How to choose a Business Coach in South Africa – 7 Key Questions

How to choose a Business Coach for an established South African business:

What I’d look for, what I’d avoid and the questions I’d ask before trusting someone to help me improve my business.

Choosing a Business Coach is a bigger decision than most owners realise!

If I were looking for a business coach today, knowing what I know after more than 30 years in business, I’d approach the decision quite differently from how I used to consider it.

I hope this helps you make the best decision for you & your business.

To kick-off, as an overarching rule, I’d be careful, very careful.

Reason? The person you’re considering bringing into your business could end up influencing some significant decisions like who you employ, who you let go, how you price, where you invest, how you manage your people and whether you expand, restructure or sell.

Yet, I’ve seen business owners spend more time researching a new company car, than investigating the person they’re about to trust with the future of their business.

I think this is extraordinary!

Particularly when we’re talking about an established South African business with 20, 50, 100 or 500+ employees, millions of rands in annual revenue and a founder who’s spent years, possibly decades, building it.

At this level, you need considerably more than someone who can motivate you, ask interesting questions or introduce you to a collection of business frameworks.

You need someone who understands how businesses actually work. Someone who can identify problems you may have stopped noticing. Someone who understands the relationship between sales, profitability, cash flow, people, systems and leadership.

More importantly, someone who has the confidence to challenge you when you’re heading in the wrong direction.

I’ve been on both sides of these conversations. I’ve built businesses, managed them, experienced some spectacular setbacks, sold 3 businesses, had business coaches in some businesses, didn’t have business coaches in others and now, I work with business owners who are dealing with many of the challenges I’ve experienced myself.

That background has shaped my views on what good business coaching should look like.

So, if you’re considering hiring a business coach (or a business consultant) in South Africa, here’s what I suggest you look for (including a few things which might surprise you):

First, get clear about why you need help:

This sounds obvious but it really isn’t.

I often find that business owners know something isn’t working, but struggle to explain exactly what it is. They’ll tell me:

“We need to grow.”

“Our managers aren’t performing.”

“I’m spending too much time in the business.”

“Our sales should be better.”

“We’re making money, but there’s never enough cash.”

All of these are real, legitimate concerns but they’re also starting points rather than diagnoses. For example, take the business owner who says they “need more sales”. Maybe they do, but what if the real problem is:

Poor conversion?

Or unprofitable customers?

Or weak gross margins?

Or a sales team that’s generating plenty of activity but very few worthwhile opportunities?

Increasing sales without addressing those problems could make the business worse. I’ve seen businesses grow substantially without creating anywhere near the additional profit their owners expected.

That’s why I’d be wary of a coach who starts prescribing solutions before properly understanding the business. 

Start with three questions:

Before interviewing coaches, I’d write down the answers to these:

1. What are the three biggest problems currently affecting the business?
2. What would need to change over the next 12 months for me to consider this engagement successful?
3. What have we already tried, and why hasn’t it worked?

Be specific.

“We want better management” is vague.

“We want our six managers to take ownership of their departments, achieve agreed KPIs and stop escalating routine decisions to the CEO” is something a business coach can work with.

The more clearly you describe the outcome, the easier it becomes to assess whether a prospective coach can help you achieve it.

Would you take business advice from someone who has never run a business?

This is probably where my views differ from those of some people in the coaching profession.

I place massive value on real, practical business experience.

I don’t believe every excellent coach must have owned a business. There are highly skilled executive coaches who bring enormous value through psychology, leadership development, behavioural change and their ability to help people think.

However, when an established business owner is looking for help with profitability, sales performance, operational systems, management structures or scaling a business, I believe practical, commercial experience matters far more.

There’s a massive difference between understanding a business model and having to make payroll, between explaining cash flow and lying awake wondering whether your customers will pay on time, between teaching delegation and discovering that the manager you trusted, has made a very expensive mistake.

I’ve experienced the uncomfortable side of business. I’ve built and sold three companies, including one sold to a JSE listed group, I’ve held senior executive positions, including responsibility for revenue growth in a large private education group.

I’ve also had ventures that didn’t work out, experienced serious business partnership problems and come close enough to financial disaster to understand just how personal business failure can become.

Those experiences haven’t made me infallible. Far from it!  They’ve just made me considerably more careful about the advice I give, because when you’ve lived with the consequences of your own decisions, you develop a different appreciation for risk.

 What I’d ask a prospective business coach:

“Tell me about a business problem you’ve personally had to solve.”

“What was the situation?”

“What did you do?”

“What went wrong?”

“What would you do differently today?”

I’d be very interested in that last question. Anyone can tell you about their successes but I’m often more interested in what people have learned from their mistakes.

