The Power of a Blended Approach – why sometimes coaching alone just doesn’t cut it!

Every so often, someone will squint slightly when they look at what I offer and ask:

"But what are you, really? A coach? A consultant? A trainer? A mentor?"

And honestly, I usually smile and say: "Yes."

Because truthfully? I don’t fit neatly into any one of those boxes. And neither, I suspect, do the people I work with.

We love a label… but real life is messier

Coaching, mentoring, training, consulting – they each have clear definitions, if you ask Google:

• Coaching is about asking the right questions, helping you unlock your own answers – absolutely not advising.

  
  

• Mentoring draws on someone’s experience to guide and inspire you.

  
  

• Training teaches you how to do the thing.

  
  

• Consulting rolls up its sleeves, gives advice and gets you a plan.

They’re all valid. All powerful. All useful. But if we’re being really honest, life – and business – doesn’t often arrive in such tidy categories.

Because sometimes you don’t just want a coach to hold space while you find your own truth. Sometimes you also want someone to say, “Here’s what I’ve seen work before,” or “Have you thought of trying this?” Or simply, “Here’s how to do that thing you’ve been googling until midnight.”

Especially when your energy is pulled in a thousand directions. Running a business, raising a family, managing a team, launching a project, trying to get a new idea off the ground – it’s a lot. Sometimes the last thing you need is someone asking you, “What does your inner voice say?” when all you want is to know how to do a decent content strategy or write a pitch email that doesn’t sound like a panic attack in bullet points.

This is where the magic happens

So what if we stop treating coaching, mentoring, training and consulting like separate services, and instead treat them as tools in the same kit?

What I do – and what I’ve trained in, practised, and refined over years with clients ranging from business owners and CEOs to teenagers facing barriers to employment – is less about rigid roles, and more about what’s needed in the moment. Emotional intelligence, understanding the energy and intuition are key tools in my kit – not everyone has them, but they make a world of difference when it comes to knowing what someone really needs in the moment.

Sometimes that’s deep coaching – creating a space for clarity, confidence and direction.

Other times it’s old-fashioned mentoring – sharing insight and guidance from my own journey and signposting to other services too. It might be hands-on training in practical skills. Or strategic consulting when decisions need made, and momentum matters.

And yes, plenty of professionals blend these approaches without necessarily naming them – which is fine, but it can get confusing when you’re choosing someone to walk alongside you in your work and growth during a specific chapter of your story. Clarity helps.

I call it… well, I wish there was a name for it

I’ve never found one that fits perfectly. “Blended support” sounds like a smoothie. “Integrated development” sounds like a HR document. I just call it working with people – business people, soulful people, humans with ambition and questions and not enough hours in the day – in a way that makes sense to them.

It’s person-centred. Responsive. Realistic. And it works.

So no – I haven’t chosen to specialise in one strand of service. Not because I can’t commit (I promise I can), but because real life doesn’t work in strands. And neither does truly effective support.

If you’re looking for a tidy label, I might not be your girl.

But if you want to work with someone who listens, who brings tools not templates, who can meet you where you are and help you get where you want to be – with a dash of humour and a lot of heart – then maybe we should talk.

Because sometimes the best results don’t come from sticking to the rulebook. They come from trusting the blend.