Return on Investment (ROI) is an important measure of any company’s success. Indeed it is usually the very reason for the company’s existence.

We don’t want things merely to pay for themselves and certainly we don’t want things to take a long time to pay for themselves. We want a multiple return on our investments and we want to know the payback period. I have a client who installs large items of capital equipment, who only ever converts business if he can show a payback period of less than 3 years to his customers (to many of us that might seem a long time!)

For some things, like a new machine tool, calculating ROI and payback time is relatively easy because you can compare the efficiencies of the new and the old. But what about our marketing campaigns, taking on a new sales person, developing a new website or having a business coach(!)? These investments usually involve a known cost but an unknown return and require varying degrees of courage to take action.

On the very rare occasion that I explicitly promote coaching in Insights, my aspiration for my clients is for them to achieve a ten-fold return. Do I guarantee this – absolutely not! But can coaching really give committed clients this sort of return? Recent US studies show that it can. MetrixGlobal calculated that investment in coaching yields an average return of 529% and another by Manchester Inc. shows average investment returns of nearly 6 times.

Food for thought?