A coach who has never made a mistake would concern me and one who cannot acknowledge a mistake would concern me even more.

Your Business Coach must understand the whole business:

An established company is a collection of inter-connected systems.

Sales affects operations,

Operations affects customer satisfaction,

Customer satisfaction affects retention,

Retention affects revenue,

Pricing affects margins,

Margins affect cash generation,

Cash affects your ability to recruit, invest and grow,

and leadership affects virtually all of it.

You can’t sensibly advise an owner on one area without understanding how it affects the others.

For example, consider a company that wants to double its sales. A sales specialist might immediately recommend additional salespeople, more marketing and improved conversion.

They’re all perfectly reasonable possibilities. However, what happens if the business doesn’t have the operational capacity to deliver the additional work? What if every new sale requires substantial working capital? What if the gross margin is too low? What if the management team is already overwhelmed?

I’ve seen enough businesses grow themselves into trouble, to know that growth needs to be examined from multiple angles.

A good business coach should be able to connect the dots. They don’t need to be the world’s leading expert in every discipline, nobody is…but they should understand enough about finance, sales, marketing, management, leadership and business operations to recognise where the real constraints lie.

More importantly, they should know when to bring in a specialist. I’d much rather work with someone who says, “This needs a qualified tax specialist,” than someone who confidently gives advice outside their area of expertise.

The difference between a Business Coach, Consultant and Mentor:

These terms get used interchangeably, which doesn’t make choosing someone any easier. Here’s how I think about them…

A Business Coach

A business coach helps you improve your thinking, decisions, leadership and business performance through structured conversations, challenge, planning and accountability.

The emphasis is on developing you and your business’s ability to perform.

A Business Consultant

A consultant is generally engaged to analyse a defined problem and recommend or implement a solution.

You might appoint a consultant to redesign a sales process, improve operational efficiency or implement a new management reporting system.

A Business Mentor

A mentor usually shares experience and guidance gained from having travelled a similar road. The relationship may be less structured and often focuses on judgement, personal development and navigating unfamiliar situations.

In reality, these roles overlap.

My own work often involves coaching, consulting, mentoring and training, depending on what the business needs.

Sometimes a founder needs someone to challenge their thinking.

Sometimes their management team needs structured training.

Sometimes the company needs a practical sales management system.

Sometimes, the best thing I can do is help the owner recognise that they need an accountant, an attorney or another specialist consultant.

I’d choose the type of support based on the problem, rather than forcing the problem into a particular coaching methodology.

Look for someone who can diagnose before they prescribe:

One of my biggest concerns about the business coaching industry, is the tendency to sell a programme before understanding the problem.

I’ve seen how easily a business conversation can become a presentation about a coaching methodology and very quickly getting into conversations around weekly sessions, quarterly planning, goal setting, accountability, business growth frameworks.

All of these things are extremely valuable, but they’re just tools, not outcomes. When I first engage with a business, I want to understand how the business actually functions.

Where does revenue come from?

How profitable is it?

What happens to cash?

Where are sales opportunities being lost?

How capable are the managers?

How are decisions made?

What systems exist?

What keeps coming back to the founder?

What would happen if the owner disappeared for a month?

These questions reveal a huge amount of the real information we need.

The Six areas I like to check on:

I generally look across six connected areas:

Business mastery: does the owner understand the key numbers, priorities and operating disciplines?

Sales and marketing: can the business consistently attract, convert and retain profitable customers?

Systems: are important activities repeatable, measurable and properly documented?

Team: do people understand their responsibilities, performance expectations and decision authority?

Scale: can the business grow without costs, complexity and problems growing disproportionately?

Freedom: is the business becoming less dependent on the founder, or more dependent?

These areas provide a useful starting point for a business diagnostic. They don’t replace detailed financial analysis or specialist assessments but they really help identify where further investigation is needed.

A Business Coach who can explain the relationship between these areas is likely to be more useful than someone who immediately recommends working harder, selling more or setting bigger goals.

The question I’d ask about accountability:

Here’s a question I’d put to every prospective coach – “What happens when I don’t do what I committed to doing?”

Listen carefully to the answer, because accountability is easy to talk about…it’s much harder to practice.

Most business owners are accustomed to being the person who holds everyone else accountable but don’t like having someone holding them accountable (which, is probably one of the main reasons they started their business in the first place!).

They set the targets.

They review performance.

They challenge missed deadlines.

They deal with underperformance.

However, who’s doing the same for them?

I once asked a CEO a question that led to a fascinating conversation – “Who’s your CEO?” Of course, he didn’t have one.

Yes, many CEOs report to boards or shareholders, but formal reporting doesn’t always provide the personal challenge, practical perspective and consistent follow through that a leader needs.

