The Difference Between Coaching, Teaching, And Consulting (And When You Need What)
If you’ve landed here — you’ve most likely been trying to figure out if you need a business coach or an online course to help you get to that next level in business. In your quest to clarify what you need, you may have gotten a little confused about what exactly coaching is.
You’re not alone.
With the rise of online businesses, there’s also been an increase in the number of people who teach others how to build businesses. And these folks often get referred to or refer to themselves as business coaches. And so the lines between what coaching is and isn’t have become pretty blurry.
And that’s precisely why I wanted to share this video and article with you. As someone who has invested in online courses and coaches and has hired a few consultants to grow my award-winning coaching practice — I’ve learned some pretty big (and sometimes expensive lessons.) And I wanted to demystify the difference between coaching, teaching, and consulting.
In this video and blog post, I’ll share:
Teaching
a - What is teaching? How is it different from consulting and coaching?
b - How teaching can aid business growth
c - How teaching can hinder business growth
d - When to enroll in a course that will teach you a new skillConsulting
a - What is consulting? How is it different from teaching and coaching?
b - How can consulting benefit a business?
c - How consulting can negatively impact business growth
d - When your business can benefit from a consultantCoaching
a - What is coaching? How is it different from teaching and consulting?
b - How to use the power of coaching to scale exponentially
c - How business coaching transcends businesses
d - When to enroll a business coachVideo transcript
a - Teaching transcript
b - Consulting transcript
c - Coaching transcript
So, without further ado, let’s watch the video!
A closer look at the distinction between teaching, coaching, and consulting
1) Teaching
What is teaching? How is it different from consulting and coaching?
This one is pretty clear and straightforward due to our experience with schooling and having teachers who taught us while growing up.
As per the Oxford Languages online dictionary, teaching is defined as “ideas or principles taught by an authority.”
So when an expert in a field is teaching, there will usually be:
A curriculum with specific outcomes of what you’ll learn.
You’ll learn to do something specific, like a new skill or strategy.
A guru or teacher usually presents the specific steps and key information to help students attain the new knowledge.
In short - the teacher usually comes in as the person who knows more and has most of the answers. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of how-to courses and experts that teach others specific strategies to build online businesses. These folks are usually people who’ve “cracked” a specific business marketing strategy that can be super helpful to increase sales.
Enrolling in a how-to teaching course is especially helpful when starting your business. At this point, you’re usually strapped for capital and need to learn how to do many things yourself. At this stage, enrolling in courses where you’ll be taught how to do a specific thing can be tremendously helpful (and can save you lots of time.)
How teaching can aid business growth
As I just mentioned, enrolling in online courses can be super beneficial, and here’s why:
Teaching usually hones in on a specific strategy.
Online course creators usually focus on teaching their students a very specific thing about business. These courses include teaching participants marketing and sales strategies, or how to create certain processes, and more.The roadmap to get to the outcome is clearly laid out.
Why reinvent the wheel? When you enroll in course you get a step-by-step process with swipe-files and templates. This works great in some instances where there is only really one way to do something, like accounting, or how to post on social media, or a specific sales strategy that a company wants to implement.Teaching is Cost-effective.
Investing in “How-to” courses can often be very cost-effective.
How teaching can hinder business growth
Here’s how, why, and when enrolling in online courses may not be the best investment for a business:
If the course doesn’t cover the content you need.
This one may seem rather obvious. Still, often, online courses may not deliver on the upfront promises, so it’s important to do your homework and get clear on exactly what you need and also gain as much information as possible about the course you’d like to invest in.The course covers way more than what you need.
You may have signed up for a course looking for only one module of the 100 that will be covered, which can lead to wasting lots of time and overpaying.Not getting enough personal attention.
Online courses very often have a live component to them but because they’re delivered to many participants at once, you may not get the personal attention nor the accountability and focus that you need.
When to enroll in a course that will teach you a new skill
Teaching is best utilized when you’re in the beginning stages of building your business or you’re implementing something new. You can also decide to get just enough working knowledge on a certain subject so you can enlist other members of your team or hire new employees to help you implement the new strategy or tool.
I always encourage business owners to step away from learning how to do new things as soon as they can and rather hire existing experts in a particular area. This allows entrepreneurs to continue to focus on the areas where they shine and bring the most value to their business, saves money, and frees up more time in the long run.
2) Consulting
What is consulting? How is it different from teaching and coaching?
Consulting is an extension of teaching. Consultants are viewed as folks with superior knowledge about a specific topic. Businesses usually hire a consultant(s) to fix something in their business - usually in the operational or organizational side of things, or to implement specific new systems and strategies. They can also be hired to show you or your team how to implement specific systems.
The expert will most likely bring strategies and opinions they’ve previously deployed, so they are not necessarily bespoke or unique to your business. Consultants can provide a wealth of insights, experience, and skills.
