What makes a business coach legitimate?
A business coach is legitimate when she has produced the outcome you want, in a business shaped like yours, recently enough to still be true. Everything else people check is weaker than it looks.
| Signal | What it tells you |
|---|
| A coaching certification | She completed a training program. Useful, and close to universal |
| A large following | She is good at content. It says nothing about her sales results |
| Named clients | Someone paid her. Ask what changed for them |
| Her own sales record | Whether she can do the thing she's teaching |
| Clients like you | Whether her method survives contact with your kind of sale |
The International Coaching Federation surveyed 14,591 coaches across 157 countries and found 85% now hold a credential from a coaching organization, up from 69% in 2015, with 80% saying clients expect one (2023 ICF Global Coaching Study, Executive Summary). Read that carefully. A credential has become the norm, which means it no longer distinguishes anyone. It's a floor, and floors aren't reasons to hire.
Should I take business development advice from someone in my network?
Take it carefully, because advice from your network arrives with a trust discount you didn't apply on purpose. You believe it more because you like the person, and the closer the source, the harder it is to question.
That's worth naming plainly. Friendliness is not expertise. Someone can be generous, smart, successful in her own business, and still be doing the parts you're asking about badly. Most consultants and business owners are mispricing, undercharging, and following up badly, which is the whole reason my business exists. That's also why figuring it out from the people around you takes longer than it looks.
I hear a version of this constantly: "someone with a huge business told me to do this." Sometimes I have to say the advice is still wrong. A big business is evidence that someone did something right. It says nothing about whether they did this right, or whether it transfers to you.
Two questions that make network advice usable:
- "When did you last do this yourself?" Advice ages, and sales advice from eight years ago wasn't formed in this market.
- "What was the situation?" If it doesn't match yours in size, kind of client, and length of sale, treat it as one data point.
What questions should I ask before hiring a business coach?
Ask questions that are hard to answer with philosophy, because the fluent generalist and the person who has done it sound identical until you ask for specifics.
Five that work, in order:
- "What have you personally sold, to whom, and at what size?" You want numbers and situations. Vagueness here is the answer.
- "Who do you work with, and who do you turn away?" Someone with a real specialty can name both quickly, and someone without one can't.
- "Walk me through a client whose situation looked like mine." Listen for whether the story has friction in it. Real ones do.
- "What happens when I'm stuck mid-deal on a Thursday?" This is where a program and a library of materials separate.
- "What do you think is going wrong in my business?" The best answer is a question back, because they can't know yet.
How to score it: you're listening for specificity and for pushback. Somebody who agrees with everything you say in a first conversation will agree with everything you say later, which is worth nothing when you need to be told you're wrong.
What are the warning signs of a bad business coach?
The clearest warning sign is a coach who agrees with everything you say, because your problem is that you can't yet tell good advice from bad, and an adviser who never pushes back leaves you exactly where you started.
Others worth walking away from:
- A guaranteed result. Nobody can guarantee what your clients'll do, because they don't control them.
- Pressure and deadlines on the decision. How someone sells to you is a preview of how they'll teach you to sell.
- Testimonials with no business in them. Look for what someone's revenue or client mix did. "Life-changing" tells you nothing about whether she can help you get clients.
- One tactic for everyone. If the answer to every situation is the same channel or the same script, you're buying a product with a person attached.
- No pushback in the first conversation. See above; this is the big one.
- A method that only fixes one piece. A rebrand, a website, a LinkedIn overhaul. One fixed piece is not a smaller version of the solution, and the pieces only pay off once they work together.
- Credentials as the whole answer. When "I'm certified" is the strongest claim available, ask what else there is.
Does a business coach need to have run my kind of business?
A business coach needs to have run your kind of sale, which is a narrower and more useful test than your kind of business.
Business development for a B2B consulting business has specific mechanics: several decision-makers, a cycle running three to eighteen months, a champion who has to sell you internally, and a proposal that lands when you're not in the room. A coach who's only ever sold low-priced products to consumers hasn't worked any of that, however good they are at what they do.
What does not need to match:
What does need to match:
- The size of the sale, because a $2,500 engagement and a $250,000 engagement are different animals.
- Selling to organizations, not to individuals.
- A real process, meaning they can describe the stages rather than talk about mindset.
Leah's take
Real talk: this question is hard because you're being asked to judge expertise in the one area where you don't yet have any. That's the same trap that got you here.
So use the test that doesn't require expertise. Ask what the person has done, and listen for whether the answer has specifics in it. People who have done the thing describe situations, numbers and mistakes. People who have read about the thing describe principles. You can hear the difference without knowing anything about sales, and it's the most reliable instrument you have.
And be careful with the people closest to you. Their advice is the easiest to take and the hardest to question, and generosity is not the same as knowing. When someone tells you what worked for them, the useful follow-up is when they did it and what their situation was. If the answer doesn't sound like your business, treat it as information.
When you're ready to talk about whether the Academy is the right fit, the application is where that conversation starts.
