Read This Before You Hire a Business Coach
If hiring a business coach is on your 2026 plan, this might save you tens of thousands of dollars.
I say that because I’ve seen this business decision go very wrong.
I believe in coaching. I invest in coaching. Coaching can be incredibly powerful.
But here’s my hot take:
Coaching multiplies clarity. It does not create it.
And if you don’t already have clarity in your numbers, hiring a coach can amplify chaos instead of momentum.
Let me tell you a story about an entrepreneur I know. Let’s call her Sue.
Sue has a highly visible personal brand. She’s got a beautiful website, a solid following, and before we met, she was already making multiple six figures in revenue.
She decided it was time to step things up a level, so she hired a high-ticket business coach. It was a big investment that required a lot of energy and momentum. The strategy Sue received was aggressive: raise prices, hire faster, expand the team, launch something bigger, push for rapid growth.
And she did.
Revenue increased. Launches were bigger. The brand got louder. The team grew. From the outside, it looked like success.
But behind the scenes, something else was happening.
Her profit margins were thinner than she knew because her expenses were climbing faster than she realized.
And here’s another little hot take:
Revenue going up does not automatically mean financial health.
At one point, Sue had more money coming in than ever before, and she was waking up at 3 a.m. in a panic because payroll was heavy. There wasn’t a clear cash runway. No one had modeled what that rapid growth was going to do to her tax liability.
She didn’t know how much of that “growth” was actually profit versus pressure, meaning: was the business truly becoming more profitable, or was it simply carrying more weight, more payroll, more responsibility, and more stress without increasing real take-home margin?
That’s when I got the call.
Not just as a bookkeeper categorizing transactions, but as a Fractional CFO stepping into the aftermath and answering one very hard question:
What is actually happening?
And what we discovered wasn’t that the coach was wrong. The strategy wasn’t malicious. The growth wasn’t an illusion. That part was real.
The problem was that she didn’t know her starting point.
She didn’t know her true margins. She didn’t know her break-even. She didn’t know how scaling would impact her taxes.
Sue didn’t need a new strategy. She needed clarity.
Now let me shift this to you.
As a business owner, you probably know your Stripe revenue. You know how busy you feel. You know whether your launches “did well.”
But do you know your net profit margin? Your cash runway? Your true cost of delivery? Your break-even point? Your projected tax exposure?
When someone tells you to hire, do you know if your margins can sustain it?
When someone tells you to raise your prices, do you know whether that solves a margin issue or a volume issue?
When someone tells you to scale, do you know what that will actually do to your overhead?
When you don’t know these answers, growth can transform into stress.
And that stress is where mindset starts to unravel.
Avoiding your numbers is rarely about math.
It’s about fear. It’s about identity. It’s about not wanting to look at something that feels uncomfortable. It’s about the story, “I’m not a numbers person.”
But clarity is calming.
Even when the numbers aren’t perfect. Even when there’s cleanup to do. Even when the answer is, “Okay, we need to adjust.”
Clarity gives you ground to stand on.
And coaching works beautifully when you’re standing on solid ground.
The most successful coaching relationships I’ve witnessed and been part of all had the same foundation: clean books, clean reporting, visibility, and tax awareness.
When that exists, coaching becomes acceleration, not rescue.
If coaching is on your 2026 vision board, I am not here to tell you not to do it. I’m here to tell you to do it wisely.
Start with your numbers. Understand your true profit. Know your margins. Forecast your tax liability. Look at your cash flow honestly.
When you walk into a coaching relationship already grounded in your data, you can make bold moves from strategy instead of adrenaline.
And if you don’t know where to begin, that’s exactly why I offer CFO Diagnostic Reviews.
A diagnostic isn’t shame-based. It isn’t judgment. It’s simply clarity. Where are you? What’s working? What needs attention? What’s sustainable, and what isn’t?
Clarity first. Then momentum. Then scale.
Coaching multiplies clarity. It does not create it.
If you remember nothing else from this piece, remember that.
If you’re preparing to hire, scale, or invest in coaching, the CFO Diagnostic Review ensures your growth is supported by real financial capacity.
Check out this month’s special for a complimentary Bookkeeping Diagnostic Review OR a discounted CFO Diagnostic Review.