Do you need a coach, a consultant or a mentor?

A coach does not turn up with a plan for your business. The first session is mostly them asking and you talking, and the questions are more specific than most owners expect: what the business turned over last year, what it costs you to deliver a typical job, how you set your prices and when you last changed them, how many hours you personally work, what happens in the week you are away, who makes a decision when you are not there, and what you have already tried.

Out of that comes a short list of the things holding the business where it is. You pick 1 or 2 of them, not 8. A coach who lets you work on 8 things at once is not doing the job, because an owner already has 8 things and the problem is that none of them moves.

Between sessions the work is yours, and that is the part owners underestimate. A coach might ask you to price 3 jobs a different way and bring the numbers back. Or to write down the steps of a job nobody has ever documented, so it can be handed to someone else. Or to have the conversation with a staff member you have been putting off since autumn. The next session opens with what happened, including the fortnights where nothing happened, because that is usually the more useful conversation of the 2.

A regular cadence is what separates a coaching engagement from a good chat. Fortnightly is the common shape in Adelaide. Weekly suits a business in the middle of something, monthly suits a business that is steady and wants a check-in rather than a push. Most engagements run 6 to 12 months, and the market has largely moved to rolling 30-day terms, so a 12-month lock-in is worth asking about before you sign anything.

What a coach will not touch: your tax, anything that needs a solicitor, and any recommendation about a financial product. Those go to a registered tax agent, a practising solicitor and an AFSL holder respectively. A coach who offers all 3 is telling you something about their judgement, and you should hear it.

For a longer answer to what does a business coach do, including what a first session looks like end to end, that guide goes further than this section can.

Some problems that feel like a coaching problem are not one, and paying a monthly retainer for them is an expensive way to find that out. There are 3 cases that come up often enough to name.

The books are behind. If nobody can tell you what the business made last quarter, no coach, consultant or mentor can do much with that. A bookkeeper first, then your accountant, then the conversation about what the numbers mean. Coaching without numbers is just opinion.

The question is regulated. Tax goes to a registered tax agent. Anything contractual or employment-related goes to a solicitor. Anything about a financial product goes to an AFSL holder. Those are not preferences, they are the licensing rules, and a coach who offers to cover them is a warning rather than a bargain.

The business is very early or very tight. Free and low cost support exists in South Australia, and it is a reasonable first call before anybody's monthly fee.

• business.sa.gov.au. The South Australian Government's business support service, including its advisory and skills programmes.
• business.gov.au. The federal listing of support, obligations and licences for Australian businesses.

Checked September 2026. Both are standing government entry points rather than a named scheme, so check what is actually open on the day you look.

Every answer adds points to 1 or more of coach, consultant and mentor. Questions 3 and 5, on whose hands are on the work and how long it should run, carry extra weight, because in practice those 2 settle most cases on their own. Question 6, on what happens when nobody is checking on you, carries a little extra as well.

The 3 options cannot reach the same raw total, so the raw scores are converted to a percentage of the most each one could have scored before they are compared. When the top 2 land within 8 points of each other, the tool refuses to pick and shows you both, because a gap that small is noise rather than a finding.

Choosing tax, legal or compliance at question 7 overrides the scoring entirely and triggers a regulated-work reading, because none of the 3 can lawfully cover that ground without the relevant licence or registration. And a budget under $200 a month, combined with either not understanding the numbers or doubting the business model, sends the reading to free and low cost South Australian support first.

The coaching fee band quoted in the comparison is a published indicative Adelaide range, ex GST, checked September 2026, and it comes from the same figures as the full Adelaide pricing guide. No fee on this page is a quote. Coaches in the network set their own fees and quote you directly.