In global surveys run by the International Coaching Federation, 95 percent of coaching clients rate their coach as good or excellent, and the large majority say they would do it again. That is a remarkable number for any professional service. It also means almost every disappointing coaching engagement traces back to the same handful of avoidable mistakes, made before the first session ever happens, not during it.

Nobody hires a coach expecting it not to work. The clients who end up unhappy almost always skipped the same step: they hired on credentials or charisma, without checking whether this specific coach has actually solved this specific problem, for a business genuinely like theirs, with results they can point to.

Before you hire any business coach, run these three checks. They take less time than one bad session costs you.

"Keeping me sane and focused during uncertain times."

— Rachel Williams, Icehouse Coaching Programme

Most SME owners who eventually hire a coach say the same thing afterward: they wish they had done it years earlier. They waited because they were not sure it would work, not because they doubted they needed help. The 95 percent figure exists precisely because that fear is usually wrong. It just takes a proper check before you commit, not blind faith, to get there.

After 30-plus years in business and 200-plus companies coached one-on-one across 30-plus industries, the pattern is consistent: owners who ask these three questions upfront get the results. The ones who skip them are the rare unhappy minority.

The owners who wait another year to check these three things usually wish, a year from now, that they had not. Run the checks now and you become the owner who hires the right coach once, with a 90-day number to prove it is working.