The straight answer
Coach, consultant, mentor, or fractional COO.
Look, I get it. Four labels that all sound the same from the outside, and everyone selling one of them swears theirs is the one you need. I’m a fractional COO. Here’s what that means next to the other three, with the bits where I lose left in.
What I’m not
Three real jobs. None of them is mine.
All three are worth the money, for the right problem. If one of them is obviously all you need, stop reading and go and hire one (I mean that). It’s the people whose problem won’t sit still in one box who end up here.
A coach who works on you and leaves the business alone.
Structured questions, self-discovery, and the belief that you already hold the answer. They will not tell you what they think, because telling you is not the job.
The bet: the answer is in you and needs drawing out.
A consultant who fixes the process and never asks how you’re sleeping.
Expertise you do not have, applied to a problem you have already framed. Discovery, diagnosis, a plan, and often the hands to build it.
The bet: you know what is broken and need a specialist to fix it.
A mentor who’s been there and tells you stories about it.
Long term, relationship first, usually informal and often unpaid. Someone further along in your field, sharing what they learned getting there.
The bet: your problem is one somebody has already solved.
Side by side
Where they actually differ.
Five rows. Read the last two first, because that is where the money goes.
Cover, a bench, and a name on the report. On all three a firm beats me, and it beats a coach and a mentor too. If you need any of those, that is your answer and you can stop reading.
Hire a coach when
The problem is how you behave, not what you know.
A brilliant technical leader who talks over people, cannot delegate, and has no idea they are doing it. Nothing is wrong with the strategy. The problem is a blind spot, and blind spots do not respond to being handed a document. A coach will work on that patiently, over months, with structure, and if that is the whole of your problem a pure coach is the better buy. If you came here looking for an executive coach, read this first.
I do not sit on the fence and I move fast. Someone who needs to arrive at their own realisation slowly, in their own time, will find me too much too soon.
I hired one and they asked me questions until I found the answer myself. It felt like therapy. I wanted their actual thoughts so we could thrash it out and move. That says as much about me as it does about coaching.
Hire a consultant when
You already know what is broken.
You are moving three countries onto one system. Your supply chain is losing margin every month and the cause is in the data. You need a specialist who has done it ten times, and you need them to build it, not discuss it. Go and hire one. Get a good one. This is not a truth problem, it is a technical one, and no amount of honest conversation will migrate your data. If you came here looking for a business consultant, read this first.
It is structural rather than a failure of talent. A consultant is hired by the executive, to answer the question the executive framed, inside a scope the executive agreed. So the two hardest things to say are that the question is wrong, and that the person who framed it is part of the problem.
A large firm came into a bank I worked at. They asked the tick box questions but had no relationship with anyone they spoke to. People told them what protected their jobs. Nine reports came back. The leaders thought they had smashed it. Nothing moved, because none of it was true.
If you do not have a relationship with people, nothing true ever moves.
Where a firm beats me
Five reasons to hire someone else.
If you are reading a page like this to work out who to trust, the useful part is where the person writing it loses.
A firm can put six people on it for three months. I am one person. If the job is volume, I am the wrong call.
They have a bench. If someone is ill or stretched, another partner steps in. I have no bench. That is a real risk you take on me and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
They may have people who have done this exact thing in your exact industry a hundred times. I bring a fresh read, which is a different thing and not always the thing you need.
When a board or an investor wants an independent report from a recognised firm, they are buying the name. I cannot sell you that and I would not try.
Some large businesses cannot buy from one person. Supplier vetting, insurance thresholds, framework agreements. That is not a judgement on the work, it is a rule, and rules win.
I say no. I have turned work down that I could not do properly, and I will do it again. Taking money for something I cannot help with wastes your time and costs me the only thing I actually trade on.
What I am
A fractional COO.
Think of it as a GP for your business. You call a GP when something’s wrong and you can’t say what. That is exactly when you call me.
I come in when something’s stuck and nobody can say what. I work on you, the team and the way the place runs, in that order, because a team is never more honest than the person running it. I find the thing nobody is saying out loud, say it, and fix it. Then I leave.
Fractional means I am in the business without being on the payroll. Part of the week, part of the year, or a line kept open. Two things I won’t do along the way, because they’re what stops most outside help from changing anything.
A fixed scope.
You ask a question. I do not limit the search to it. Sometimes your question is exactly right. More often it is the surface, and the real thing is a mixture, because it is very rarely just one thing.
A process is broken, and a leader has stopped listening, and someone in the team has quietly outgrown their job. Look at only the process and you will fix a third of it.
Ending on a document.
Most of what people value is what happens after. The roadblock picked, the decision made, the checking in until it has actually moved.
The person who has watched me work longest calls that accountability. A pure coach will not chase you. A pure consultant has already left.
Why that matters
Your problem is nearly always in two places at once.
It starts as a process and turns out to be a person. It starts as confidence and turns out to be pricing. Pick a coach and you’ve paid for half a fix. Pick a consultant and you’ve paid for the other half. I don’t make you pick.
You explain yourself again every time it turns.
You brief a stranger on your business, your people and your history, and you do it at exactly the moment you least want to.
Or you call someone who already knows you, and say the true thing.
Then the right support comes. Sometimes that is listening and guiding. Sometimes it is rolling up sleeves and building the thing. Usually it is both, in an order nobody could have written down at the start.
Common questions
The ones people ask before they book.
If yours is not here, ask it on the call. Nothing is off limits and it won’t offend me.
What is a fractional COO?
What is the difference between a coach and a consultant?
Is a mentor the same as a coach?
Which one do I need?
Are you a coach, a consultant or a mentor?
When should I hire a firm instead of you?
How much does it cost?
Where to start
Twenty minutes will tell us both.
I have turned work down that I could not do properly. I will do it again. Taking money for something I cannot help with wastes your time and costs me the only thing I trade on.
You tell me what is actually happening.
I tell you honestly whether I am the right person, and if I am not, I will usually know who is.