When Vetted by Design founder Ronniesha Rivera asked me, “How is someone supposed to choose the right business coach?” I thought: honestly? It’s not easy. 🫠

There are business coaches, consultants, strategists, mentors, fractional executives, course creators, service providers—and plenty of people whose work crosses several of those categories. My advice? Before asking, “Who should I hire?” ask yourself a more useful question: What kind of help does my business actually need?

Because sometimes the answer isn’t a coach at all.

First: Do you need to learn it, fix it, or hand it off?

When something isn’t working in your business, there are generally three kinds of help you can seek.

Learn it. 

This is for when you need to improve your own DIY business skills: sales conversations, learning to lead clients through decisions, understanding your financial reports, or confidently marketing your services. That’s where a coach or teacher can be especially useful. Their job isn’t simply to tell you what to do; it’s to help you develop judgment and skills you can keep using after the engagement ends.

Fix it. 

Sometimes you don’t need a new skill. You need a system diagnosed or redesigned. Maybe your services are confusing, your onboarding process is creating problems downstream, or your pricing structure no longer fits the business you’re running. That may call for a consultant or strategist who can identify what isn’t working and help you build a better approach.

Hand it off. 

Sometimes you know perfectly well what needs doing—you simply shouldn’t be the person doing it anymore. Bookkeeping, drafting, procurement support, social media scheduling, website implementation: that’s when you need a service provider. You don’t need to learn their job. You need them to do it well.

The tricky part is that most business frustrations don’t arrive conveniently labeled, so how are you supposed to know what to fix next?

The same complaint can have very different causes

A designer might tell me, “I need better clients.” But what does that actually mean?

Maybe she’s attracting people who can’t afford her services. That could be a marketing and positioning problem. Maybe qualified prospects inquire but rarely hire her. That could be a sales problem. Maybe clients look wonderful during the sales process but become exhausting once the project begins. That could be an onboarding or client-experience problem. Or maybe she’s serving perfectly reasonable clients but hasn’t learned how to set expectations and guide them effectively.

Same complaint. Completely different problems—and therefore completely different kinds of help.

That’s why I wouldn’t start your search by Googling “best business coach for interior designers.” Start by defining what you want to be different. 

Try completing this sentence:

At the end of this engagement, I want to be able to ___, have ___, or no longer be responsible for ___.

That gives you something far more useful to shop for than “I feel overwhelmed and something needs to change.”

Look for experience that matches the problem

Once you have a clearer idea of what you need, look for someone whose experience is relevant to that particular problem, not simply someone with the most impressive résumé.

If you need help building an interior design sales process, it matters whether the person understands how residential design is bought and sold. If you need leadership coaching because your five-person firm is growing into a 20-person company, someone who specializes in organizational leadership may be far more useful than someone who knows the interior design industry intimately.

Experience matters. But relevant experience matters more.

I’d also look beyond testimonials that say things like, “She was amazing! I feel so much more confident!” Lovely—but what changed? Did the client raise her fees? Simplify her services? Hire a team member successfully? Reduce project problems? Increase qualified leads? Finally understand her numbers?

You’re not just buying enthusiasm. You’re hiring someone to help create a result.

Understand how they actually help

Two people (just like two designers) can promise the same outcome, but work very differently. One coach may primarily ask questions and help you find your own answers. Another may teach specific frameworks, give direct feedback, and tell you exactly what she thinks you should change. One consultant may diagnose the problem and provide recommendations but expect you to implement them; another may build the systems alongside you.

None of those approaches is inherently better, but you should know which one you’re buying.

When talking with someone you’re considering hiring, I’d ask questions like:

• What kinds of problems do you help clients solve most often?
• What should I realistically expect to have or be able to do by the end?
• How much of our work is teaching, advising, or creating?
• Have you helped businesses similar to mine with this particular problem?
• What do you expect from me for the engagement to work?
• Who are you not a good fit for?

That last question can be especially revealing. Good professionals usually know where their work stops.

Tell the truth about what you need

This part matters more than people realize. Don’t hire a coach because you think you should want accountability when what you really want is expertise. Don’t hire a consultant and then resist every recommendation because you actually wanted reassurance. And don’t pay someone to teach you a skill you have no intention of continuing to do yourself.

The better you understand the result you want—and the role you want the other person to play—the easier it becomes to choose well. 

That’s one reason I appreciate what Ronniesha has built with Vetted by Design. Finding talented people is useful, but finding the right kind of help for the problem in front of you is what makes that talent valuable.

And yes, sometimes the right answer will be a business coach. My own coaching is generally best suited to residential interior designers who have enough experience getting and signing clients that they’ve started to notice patterns in what goes wrong once projects begin: clients confused about the process, pushing back on invoices or terms, struggling to make decisions on time, or revisiting decisions they already made.

Those problems often look like client-behavior problems. But they’re usually symptoms of something that happened earlier—when the designer missed a chance to set the project up for success before it started.

Of course, I’m not the right person for every business problem. No coach should be. The goal isn’t to find the person who can help with everything; it’s to get clear enough about what you need next that you can recognize the right help when you find it.

Not sure what your business needs next? Take my free What To Fix Next? quiz to identify whether your biggest opportunity is in your marketing, onboarding, or the way you guide clients through projects.

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About Rebecca West

Rebecca West is a business coach for residential interior designers and the former founder of Seriously Happy Homes, a Seattle-based flat-fee interior design firm. After 17 years leading a real team through thousands of real client decisions, she now helps designers attract better-fit clients, create stronger onboarding systems, and confidently lead the conversations that keep projects moving. She is also the author of Happy Starts at Home and the creator of The DECIDE Method™.