What is the difference between a Strategist, a Coach, and a Consultant?

The Traveling Introvert

Introvert today I want to talk about the differences between strategists, consultants and coaches. So I'm going to start with strategists. Strategists are for when you have an unclear vision strategy plan or next steps for the big picture. Right. The whole idea is they kind of help you with breakthrough aha moments and then come up with actionable and customized strategies and plans to move your business forward generally with some sort of clarity, purpose and direction.

The idea is to pivot you and set you on the right path. And when is the best time to kind of hire a strategist is normally at the beginning or early on when you're just trying to sort of figure things out or doing really big changes, pivots or growth like last year or when problems, challenges or dissatisfaction arises. And it can also be a regular touch points. Just to clarify and make sure you're still identifying the good opportunities and going in the right direction.

And you know what's a really good time to get a strategist when you don't actually know what you need because they should be able to give like an overall sense and get information from you and then figure out, OK, well, this is how we're going to clarify your vision and this is how we're going to put you on the right path to what you want to be. The approach of most strategies will be to help you make thought, make sense of your thoughts, ideas and opportunities, kind of a sifter, and to find patterns, brainstorm ideas, analyse options, and guide you to making tough decisions based on your unique situation.

They don't make the decision for you, but they do say, well, this is what you can do. What are you going to do about it now? Tends to be a lot of hands on one on one sessions, maybe with some like pre work or homework to do until clarity is achieved and sort of your plans are completed in place and then you ready to go off and complete. Those said things tend to be done in a sort of private workshop, one and one, and intensive anything of those sort of ways of doing things.

And they tend to be business strategists, small business strategists, growth strategists. Basically, they have strategists in the title somewhere. And there is that does tend to be some fuzziness between strategists and coach. So now let's talk about coach. So coaches often navigating daily difficult issues when running your business and that I help holding you back from maximising your potential. They will help you reach goals or at least take meaningful action towards those goals faster than if you were doing it independently.

And it has helped you improve your approach to managing your business. The best time to hire a coach is when you need to get from where you are to where you want to be. And you probably already have the strategists tell you what you need to do. It will hone in your approach to managing and growing your business and help you overcome any mental blocks that you might have or behaviours. So that's a really key difference between like just a full on strategist and a coach and coach will also give you ongoing support for self improvement and accountability.

Now, that does tend to be, like I said before, a bit of a merge between those two. Now, their approach tends to be guiding you towards coming towards conclusions with insightful questions and maybe other approaches. They teach you proven methods to improve your mindset, behaviours, decision making and management of those sort of a thing. And they also help you clarify your goal and provide encouragement and accountability for making continued progress. And normally it tends to be with a coach's regular schedule discussion sessions until the goal is reached for a set period of time, normally about three months, and sometimes there will be homework and accountability.

Check ins in between tends to be more of a group programme and less one on one with the last part is a consultant. So when you don't know how to do something very specific or lack the ability to like, learn that thing. So this will help you have an increased understanding on how to do something and complete that very, very specific thing. You already will have like a strategy in mind. And they're just going to help you implement that thing.

And they provide expert advice, recommendations or teaching on that specific knowledge that they have deep knowledge in. And they lean on their experience in their speciality to complete help you implement whatever it is that you need to do. Where's the time our consultant will do a presentation, a reporter consult or a training just to get you up and running and implementing support to get that specific project? Done and so examples of those tend to be like a DNA expert or specialist, a legal adviser or a consultant.

So those are the differences between a strategist, a consultant and a coach. And when you might be looking to hire and get someone of that calibre onto your team to support you, get to your business goals. Thank you for listening. This was [e-mail] helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your day.