How an Online Business Coach Can Help You Scale Faster (Without Burnout)

Business coachingSmall Business TipsEntrepreneurshipRevenue and growthMindsetFinancial GrowthRevenue Optimization
Written By Hanneke Antonelli

If you’ve landed here, I’m guessing you’re an ambitious entrepreneur who has a deep desire to scale, and you are also not sure how to do that without working longer hours. Rest assured, you’ve come to the right place!

Hello there, I’m Hanneke Antonelli. I’m an award-winning entrepreneur and have been an online business coach for over a decade. In that time, I’ve helped many small business owners scale their companies, helping them overcome burnout, and experience more joy and freedom.

In this article, I’ll share a few insights on how you can scale without burnout!  We’ll also cover the following: 

1. Why Scaling Your Business Feels Overwhelming (and How to Fix It)

Let me guess: when you first started your business, it was just you. Since that day, you’ve grown your company quite a bit bigger, and now you’ve hit a plateau. How do I know this? Because that’s where most of my clients are when they start working with me.

And things usually start feeling overwhelming right around the time when doing things the way you’ve always done them no longer gives you the results you desire. And all of a sudden, you experience a slew of struggles.

  • Here are a few struggles that most entrepreneurs experience while growing:

  • delegation, management, and hiring

  • creating procedures and formalized systems 

  • finding additional time to focus and implement growth plans 

  • doubts and fears about failing, taking on more responsibility, or having to work even longer hours

  • staying focused and accountable

All of the above are the everyday challenges that keep entrepreneurs from scaling their businesses faster and tend to have a huge impact on their bottom line and mental health.

  • Why doing it alone leads to burnout and slow progress

Small business owners are some of the toughest, most resilient, and brilliant-minded folks I’ve ever met. They have serious grit and tenacity and sometimes it’s these very same qualities that slow them down.

Small business owners are used to facing complex challenges, and figuring it out alone - and very often, they have deep-rooted beliefs that they should be able to just figure it out.

This belief slows down the business owners’ progress, and also chips away at their confidence and motivation. 

When an entrepreneur goes at things alone, they miss out on: 

  • valuable shortcuts and proven strategies that can save time and money 

  • support and expertise that stop them from overworking and burning out

The sooner an entrepreneur can get in the habit of asking for help, and hiring experts to come in and do some of the heavy lifting for them, the quicker they’ll scale, and the more joy they’ll experience in their company.

Online business coaches are excellent partners who can assist business owners while continuing to honor the entrepreneur’s ideals and vision for their company.

2. What Does an Online Business Coach Actually Do?

In the online world, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what an online business coach can help a business owner with. The word coach has become quite a fad, and is often misused to describe something completely different. 

So, if you’re finding yourself confused as well, I completely get why, and I’d encourage you to also read my article: “The Difference Between Coaching, Teaching, And Consulting (And When You Need What)”

  • The role a business coach plays in strategy, systems, and mindset

    As a result of the online world, a lot of people think that business coaches only help clients get more clients. However, experienced and trained business coaches do much more than that.

    A qualified business coach will help an entrepreneur: 

  • create a bespoke strategy to grow their client base

  • add new highly profitable revenue streams

  • hire the right people

  • create scalable systems in all areas of the business

  • shift into a growth mindset that’s focused on expansion, and keeps fear and doubts from holding them back

  • How coaching provides clarity, accountability, and expert guidance

    A trained and experienced online business coach uses their extensive coaching skills to listen to a client on multiple levels. They are trained to pick up on much more than just what the client is saying, and by using that knowledge, they can lead the client to extreme clarity about their easiest path to sustainable growth.

    By deeply understanding the business owner’s personal and professional goals, an experienced business coach is able to provide expert guidance that results in easier and faster growth - without burnout. 

    The coach then acts as a radical accountability partner, keeping the business owner laser-focused and taking action toward their desired outcomes - addressing challenges and fears immediately as they come up. 

    By using these exact methods, I recently helped a client go from total burnout and ready to sell their company for peanuts to scaling the business without their constant involvement.

3. The Key Benefits of Working with an Online Business Coach

When you work with a qualified business coach, you’ll experience the following benefits:

  • Faster decision-making and strategic growth

    In co-creative sessions with clients, trained business coaches use their listening and coaching skills to help the client overcome fear and doubt faster, which enables the client to quickly make decisions that lead to better outcomes.

    By addressing and overcoming those deeply rooted fears and doubts, the coach is then able to help the client focus on more constructive and strategic growth plans that accelerate growth.

    The online business coach also uses their business expertise and experience to provide the client with expert advice and proven growth strategies.

    The combination of helping the client access their unique brilliance, and the business coach’s proven business expertise leads to faster growth and results.

  • Streamlining operations to free up your time

    As a seasoned business coach, I offer my clients templates and swipe files that they can quickly adjust and update, and then implement in their companies.

    Getting all that valuable information out of the business owners’ minds and onto paper immediately means that we can start better training and hiring strategies that lead to ownership-thinking teams. This frees up lots of time for both the business owner and support staff.

