Hello to everyone in the community. I have just joined this beautiful platform after recently coming across it and I felt it would be nice to reach out and introduce myself. I love to meet, share and connect with people who are like-minded so I am hoping to meeting awesome people here. I believe in the coming months I will get better at navigating to the right places within the forums but till then I might just keep a low profile and see where I can be of value.
I do have an inquiry though for all my fellow Life coaches in relation to income earnings because as someone who's had to build myself literally from scratch, with no friends and no funds, I realised soon after my trainings that being a certified coach doesn't automatically land you a good source of income. And it took me a really, really, really long time to figure out how to cross over to the other side where I was generating a steady income while still growing my practice. At some point I was worried I would have to give up my passion and the message that I was trying to share to empower others..
Has anyone else been through this? If so, did you also manage to cross over or how are you handling it?
What do you mean by 'crossing over to the other side'? I have life coaching qualifications but basically I feel that gives me techniques I can use as and when appropriate. I don;t promote myself as a life coach
What do you mean by 'crossing over to the other side'? I have life coaching qualifications but basically I feel that gives me techniques I can use as and when appropriate. I don;t promote myself as a life coach
Hi Tashanie, thanks for your response.. crossing over to the other side means actually generating a good and steady income online and with my coaching. But I think you've already answered my question when you said you don't actually work as a full time coach.
Since I'm about to quote this reference, might as well post the article, it's definitely worth reading:
This section in particular is depicting my approach to our profession.
Genuine concern — Do you care about people and their problems, or are you just in it for the money? If you’re not genuinely concerned for others, they’ll know it. A good coach cares about their clients, and they go out of their way to show it. That genuine concern is necessary in order to get your clients to trust you.
In all honesty, I am also not a full time coach. However, I don't have any problems finding clients through referrals since my clients are all well taken care of. Not that I'm suggesting that you don't care about your clients of course. I'm absolutely supportive and I wish you the best in your career, but this is not the first time that I've heard from a life coach that he/she has issues in conducting a steady revenue flow. From my perspective, once you relieve yourself from that pressure and stress of looking for a job - things start sorting out themselves. For me, focusing on my client's benefit proved to be an extremely lucrative undertaking, since my first client recommended my services to two more clients. Through genuine care, and honest approach, I've managed to build healthy relationships with most of my clients. To be honest, I feel weird calling them clients, they refer to me as a friend.
My advice is to stop caring about money that much and utilize your strengths. By helping people we are building our reputation, and through that our business.
Sorry for the long post, I'm really excited to see this many life coaches here and I wish you all the best!
My advice is to stop caring about money that much and utilize your strengths.
I'm not a life-coach, but I think this particular bit is pretty good advice in general.
This section in particular is depicting my approach to our profession.
Genuine concern — Do you care about people and their problems, or are you just in it for the money? If you’re not genuinely concerned for others, they’ll know it. A good coach cares about their clients, and they go out of their way to show it. That genuine concern is necessary in order to get your clients to trust you.In all honesty, I am also not a full time coach. However, I don't have any problems finding clients through referrals since my clients are all well taken care of. Not that I'm suggesting that you don't care about your clients of course. I'm absolutely supportive and I wish you the best in your career, but this is not the first time that I've heard from a life coach that he/she has issues in conducting a steady revenue flow. From my perspective, once you relieve yourself from that pressure and stress of looking for a job - things start sorting out themselves. For me, focusing on my client's benefit proved to be an extremely lucrative undertaking, since my first client recommended my services to two more clients. Through genuine care, and honest approach, I've managed to build healthy relationships with most of my clients. To be honest, I feel weird calling them clients, they refer to me as a friend.
My advice is to stop caring about money that much and utilize your strengths. By helping people we are building our reputation, and through that our business.
Sorry for the long post, I'm really excited to see this many life coaches here and I wish you all the best!
I appreciate the reminder about why we have chosen the coaching profession. I don't ever want to coach just for the money. And I am personally not interested in becoming famous, blogging, or having speaking engagements. However, I do share Janette's concerns - we cannot help people if they do not come to us. The bottom line is that we have become trained in a field that allows us to both make money and help people at the same time. I am far more interested in helping people than self-promotion but the marketing aspect of coaching seems like a necessary evil - at least until one becomes established with some regular clients. How did you get your first clients, David?
Starting a self-employed business is dead easy. Making it successful is hard work, It takes time, dedication, time, courage, time, persistence. Oh, and did I mention time? As a therapist I actually do a fair amount of life and business coaching with clients; I also design websites for self-employed people (a creative hobby that also earns a few pennies). My experience is that most people become self-employed to pursue a passion - but many are simply not prepared to engage in the hard, often tedious slog to build the business. This is often due to a lack of skills and knowledge. As a self-employed person you have to be a jack-of-all-trades: owner, worker, director of finance, head of marketing & PR, administrator, receptionist... Supremo and dogsbody. Your core skills are not enough.
That was well said. Thank you for articulating the reality of coaching so clearly. Your comment that "your core skills are not enough" made me think. To be successful we have to accept that reality and figure out what it will take to become skilled at running a business in addition to honing our coaching skills. If anybody knows of other good resources for coaches (forums, blogs, communities,etc.), I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!
Hi all,
That was well said. Thank you for articulating the reality of coaching so clearly. Your comment that "your core skills are not enough" made me think. To be successful we have to accept that reality and figure out what it will take to become skilled at running a business in addition to honing our coaching skills. If anybody knows of other good resources for coaches (forums, blogs, communities,etc.), I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!
Hi there, Ruby McGuire runs some groups about coaching + business, including I think some free ones on Facebook, if you're on there:
Starting a self-employed business is dead easy. Making it successful is hard work, It takes time, dedication, time, courage, time, persistence. Oh, and did I mention time? As a therapist I actually do a fair amount of life and business coaching with clients; I also design websites for self-employed people (a creative hobby that also earns a few pennies). My experience is that most people become self-employed to pursue a passion - but many are simply not prepared to engage in the hard, often tedious slog to build the business. This is often due to a lack of skills and knowledge. As a self-employed person you have to be a jack-of-all-trades: owner, worker, director of finance, head of marketing & PR, administrator, receptionist... Supremo and dogsbody. Your core skills are not enough.
And a fair amount of luck.
So much good advice on the thread I think you have to market yourself well on all different platforms , but the main thing is you have to have passion, you can't just give it a go because it can make you some money , I got into coaching pretty much with the do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
hello everyone I am new here. I got ample of knowledge and information from your communication.