For a long time, Dori Thornhill suspected that she was just too nice. Instead of nurturing large clients that could afford to pay what was necessary to get the job done, the president and owner of TSH Marketing Group, a consulting firm in Austin, Texas, found herself squandering dozens of hours “doing a lot of work for small companies that just didn’t have the budget for what they wanted to do.” That was until Kathie Bolles came along. After meeting Bolles at a networking luncheon this year, Thornhill decided that Belles and her Austin firm, Coach-Success, could provide Thronhill’s business a sort of “therapy”--a type of self-inflicted kick in the pants that would help her eliminate her bad business habits. For $400 a month, bolles began having weekly half-hour phone sessions with Thornhill about the latter’s management style. Bolles also sent encouragement to Thornhill via frequent electronic-mail messages. Soon, Thornhill says, “I wasn’t getting sidetracked” trying to help clients that had inadequate budgets. “We had a lot of conversations about ‘What do you really need to be doing right now?’” recalls Bolles, who also is a registered nurse and a licensed psychotherapist. The assistance provided by Bolles went beyond pure business advice. Segueing into Thornhill’s hectic personal life as well, Bolles recommended that the entrepreneur, wife, and mother had off some of her nonbusiness obligations. “So I hired a maid and gave management of our rental property to my husband; he’s better at it than I am anyway,” Thornhill says. Thornhill and Bolles are part of the quickly growing wave of “coaching” relationships that are helping small-business owners improve their business skills, recalibrate their approaches to management, and, often, totally reboot and rebalance themselves as leaders on the job and in the home and community. Industry participants estimate that there are more than 5,000 people who label themselves “coaches”; as recently as two years ago, there were about 2,000. Business coaches can be many things: adviser, motivator, sounding board, and, indeed, therapist. “The relationship evolves over time based on the client’s agenda,” says Rich Fettke, a small-business coach in Lafayette, Calif. Although many big-company executives retain coaches, small-business people may be the ones most in need of such help. Jeff Raim, president of the International Coach Federation (ICF), based in Angel Fire, N.M., says: “There’s no one for the small-business owner to draw wisdom from in his structure, and getting it all from experience can be very expensive and time-consuming. In that sort of arena, a good coach can be very valuable.” Raim has owned several businesses and works exclusively with entrepreneurs. It’s easy to be skeptical about coaching. Even many of its practitioners don’t seem to know exactly how to define it. Few academics have studied it. The name’s allusion to the athletic world evokes images of detached exhortation, while on the opposite extreme it may seem touchy-feely and overly personal. And as with any relationship that depends on the dynamics between two people, coaching can go awry. But a clearer definition of coaching is emerging. It’s more than consulting, which generally is a finite arrangement confined to business practices. And it’s different from mentoring, which almost always involves someone with a good deal of experience in a position similar to that of the person whom the mentor is advising. “We’re focusing more on the person than on just the job, and on who they are rather than just what they want to accomplish,” says John Seiffer, a coach in Bether, Conn. Coaching also is becoming more formally professionalized. For example, in September the ICF began distributing new standards to establish a credentialing process for coaches. Most of those who have received coaching say they benefited from it. In a recent ICF poll of 210 clients, for example, 70 percent said they found their coaching percent said they found their coaching “very valuable” and 28 percent thought it was “valuable.” Thumbnail sketches of five such relationships reveal some of the things that business owners like about coaching: Richard Westlake And Ron Ernst Home builder Richard Westlake, co-owner of Hansen & Horn Group Inc. in Indianapolis, appreciates the fact that his coach, Ron Ernst, “forces me to go the extra step or two” when making key decisions. For example, the 44-year-old Westlake recently was about to hire a vice president of operations for his 35-employee, $20 million company. In the past, he typically would have settled on one of the two candidates that his customary recruiting process came up with. But Ernst, president of Indianapolis-based Leadership Horizons, “wasn’t satisfied with these guys because he’d worked with me and felt that neither of these people really would be compatible with my personality,” Westlake says. “So he had me take a couple of extra weeks, talk to recruiting companies, do some more networking, and even take out a newspaper ad, which I hadn’t intended to do. It generated another 25 resumes, and I ended up hiring just the right individual--which I wouldn’t have done without Ron.” Westlake also believes that Ernst’s guidance has helped him achieve a major business objective that he otherwise wouldn’t have reached: diversifying into construction of retiree housing. “He kept me focused by continually asking me, ’Rich, what do you want to do?’ not ’What can you do?’ And now there are bulldozers out there moving dirt for our first senior condominium.” Joe Reilly And Mary Sickel Since early this year, Joe Reilly, owner of Payroll Control systems in Plymouth, Minn., has been coached by Mary Sickel, owner of Visionary Growth Resources in Lakeville, Minn. One of her first successes was helping Reilly delegate big tasks that didn’t require his direct involvement, such as converting all the company’s systems to electronic tax filing and deciding which personal computers and other technology to buy. “I have people who were really good at that, and [Sickel] pointed that out to me,” says Reilly, 55, whose three-year-old company has six employees and generated revenues in the high six figures last year. “So I turned all that over to my general manager, Bob Wessel, and he loved it.” Sickel burrowed further into Reilly’s relationship with Wessel and found out that his right-hand man was a new father and might be looking for a little relaxation. Reilly had won a free stay at a local Marriott hotel at a golf outing, and Sickel suggested that Reilly offer it to Wessel. This simple, easy gesture, which Reilly had been too busy to consider, scored big points for him with Wessel.		Frequently Tackled Problems Sandy Vilas, president of Coach U Inc. in Steamboat Springs, Colo., has identified six common problems that coaches help entreprenuers address: 1. Handling the wrong tasks. “If you take a look at how most entrepreneurs spend their time,” Vilas says, you’ll find that “they’re doing stuff on a daily basis that often doesn’t support the mission of the company. “What are they doing entering checks into [an accounting software program] on a daily basis, for example, when that should be the job of a $25-an-hour bookkeeper?” The key for entrepreneurs is to stick to what they do best and delegate the rest of the load but not abdicate it. if a business owner is great at sales, Vilas says, he or she shouldn’t be doing administrative tasks. “They need to be out on the street.” 2. A lack of balance. “They market, market, market, then deliver, deliver, deliver, and then they have to go market again because they’ve been so busy,” says Vilas. “They don’t have a system in place to keep the balance between marketing and delivering.” 3. Playing the Lone Ranger. “They think they have to be experts at everything and they have to do everything on their own because their parents told them if they wanted the job done right, just do it themselves. They need to be able to delegate, let go, and trust.” 4. Misinterpreting the source of problems. “Usually [problems] stem from personal-foundation issues” rather than just business concerns per se, Vilas says. Coaches can help entrepreneurs get their personal lives in order, which can go a long way toward solving what may have looked like purely business problems. 5. Forgoing buffers. “If an entrepreneur doesn’t have a reserve of time, space, energy, love, money, and opportunity, they’re going to have problems,” says Vilas. One of an entrepreneur’s focuses in a coaching relationship should be building these reserves. 6. Allowing life to get too complex. Entrepreneurs sometimes just need “to simplify and yet diversify their lives. It’s not all about just working longer and making more or just working smarter,” says Vilas. “Someone living a balanced life, with interests outside the business as well, can be more effective at running a business.”
		Lesley Delgado And Bill Pinkerton Although Lesley Delgado had started her temporary-placement service six years ago, she had procrastinated on writing training manuals for three important jobs in the company. As a result, the training that employees received was inadequate. After only three months of coaching by Bill Pinkerton, Delgado completed the manuals. “People have a tendency to put things off that [they] really don’t want to do,” says Delgado, 35, who owns Staff pro America in Southfield, Mich. Pinkerton “has made me look at myself and the negative sides, and how they may be impacting my staff.” Pinkerton also has helped Delgado be more considerate of whether employees are understanding her directives. “I’m more deliberate now, adjusting my style to them so they can comprehend the message I’m trying to deliver.” Pinkerton, 56, is a former AT&T Co. executive who heads VV Inc. in West Bloomfield, Mich. He says that what makes coaching worthwhile are the moments when clients break through to a new level of understanding. “Three out of five sessions we make great progress,” he says, “and many times just one idea will make it worth the time for them.” Nick Seamon And John Seiffer Nick Seamon’s deli and catering business in Amherst, Mass., the Black Sheep, has survived ups and downs, including a filing in bankruptcy court a few years ago. Now with about 40 employees and revenues of $1.2 million in 1997, Seamon’s biggest problem is managing growth. That’s where John Seiffer has been a boon. He helped Seamon understand that he must emphasize the catering side of his business--in part because the store simply doesn’t have much more space for additional merchandise or customers. Seiffer also persuaded Seamon to undertake weekly cash-flow planning and to assign his catering manager to do it. “Now we know whether we can spend money or not,” Seamon says. Over a period of months, Seiffer made Seamon realize that he needed to stop working the deli floor so much. Seamon says Seiffer told him repeatedly: “you’re much more valuable doing strategic stuff, because with one good decision a week you can make up all the money spent on any extra help.” Over a period of months, Seiffer made Seamon realize that he needed to stop working the deli floor so much. Seamon says Seiffer told him repeatedly: “you’re much more valuable doing strategic stuff, because with one good decision a week you can make up all the money spent on any extra help.” Says Seamon: “He finally