Coaching vs Consulting and Do I Need it?

Coach­ing What would hap­pen if Tiger Woods fired his coach and deter­mined to golf solo? Would he still remain the best in the world? Maybe for a short time. A coach is hired to offer per­son­al train­ing, encour­age­ment, ideas and to be sup­port­ive of an indi­vid­ual. In short, a coach keeps his client goal focused. What is the goal for Tiger Woods? To win! What is the goal of a con­trac­tor? To run a prof­itable and well run busi­ness, right? A coach is typ­i­cal­ly hired on a long term basis, not short term. A coach also does­n’t work just with the own­er. He or she might be hired to coach an esti­ma­tor: i.e. a Sales Coach. Maybe you’ve hired a new pro­duc­tion man­ag­er from with­in the com­pa­ny and the new man­ag­er needs help set­ting spe­cif­ic goals, a coach would some­times be hired to keep him account­able and on tar­get. If a busi­ness own­er wants more spe­cif­ic help on run­ning his busi­ness, such as how to build to sell, how to hire employ­ees, a busi­ness plan, hav­ing good busi­ness sys­tems, he would typ­i­cal­ly hire a con­sul­tant, not a coach. Unless of course he wants some­one long term to keep him account­able. Con­sult­ing A con­sul­tant is typ­i­cal­ly hired for short term rea­sons, to help with a spe­cif­ic need or prob­lem. Con­sul­tants will typ­i­cal­ly ask why some­thing is hap­pen­ing and then help his client think through ways to over­come his prob­lems to reach his busi­ness goals. Con­sul­tants can be hired for all aspects of busi­ness: mar­ket­ing, busi­ness plan­ning, tax­es, finan­cial, pro­duc­tion and more. In some cas­es, hav­ing both a con­sul­tant and a coach can be an excel­lent move for most small and large busi­ness­es. Did you know that even McDon­alds, the Mar­riott, and Ver­i­zon all hire out­side con­sul­tants? Exam­ple from my Dad Most con­trac­tors and small busi­ness­es I talk to about coach­ing or con­sult­ing ser­vices respond the same way, ​“I don’t think I can afford a con­sul­tant.” To answer this state­ment, let me share with you a per­son­al sto­ry: I grew up watch­ing my dad work 12 hours a day run­ning (not build­ing) his small paint­ing busi­ness in San Diego dur­ing the 80s and ear­ly 90s. His cus­tomers loved him, and he was blessed with lots of refer­rals and repeat busi­ness. He had one prob­lem. He was­n’t real­ly mak­ing any mon­ey. Of course there was the typ­i­cal job that was prof­itable but most jobs were just pay­ing the bills and keep­ing the doors open. Bor­row­ing the term from The E‑Myth book, he was work­ing in his busi­ness, not on it. We had lit­tle com­plaints dur­ing those ear­li­er years. We lived con­ser­v­a­tive­ly and with lit­tle or no debt, but my dad’s busi­ness was­n’t going any­where. It was­n’t thriv­ing. Then one day my dad hired his first con­sult­ing firm. The first guys charged a lot of mon­ey and did noth­ing. Ok, so that was anoth­er mis­take. He did­n’t give up hope. He want­ed to run a suc­cess­ful busi­ness and have some­thing to sell or give to his kids some­day. So he hired anoth­er short-term con­sult­ing firm. This one was a lot bet­ter. Then in the mid 1990s, he final­ly land­ed a good con­sult­ing rela­tion­ship with a local firm and got his busi­ness work­ing for him. He raised his prices (after dis­cov­er­ing he was not charg­ing enough). Sales go down? Just the oppo­site! He cre­at­ed an employ­ee hand­book, busi­ness sys­tems, a hir­ing process, paint­ing sys­tems, a mar­ket­ing plan and much more. What was the result? A well run busi­ness that has become one of the most prof­itable and steady paint­ing com­pa­nies in San Diego. In short, he has cre­at­ed a great place to work. He also kept his busi­ness con­sul­tant and recent­ly added a finan­cial con­sul­tant to his team. My dad told me he did not start mak­ing mon­ey and run­ning a busi­ness he was proud of until he hired a good con­sul­tant. His cur­rent con­sul­tant acts more like a coach now, as the prob­lems are dwin­dling but he still needs account­abil­i­ty. Your Expe­ri­ence with a Coach or Consultant What has been your expe­ri­ence work­ing with a coach or con­sul­tant? Have you found it to be help­ful? Why or Why Not? Let me know your thoughts on this sub­ject. If you have nev­er hired a con­sul­tant, will you con­sid­er doing so in the near future?