Working With a Business Coach vs. Business Consultant

Business owners are flexible, innovative, and creative, but there may come a point where they feel stuck in a rut.  That’s when the question of whether they should work with a business coach vs. a business consultant often comes up. 

The line between a coach and a consultant is often blurred, but there are distinct differences and specializations that are pivotal to providing the exact support a business owner needs. Making the right choice for your particular situation creates opportunities to thrive, while the wrong choice can lead to disappointment and frustration. 

Why Do I Need a Business Coach or Consultant?

No matter how much love, blood, sweat, and tears you put into your company, there’s going to come a point where you need help moving forward. 

It may be that they are no longer enjoying their role due to the stress or that they don’t feel capable of handling a particular problem. The issue might be a lack of confidence or trouble understanding others’ perspectives. 

Others simply need a professional to tell them areas of improvement, then step back and let the owner handle the rest. 

Some leaders can push through with the help of their business associates, family, and friends who have experience dealing with the kinds of issues you’re facing. 

Many find that they need a third-party perspective from a professional coach or consultant to get moving again. 

Business Coaches and Business Consultants: What’s the Difference?

The Greek philosopher Socrates is quoted as saying, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” This statement outlines the key difference between business coaches and business consultants. 

Business Coaches

Like a sports coach, a business coach aims to kindle the flame. They act as guides, advisors, and cheerleaders, enabling business owners to take their success into their hands by growing mentally, emotionally, and professionally.

Think of business coaching as a partnership, a journey where the coach guides you to find the answers within yourself. It’s a relationship that taps into your entrepreneurial spirit and uses your personal strengths and weaknesses as a platform for your growth strategy. They create an environment where you discover your own answers. The business coach works with their clients, has deep conversations, and asks the right questions to stimulate your thinking towards a solution instead of directly providing one.

A business coach enables you to build plans with clear goals and sub-goals that you can celebrate along the way. Often, they use key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you track how far you’ve come and how much further you have to go.

Business coaches can also serve as a sounding board. They provide a neutral and confidential space to discuss ideas, challenges, and strategies. This added layer of support can propel your business forward by offering advice, knowledge, and expertise to overcome obstacles and achieve your business goals.

Perhaps most importantly, business coaching holds you accountable for those goals. During regular check-ins,  your coach will ensure you stay motivated and move in the right direction. 

Benefits of Working With a Business Coach

• A business coach helps you enhance your leadership qualities, helping you make better decisions, communicate more effectively, and inspire your team.
• They can assist you in formulating effective strategies for your business, helping you to set and achieve both short-term and long-term goals.
• Business coaches hold you accountable, pushing you to strive for your goals and maintain focus.
• Beyond business growth, coaches facilitate personal development, assisting you in improving your management style and gaining a deeper understanding of yourself.
• A business coach can be a neutral, confidential sounding board for your ideas and concerns. They provide honest feedback, constructive criticism, and support to help you navigate your business journey.

Is Business Coaching the Right Approach for You?

1. Are you interested in developing both personally and professionally, beyond just the business goals?
2. Do you prefer long-term success and sustainability over quick fixes and immediate results?
3. Are you seeking someone to hold you accountable for your business goals and decisions?
4. Do you want to enhance your critical thinking skills to help you find your own answers and solve problems?
5. Is improving your leadership skills important for you and your team’s development?
6. Do you want to improve your communication skills and build stronger relationships with your team, clients, and partners?
7. Are you seeking a neutral and confidential sounding board to share ideas, challenges, and strategies?
8. Do you wish to be empowered rather than be told exactly what to do?
9. Do you need help managing stress and achieving a better work-life balance?
10. Are you focused on realizing your business’s “big picture” and not just solving specific problems?

Business Consultants

Business consultants prefer to fill the vessel. They use their experience to outline business solutions, then either complete the task themselves or give the business leaders the directions to do so. 

While the basic goal of their relationship with you is the same– help your business thrive– they go about it much differently than a coach. 

Instead of working with you, they work for you, carefully observing the areas you’ve indicated need their assistance. This often looks like a particular process or department that is currently inefficient, such as overhauling Human Resources or updating POS systems to integrate more readily with emerging technology. After making their observations, they develop a recommended solution and implement it. 

For example, if you hire a marketing consultant to come in to assess your current marketing plan, they will offer you a marketing strategy and tools that meet your business needs. Then, once their specific task is done, business consultants move on to their next client. There are few, if any, checks for accountability or overall success. 

Working with a business consultant is a more practical, tangible method of improving your business, but it does little to aid the owner in self-improvement or long-term professional growth. 

Benefits of Working With a Business Consultant

• Business consultants bring extensive knowledge and specific expertise to your business. They can provide technical and professional advice based on their background and the unique insights they’ve gained from working with other businesses.
• Consultants are seasoned problem solvers. They can step into a situation, analyze it, and propose effective solutions. Whether it’s overhauling a hiring strategy or updating systems to integrate with emerging technology, they offer a fresh perspective on the challenges at hand.
• A business consultant is an excellent resource if your business has a problem in a specific area. They focus on identified issues and offer solutions that have worked well in similar scenarios. They can be the subject matter experts you need to optimize a process or department.
• Because of their experience and expertise, consultants can often identify and implement solutions more quickly than a business owner or an internal team could. This can lead to significant savings in time and resources.
• A business consultant’s role is typically project-based and temporary. They come in, solve the problem, and then move on. This short-term commitment is perfect for businesses that need help with a specific issue but don’t want to add to their long-term payroll.

Is Business Consulting the Best Choice for You?

1. Do you have specific problems or challenges in your business that you want to be addressed immediately?
2. Are you seeking solutions that can yield immediate or short-term results rather than long-term strategic development?
3. Do you require specific expertise or a subject matter expert currently unavailable within your team?
4. Are you comfortable with hiring experts on a project basis rather than establishing a long-term relationship?
5. Would you prefer an expert who provides advice and implements the solutions?
6. Do you need a cost-effective solution that doesn’t require hiring a full-time employee for a specific area of your business?
7. Are you looking for an objective perspective from outside your business to help in decision-making?
8. Do you need help in streamlining your systems, processes, or operations?
9. Are you entering a new market or launching a product and need expert insights and strategies?
10. Is there a need to improve the performance of a team, department, or the whole company?

Coaching and Consulting: Which Should You Choose?

Making a choice between business coaching and consulting ultimately comes down to your motivation for seeking assistance in the first place. 

Both a coach and a consultant are knowledgeable, experienced professionals who can help your business overcome barriers, enact change, and see better results. The key difference is where they focus their time and energy. 

A business coach can help your business grow by nurturing your role as a leader, providing motivation, and empowering you to create a life-long skill set, while a business consultant can help you find solutions to the more tangible problems as they arise.