Hold that bottom line! Business coaching is hot; but look for substance, not just rah-rah By MARILEE CROCKER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Among successful small business owners and entrepreneurs, Trish Machaby's story has an all-too-familiar ring. A year ago, four years after Machaby and her husband had launched their property management and short-term rental company, Machaby found herself overwhelmed by a business that had grown so rapidly it threatened to consume her life. "My business wasn't out of control. I was out of control with my business," said Machaby, whose Plymouth-based company is Absent Innkeeper Inc. Machaby was managing 35 properties, selling vacation packages and providing extra services for renters. In September 2001, her firm had opened a consignment and gift shop in a newly acquired building that also served as Absent Innkeeper's office. The retail business, which was almost an afterthought, had grown much faster than anticipated, and Machaby found herself working 90 hours a week. The 41-year-old entrepreneur knew she needed help. "I had to get that business out of my head and on paper, [so I could] hand that paper to someone else and feel confident that they could take it from there - so I could have a day off with my children." While Machaby might have turned to a business consultant or one of several counseling services for small businesses, last winter she hired executive coach Charlotte "BZ" Riger-Hull of West Tisbury. She has been meeting by phone with Riger-Hull for weekly coaching sessions ever since. Riger-Hull is a member of the fast-growing profession known as coaching, a relatively young and as-yet unregulated field populated by an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 practitioners nationwide. Riger-Hull, whose company is called Inspiros, partly bases her expertise on her experience as founder and owner of a Vineyard-based gourmet food mail-order company, Charlotte's Gardens. She knows of about 25 coaches based on the Cape and Martha's Vineyard. Another is Linda Davies, who holds a masters in social work and is a personal and business coach. Davies works out of her home office in Orleans. She says she helps clients clarify their goals, values and vision for themselves, then create action plans. Her own business experience is based on running her therapy practice and coaching business, as well as owning and managing investment properties. Davies, who launched Rainbow Coaching five years ago, emphasized that coaching is more than talking. "You have homework, action steps. It's very much of a partnership." One way coaching differs from other services for small businesses is that rather than simply working with individuals to develop a business or marketing plan, coaches often encourage clients to look at issues that are more abstract, even philosophical, and to explore questions like, "What do I want out of life?" "A question I ask at the beginning of my relationship with clients is, 'What do you really want your business or career to do for you,'" said Riger-Hull. "As we coach, I ask them to look at that question again in different realms - from a financial standpoint, maybe in a spiritual sense, or a time sense." Davies said her coaching work with business and professional clients not only addresses leadership, communication and management skills, but also how a balanced life can help an individual be more effective in their work. Coaches, who refer to themselves variously as personal coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, life coaches and developmental coaches, typically charge between $200 and $500 monthly. In the corporate world, executives, or sometimes their employers, have paid as much as $600 to $2,000 monthly for coaching, according to a February 2000 article in Fortune Magazine. Machaby pays $450 a month for Riger-Hull's services. Coaching advocates, Machaby among them, claim that coaching is well worth the cost. Another fan is Patrick Golinski, an engineer who sought out Linda Davies' coaching services in part because he was frustrated with his job at a plastics company. "I got tired of not being treated with respect," said Golinski, who moved from Eastham to Ware earlier this year and plans to move to Yarmouth later this fall. Golinski said Davies helped him identify "what kind of income I wanted to make, what position I wanted to achieve, and what time period I wanted to make this happen in." Their sessions also addressed strategies for freeing him and his wife from personal debt and dealing with several family issues. "My ultimate goal was to start my own business," he said. Golinski met with Davies for half-hour phone sessions three times a month over a period of three months in 2000. During each session, Golinski agreed to accomplish three or four tasks before his next coaching session. "Maybe one of them was to sit down with the owner of the company this week and discuss where my future should go. The next week, what came out of that meeting and how I was going to change what I'm doing. After a month's time, I progressed quite a bit." Six months ago, Golinski launched a home-based plastics engineering design firm. Now, he said, he works fewer hours than in his previous job and earns more money. Machaby said that since beginning her work with Riger-Hull she has formalized her business, created client and consignor contracts, clarified staff responsibilities, trained employees in how to answer the phone, and developed public relations materials. And, she has cut her work week back to about 35 hours. One thing she likes about coaching, Machaby said, is that it gives her an objective sounding board. "You're reaching out to a professional who is there to guide you, [to say] don't forget this, what about that, do you have all these ducks in a row, and to really keep you in check." What does it take to be a coach? Since there is no regulation of the field, anyone can sell their services as a coach. Many coaches, Davies and Riger-Hull among them, have graduated from training programs, and the industry does have some self-regulation through two membership organizations. The more established of the two is the 10-year-old International Coach Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit association that provides accreditation for training organizations and certification programs for coaches. According to executive director Daniel Martinage, a former Woods Hole resident, the International Coach Federation also has a mechanism for investigating and acting upon ethical complaints from clients. In Natick, the Better Business Bureau that serves eastern Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont added a business and personal coaching category to its database within the last year. No complaints against coaches have been received, said Maria Sabale, communications manager. A few states with laws regulating psychotherapy are exploring whether those statutes should be applied to coaches, said Martinage. The federation has formed a committee to keep abreast of such efforts and provide expert witnesses, he said. But Martinage and others in the profession are adamant that coaching is not therapy. Davies, a practicing psychotherapist for 25 years, explained that "therapy really is about helping people heal from old wounds," while coaching focuses on looking ahead. As for whether personal or life coaches are qualified to work with business clients, Davies said that while it helps to have business experience, coaches without a business background also can be effective. "So often, people have the answers within themselves. Coaching is a place to take [an issue] out and look at it and figure out the steps to take. Part of coaches' training is in figuring out the steps to take."