What is small business startup coaching? 

What does it look like? What will I get out of it?

How do I know if I need it? 

What’s the difference between coaching and consulting? 

These are some of the more common questions I hear.

The main difference between coaching and consulting is that coaching pulls out answers from the client while consulting tells the client what to do.

Say you’re learning how to ride a bike. A consultant would ride the bike for a while and write you a “how to” manual. A coach would have you get on the bike and walk alongside you, guiding you through the process until you felt confident enough to ride on your own.

A consultant is usually an SME, a subject matter expert who can provide technical and professional advice to clients based on their situation. A coach, however, helps clients find their own clarity and answers, and helps them to understand how to move forward in achieving their goals and grow personally.

When you coach, you explore possibilities. When you consult, you provide possibilities.

Developing clients to build to their potential is more an act of coaching.

Technical and subject matter expertise is expected from a consultant.

My approach may be a little different than some other coaches. Yes, I call myself a small business startup coach, but at the same time, I can shift gears a little and slip into a consulting role. Yes, a coach walks along side you and a consultant can tell you how to do something, but my approach is to do a bit of both. There are times when I can offer suggestions on what you may want to do but then there are also times when you’ll need a bit more help because you may not know what to do. And that’s ok… I’m here to help either way.   

Startup Business Coaching Services

We all start our businesses wanting to do something we love. But, most business owners realize after starting their business that it’s less about doing something they love and more about promoting their business, getting clients in the door, and managing people.

What starts as a dream can quickly turn into a demanding 80 hour per week nightmare that drains your bank account, your energy and your confidence.

Sound familiar?

Business owners can be amazing at their profession, but figuring out the business side can be challenging, especially for startups. 

Our coaching sessions are confidential and private, so there is no need to worry about other people learning proprietary or confidential information about you, your employees or your business finances.

You determine the intensity. If you need to keep costs down and/or want to go slow, you can start with as little as two hours a month. I wouldn’t recommend anything less than that. If you feel you need more help, you can increase to four hours a month.

Unlike some other coaching programs, I don’t have a canned set of ‘coaching talking points’.  I won’t force you into a rigid system.

Each one-on-one coaching session is specific to your needs. Based on where you’re at and what you need help with, we’ll discuss some solutions and possible scenarios that would work for you and your budget.  

Some of the Benefits of Business Coaching would be…

• Affordable rates

• Sessions are one-on-one

• No long-term contract required

• Our sessions can be twice a month or once a week

• We can also continue the conversation by email where I can send resources to you as needed.

If you’re serious about starting a small business, and think business coaching might be a good fit for you, contact me today.

Startups typically contact me for clarity on topics like:

• Should I start a business?

• What business model should I follow

• What market should I be in?

• Will my idea work?

• Can you help me with a business plan?

• What about a marketing plan?

• What kind of website should I have? A do it yourselfer, or to have someone create it for me?

Starting a small business is no easy feat. There’s a number of milestones along the process of starting a business and priming it for long-term success. Each of them requires different strategies, approaches, and resources to keep things moving along. More often than not, you’ll have to learn to pivot and change course if plan A doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would. You might find that you need a second opinion.

This is where having a small business coach comes in handy. A small business coach can help you develop your business plan before launch and keep your ducks in order when you’re starting up. 

Every company’s journey is different, but these are some of the more common issues that people face along the way.

Did this help? Let me know. You can go to tomclairmont.com or send me an email at tom@tomclairmont.com.  There, you’ll see I’ve separated the startup process into three phases:

• The Dream phase

• The Planning phase

• The Execute phase

In the ‘Dream’ phase, we’ll first discuss:

• Your ‘Why’ and why you want to start a business. What is your motivation? 

• We’ll then brainstorm your idea and discuss which business model would be best for you and which market to be in based on current trends. 

• We’ll also test your idea to see if it lands in the ‘sweet spot’ for profitability. And then 

• Help you make the final decision on launching your business. 

In the ‘Planning’ phase, we’ll go over things like:

• The business plan

• Marketing plan

• Sales plan for ‘the Pitch’, the ‘Product’ and ‘the Price’ of your product or service. 

In the Execute Phase, we’ll go over things like:

• Processes

• Planning, mapping and assigning tasks

• Operations, and dealing with the ‘who’, the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ with all that needs to be done in running your business

• And then we’ll do ‘The Launch’ part, the final part, on when and how to launch. 

As you can see, there’s a lot to do and discuss. If you have a 30 day launch plan, we’ll need to get to work fast and cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. 

If you have a 60-90 day plan, we can have a bit more time to go through the same topics but the pace won’t be like a sprint but more of a run. 

If you’re just thinking about thinking about being an entrepreneur, we can still cover all or most of these things in a more casual conversation and pace. Either way, we’ll work together to see what works for you.