I once was running a region with 11 wireless stores and couldn't fully staff half of them.

Sales were there. Applicants weren't. That gap nearly stalled the whole business.

If you coach owners right now, you're watching a version of this every week. The small business labor shortage isn't a rumor your clients are exaggerating. New NFIB research found that among small businesses hiring or trying to hire late in 2025, 89% reported few or no qualified applicants for their open positions. A third couldn't fill the role at all, no matter how long it sat open.

This isn't a blip owners can wait out. It's a structural shift in how small businesses have to build teams, and it's one of the clearest openings for a business coach or business consultant to prove real value fast.

Where This Shows Up by Phase

People Management is one of the seven core competencies every coach has to master inside their own practice and be able to coach into a client's business. A coach who's weak in it can't credibly fix it for someone else. Right now, this competency is colliding hard with two phases of scale.

In the Hustler phase, $100K-$250K, the owner still does every hire personally. There's no written job description beyond "someone reliable who shows up." The owner interviews between jobs and hires the first warm body, because the alternative is doing the work themselves again at midnight. A bad hire here doesn't just cost a paycheck. It costs the owner's exhausted redo of a job that should have been done right the first time.

In the Leader phase, $500K-$1M, payroll carries real weight. The owner has finally handed hiring off to a manager or two, but there's still no repeatable process behind it. Growth stalls the moment the founder becomes the bottleneck every open role has to pass through.

Coaches live this too. Can't find a good virtual assistant or operations hire for your own practice? You're carrying the same disease you'd flag in a client. Phase fluency here isn't academic. It's the difference between telling a client "just post the job again" and actually diagnosing whether the real problem is the pipeline, the process, or the retention.

What I Learned the Hard Way

By year three of scaling from one wireless store to ten, we had more open roles than qualified applicants walking through the door. I tried to solve it the way I'd solved everything else up to that point: work harder, interview more people, offer a little more money. None of it moved the needle, because the problem wasn't effort. I had no system for finding, developing, or keeping people before I desperately needed them.

What actually changed things wasn't a bigger help-wanted budget. It was building a standing pipeline of talent before a role opened, training managers who could develop people instead of just supervising a shift, and getting serious about why people were leaving before I worried about who was walking in the door. Retention turned into the real hiring strategy.

Practical Guidance for Coaches and Their Clients

1️⃣ Build a standing candidate pipeline before you're desperate. Referral and community networks are outperforming job boards while the applicant pool stays this thin.

2️⃣ Write the job before you write the ad. Vague roles attract vague candidates, and vague candidates are exactly what the NFIB data says 89% of hiring owners are drowning in right now.

3️⃣ Invest in retention as hard as acquisition. A great hire who quits in 90 days costs the business more than the vacancy ever did.

4️⃣ Train managers to develop people, not just assign tasks. Turnover is usually a leadership problem wearing a hiring costume.

✅ DO treat hiring as an ongoing discipline, not a reaction to an opening.
✅ DO coach clients on employer brand and culture, not just wage.
✅ DO help clients build a process that doesn't depend on the owner personally interviewing everyone.

❌ DON'T let a client hire out of panic. In this market, a bad hire is more expensive than the empty seat.
❌ DON'T assume more money alone fixes it.
❌ DON'T let the owner stay the only person capable of making a hiring decision. That's a scale problem wearing a hiring costume.

➡️ You can't hire your way out of a labor shortage. You build your way out, with systems that make good people want to stay and mediocre hires easy to spot before anyone signs anything.

A Question for You

What's actually broken in your clients' hiring process right now: The pipeline, the process, or the retention? And is your own practice guilty of the same thing?

Quick Answers

How much do business coaches make? Business coach income varies widely by model and experience, but coaches who deliver measurable client results, like multi-phase jumps on the 8 Phases of Scale, build the strongest referral pipelines and the steadiest income. Across the 170+ clients I've personally coached, roughly 35% jump at least one phase per year, and results like that are what drive repeat and referral business.

Do I need a business coaching certification to do this work? No state licenses business coaches the way it licenses CPAs or attorneys, but a business coaching certification or coaching license gives new coaches a credible framework, proven tools, and a faster path to client results than building everything from scratch. It also signals to prospective clients that a coach has real training behind their advice, not just opinions.

Is a coaching franchise worth it compared to other paths into coaching? A coaching franchise usually means a six-figure buy-in and real operating restrictions in exchange for a brand and a system. A licensing model like a Certified My Biz Coach program gives coaches proven tools, brand support, and a community of Coach Partners without that level of investment or restriction, which makes it a practical middle path for professionals, including fractional executives, weighing how to start.

If This Hit Close to Home

If you're a coach, consultant, or fractional executive who's watched this exact hiring wall stop a client's growth cold, that's precisely the kind of practical guidance the Certified My Biz Coach license is built to give you. It comes with proven tools, our brand, and a community of roughly 25 Coach Partners, without the six-figure investment or restrictions of a coaching franchise. Learn more about becoming a Certified My Biz Coach by clicking here.

If you want to talk through how this labor shortage topic applies to your own practice or a specific client, I'm glad to have that conversation. Reach out for a free conversation this week.

And if you coach clients through hiring and people problems, put the My Biz Navigator in front of them. It's a free 5-minute assessment that shows exactly what's working in their business and what it's quietly costing them.

To Your Success,

Eric T. Whitmoyer, Business Growth Strategist

Founder & CEO at MyBizCoaches.com

Host of The Biz Coach Show

From Startup to Exit, We’re There for Your Biggest Decisions

P.S. If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level, then you may find value in getting a copy of our 2026 Business Survival Guide, full of strategies, tactics, and solutions to help move your business forward faster this year.

👉 Download the Guide Here

Because the difference between ordinary and extraordinary isn’t luck; it’s the information you act on.

Consider becoming a Certified My Biz Coach – Learn More HERE.