For the uninitiated, business coaching is often approached not just with a desire to explore opportunities for personal growth, but with the hope of receiving personalized solutions.
The waters quickly become murky around the title “coach” because most clients expect to receive the benefits from what is traditionally thought of as consulting—guided brainstorming, specific strategies, and recommendations that are driven by the consultant who is an expert in their space.
With the growth of the professional coaching industry, coaching titles are more mainstream and no longer conjure solely athletic images. A true coach, however, (whether a life, academic, executive-functioning, wellness, executive, or business coach) does not provide clients with the answers, but rather facilitates the client’s process of self-improvement and self-initiated solutions.
If you are a solo entrepreneur or small business owner seeking business coaching, you are likely looking for some specific strategies from your coach; you may even be somewhat disappointed with prior coaching experiences if clear guidelines and expectations of the coaching relationship were not outlined for you.
So, what is Coaching? Coaching definitions have been refined over the last twenty years by standard-setting organizations like the International Coaching Federation (ICF) to make distinctions from therapeutic or consulting professionals. A coach believes in the principle that client-led agendas, reflection, and problem-solving can produce profound personal growth. A good coach will ask powerful questions to move you forward and help ellicit your own problem-solving abilities because he or she believes that you are the expert in your own life, and you are capable of determining the best path if given the time and space to focus on yourself and your journey.
How is Coaching different from Consulting? Business consultants will usually engage a client in a careful self-assessment process, make observations and recommendations based on this assessment, and might also provide specific strategic guidance in any number of functional or operational areas (service delivery models, marketing, pricing/budgeting, contingencies, etc.). One of the most fundamental differences between being coached through a challenge and seeking a consultant’s feedback is the source of the action plan. A consultant will give you answers and propose a plan. A coach will not.
Can Coaching and Consulting be delivered together? If you are invested in being the author of your own plans and in the power of a growth mindset, then coaching can bring you to a sense of greater self-actualization and clarify the most important goals in your life and in your business. Once you have identified your priorities and your personal challenges around those priorities, you are likely to find specific business recommendations to be more meaningful, especially if your coach is also providing the consulting.
Many consultants intuitively include coaching techniques in their process: good listening skills, thoughtful questioning, client-led solutions. A consultant who is also a coach can extend these skills in more focused coaching sessions that can lead to greater client ownership of the action plan.
If you aren’t sure how much of a Coach or a Consultant you are hiring, ask them to describe the focus of their process. Do they provide specialty expertise, or is their process client-centered coaching? Perhaps they provide both. This might be the combination that takes you—and your business—in the most productive and powerful direction.
Do you need a business coach or consultant, or both?