By lifecoaching1
Are you thinking of becoming a certified life coach and starting a life coaching business? Are you looking forward to quickly replacing your day-job with your life coaching business? If you have answered yes to either of these questions, there is something that you need to hear before you go any further:
The dirty little secret in the industry is that most coaches do their life coach training and get their life coach certification and never actually get a coaching business off the ground.
It’s sad, because in many cases, these people are talented life coaches, but they are just not great at business.They start out with unrealistic expectations of what their business will achieve in the first year, fanned by the over-the-top enthusiasm and salesmanship of coaching schools. They waste critical start-up money on things that they don’t need until they have 200+ hours of coaching experience under their belt.
The good news is that starting a life coaching business is actually easy and affordable if you know what to focus on.After making many mistakes starting my own life coaching business and wasting lots of money, I am happy to show you how I would start my business now, if I were able to do it all over again.
Don’t give up the day job just yet
I hear stories about coaches, and I am one of them, who give up their day job and decide to coach full time. This is a great idea if it inspires you and you have a second income to live on while you build up your business.
If you are thinking of giving up your day job and you do not have a second income to live on, I highly recommend that you consider taking apart time job while you build your business. This will help you pay your bills and keep food on the table.
There is literally nothing more unattractive to potential clients than a hungry life coach! Plus, by being responsible and realistic in your business, you are setting the right example for your clients.
Get the professional advice you need but stick to the basics
It is important to check with accounting, bookkeeping, legal and insurance advisers to make sure that you are in compliance with the rules and regulations for small businesses within your country and region. In many cases you will probably get one free or low cost initial interview to discuss your needs.
Tell them that you are starting a coaching business, are coaching a handful of clients for money and expect to earn X amount each month (number of clients per month x the session rate). Don’t be embarrassed if it is a low amount, this could even qualify you as a hobby and reduce your tax and insurance obligations. Besides, we all have to start somewhere!
One mistake I made when I started out was spending about $600 on intellectual property advice in my first financial quarter. The investment was a total waste of money because once I had completed 200 hours of coaching, my business ideas were different so the legal advice I needed was different.
On top of that, my legal bill ate up money that could have kept me from going back to a normal day job for another 1-2 weeks. Two mistakes like this and I’ve lost out on a whole month of time I could have used to build my business!
Build your brand on a shoestring
I cannot think of one coach in my coaching class (of about 30 students) who is still running the same business 5 years later and I’m confidently guessing that 9/10 are not even in the coaching business any more. So don’t invest money on logos and branding until you know you are here to stay.
For now, just use your name and create a simple website and business card for free.
Here’s how to do it:
Create a website for free
These days you need a basic web page because it tells the world what you do and is more cost effective and flexible than printing. You can get a website for free in a matter of minutes by visiting wordpress.
Keep it simple. Find out how to add pages and ignore the rest. Make sure you have the following 4 pages on your site: About you, your product list, benefits of working with you/a life coach, your contact details. Keep it simple.
Get a business card for free.
For now all you need on your card is: your name, your title e.g. ‘Life Coach’, your mobile/cell number, your website address e.g. ‘www.YourName.wordpress.com’.
Get 250 business cards for free from www.vistaprint.com. Yes, they do it for free, plus postage. The catch is that Vista Print adds a small promotional slogan on the back of each card.
When you are starting out it pays to be frugal. People really don’t care about your card anyway. They are either interested in you or they are not your card is not going to make a difference. Think of your first business card as an easy way to give out your contact information.
Design a seamless client management system
Having an end-to-end system in place for managing a client, from your first meeting with them through to the completion of a coaching program with you, is like having an extra boost of confidence up your sleeve. Clients are impressed when you have structure supported by documentation. They feel that you know what you are doing and are professional.
I have to admit that, in the beginning, I had bits and pieces for my clients but didn’t combine everything into a smooth client management system until probably my second year! It would have saved me a lot of heartache if I had just sat down, documented a simple process and used it consistently with all of my clients.
If you want to see a list of tools and templates I use in my client management system, check out www.coachingstarterkit.com and feel free to borrow ideas.
