When working toward a goal or tackling a challenge outside your expertise, it’s natural to seek help. But that raises an important question: what kind of support do you actually need? Should you work with a coach who will help you develop the skills to solve the problem yourself - or should you bring in a consultant who can provide expert guidance and get the job done for you?
Understanding the difference between a coach and a consultant is key to making the right decision. While both can be valuable resources, they serve distinct purposes. In this post, we’ll break down what each one does, the pros and cons of working with them, and how to determine which option is best for you and your startup.
Let’s dive in!
Is a Coach the Right Fit for Me?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a coach as a private tutor or one who instructs or trains. This definition is a great starting point because it highlights how a coach is used in the startup ecosystem.
A coach guides, challenges, and supports you in improving a specific skill or area. Instead of providing direct answers, they ask insightful questions, drawing from their experience, to help you think critically and develop your own solutions.
Rather than doing it for you or giving you the answers, an experienced coach will guide you not only to the answer you seek but also to how to get there yourself in the future.
An example: you’re currently facing issues with a teammate and working with a leadership coach to figure out how to move forward as a first-time CEO. Rather than directly telling you how to resolve that problem, the coach will walk you through a series of questions, guiding you to find the best answer for you and your company.
Since they do not spoon-feed you the answer but guide you towards it, they equip you with the tools you’ll need to solve this problem again should you find yourself in a similar circumstance.
Now, as promised, let’s review the Pros and Cons of working with a Coach.
Pros:
You develop a skill critical to your overall success that you can use repeatedly.
A coach keeps you on track, helping to ensure you follow through on your goals.
You grow personally since they tailor their feedback and approach to your unique challenges and learning style.
Cons:
Working with a coach is not a quick fix. As you continue working with a coach, you may discover that rather than the one “quick problem” you thought you had under the surface, there are more time-intense problems that first must be addressed.
A coach will not do the work for you. Depending on how you work, this could either be good or bad. It just depends on what is keeping you up at night.
As you can see, there are many reasons to work with a coach on your startup; it’s all about figuring out the best fit for you - both for how you work and your problems.
Is a Consultant the Right Fit for Me?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a consultant as one who consults another (unhelpful!) and gives professional advice or services: expert.
I will focus on the last part of the definition for our purposes. Business consultants provide expert services.
Because, well, they do.
When you engage a consultant, you do so to complete something you either lack in skill or don’t have the time to complete. While they may provide training (and even coaching) along the way, their primary purpose is to complete a task or project that you have assigned to them.
Using the same example as above, if you engage a leadership consultant to help you with a potentially problematic teammate, the consultant will work through the problem and seek to resolve it. Your conversation with them will be centered around the solution rather than them seeking to teach you how to reach that resolution yourself.
Pros:
A much faster resolution (typically)
Deep expertise in a specific area
Hands-on execution, as they’ll come to you with the solution
Short-term commitment so that you won’t have a long-term overhead cost
Cons:
Minimal skill transfer
You may face the same issue again because they did not coach you to solve this task independently
The risk that you’ll rely too much on a consultant; in this case, they may as well become part of your full-time team
So, to sum up, a coach empowers you to grow in an area, whereas a consultant completes a task for you.
Decision Time: Which is Better?
Both have their place. The question for you is, do you want to grow in a particular area and improve your skills, or is your primary desire to have the job done for you and move on?
Both coaches and consultants are potential tools in any leader’s toolbox, and understanding when to reach for one over the other depends on what you need at a given time; if you grab a screwdriver to drive in a nail, you are going to have a bad time, as surely as if you were to wield a hammer to turn a screw.
For many pragmatic, time-strapped leaders, the desire to complete a task or project may make them more inclined to use a consultant, and, as mentioned above, there are times when that is the correct answer. But don’t discount the value of the coach.
Investing, even if it takes a little more time, is often the better option in the long term. Every professional athlete has a coach (or coaches!).
So, choose wisely, select the right tool for the job, and make sure that you choose correctly between the screwdriver and the hammer!
Find Consultants and Coaches at The Startup Directory
Lucky for you, Startup Boston recently launched a vetted directory of startup coaches and consultants across various industries. Their expertise spans product development, marketing, leadership, hiring, customer success, and sales. Check it out by clicking this link!
And, of course, for more tips on starting and scaling a startup, don’t forget to subscribe to Startup Boston’s newsletter (directly below)! We’ll provide you with a weekly digest on what events are happening, upcoming accelerator deadlines, where to land funding and when new blogs (like this one!) are live.
About the Author: Gerry Gadoury is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author of Destination Employer, and speaker. He is the Founder of RedBeard Solutions in Dudley, MA. His hobbies include reading, writing, and hiking. You can connect with him here.
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