The start out journey for entrepreneurs is a minefield in many areas. As an entrepreneur you need an overall view of what business is about if you wish to make a success of it. All our statistics however tell us that the majority of entrepreneurs in South Africa start their journey born out of necessity.
The challenges this approach brings are:
Skill at one level such as creation or manufacturing or selling, does not necessarily translate to skill in another.
Due to the nature of entrepreneurship, when an entrepreneur is in delivery mode there is no time to concentrate on sales.
The same challenge applies to admin and planning, this always comes second to the job at hand.
The culmination of these circumstances leads to entrepreneurs who are able to survive for a few months and then find themselves in a whirlpool of activity to ensure future survival but simultaneously doing so under stress and pressure from creditors, family who are being less supportive and the gnawing feeling that this chosen journey may have been a mistake.
Add to that the entrepreneurs state of mind should they suffer from anxiety and PTSD and you have a recipe for failure.
Coaching helps the entrepreneur to keep on track, to keep the balance, to focus on the important goals and specifically to keep their mental, emotional and physical state aligned as leaders of their enterprise, ensuring a balance that optimises output and production.
Business coaching brings with it the advantage of enabling the entrepreneur to break through blockages they may have regarding compliance, stepping out of comfort zones, growth, fear of success or failure.
Coaching conversations leaves the coachee feeling motivated, focused and more confident that they know what to do in the next few weeks to overcome any potential hurdles they will encounter. It improves the resilience or bounce-back as such of an entrepreneur who can often find themselves feeling as if it is them against the world.
The Harvard School of Business report:
Studies over the last ten years report the following return on investment (ROI) from coaching: Companies that offer training alone experience 22.4% increase in productivity, but when combined with coaching that figure rises to 88%.
It thus seems a logical conclusion that the only way to create a sustainable change for the 52% of impoverished women in South Africa is to ensure that we create real sustainable opportunities.
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