Compared to business coaches, executive coaches charge more for services. Business consulting, now dubbed business coaching, has been around a long time. There are no real barriers to entry, so there are more than enough practitioners to go around. Quantity leads to competition. That’s probably why billing rates are lower for consultants than coaches.

35% of business coaches charge an hourly rate of under $150 US. Only 15% of executive coaches charge at those lower levels.

Compared to executive coaches, business coaches spend more time selling their services, and less time delivering services. When asked how much of their time they actually spend coaching, most business coaches (52%) spend less than 40% of their time (two days a week) coaching. Only 36% of executive coaches spend that little time providing services.

Service Delivery:

Business coaches and executive coaches. Their work is different: coaching one person, especially when using a process that has time limits, that’s one thing. Working with a small business owner to improve skills, strategy and performance, that’s another thing. It is certainly harder to predict the scope of an assignment in business coaching. Because the nature of their work is different, business coaches look for longer engagements. 24% of them favor open-ended assignments. Only 14% of executive coaches feel that way. 
Executive coaches work with their clients in person more often. Executive coaches report that 42% of their work  is face-to-face, but just 37% of business coaches say that.

How are services delivered? Business coaches rely on the phone more often than executive coaches do. They also feel it’s the best way to work in greater numbers than do their executive coaching counterparts. Only 20% of executive coaches say the telephone is the ‘most effective’ way to deliver services. 35% of business coaches say the phone is most effective.

Standards:

An overwhelming number of executive and business coaches feel that training and certification in their field is either ‘absolutely essential’ or ‘very important’. Executive coaches are more likely to be trained and certified, by a 70% to 50% margin. Of those with formal training, executive coaches were more likely to have classroom time, while business coaches received most of their training by phone or Internet media.

Despite the longstanding history of consulting, business coaches seem to sense more chaos in their line of work than executive coaches do.

45% of business coaches see a need for a standard process, like those used in accounting or financial planning, while only 38% of executive coaches would agree.

Only 20% of business coaches follow a published process, while almost 30% of executive coaches do.

28% of business coaches favor government regulation of their industry, as opposed to only 16% of executive coaches.

In short, there are real differences between executive and business coaches and the way they do their work. We are delighted that this year, we are able to make a clear distinction between the two.