What’s the Difference Between
Small Business Coaching and
Small Business Consulting?

I believe there are two things we have in our lives that have a great impact on our success.  And the good news is that we can change both of them!

The first is BELIEFS.

Beliefs are our thoughts that either help us get ahead or hold us back. We can get these beliefs from anywhere—our parents, school, churches, our peers, the internet.  Sometimes we don’t know where we got them from!  (Maybe it was an alien…)

Say, for example, you have a belief that you’re not good at math. That could be a problem when you own a small business!  In fact, I’ve had small business coaching clients that are so paralyzed by this belief that they couldn’t even look at their books. As a result, their small business was struggling because they didn’t really know what was going on.

Small business coaching can help you overcome a belief like that.

Another common example is that many small business owners have a belief that selling is “bad.” Their image of a salesperson comes from caricatures of used car salesmen and telemarketers with a knack for calling when it’s dinnertime. When they engage in small business coaching, they can change that belief and increase their sales.

The second is KNOWLEDGE.

Remember when you took SATs for college?  Rows and rows of multiple choice questions. It was easy to answer the ones you knew and disheartening to answer the ones you knew you had no idea of the answer. The hardest ones to answer, however, were the ones where you could make an educated guess.  Get it right, and it can make the difference between acceptance and rejection.  Get it wrong…goodbye Harvard.

The same is true for business.  It’s the things you don’t know you don’t know that can really get you in trouble—especially if you don’t know where to look for an answer.  But where do you turn for help to sort through it? Small business coaching won’t help you. The right small business consultant can.

For example, a number of my clients don’t understand their books, or what an owner should look for in financial reports.  I work with a number of bookkeepers to teach them what these reports mean, what’s important and what red flags should drive them to action.

Internet marketing is hot, but many of my clients are confused about what they should be doing, how to drive people to their site, or how to make a sale once they’re there.  Because I’ve spent 25 years in the tech industry, and have spent a lot of time on internet marketing over the last five years, I can help them make some sense of it all.

Sometimes You Need BOTH
Small Business Coaching and Consulting

There are times you need knowledge AND you need to change a belief. Using the examples above, what happens if you don’t have the KNOWLEDGE that you need to read a financial report, and you have the BELIEF that you couldn’t read it, even if you knew?  You need small business coaching and consulting to get to the bottom of that problem.

Suppose you don’t have the KNOWLEDGE to convert your clients on the internet and you have a BELIEF that selling yourself is bad. First you need to modify the belief, then you need to learn how to create web copy that converts prospects with integrity. This is another situation where you need both small business coaching AND consulting.

I believe I have the knowledge to help you with many of your small business coaching and consulting needs. If not, I have lots of contacts I can (and will) refer you to. Please check out the small business coaching and consulting services we offer.

Or, shoot me an email (casey AT wisewomanshining.com) and we can set up a time to talk about small business coaching and consulting.

The first small business coaching session is on me.