Coaching offers obvious benefits for individuals and teams - but how exactly does it contribute to top-line growth? A simple online search of ‘how to increase top-line growth’ will yield endless results of methods businesses can use to increase their profits and revenue. However, the law of diminishing returns can leave you throwing too much of your budget toward implementing ineffective strategies - and often, long-term solutions, such as professional business coaching, can be overlooked. To put it simply, professional business coaching can be the single greatest investment you make for your organization’s profitability. Research on the payoffs from business coaching confirm that it increases employee engagement, shrinks turnover and improves productivity - all of which are factors that contribute to positive revenue growth. In this article, we will talk you through the process of increasing your organization’s top-line growth with professional business coaching.
What is Top-Line Growth, And Why Is It Important for Your Organization?
The top line is a reference to gross figures reported by a company, such as sales or revenue. It is called the top line because it is displayed at the very top of a company's income statement, and is reserved for the reporting of gross sales or revenue. A company that increases its revenue or sales is said to be generating top-line growth. The importance of the top line is that it reflects a company's ability to sell its goods or services as well as indicates if a company is growing from one period to the next. Since the top line is primarily a growth indicator, it provides insights into the future success of your organization.
Top-Line Growth and Professional Business Coaching - What’s the Connection?
Unfortunately, many organizations are apprehensive about investing in professional business coaching as they fear that the cost spent will not equate to tangible business outcomes. To understand the top-line growth and business coaching connection, let’s first examine the ROI that business coaching typically produces. The Manchester Review study found the average ROI from business coaching was nearly 5.7 times the cost of coaching. So, what are the reasons behind business coaching’s incredibly successful ROI? Let’s examine them!
Business Coaching Reduces Employee Turnover
Regardless of the size of your business, employee turnover is a major concern. Whether it’s because of cutbacks or employee dissatisfaction, if it becomes a frequent occurrence, it can have serious implications for your organization - and a direct impact on company revenue and profitability.
Employee turnover can drain organizational revenue and negatively impact top-line growth in a number of ways, including: hiring expenses, training labor, lost sales and productivity, severance packages, management labor costs, and more. Often, companies don't try to get to the root cause of high employee turnover, even when it's the manager that's at the root. Adding to your top-line growth starts and stops with employee engagement, according to Shelley Smith, Premier Rapport as well as research by Gallup. What’s more, according to Forbes Coaches Council, employee retention requires making employees feel invested in and not just utilized for their productivity, which also became apparent in our Session webinar on the topic of Retention and how to Protect Your Investment in Great People
One of the best ways to keep your employees feeling cared for and engaged is through professional business coaching. Business coaching is effective in objectively evaluating an individual's skills, setting reasonable goals for improvement and holding the individual accountable for improvement.
Business Coaching Boosts Productivity and Effectiveness
Professional business coaching has been proven to boost organizational productivity and effectiveness. Professional business coaches are trained to work with employees to help increase their productivity, effectiveness, and overall success. To be as effective as possible, employees must manage their time wisely. Employee energy is a finite resource that needs to be managed strategically to be effective, and business coaching can help employees to use their time effectively in an organized and strategic manner for the benefit of the company.
Business coaching can also improve productivity and effectiveness by reducing stress. Stress can often be a symptom of other issues, including how one's time is best used and ability to keep the overall perspective. Stress in this setting is almost always addressable via refinement of skills and setting the right priorities. Business coaches can help individuals and teams reduce stress levels by focusing on proactive solutions to stress-inducing situations in the workplace. Overall, business coaching can incite improved resilience and stress management - improving employee focus, mindfulness, clear-headedness in times of turmoil, sudden change and unforeseen events.
Business Coaching Nurtures and Develops Talent
Business coaching nurtures and develops your existing employee talent - which ultimately leads to increased profitability - less employee turnover, and enhanced company culture. Increasing revenue begins with the talent you have within your organization. Surveys show employees want a great deal more coaching than they currently receive. A professional business coach helps to examine the skills, talents and strengths of employees, and overall nurture their talents and develop their skill sets to the benefit of the organization as a whole.
Business Coaching Improves Leadership!
Ensuring effective and great leadership is an overlooked growth strategy. When businesses do not focus on great leadership, revenue and profits suffer. If your organization’s leadership and management teams are incompetent, ineffective, or dysfunctional, you can be guaranteed that this will affect your organization’s top-line growth. You simply cannot expect your organization to grow, when ‘bad’ management and leadership teams are negatively affecting employee performance and morale. For example, Gallup research has shown that employees with great managers see 27% more revenue per employee, on average. Being a great leader is a skill that comes from learning and practice; it's not inherent, and needs to be nurtured with appropriate and sustained development which business coaching on the side of the basic skills training offer.
Conclusion
Leadership development takes time and effort, and is best implemented by providing long-term development journeys, such as professional business coaching. The return on investment of your payroll will be multiplied by the improvement of all the employees that benefit from professional business coaching. According to Forbes, payoffs from business coaching confirm that it increases employee engagement, shrinks turnover and improves productivity. Make a long-lasting investment in your organization’s profitability with professional business coaching. We hope you have enjoyed learning about how business coaching can positively impact your organization’s top-line growth and accelerate profitability, employee performance, and engagement. If you are interested in learning more about business coaching, get in touch with us today.
