Business Coach vs Consultant vs Mentor vs Mastermind

Your business is stuck. Who do you call?

It depends on who you want doing the work. A consultant solves a specific problem for you, usually by designing or doing the work. A business coach helps you make the decisions and do the work yourself, with structure and accountability.

A mentor shares what they learned on their own path, usually informally. A mastermind is a small group of peers who advise and push each other.

All four are useful. They just solve different problems, and picking the wrong one is an expensive way to stay stuck.

The difference in one line each

• Consultant: designs or does the work for you. You're buying a fix.
• Business coach: helps you decide and holds you to it. You're buying your own progress.
• Mentor: shares their experience. You're usually borrowing perspective, not buying it.
• Mastermind: peers who advise each other. You're buying a seat in the room.

What a business consultant does

A consultant brings expertise in a specific area -- operations, marketing, finance, tech. They look at your situation and either tell you exactly what to do or do it for you.

The work usually has a defined scope and a deliverable. An audit. A strategy document. A rebuilt sales funnel. A reorganized team.

Hire a consultant when you know the problem, it's outside your skills and you don't need to own that skill long-term. Setting up your bookkeeping. Fixing your email deliverability. Moving your website to a different platform.

The catch: when the consultant leaves, the know-how often leaves with them. If the problem comes back, you call them again.

What a business coach does

A business coach works with you over months on the decisions and actions that grow your business. They'll bring strategy and strong opinions, but you do the work.

The value builds through repetition. Plan, act, review, adjust, month after month, until you're making better calls on your own.

Hire a coach when you know roughly what needs to happen and keep not doing it, when you're stuck at an income ceiling you can't see past or when you want to get better at running the business yourself.

The catch: coaching only works if you have time to implement. And a coach won't write your sales page for you. More on that in What Does a Business Coach Actually Do?

What a mentor does

A mentor is someone further down the road who shares what they've learned. It's often informal and unpaid -- a former boss, someone respected in your industry, a business owner you met at an event who takes your call a few times a year.

Mentors give you a kind of perspective you can't get anywhere else, because they've lived it. Sometimes the most useful thing a mentor shares is simply the mistakes they made. (Here are seven I made growing and scaling my own business.)

Find a mentor when you want long-term perspective, introductions and honest feedback from someone who's been there.

The catch: a mentor's advice comes from one path -- theirs. What worked in their business, in their market, ten years ago, may not work in yours. And because they're usually doing you a favor, you can't ask them to meet every week or hold you to a plan.

What a mastermind does

A mastermind is a small group of business owners who meet regularly to work on each other's problems.

One person brings a challenge. The group asks questions and offers ideas. Everyone leaves with commitments and reports back next time.

Some masterminds are peer-run and free. Others are led by an experienced business owner or facilitator, and those are usually paid.

Join a mastermind when you're past the basics, you want to hear how people at your level are solving the same problems and you'd like to be accountable to people you respect.

The catch: a mastermind is only as good as the people in it. If you're the most experienced person in the room, you'll give more than you get. And with several people sharing the time, your turn in the hot seat may come once a month or less.

Business coach vs consultant: the real difference is who does the work

These two get confused the most. Both are paid experts who look at your business and give you a point of view.

The real difference is who does the work, and who keeps the skill afterwards.

Say your sales page isn't converting. Here's how each would handle it:

• A consultant audits the page and rewrites it, or hands you a detailed fix list. You get a better page, fast.
• A business coach asks what you know about the people who didn't buy, helps you work out what the page is missing and has you rewrite it. Then they review the results with you next session. You get a better page, and you're better at writing the next one.
• A mentor tells you how they fixed their own sales page years ago, and what they'd do differently.
• A mastermind gives you five honest reactions from business owners who've written their own.

Neither the consultant nor the coach is better in general. If you need it fixed by Friday and never want to think about it again, hire the consultant.

If you'll write many more sales pages over the life of your business, the coaching approach keeps paying off.

Which one you need right now

Match the help to the problem in front of you:

• A specific technical job needs doing: a consultant or contractor.
• You need an expert answer to one big question: a consultant.
• You know what to do but keep not doing it: a business coach.
• You don't know what to do and need a plan you'll actually follow: a business coach with strategy experience at your stage. If the problem is too many ideas, start with the One-Page Business Clarity Plan.
• You keep starting things and not finishing them: a coach, or at least some outside accountability. This post on why we don't finish explains why willpower alone rarely fixes it.
• You want perspective from someone who's built what you're building: a mentor.
• You're established and feel alone at the top: a mastermind.
• You're just starting and money is tight: a mentor, a peer group or a group coaching program. See Should You Hire a Business Coach Before Your First Sale?

Most business owners end up using more than one

These aren't either-or choices. Plenty of business owners have a coach for direction and accountability, hire consultants for specific projects and keep a mentor or two for perspective.

Some programs combine several kinds of support on purpose. Momentum, our 12-month business coaching program, is built that way.

Each Student has their own Momentum Coach, with monthly private calls and unlimited email between them. Twice-monthly Pod calls put you in a small group of other business owners. Monthly live workshops bring in specialists, like Jennifer Rada's Get the Client sales training.

At the Momentum Amplify level, for businesses past $100K a year, there are also monthly Masterminds with me and a senior Coach.

If you're weighing group against one-to-one support, Group or One-to-One Business Coaching goes deeper on the trade-offs.

Questions that tell you what you're actually being sold

Labels get used loosely. Plenty of "coaches" are really consultants, and some "masterminds" are really a group course with a monthly call.

Ask these before you sign anything:

1. Who does the work? You, me or both of us?
2. What do I walk away with? A deliverable, a skill, a plan or a network of peers?
3. How often do we talk, and what happens between calls?
4. How is success measured, and who tracks it?
5. Who exactly will I be working with? The person on the sales page, or someone on their team?

The answers tell you what kind of help you're buying, whatever it's called.

For the full list of questions to ask on a sales call, see How to Choose a Business Coach. For what each option tends to cost, see How Much Does a Business Coach Cost? And if you're not sure any of it will pay off, start with Is Business Coaching Worth It?