The higher you climb, the easier it can become to surround yourself with people who are reluctant to disagree with you.

A good business coach should be willing to challenge your assumptions. They should ask why you’ve postponed an important decision, they should question why you’re still personally involved in work your managers should be doing and they should be prepared to tell you when your behaviour is adding to the problem.

If you’re paying someone to agree with you, you’re buying a very expensive audience.

How do you know whether Business Coaching is working?

This is where I’d insist on some discipline. You should agree on measurable outcomes before the business coaching engagement begins.

For an established South African business, those outcomes might include:

• Improving gross profit margin from 28% to 32%.
• Increasing sales conversion from 18% to 24%.
• Reducing overdue debtors.
• Improving management KPI achievement.
• Reducing recurring operational errors.
• Developing managers who can make decisions without constant CEO approval.
• Reducing the owner’s weekly involvement in routine operations.

These are just some examples, not promised results and the targets must be based on the business’s actual starting position and commercial circumstances.

Also, I’d separate the measures into two groups.

1. Business Results

Revenue, profit, margins, cash generation, customer retention and productivity.

These tell you whether the business is improving.

2. Performance Drivers

Sales activity, conversion, management reviews, decision turnaround times, process compliance and accountability.

These tell you whether the behaviours and systems that produce results are improving.

You need both!

If you only measure financial results, you may discover problems too late. If you only measure activities, you may celebrate a lot of work that produces very little commercial benefit.

A good Business Coach should help you connect what people do every day, with the results the business achieves.

How much should a Business Coach cost in South Africa?

This is one of the first questions that business owners ask me and it’s a fair question!

The reality is, there isn’t one standard price for business coaching in South Africa. Fees depend on the coach’s experience, the complexity of the business, the number of people involved, the frequency of meetings and the scope of the engagement.

One person might offer monthly advisory sessions, another might work weekly with the founder and a more involved engagement, could include management training, sales performance improvement, strategic planning and implementation support.

Those are very different services.

In my own practice, coaching engagements have commonly been structured around monthly fees of approximately R15,000 to R30,000 or even over R100,000…it all depends on the scope. In addition, if you join a group of business owners who are on a business coaching journey together, the cost would be far less than this. This is just an illustration of my pricing experience, not a claim about the prevailing South African market rates or a current quotation.

However, I’d be very careful about comparing Business Coaches on price alone.

For example, suppose a business spends R180,000 over a year on coaching.

If the work contributes to a sustainable R500,000+ improvement in annual operating profit, the investment is worth every cent. However,  if nothing changes, even a much smaller fee is extremely expensive.

Of course, improvements cannot automatically be attributed entirely to the Business Coach. Markets change, staff contribute, management executes and many factors influence results.

The point is to evaluate the likely value of the engagement and how it will be measured.

I’d also insist on clarity about the contract.

What is included?

What is excluded?

Who attends the sessions?

What happens between sessions?

How often will progress be reviewed?

What are the cancellation terms?

What happens if the relationship isn’t working?

A professional Business Coach should be comfortable discussing all of this.

Seven Questions I’d ask before appointing a business coach

If I were interviewing three potential Business Coaches, I’d ask each of them the same set of questions.

1. What experience do you have working with businesses of our size and complexity?

A startup with four employees is very different from a company with 80 people, multiple managers and several departments.

2. How would you establish what’s really holding our business back?

I’m looking for a diagnostic approach, not an immediate sales pitch.

3. Can you describe a situation where you helped a business address a problem similar to ours?

I’d want specifics, while respecting client confidentiality.

4. How do you measure success?

If the answer is limited to motivation, confidence or feeling more focused, I’d want to understand how those improvements connect to business performance.

5. What happens when I disagree with you, or fail to follow through?

This tells me a great deal about the relationship I’m buying.

6. What would make you tell me that coaching isn’t the right solution?

A good advisor should be willing to turn work away.

7. How will our business be stronger and less dependent on you after 12 months?

This is my favourite question!

Because here’s the important consideration – the goal should be to develop the business’s capability, rather than create a permanent dependence on the coach.

Of course, a business coach who’s continually adding value is immensely important and should be kept on for as long as value is being added, but dependency is a completely different thing and not what you should be building.

A simple scorecard for comparing Business Coaches:

Here’s a practical way to make the selection less subjective. Score each prospective coach from 1 to 5 on the following criteria.

I wouldn’t automatically appoint the highest scoring coach. I’d use the scorecard to make the differences visible and guide a more informed discussion.

For example, a coach might score exceptionally well on credentials and personal chemistry but poorly on commercial experience.

Another might have extensive business experience but no convincing method for measuring progress.

Neither should be appointed without examining those weaknesses.

