The Coach Who Never Disagrees With You

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Research shows much of the feedback we receive is too comfortable to change anything. Here's the Pushback Test that reveals whether your business coach genuinely challenges you or just agrees.

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A global survey run by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Association Resource Center found that companies investing in coaching saw an average return of seven times what they spent on it. No date is given on the page reporting it, so treat the multiple as directional rather than gospel, but the shape of the finding matches what Kevin has watched happen across the 200+ businesses he has coached one-on-one: the return rarely comes from the thing the owner thought they were paying for.

Pricing the Hours, Not the Outcome

Owners price coaching the way they price a gym membership: cost per session, divided by hours, compared against doing it themselves for free. That math misses the actual return, which almost never shows up as "I learned something in the session." It shows up three months later, as a decision that got made six weeks earlier than it otherwise would have, a hire that did not happen, a price increase that finally went through, or a bad client that got let go before it cost another $40,000.

Source: PwC and Association Resource Center global coaching survey, via ProfileTree

Where the Real ROI Shows Up

  • Speed — decisions that would have taken a year of hesitation get made in a single working session, because someone outside the business is willing to say the direct thing.
  • Avoided mistakes — the hire you did not make, the lease you did not sign, the partner you did not take on, each one worth more than a year of coaching fees.
  • Compounding clarity — a vivid, specific picture of the business and the life it needs to fund, revisited every quarter, not written once and filed away.

"One of the highlight presentations during OMP. Really enjoyed your wisdom and insight, thanks Kevin!"

— Liz Wotherspoon, Director, The Icehouse

Why Owners Still Hesitate

Measuring ROI on coaching is hard precisely because the biggest wins are the disasters that never happened. Nobody puts a dollar value on the hire they didn't make or the six months they didn't waste circling a decision. So the cost sits in plain view on an invoice, and the return sits invisibly in a future that got quietly avoided, which makes coaching look expensive right up until the quarter it clearly wasn't.

Before You Judge the Cost

  • List the last three decisions you sat on for more than a month, and price what that delay actually cost.
  • Name one mistake a coach, mentor or advisor has already helped you avoid, and value it honestly.
  • Check whether you are eligible for Regional Business Partners Network co-funding, which can cover up to half the cost of one-to-one coaching for eligible NZ businesses.

Key Takeaways

  • Coaching returns are usually underpriced — global research points to an average multiple of around seven times cost.
  • The real ROI is rarely the session itself — it is the faster decision, the avoided mistake and the clearer plan that follows it.
  • Avoided mistakes don't show up on an invoice — which is exactly why coaching gets judged on cost rather than outcome.
  • Co-funding can lower the real cost — ask whether your business qualifies before ruling coaching out on price alone.

If you have been pricing coaching by the hour instead of by the decisions it changes, that conversation is worth having properly. Have it, and you become the owner who decides sooner, avoids the expensive mistake and knows what the return actually was.

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