A Straight Guide

Comparing business coaching programs?
Here's how to actually decide.

This is a guide to choosing a business coach, written by one. It covers the questions that actually decide it, how coaching gets priced, and the situations where I'm the wrong call and you should hire someone else.

I work mostly with construction and trades businesses. The questions below apply to any owner-operated business.

Eddy Davis · 35 years in construction, 25 of them running his own shop · BBE, PM, BOABC

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The Short Version

Five questions that actually decide it.

Most comparison shopping gets stuck on price, because price is the easiest thing to line up side by side. It's also the thing that tells you the least. These five questions sort out more than the number does, and I'm deliberately not answering them in my own favour — the right answer depends on what you're stuck on, and for some of these the answer that points away from me is the correct one.

  1. 01

    Who actually coaches you — the founder, or an account manager?

    The name on the door and the person on your calls are often two different people, and that isn't automatically a problem. A founder's time is the scarcest thing they sell, so a trained coach on staff may give you more availability, a tighter process, and someone who isn't distracted by running the company. What you want to avoid is finding out after you've signed. Ask directly who you'll be sitting with every session, how long they've been doing it, and what happens if you don't click with them.

  2. 02

    Group program or one-to-one?

    A group puts you in a room with owners hitting problems six months before you do, and that's genuinely worth money — you learn things you didn't know to ask about. The trade is depth and pace: the agenda belongs to the room, not to your business. One-to-one goes straight at your numbers and moves at whatever speed you can handle, but you lose the peer perspective entirely. If you learn by comparing notes, pay for the room. If your problem is specific and a little embarrassing, you'll talk about it more honestly with one person.

  3. 03

    Do they read your numbers, or just talk about them?

    There's a real difference between a coach who will open your profit and loss statement and your job costing and work through them line by line, and one who discusses margin as a concept. Plenty of good coaches are deliberately not numbers people, and that's legitimate when what you actually need is help with hiring, leadership, or getting out of your own way. But if the thing keeping you up is why a job that bid at twenty points came in at six, a coach who won't read the actual numbers is guessing, and you'll pay for the guess.

  4. 04

    Fixed fee, or a monthly retainer with a term commitment?

    A term commitment isn't a trap. It's usually how a program funds the staff, the material, and the events behind it, and a lot of owners genuinely need the commitment or they quietly stop showing up around week five. A fixed fee caps your downside if it turns out not to be working, but it also means nobody is chasing you. The question to ask isn't which model is better — it's what happens at month three if you want out. Get that answer in plain language before you sign, not after.

  5. 05

    Have they run a business like yours, or do they teach running one?

    Someone who has run a company like yours knows what the decision feels like with payroll three days out and a client who hasn't paid, and that texture is hard to fake. Someone who studies and teaches it has usually seen inside far more businesses than any single operator ever will, and can spot a pattern you're too close to see. Both of those are real advantages and they aren't the same advantage. Work out which one your problem needs, then ask which one you're buying.

Pricing Models

How coaching is priced.

Coaching gets sold three different ways, and the price tags aren't comparable because you're not buying the same thing. Here's what each model is and who it genuinely suits.

Model 1

The program

A significant fee up front plus a monthly fee, usually on a term commitment. You're buying structure: a curriculum, a defined method, a community of other owners, and staff to support you between sessions. That infrastructure is real and it costs real money to run, which is what the up-front fee is paying for. It suits an owner who wants a whole system handed to them and who will use the support that comes with it. It suits you badly if you're going to skip the events and ignore the community, because that's most of what you're paying for.

Model 2

The peer group or forum

An annual membership that buys you a seat in a facilitated room of other owners, usually meeting monthly. The value is the peers and the facilitation — people at or above your level who will call you on things your staff won't, and someone skilled keeping the room honest. It works when the group is well matched to your size and stage. It works poorly when it isn't, and that's the thing to diligence hardest: ask who's actually in the room, what they run, and how big their companies are.

Model 3

The independent coach

A fixed fee per engagement or per package. You're buying direct access to one person and their judgement, with no term lock-in and no infrastructure attached. It's the cheapest way to get senior attention on a specific problem, and the easiest to walk away from. The trade is that there's no curriculum, no community, and no bench — if that one person is the wrong fit or gets busy, there's nobody behind them. It suits an owner who knows roughly what's broken and wants help fixing it rather than a system to join.