How can consulting benefit a business?
Consultants give outside perspectives and expertise.
These expertise can help small business owners get new ideas, smart ways to improve their business operations, and more.They offer a clear process, system, or strategy to improve a certain area of your business.
These assets can help save business owners time and money in the long run.Consultants may or may not provide implementation help, or they will do some or all of the work needed.
An extra set of hands goes a long way and will further help to save time and money.
How consulting can negatively impact a business
As I already mentioned, consulting can usually provide great benefits to the growth of a business, however — there has also been instances where consultants have done a lot of damage to a company. For example, Bain & Company was banned from doing business in South Africa until 2032 for their role in damaging the country’s tax agency through corrupt and fraudulent practices. There are many other examples.
Of course, the above is an extreme case. As a small business owner, you’re likely to hire independent consultants — nevertheless, always do your homework before hiring anyone. Check their track record, credentials, and experience, and speak to some previous clients to ensure you hire a legit consultant.
When your business can benefit from a consultant
You usually hire a consultant when looking for a proven system or strategy, e.g., financial or operational systems and software that will save your business time and money.
The right consultant can do fantastic work in helping you grow your business - while saving you time and money.
3) Coaching
What is coaching? How is it different from teaching and consulting?
Coaching as defined by Wikipedia:
”Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a coach, supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance.”
Certified coaches are trained and equipped with specific techniques that help clients create shifts their perspective. These subtle (and sometimes profound shifts) help the client to unlock their desired outcomes. Unlike teaching and consulting, coaching is more collaborative. Instead of telling a client exactly what they need to do, the coach use honed coaching skills to deeply listen and help the client come up with a unique solution that’s aligned with their business and personal goals.
How to use the power of coaching to scale exponentially
Coaches come to sessions with the understanding that their clients are limitless, powerful, and already have everything they need to succeed. They know the only things standing in the way of gaining clarity on how to proceed or achieve a desired outcome are pre-conceived limiting views and notions of what’s possible, fear, overwhelm, and self-doubt.
Trained and certified business coaches bring their coaching skills and business industry experience to client meetings and help entrepreneurs formulate unique plans and make mental shifts aligned with their strengths, personality traits, and visions for their businesses. Experienced business coaches also come in as the client’s partner with whom the client can verbally process, gain focus, and increase accountability.
In these powerful sessions, clients get the tools and guidance needed to move forward and overcome challenges faster and easier while gaining more motivation and building more profitable and valuable assets that bring them joy and freedom.
How business coaching transcends businesses
Business coaching provides clients with out-of-the-box bespoke strategies, i.e., it will not be a cookie-cutter strategy.
Coaching has lasting benefits and lessons that can be used in all areas of life. I still use specific tools I learned from coaches I worked with over a decade ago.
Business coaching will fuel more inspired and aligned action.
Coaching sessions lead to more creative and attainable solutions that bring more satisfaction, joy, and success.
An experienced business coach will help you stay accountable to your goals and help you adjust plans when inevitable challenges arise.
Want to hire a business coach?
Click the button below and get a quick checklist to ensure you run through an effective hiring process and hire the best business coach to take your business to the next level.
When to enroll a business coach
Here are all the signs that it’s time to enlist a business coach:
You’re feeling stuck in your business.
You want to develop your leadership skills to lead a bigger team.
You’re frustrated or dissatisfied with your business.
You’re struggling to manage or outsource and let go of control.
You are overworked and unable to take off any time.
You’re thinking of possibly selling your business in the future.
You need clarity in a specific area, e.g., your next steps to ensure growth, team management, etc.
An experienced and certified business coach will help you to gain clarity and create an out-of-the-box approach, align your plan with your values and vision. These actions then help to increase profits and freedom.
Need a business coach to help you reach your full business potential?
4) Video transcript
Click here to return to the video itself.
[Transcript begins]
Hello there everyone, and welcome back.
If you’re brand new to me, my name is Hanneke (Ha-nuh-kuh), and I am a two-time award-winning entrepreneur and best-selling author of the book The Up Level Project, and I’m also a certified award-winning life coach with 17 years of experience growing businesses in various industries. Today, I help multiple six- to seven-figure entrepreneurs increase their profits, create more freedom and team satisfaction.
In this video today, I’m going to be talking about the difference between teaching, consulting, and coaching.
If you’ve found yourself a little bit confused when it comes to ‘what the heck is coaching?’ then this video is going to help you.
I'm also going to help you to understand when you would need which service, because I often get on calls with people and they tell me they don't even know which one of these their business needs.
I’ve been on quite a few sales calls like this in the last couple of months, so I wanted to bring more clarity to what the difference between teaching coaching and consulting is, and when would you need what, so that you can make informed decisions, and you can hire and invest in the support that your business needs, depending on where you are at at this moment.
