As an experienced mentor, I often get asked this question! There is a lot of confusion about coaches, mentors and consultant. This is my take.
A coach is someone who has been trained to ask questions that will help you to focus on identifying the options you already know about, but may find it hard to choose between. They will motivate you, but usually don’t have any direct experience of your business situation and cannot offer additional suggestions.
A business or management consultant is generally someone who has direct experience of your business situation and will be able to offer alternative solutions, which they will expect to implement for you.
A mentor falls somewhere inbetween. They will ask questions about your situation, offer alternative solutions based on their own experience, help you choose between these and your own ideas and motivate you to learn how to solve them your self. The main difference is the transfer of knowledge from them to you.
I attened Jacqui’s recent workshop 30/11/11 in conjution with ibd. Throughout my working career I always thought I mentored in one way or other, having attened Jacqui’s workshop I now realise I was only doing half the task. The indepth information Jacqui shared with the focus on “Mentors tools, Questions to ask and identifying the mentees needs” will most certainly help me moving forward with any mentoring tasks.