Which Consulting Service Do You Need?

The most common consulting service categories are strategy consulting (direction and positioning), operations consulting (process and execution), marketing consulting (growth and acquisition), sales consulting (revenue performance), finance consulting and fractional CFO (financial planning and capital), HR or people consulting (hiring, leadership, culture), and technology consulting (systems and transformation). Each addresses different business problems.

A consultant typically delivers a project or advisory engagement with a defined scope and deliverable. A fractional executive serves as part-time leadership in a specific function (CFO, COO, CMO) on an ongoing basis, often 10-30 hours monthly. The shape depends on whether the company needs targeted expertise for a specific problem or ongoing senior leadership in a function.

Consulting rates vary widely by specialty, seniority, and engagement shape. Project-based engagements commonly run $10,000-150,000+; monthly retainers for fractional executives commonly run $5,000-30,000; hourly rates range from $150-500+ for senior independents and substantially higher for boutique and brand firms. Value-based pricing tied to outcomes is increasingly common for senior independents.

Start with the specific business problem rather than the consultant category. Once the problem is clear (revenue is stalled, operations cannot scale, the leadership team is misaligned, the tech stack is the bottleneck), the matching consulting category usually surfaces. Multi-service firms can route across categories; for specific problems a specialist boutique often outperforms a generalist firm.

When two right consulting service options score within a few percent of each other, the recommender presents both rather than forcing a false single answer. That usually means the choice between them comes down to a personal preference the questions cannot capture. Read the rationale for each, weigh which right consulting service trade-off you would prefer to live with, and pick from there.

Consulting fees pencil out when the problem is specialized enough that experience matters more than information, the stakes are significant enough that the cost of getting it wrong exceeds the fee, the internal team lacks the specific expertise, and the timeline does not accommodate the learning curve of DIY.

Scale readiness typically requires five operational foundations: documented systems that work without the founder, a team with capacity for additional volume, financial cushion to absorb growth investment, clear offer-market fit with predictable acquisition, and founder capacity to lead growth rather than just operate.

The most common coaching categories are business or entrepreneur coaching, executive coaching, leadership coaching, career coaching, life coaching, health and wellness coaching, sales coaching, and money or financial-habits coaching.

Better depends on the learner; 1:1 produces the deepest personalization but at the highest cost per session, while group coaching produces peer learning and community at meaningfully lower per-person cost.

Coaches who try to serve everyone consistently underperform coaches who serve a specific audience with a clear paid-problem.