Business Consulting and Business Coaching – What’s the Difference
Business consulting has been a practise that has been around for many years and in recent years has become extremely popular. One reason is that people now recognise the importance of having an outside opinion to help point them in the right direction and also they understand that an outside opinion more often than not has absolutely no biases and so a business owner can rely on a completely impartial perspective.
Business Coaching has recently cropped up in the field and market and is often associated with business consulting but the question is are they the same or are they very much different sectors altogether?
A very simple way to put it is that a business consultant will often come in and deal with a specific problem or set of problems and then give the solution to the company. A business coach will not do this. Business coaching is aimed to help a business improve itself by coaching them into the right decisions themselves furthermore they will essentially help the business discover the correct solutions themselves by asking the right questions.
This has become very popular over the past few years as a business owner essentially develops their own skills and gets the correct answers through their own thought process and thinking. A business consultant would not do this as they would simply solve the problem based on their own thoughts and opinions. Both methods are very effective however business coaching seems to have that extra aspect of teaching attached to it which is found very valuable to company owners and managers.
It seems that business coaching is going to continue to grow because this method of teaching and coaching allows a Managing Director to learn how their business is moving and how to effectively solve problems and issues as they arrive. With business consulting it seems that a company could become very reliant on them to solve all their problems and issues especially if the owner loses their confidence in decisions making and effectively loses their grip on the direction of their business. Business coaches think that it is vital that this does not happen and strive to guide a business owner to make the correct decisions and essentially teach them what to do in future circumstances.
So the differences are quite clear in reality, a business consultant will give the solutions based on their own thoughts and opinions and a business coach will help a business owner get to the solutions based on the business owner’s thoughts and opinions by asking key relevant questions. The other question that many people ask is does this mean one is better than the other and the answer is no. Sometimes a business requires a decision and an outside perspective and so a business consultant is needed to give exactly that, however other times a business coach is ideal and it will allow a business to get to where they need to get to with the leader making the decisions.