen. They keep you accountable and focused, working on what you should be doing instead of what you could be doing.

So really, what this entire article boils down to is this important question:

What Will it Cost You to NOT Have a Business Coach?

I struggled with this question for a while, too.

I figured hiring a coach was a luxury…
I tricked myself into thinking only weak entrepreneurs needed one…
I thought I could spend the money elsewhere…
I allowed my ego to do the talking for me, saying ‘my way’ was the right way…

I was wrong, and this held me back for years.

The cost of you not having a business coach is HUGE, because you’re losing out on money every single day you don’t have one – indirect results and opportunity cost. Although worse than the money you lose is the time you throw away.

A coach helps you produce more by focusing on less…
A coach helps you regain precious time you can spend elsewhere (on those you love)…
A coach helps you focus on what your 80/20 is…
A coach helps you escape your own head, ridding you of ‘imposter syndrome’…
A coach helps you do the work, instead of creating an idea and forgetting about it…
A coach helps you create the right business model, you need to get big results quickly…
A coach help you simplify so you can work ‘on’ your business instead of ‘in’ it…
A coach keeps you ACCOUNTABLE at all times…

Can you do this on your own? Maybe. I’m sure some people have, even though I’ve never met one.

Those I know and admire involve other people in their journey and the moment I started to do this is when I turned my hit-and-miss businesses into exponential growth machines.

I don’t know where you are right now and how well you can relate to this. Some of the people reading will not get it, and that’s fine because it takes time to appreciate how important all this is. It’s hard to let go of doing it all yourself. But some of you will get it, and because you’ve made it this far chances are you are one of them.

If so, let me congratulate you because being aware of this WILL change your life.
But awareness only takes you so far.

Action is what separates the best from the rest.

We created 2X and our 90-day hands-on coaching program for business owners like you. Ones that are ready to escape the hamster wheel and start scaling a business without more hours.

If you’re ready to take action and double your business over the next 90 days — as well as regaining dozens of hours each week so you’re no longer an employee of your own business — I’d like to invite you to let us help you on this journey…

In recent months we’ve helped ambitious business owners like yourself:

Increase revenue by 83% in a single month…
Go from working 70 hours a week to 20-30 hours per week (while earning more)…
Double their previous month’s income in a single day…

Most important, we’ve helped many business owners remove themselves as the bottleneck in their business, regain their time and control, and start to scale a business without more hours, more stress and more pure grit.

If you think you’re ready for results like this and you finally want to escape the hamster wheel you’re trapped in, click the button below to apply to work with us and see if you’re a good fit.

It’s time to own your business, not let it own you.
We’re here to help.