Business Coach: You retain a coach who teaches you how to grow, organize, and systematize your business. The coach works with you hand-in-hand to develop your leadership and business skills while systematizing your business and building your staff.

Coach or Consultant
Business coach has become a popular term of late and some consultants are taking on the name of a coach. As Roberts points out, there is a big difference between the role of a coach and the role of a consultant. "Consultants usually get hired to analyze the business, write a recommendation report, and produce system(s) to address the weak points of the business." Consultants create and implement the systems with minimal assistance from the owner or staff. Basically, the business owner outsources the problem to the consultant who returns with a finished solution. Skill development is rarely part of a consultant's scope.

Explains Roberts, "A problem can arise once the consultant is no longer involved in the business. The systems often falter over time because they were designed for a condition that no longer exists, the owner does not understand how they were designed to work, and never developed the skills needed to adapt them to the changing business."

Business coaches usually focus on teaching and decision making. "The business coach has a dual role: provide advice and train people to do their job better, including the owner," says Roberts. "The coach's charge is to help the client make sound business decisions and to develop the owner's ability to run the business successfully." A coach does this by developing a feel for the business and its employees and helping them deploy time-tested systems and solutions.

"True business coaches are extremely well versed in running all parts of a business," explains Roberts. "As should be management consultants." Both should outperform the functional specialist when the business is struggling across multiple areas.