Coaching or consulting or training or otherwise trying to provide services to small business owners can be simultaneously the most rewarding and the frustrating work you can do. Small business owners have the same needs as their much larger counterparts, they just don’t have the same budgets and, perhaps equally as challenging, the same attention spans.

An entire industry, called coaching, is steadily discovering the small business beast and looking for ways to work with, provide service to and make a living doing it. I have even created my own coaching network, called Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coaches armed with a true small business system to address the growing demand for small business marketing help.

In a recent episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast I visited with Diane Brennan, coach and president of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the largest coaching industry group with over 14,000 members and 150 local chapters. The ICF certifies coaches in core methodologies and helps individuals and businesses find coaches to work with.

In this session Brennan acknowledged that there are differences between coaching and consulting, but that the same individual could succeed doing both. My experience tells me that is very true. In fact we often refer to Duct Tape coaching as hybrid coaching – marrying a success system with the accountability of a coach.

One final note of truth – the best coaches hire coaches too.