At first glance, coaching and mentoring sound very similar. But in fact, the two are quite different.

Business coaching is all about identifying business goals, both short-term and long-term and increasing overall business performance across different areas; business coaches can be brought in at any moment, whether you’re looking to discover and solve problems within your business or when you want to expand your business and your earnings.

On the other hand, business mentors are usually entrepreneurs and business owners themselves, with a lot more experience and knowledge than you. Because of this, they help guide you through the process so that you can find improve your personal performance, understand how to build a successful business, and even help you increase your confidence in your abilities.

Because of this, mentors are particularly important in the beginning stages of entrepreneurship, when you’re just starting out and don’t have the knowledge or the confidence you need to succeed in business.

A business mentor is not there to tell you what you need to do, but rather help you understand this by yourself. On the other hand, a business coach will take a much more hands-on approach, helping you identify issues within your company, as well as providing proven solutions to help solve these issues.

Business mentors are usually best leveraged by new entrepreneurs. By getting someone who’s more experienced and who has gone through the same steps as you, successfully, you’ll be able to better navigate this process and therefore, build a successful business from the start.

On the other hand, business coaches can be very useful at any point during the lifetime of your business. Coaches are focused on getting you the results you want, by identifying problems within your business, coaching your teams, helping you to develop your strategies and generally, helping you achieve your biggest business goals.

Because of their objectivity and experience in this domain, they’re better prepared to help your business reach its objectives.