Business Coach, Mastermind, or Accountability Coach — Which Do You Need?

Understanding the niche of accountability coaching can be a little difficult to explain unless you’ve tried other types of coaching.

I got into accountability coaching as a realtor. I knew what I needed to do but had all kinds of resistance to doing it because it felt very uncomfortable to do the number one thing that makes realtors successful – selling. And it’s not just selling homes, if it were that simple it would be a lot more fun and a lot easier. But it’s selling yourself as the best person for the client to work with. Which of course brings up all kinds of things, like imposter syndrome, and trying not to be salesy while actually getting the sale. As Scott Galloway puts it, 

Entrepreneur is just a synonym for salesperson. 

My Experience with Business Coaching

When I wanted to start my own coaching business in 2012, I hired a business coach. I chose a coach that had a similar business model to mine. I knew I wanted to offer a small group coaching program with a recurring membership. I hired her to walk me through the steps of putting together a website, deciding on my marketing channels, messaging and branding. I had intended to do all the coaching in person but she urged me to think outside the box and do my coaching virtually since she knew that I planned to move the following year. I had done a lot of dreaming, but it wasn’t until I hired her that I put all the pieces together and opened for business.

My Experience with a Mastermind

Later, once my business was off the ground and doing well, I joined a publicity mastermind. This particular mastermind had a strong mentorship component. Usually when you sign up for a mastermind, the leader is someone who has a particular skill set that you want as well. This one was for online business owners who wanted to learn how to pitch to media outlets. We were a group of mostly coaches who had existing programs that we were enrolling through our email lists and social media and we wanted more authority and exposure. We met monthly, learned and shared best practices, created pitches and got feedback. This experience helped me get a lot more exposure including being the resident accountability coach for a goals challenge held by Entrepreneur.com that had more than 25,000 participants.

Having done all these different types of coaching and mentorship programs and many more, I can help explain what accountability coaching is and what it isn’t. 

Business Coaching

Business coaching is where you want someone to tell you what to do, you aren’t sure and you are looking to them for their expertise in the type of business you are running so that they save you time, help you make decisions, and hopefully hold you accountable to getting what you are there to work on done. Cadence is dependent on the coach, it could be a package or one off, VIP half day or full day, or one session. It depends on how the coach packages their services and what type of support you are looking for.

Mastermind

A mastermind is about the leader and the members. You want to go to a mastermind where you highly respect the leader or leaders that is going to bring people together that have a similar business and hopefully higher level of success than you do so that you can learn. Masterminds exist for all levels of business. Typically, the more successful the leader and the group of people the more it costs to join. Cadence is usually a bit longer between meetings, quarterly is pretty standard although they can be as often as monthly.

Accountability Coaching

Accountability coaching or an accountability group is for prioritization and implementation. The accountability coach is there to help you set your trajectory, usually by setting goals, developing a plan for approaching your goals, and keeping you accountable to following through and making progress each week. Therefore the cadence is more often. The coaching can be either one on one or a small group. The advantage of one on one is private, attention, and focus on your areas of difficulty. A small group is beneficial if you are interested in getting varied perspectives and feedback and if you want more community around your goals.

There is a time and place for each type. Having done all three, I like to invest in business coaching when I want to solve a particular problem and I want to talk to someone who has done what I want to do. A mastermind is a worthwhile investment when you want to build more community in your industry. You want to learn about systems people are using, what marketing techniques are working, etc. There tend to be other perks and investments that go along with a mastermind which include travel.

Accountability coaching is where the rubber meets the road, this is where the weekly work gets done that is going to grow and support your business that might not get done without accountability. Many of our clients might also have business coaches or mastermind groups and still find our service invaluable because this is where what their learning gets put into action.