  • Increasing revenue while reducing stress

    The above steps help me to free up my clients’ bandwidth. Once entrepreneurs can shift their focus from the day-to-day and onto those higher-level growth ideas and strategies they’ve had for years but never had the time to implement, we’re quickly able to spot higher-revenue opportunities for the business owner.

    More time freedom also means the client has time to take up hobbies, and focus on other activities that naturally help them reduce stress.

    But also – because the business owner has an equal business partner when they enlist the help of a business coach, it alleviates a lot of the pressure they previously experienced. The entrepreneurs no longer have to go at it alone.

    This is also the very reason why quite a few of my clients have decided to permanently have me be part of their expert and support team.

4. How Coaching Helps Small Business Owners Avoid Burnout While Scaling

  • Creating a growth plan that aligns with your desired lifestyle

    As a trained business coach, I possess the skills to help my clients align their goals for their lives with those of their businesses. And once you align those two, it becomes much easier to spot growth opportunities. 

  • Prioritizing tasks and eliminating unnecessary workload

    This one is a big one. Entrepreneurs have brilliant minds – and even more brilliant ideas. Very often, they will have too many ideas, which pulls them in very different directions. This creates a problem for staff by overtaxing or confusing them, and leads to the business owner feeling more overwhelmed and overworked all the time.

    And that’s why I love my initial onboarding kick-off session with my clients. In this session, I’m able to guide them quickly to clarity on what will lead to the fastest growth and distinguish their most profitable ideas and actions. 

    From there, I’ll help them to create a focused and actionable plan that they can immediately start implementing. 

    That’s exactly how Kristin Chambers, CEO and founder of TRAVELLUSTRE, felt after her one-off session with me right at the beginning of the pandemic. 

    “I left the session with enhanced confidence and clearly defined action items that my team and I started implementing the very next day. Thank you, Hanneke.”

  • Leadership development and a clear hiring and delegation strategy

    Most entrepreneurs did not go to business or leadership school, and therefore, leading and delegating tasks to others may not come naturally to them.

    While working with me, I help my clients to clearly define their leadership style and create a tailored plan to help them step into their role as the leader and visionary of their company.

    Through this process, we also identify what skills are missing to realize growth, what duties need to be outsourced to free up more time for the business owner, and what positions need to be created and filled.

5. Real Success Stories: How Entrepreneurs Scaled Faster with a Coach

  • Case studies of business owners who experienced massive growth

    Read how Janice scaled her company to a million during the pandemic with my help and what has transpired for her since.

    “I’ve worked with Hanneke to grow from a team of six to 66... from Boston to eight top markets in the US. She’s fantastic!” ~Janice Cart, Founder and CEO of Tiny Spoon Chef

    Discover how I helped Brian Milaukas increase his business’ revenue by 150% in just 18 months.

    “If it wasn’t for the work that we’ve done together over the last two years, my business wouldn’t have been able to survive COVID. Because of Hanneke’s coaching, I’m able to weather the storm, and I’m excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.” ~-Brain Milauskas, Owner Of Kidstock! Theater

  • Real results that clients experienced during online business coaching with Hanneke Antonelli:

  • increased revenue (some doubled or even 12 Xed their businesses)

  • working four-hour workdays

  • hiring rockstar staff

  • better delegation strategies

  • formalizing business operating procedures

  • building a more ownership-thinking team

  • stepping out of the day-to-day

6. How to Find the Right Business Coach For You

  • What to look for in a coach

    Not all coaches are created equal, and it’s very important to properly vet folks before you decide to work with them by: 

    • checking out their credentials and experience 

    • speaking with previous clients about their results

    • interviewing the business coach to ensure you have a good rapport, and that you trust them

      For more information about hiring the best coach, you can also check out this article: How to Hire the Best Coach.

  • Questions to ask before hiring a coach

    Before you hop on a call with a coach, you should get very clear on what it is that you want the individual to help you accomplish, and what qualities and experience you would like that person to have.

    These articles will further help ensure that you hire the right business coach for you: 

7. Ready to Scale? Your Next Steps to Working with an Online Business Coach

  • How to get started with coaching

    If you’re looking to start working with a coach straight away, I’m here to help you scale your business while creating more freedom. You can click here to book a complimentary consultation with me.

    If you want to use a local coach to you, look into your local Chamber of Commerce or ask for suggestions in local Facebook groups. 

  • Ways to maximize the value of coaching sessions

    Coaching isn’t a magic wand, and therefore, it’s vital that you ensure that you are committed to doing the work, and putting in the time it will take to create the change you want to see.

    Clients who see the best results are those who:

    • show up prepared and focused for coaching calls

    • do their homework between sessions

    • implement the insights and strategies discussed during sessions

    • are ready to create change

      I hope you enjoyed this article!

8. How Can We Work Together?

Here are a few more ways you can get more support from me to become the best entrepreneur you can be:

Hanneke Antonelli
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Top 5 Signs an Online Business Coach Can Help You Reach the Next Level