won.” Mitch Vigveno And Jeff Raim Mitch Vigveno owns Turning Point Inc., a Clearwater, Fla., recruiting firm specializing in finance professionals. “As a small-business owner, we’re not accountable to anyone else,” he says. Jeff Raim help Vigveno on a variety of fronts, ranging from simple tips on how to assemble and stick to a master to-do list to how to plan for diversification. “The weekly phone calls have helped keep me aware of the need for balance and to be more forgiving of myself when things don’t happen the way I want them to,” Vigveno says. Such counsel also slides over comfortably to Vigveno’s personal life, which turned disastrous four years ago--before he founded the business. After he left his job, he says, “my wife left me. Jeff helps me focus on the spiritual side of myself as well.” Still, Vigveno expresses dissatisfaction with one aspect of coaching, one that is a staple of nearly all coaching relationships--it occurs mostly over the phone. “I’d get much more out of it if I were sitting face to face with Jeff every two weeks.” How can you help build the kind of coaching relationship you want, whether it’s via phone or face to face? Here are eight tips: 1. Be ready to stretch. More than anything else, having a coach will unsettle the entrepreneur--which is usually the whole idea. “We ask them powerful questions to get them to self-discover what they’re going to do,” says Sickel of Visionary Growth Resources.		Prepare for coaching directives such as setting priorities and restoring balance. Says Sickel: “Entrepreneurs typically have so many ideas that they can’t possibly make them all happen at the same time. We help them focus and get things done.” 2. Reckon with accountability. This is perhaps the most essential element of a coaching relationship. “most CEOs of closely held businesses have zero accountability other than maybe to the bank,” says Westlake, the Indianapolis home builder. You should have an agreement from the start about the specific meaning of accountability. Some coaches come right out and say that they’re giving their clients someone to be accountable to; others insist that they only help clients be more accountable to themselves. Some clients allow coaches to set up a structure that encourages accountability, such as being “fined” for failing to perform an agreed-upon task. The fine might involve having the business owner make a donation to a group he doesn’t like. “You can waste a lot of money if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do in between sessions,” Vigveno says. 3. Check references. Before you select a coach, make sure you check the person’s background, references, and approach, advises Jane Applegate, a syndicated small-business columnist and owner of The Applegate Group, a multimedia-communications firm in Pelham, N.Y. Most coaches conduct a complimentary two or three-hour initial session in which they try to understand their potential client and allow him or her to understand them, both parties usually can tell right away if there’s going to be a match. “Auditioning” three coaches in such sessions is becoming the norm. “In general, the best coaching is going to come from someone who knows the game from the inside, who’s been in the arena, who’s fought the battles and can tell other people what to do,” says Jack Roseman, a professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Some argue that the best coaches are those who specialize in helping owners in a particular genre, such as accounting, health care, or manufacturing. Applegate, however, says that in her opinion some of the best coaches are psychologists who have little or no business background or perhaps have owned a business but don’t know anything about the client’s industry. 4. Establish a fee structure. The staple of most coaching relationships is a weekly half-hour or 45-minute phone conversation, supplemented with impromptu phone availability, e-mail messages, quarterly bull sessions, and other points of contact. Typical fees range from $250 to $500 a month. 5. Decide where to draw the line. In the poll conducted by the International Coach Federation, half of the respondents said they confide in their coaches as much as they do in their best friends, spouses, or therapists. Twelve percent said they confide in their coaches more than they do in anyone else. Applegate, for example, became friends with her coach and his family and stopped using him as a coach. And Seiffer invested in Seamon’s company and is compensated with dividend checks rather than direct fees. On the other hand, Delgado, the temp-service owner, eagerly has expanded the services of her coach, Pinkerton, into her personal life. “I’m what drives my business, and how successful I am as a total person drives that,” explains Delgado. “When I’m happy, everyone’s happy.” Says Pinkerton: “Coaching has to do with the whole person. We’re talking about establishing personal as well as professional goals. It’s difficult to separate the two.” 7. Play the endgame. Coaching relationships often naturally outlive their usefulness after a couple of years or so, and you should discuss that possibility upfront with your coach. Ernst, for example, says that coaching “happens over a period of time” and assumes a “weekly rhythm,” but he requires only a 90-day commitment from his clients. “At that point,” he says, “we’ll both know if you’re getting any value out of it.” 8. Don’t be afraid to sack a bad coach. You can tell if you’re not getting the results you want or if your quality of life hasn’t improved since being in the relationship. If that’s the case, go ahead and sever the ties. Thornhill, the Texas-based marketing consultant