JODIE HAYWARD
Nearly everyone writing about this sells one thing, so the answer is always the thing they sell. I sell both. Here is how to tell which one is yours, including when the answer is neither.
That is the whole difference, and everything else follows from it.
In mentorship, you are still the one running it. I am the person you think out loud with, the one who can see what you cannot see from the inside, and the one who will tell you when the problem you brought me is not the problem.
In consulting, I am in the business. At the strategic level, in the decisions, overseeing the team that implements. I do not implement. That line matters and I am keeping it, because you already have hands. Hands were never the thing that was stuck.
You will read that a coach asks questions, a mentor shares experience and a consultant hands you a plan. Then you will read the opposite somewhere else. The words get used loosely, and you are left guessing which one you are buying.
So ignore the labels and ask the question that actually decides it: how close in do you want me?
Everything I do runs on the same throughline, the business and the woman running it, aligned together, because one without the other never lasts. The only real difference between the two ways in is proximity.
You are the one who will do the work, and what is missing is someone to think with. Decisions circle for weeks and you want them made in minutes. There is a team, or there is about to be, and everything still routes through you. You want the fastest version of this, and you want it personal.
The business has outgrown what you can hold in your own head. Revenue arrives predictably, there is a team that builds, and what is missing is someone at the strategic level making sure what gets built is right. You do not need another pair of hands. You need the thinking held properly while your people execute.
You are still finding your offer. Or you want a blueprint to work through on your own, which is a different thing and there is no shame in it. Or you want to hand the whole business over, which I will not do, because a business built without you in it is one you cannot run when I leave. If that is where you are, say so, and I will tell you what I would do instead.
Mentorship is $697 a month on a three-month commitment, then ongoing. Consulting is from $3,333 a month with a minimum nine-month term, by application.
The longer answer, including how to work out whether either is worth it to you, is on the what it costs page.