So I'm going to kick off and we're going to start with teaching.
Teaching
Now most of us - I think - are not confused with what teaching is, but when I think about
Teaching, it is very much someone teaching me a new skill or how-to.
For example: I am going to teach you how to x y and z.
There are clear steps. There is a curriculum, and the person is definitely telling you what to do, when to do it, how to do it.
So the teacher is coming in as the guru and the person with all the answers. This can be super helpful for you especially if you are newer in business and there are certain things that you just don't know.
Also in the beginning when we're starting out in business our we're a little strapped for cash and so most business owners that start out as solopreneurs will get to learn a whole bunch of new skills by learning from teachers.
But I always say that, as soon as you can, STOP learning new skills in your business and outsource them.
So if you're a little bit more advanced in business, I would say ‘stop trying to learn all of these skills yourself and rather save your time and your energy to do what you're really good at and get rockstars who already know how to do the things that and the skills that you don't know how to do in your business.
OK, so the benefits of teaching just real quick are that:
it's going to give you the step by steps
it's going to give you swipe files and
it's giving you a definite clear ‘this is how we are going to do it: this is how it works’.
Consulting
Now moving on to consulting so consulting is an extension of coaching.
When i think about it: a person still comes in with systems and strategies that they will either implement for you in your business, or their team will implement for you in your business and sometimes also the consultant can just give you the strategy and then they will leave you and your team to go and implement it in your business.
So again in this instance, the consultant is coming in with their opinions, their views, their experience, and their skills, and then they will help you with whatever it is that you need.
Now the benefits of getting a consultant are that it gives you outside perspective and also expertise. It also gives you a clear process, strategy, and system. There is of course the implementation help that comes with hiring a consultant, or that could be an option when you hire a consultant.
Not all consultants will implement, but most will have an arm in their business that will come and implement that strategy for you
Coaching
Now the next thing then is coaching. So coaching is a more co-creative process where the coach will lead you through a very thoughtful conversation that focuses on getting the answers and the outcomes that the client desires.
So, unlike teaching and consulting, the coach doesn't come in with their agenda and their ideas and their strategies. Instead, the coach is going to focus on helping the client to formulate plans and make mental shifts, and allow them to gain clarity and insights on the best solutions for what’s going to work in alignment with who the business owner is so coaches also come in as a partner for you and they come in thus as the equal, and this is someone who you can verbally process with. It is someone that can keep you accountable. It is someone that is going to help you really hone what it is that you want.
How to decide between teaching, consulting and coaching?
Now when do you need what?
As I mentioned: when you're starting out in business, teaching and learning new skills that's probably where you are going to be, and get a lot of value from, but as soon as you have more capital you're going to want to outsource the things that are no longer in your zone of being good at.
You're going to want to get that support for you and at this point you can get a consultant to come and help you and then also a coach will become very helpful.
Now when I do coaching with my clients, I actually wear both hats: I do coaching and I do consulting, and I'm very clear when I’m moving from one modality to the other.
And the reason why i find that this is so effective for established business owners is we make sure that we implement and come up with strategies that are actually aligned with what the business owner wants and who they are and how they show up in their business, so their personality type, the values of their business, etc.
So in my opinion, if you are looking to just get implementation and something done and there is no other way to really do a system or strategy, a consultant will be extremely helpful.
If you are looking to create company culture and up level your business to a whole new way of operating: you want to make some changes, you want to get clear on your vision and who to hire next, then I would advise that you get a coach.
Because they are able - as i mentioned - to really help you to get super clear and focused on exactly what it is that your business needs. And then while you're working with the coach, it will also help you to come up with the system and the strategy that you are going to need. From there you can either go and get the rockstar who can implement it for you, or get a consultant to go and help you.
So those are my two cents on what the difference between coaching, teaching, and consulting is, and when you would need what.
If you're watching the replay and this was also insightful for you, you're more than welcome to comment and tell us what your takeaways are, and who you think you will need next in your business.
Now if what I had to say resonated and you, and you are a more established business owner in that multiple six-to seven-figure realm, and you're looking for a business partner and someone to come in shoulder-to-shoulder with you: to help you realize what it is that you want for your business and how to get there, then I still have two open slots available in my private coaching practice.
If you’re ready to take the next step and you want to know what it’s like to work with me, and how i can help you to increase your profits, create more freedom and team satisfaction in your business, then get in touch.
Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you next time.
[Transcript ends.]
5) How to hire me as your business coach
If you liked what you watched or read here, here’s how you can get more support from me to become the best entrepreneur you can be:
Accelerate your growth with this free handy download
Read my bestselling book, The Up Level Project
Join my group accountability program: Business Growth Achievers
Work with me: Book a 1:1 consultation with me here
Here’s another useful article that you may enjoy: How can a business coach help me?