For Comparison · All CAD, plus GST

What I charge.

I'm the third model. Fixed fee, no retainer, no term commitment. Published so you can put it next to whatever else you're looking at without booking a call to find out.

Coaching Package

Contractor Core

$1,800CADfor 12 weeks

Bi-weekly one-to-one sessions, direct support between calls. Built for solo operators and smaller teams getting pricing, systems, and profitability under control.

Coaching Package

Contractor Fast Track

$3,600CADfor 12 weeks

Weekly one-to-one sessions, direct support between calls. For companies that need faster implementation and tighter accountability.

If you'd rather find the problem before committing to a program, the fixed-fee diagnostics start at $1,500 CAD each — Profit & Accounting, Systems & Operations, or Sales & Pipeline. The Full Contractor Health Check covers all three together for $3,000 CAD. Half of any diagnostic fee comes off Contractor Fast Track if you start within 30 days. At the end of the 12 weeks we check the business against the goals we set at the start, and most owners graduate to the Alumni & Mentor Check-in: $450 per check-in, monthly, every two months, or quarterly, with no minimum term. Full detail is on the coaching and pricing page.

Straight Answer

When a big program is the right call.

There are situations where the larger, more expensive program is simply the better buy, and I'd rather say so here than waste your time on a call. If you read this list and recognise yourself, go and buy that instead. You'll get further.

You've got a real team

Once you're past a couple of dozen people, the problem stops being the owner's decisions and starts being how information moves between departments. Programs built for that size have material for managers, not just for you, and rolling something out across a leadership team is a different job than coaching one person.

You want the system delivered, not built

If you want a proven operating system handed to you — the scorecards, the meeting rhythm, the templates, the whole documented method — a program has spent years refining that and can hand it over on day one. Working with me, we build what fits your business, which is more tailored and slower. Some owners genuinely don't want the tailoring. They want the thing that already works.

You want a community

The room of other owners is worth real money and I can't manufacture it. If what you're missing is people at your level to talk to — and for a lot of owners that isolation is the actual problem — then a program or a peer forum is buying you something I structurally cannot.

You need staff-level support

Bigger programs come with people: someone to call between sessions, someone to help your controller with the numbers, someone to run an implementation day on site. That bench costs money and that's part of what the fee is for. I'm one person. When I'm with a client, I'm with a client.

You want a structured curriculum

Some owners work best with a defined path — module one, then module two, with a known destination and a cohort moving through it alongside them. That structure carries people through the weeks where motivation dips. If that's how you learn, a curriculum will serve you better than a coach who starts wherever your business is actually bleeding.

The commitment is the point

If you know about yourself that you'll drift without a contract and a cohort expecting you, then the term commitment isn't a downside — it's the feature you're buying. Be honest about that. A fixed-fee engagement with no lock-in gives you an easy exit, and some people need not to have one.

No Hedging

Who I'm wrong for.

I'd rather lose the sale here than three weeks in. If any of these are you, don't book the call.

  • You won't open your books. I can't find a margin problem by talking about it. If the financials and the job costing aren't coming out, I'm the wrong hire.
  • You want someone to run the business for you. I coach the owner. I don't take over the operation, and I'm not a fractional manager.
  • You want motivation rather than mechanics. If what you're after is mindset work or being fired up, that's a real thing people need — it just isn't what I do.
  • You haven't run a job yet. First year in business is fine — the work reads your actual numbers, and until you've run jobs there aren't any.
  • You want a course to watch on your own time. Everything I do is live and specific to your business.
  • You want a bookkeeper, accountant, or tax preparer. I work with those professionals; I don't replace them.
  • You expect the numbers to change without changing how you estimate, price, or delegate. They won't, and I'll keep saying so.
Free Discovery Call

Still not sure? One conversation will sort it.

This is not a sales call. Tell me what's going on in the business and I'll tell you honestly whether coaching, a diagnostic, or neither is the right next move. If what you need is a bigger program or a peer group, I'll say that and point you at the kind of thing to look for.

Usually 20 to 45 minutes, by phone or Google Meet. No preparation needed.

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