In my view a coach is someone who works with the business owner to educate, organize, and help keep accountable for growing their business. They are generally knowledgable in a wide range of business areas. A coach is then helping the owner/manager to get more done by themselves than they would have without a coach.

A consultant, on the other hand, is generally a specialist (i.e. marketing, sales, operations, etc) who is hired to come in and execute a specific task in the best manner they know how. There is little training of the business manager so the consultant retains their specialist skills to apply elsewhere.

I see smaller businesses needing a business coach who can cover all aspects of small business management plus educate the owner/manager so they can do more themselves. Larger SMBs and corporations tend to hire consultants because of their need for narrowly-defined special skills.

All that being said there is a new trend in idustry towards bringing in outside coaches to help full-time employees develop. This is a somewhat new trend which (obviously) is being resisited by the view that anyone being coached is not necessarily performing well. We’ll see what happens here in the future.

- Steve