In this week's video I look at the difference between coaching and mentoring as well as consulting.
If you are someone who runs a business you may come across thousands of people referring you to business consultants, coaches and mentors. It's one of the most common questions I get asked, "What's the difference between a business coach, consultant and a mentor?"
They'll be telling you that this particular coach or consultant or mentor is the right one to help you and your business.
Understanding the difference between the three is very important.
Hence why I've put together this handy little guide so you can decide for yourself which one you need help from.
0:00 - Difference between coaching and consulting 0:45 - What does a business coach do? 1:48 - What does a consultant do? 2:06 - What is a business mentor? 2:33 - Difference between a coach and a mentor 3:26 - Business coach vs business consultant
Business consulting and business coaching are completely different.
Here's why...
Business Consulting
Business consulting refers to the expert help or guidance which is provided usually to the management and owners of a business to help an organisation in improving its efficiency and performance.
Right, that's the boring dictionary definition out of the way.
In short, a consultant will make recommendations and then does some of the doing alongside the management and owners of a business.
Think of it as "Done For You".
The consultant is concerned with all the aspects of the business; including anyone in the organisation who plays contributes to the success of the business. From the admin team right up to the board and the CEO. A business consultant is interested in looking at all the perspectives, viewpoints and aspects.
It is the job of a consultant to provide an outside view to you and then help to implement the recommended changes.
If you think you require temporary help from a business expert who will advise you about some specific aspects of your business then you need to go for a business consultant.
Business Coaching
Business coaching is different because it is client lead.
Business coaches facilitate entrepreneurs, startups, and professionals to grow at a faster pace. They work on a set schedule to share feedback, personalised recommendations, and growth plans with the client.
These goals might be to grow turnover, accelerate their career, or accelerate business growth.
A business coaching won't do any of the doing. So it is more of a "Done With You" approach but with some clear guidance and instruction.
Business coaches study their client’s business, understand the current situation and compare against market requirements. They formulate strategies for keeping your resources and your budget in mind and give possible suggestions for business to grow and become more sustainable.
Business coaches are sometimes considered as experts or 'gurus' but quite frankly I hate the word. They know market trends and understand risks and can help you in looking at both, from an expert’s perspective.
A business coach is someone who brings out the best in you. If you think you are someone who is new to the world of business or you have started multiple times but never succeeded then you can get the help of a business coach to help you in becoming more clear and focused.
Similarities and Differences
When it comes to looking at the similarities, both consultants and coaches are:
- paid some fees in order to get access to their expertise - not an employee of the organisation who hires them - offer an outsider’s perspective on the business.
And the differences:
Mainly a difference of approach and focus that the two take to help your business out.
A business coach focuses on the individual and is needed by someone who is starting out and facing issues of uncertainty and demotivation.
Whereas, a business consultant focuses on processes, teams and other aspects of the business.
Consultants address specific issues and matters that businesses need help with in order to get to the next level.
In this video I'm going to be talking about the difference between a business coach and a consultant.
If you run a small business or any business at all, it doesn't have to be small, at some point you will
have needed some help with that business and your friends will have likely told you to go and speak
to a coach or a consultant or get a mentor or go and seek some kind of advice. So what is it that a
business coach does compared to a consultant and then again compared to a mentor, because the three
things are actually completely different. So I'm going to try and break it down and make it as
simple as possible for you to understand what the difference is between the three of those,
so that you know exactly which one to choose for you and your business and why. Let's start off
with a business coach. So I'm a business coach, so it's nice and easy for me to try and explain
that one. A coach won't necessarily get their hands dirty and do the work for you, so it won't
be a done for you type thing. So let's say for example if you are struggling with Facebook ads,
a business coach won't get in there and do your Facebook ads for you. However what they might do
as a coach is help you to set goals, what is it that you want to achieve from your Facebook ads,
how are you going to measure the success of it, what are the challenges which you're going to face
in trying to run a successful Facebook ads campaign. They may be able to give you a bit
of advice about some Facebook ads maybe which they've run or helped other clients
go through and tell you those stories and analogies, but they won't actually be setting
up and doing the Facebook ads directly for you. So they'll just help to motivate you to
do the Facebook ads and work out what the objectives are in terms of doing that campaign.
Whereas a consultant, a Facebook ads consultant will take your ads campaign off you, they'll get
into business manager and they would actually set up the Facebook ads for you and tweak it and play
around with it and they'd be on some kind of a retainer in order to do that. On the flip side
of that you've then also got a mentor which you can kind of throw into the mix and a mentor is
somebody who it's likely that they will have had some kind of experience in your business niche,
in your area and maybe they're sort of 10 years ahead of you so they'll be able to tell you all
of the pros and cons of whatever it is that you're about to embark on within your business.
Again they're not going to get their hands dirty and actually do any work for you but they'll be
able to impart some of their experience through having run a business in your specific niche
or sector. Also like you know again a lot of people get confused between a coach and a mentor
so I like to think of the mentor as somebody who has had experience in your very specific
niche so maybe they ran their own marketing business or maybe they ran their own retail
shop or maybe they ran their own e-commerce business so they've got experience in your
very specific vertical channel that you work within whereas a coach tends to not necessarily
have the experience in a specific sector. A business coach for example might have more
broad experience across a range of different business types but they don't necessarily have
to be an expert in that specific business to be able to help motivate you and move you along
whereas a consultant again a consultant is probably in the same sort of space as a mentor in
terms of they will have experience in a very specific sort of vertical channel in terms of
the work which they do. Also another way to think of it as well as between coaches versus consultants
or business coach versus a business consultant would be to think of a consultant as somebody who
is like DFY done for you services they'll actually take whatever tasks off your desk
and they will do it for you once they've helped you to create a strategy whereas a coach is what
we call done with you DWY and done with you means that they're going to sit down kind of work
through the problems with you when you have problems they'll talk about it with you and
coach you through it but it's going to be up to you and your team to knuckle down and actually
do the work. So there we go so hopefully that's kind of cleared up the difference between a
business coach versus a business consultant versus a business mentor because all three are ever so
slightly different they all bring extraordinary value to you and potentially to your business
and also you've got to think about how and why you might want to engage with each one of those
so if you're time strapped for example maybe a consultant might be great for you because
they're going to take work off your desk that you no longer need to do so a consultant might be the
right way to do but if you have time you just lack the expertise then maybe a mentor or a business
coach is going to be better for you because maybe you're interested to learn you want to know
how to do this stuff for yourself you want to teach you or get your team engaged and teach them
how to do it and you've got the capacity so you'll take that advice disseminate it to your team or
get your coach to help you disseminate and train the team in order for them to be able to do it
and then away they go but if you've got any questions about that feel free to drop them
into the comments below and if you found this video helpful just hit the little like button
underneath the video because it just helps other people to find it and hopefully learn about
coaches consultants and mentoring and things like that and to be able to grow their business
