During this week I/we came under some criticism for being involved in a small business that dared to have a cashflow problem.

I didn’t allow that criticism to appear here, not because I can’t handle criticism, but because that criticism was entwined in some rather unpleasant comments that had absolutely nothing to do with this blog.

Ultimately it seemed that because I dared speak my mind in another forum I attracted what amounted to be a stalker. Fortunately there are ways of dealing with people like that and I wasn’t slow to use them.

But it did raise in my mind the question of whether or not small businesses should be using a business coach. If you do a search in Google you will find that there are plenty out there and if you follow any of the links to their websites you will see that they seem to have plenty of satisfied customers.

But do they work for every small business? Does one size fit all or are some business coaches more suitable for your small business than others?

I don’t know the answers to that but I sometimes have difficulty in accepting that a small business coach who has a background in banking for example would really have much understanding of the finer points of running a small business that was involved in copywriting.

Would someone who has a white collar boardroom type background really be able to understand the difficulties faced by a small business that deals with farmers and others who are governed by the weather?

Sure there are fundamentals that should be the same across every small business but so often those fundamentals are heavily influenced by the fine detail of each small business and home business.

Still, your small business just might benefit from some input from a business coach but take care in choosing which one is right for you. Sometimes those glowing recommendations can be nothing more than fairy tales.

Before you sign on the dotted line and start taking advice ask to speak to the people who made those glowing recommendations and if you cant’ speak to them then go looking for another coach who has real people to back up what appears on his or her website.

And for those who did wonder about our cash flow – well the problems are solved and Toni is recovering from a medical condition that almost killed her – and that was what was a major contributor to our cashflow problem – it’s hard to work when the one you love is so ill.