Check references and ethics:

Professional credentials alone do not establish that someone is capable of improving your company’s profitability or operational performance.

Equally, extensive commercial experience does not excuse poor ethics, weak coaching skills or a lack of professionalism.

I’d look for both competence and integrity and I’d ask to speak to a relevant client, where permission has been given.

When I wouldn’t recommend hiring a Business Coach:

Business coaching isn’t always the right answer. For example:

If your business is facing immediate insolvency, you may need urgent financial restructuring, legal advice or a business rescue practitioner.

If you have a serious tax problem, you need a qualified tax professional.

If your accounting records are unreliable, that needs to be addressed before anyone starts making confident claims about profitability.

If your sales team lacks basic selling skills, a structured sales training programme may be more appropriate than months of coaching the CEO.

If your managers lack fundamental management skills, they may need practical management development, supported by coaching.

Lastly, if the owner has absolutely no intention of changing their behaviour, I would question whether coaching is a sensible investment.

I’ve learned that a coach can challenge, guide, teach, support and help create accountability but they can’t (& shouldn’t!) run the business for the owner.

They can’t guarantee revenue growth, they can’t control the economy, they can’t force employees to perform and they can’t compensate indefinitely for a founder who refuses to make difficult decisions.

Business coaching works best when the owner is willing to engage honestly and take responsibility for implementing what’s been agreed.

What I’d expect from the first 90 days:

If I were investing in a Business Coach, I’d want to see a sensible progression.

Days 1 – 30: Understand the business

Establish the current position.

Review the financial and operational picture.

Identify the major constraints.

Understand the founder’s objectives.

Agree on priorities and measurable outcomes.

Days 31 – 60: Address the most important constraints

Focus on a small number of improvements.

That might mean repairing a weak sales process, improving management accountability, tightening financial reporting or clarifying decision responsibilities.

I’d expect specific actions, who’s doing what and agreed deadlines.

Days 61 – 90: Establish a working rhythm

Review what’s changed.

Examine the numbers.

Challenge what’s not working.

Adjust the plan.

Introduce a regular performance and accountability rhythm that the business can sustain.

By day 90, I really wouldn’t expect every problem to be solved.

I would expect a much clearer understanding of the business, visible progress on agreed priorities and evidence that the business is beginning to operate differently.

If all you’ve received after three months is a collection of motivational conversations & many cups of coffee, I’d be asking some serious questions about the business coach.

The pattern I’ve noticed:

There’s something I’ve come to recognise after more than three decades in business – the owners who get the greatest value from outside advice aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest problems, they’re often the ones who’re simply willing to have their thinking challenged.

They’ve achieved enough to know they’re capable and they’ve also experienced enough to know they don’t have all the answers. They don’t need someone to tell them how successful they are, they just need someone who can help them see what they’re missing.

Sometimes that’s an uncomfortable conversation about profitability, or sometimes it’s a manager they’ve been avoiding dealing with.

Sometimes it’s a sales process that everyone assumes is working or sometimes, it’s the founder themselves.

Sometimes, the most valuable contribution a business coach can make, is to ask a question that changes the way the owner sees the business.

I remember how much my own thinking changed as I moved from building and operating businesses into senior executive leadership.

The problems became different, the decisions became more consequential and the need for good judgement became far more important than simply being the hardest working person in the team.

That experience influences how I work with business owners today.

I want business owners to become better decision makers. I want their managers to become more capable. I want the business to become more profitable, better organised and less dependent on the founder.

Because these are the things that make the business stronger and a stronger business, gives its owner something incredibly valuable – choice.

The choice to grow, the choice to step back, the choice to invest, the choice to sell, or simply the choice to enjoy the business they’ve spent so many years building.

So, if you’re considering appointing a business coach, here’s the question I’ll end with:

Are you looking for someone to help you manage the business you already have, or someone who can help you build the business you actually want?

I’d choose the second one…every time!

A Final Word:

I’m John Creighton, a South African business coach and business performance advisor based in Cape Town.

I’ve spent more than 30 years building, managing, growing and selling businesses, including three successful business exits.

Today, I work with founders, business owners and CEOs of established businesses who want to improve profitability, develop stronger management and sales teams and build businesses that don’t depend on them for every decision.

My work combines business coaching, practical consulting, management development and sales performance improvement.

If you’re running an established South African business and recognise some of the challenges I’ve described, I’d welcome a conversation.

We can start by examining what’s working, what’s holding the business back and whether I’m the right person to help.

Because choosing the right business coach should begin with a good conversation and most times, that first conversation tells you more than any website or brochure ever could.

To explore how I can help you take your business to the next level, get in touch me by email or book a free 30 minute consultation