Build relationships with well-connected people who like and trust you
If you want to build a business that involves one-on-one life coaching, then you need to meet people and form trusting relationships with them. The secret to building business relationships is not about how many people you meet and give your card to. It is about knowing a handful of well-connected people who like and trust you.
A great way to build this sort of relationship for a life coach is to commit to a networking group like Business Network International (www.BNI.com) because you are forced to have the discipline needed to form trusting business relationships. If you are just starting out as a coach and are not sure of your niche I would highly recommend joining a BNI chapter in your area. You will befriend business owners who know people who need your services. However, if you are coaching a niche group like doctors or accountants, then you should become a member of the networks of that industry instead as BNI is mainly a gateway to small business owners and their contacts and is not focused enough for your needs.
In conclusion, if you want a good start to your life coaching career, start a simple, low-cost business that will help you get 200+ hours of coaching under your belt. If you can pull that off, you will prove that you have the strength and commitment needed to succeed in the industry and take your business to the next level.
We helps you by providing the best coaching client management system, a model for converting prospects to clients, and 9 essential coaching templates that you need to run a professional coaching business. Further details about life coaching career please visit our website.
Find A Life Coach
By Gen Wright
While a relatively new practice, life coaching has already become a highly respected profession known for helping people identify and achieve their goals. Perhaps you’re familiar with Tony Robbins, a man who has gained fame from being a life coach. Celebrities, high profile business people, and entrepreneurs have sought life coaching from Tony Robbins, as a testament to the effectiveness of the profession, even if he is not available to coach you. Nevertheless, seemingly following in his footsteps, many successful individuals have transitioned into life coaching roles to help others reach their potential.
Benefits of Life Coaching
Life coaching relies on a variety of tools and techniques to help you identify the aspects of your life that you would like to change and the direction in which you would like to go. While life coaching is a profession that draws on knowledge gained through sociology, psychology, career counselling, mentoring, and even personal experience, it’s difficult to label life coaching. Indeed, life coaching should take a holistic approach to assist you in achieving success and happiness as you identify it.
For this reason, life coaching will be different for each participant. As individuals have unique talents, skills, and desires, life coaching should adapt according to the client. The best life coaches can identify with your values and work to support you in reaching specific personal or professional outcomes. Life coaching is not about delivering a cookie-cutter program to every client in an attempt to churn out success. So when it comes to trying to find a life coach, you need to take the time to meet with various individuals and research their qualifications, speak to references, and basically determine if you have a compatible point of view.
Choosing your Ideal Life Coach
When it comes time to finding a life coach, there are some specific steps you need to take to give yourself the best chance at a successful experience. Not all life coaches are equal, and you will unfortunately need to spend some time making sure that you have found a coach that has the right qualifications as well as a record of success. Yet most importantly, you need to vet life coaches to make sure that you have found a good match for your personality, values, and general outlook.
Because life coaching is such a young profession, it is not always easy to identify their qualifications. To find a life coach that is truly qualified, first ask if they have any certification. Many life coaches are not accredited by a professional school or organization, but it is becoming more common for life coaches to have graduated from a reputable life coaching program. Alternatively, some life coaches have verifiable personal and professional experiences that would accommodate your expectations from coaching.
Similarly, checking the references of your life coach can help you gauge their record of success. An effective life coach should have a number of references who have volunteered to share their experience with potential new clients. Speak to these past customers to get an idea of whether and how your life coach has helped others.
Finally, and most importantly, you need a life coach with whom you have a good rapport and with whom you can easily build a beneficial relationship. You do not need to be friends with your life coach, but finding an effective life coach for you means that you should share some of the same values as well as trust. You’re potentially opening up many aspects of your personal life to a stranger and you need to feel like you can rely on that person to help you reach your goals. Speaking to your coach in a sample session or longer interview will help you determine if there is a good match.
Remember, finding a life coach is much like finding a friend or partner. You want to take your time to make sure that you can build a beneficial and successful relationship.
You can find a life coach in largest directory of life coaches – www.noomii.com
Coaching Perspective Of Beliefs
By Erik Teichmann
I grew up around professional philosophers, grew to become a Buddhist at 21; I thought I understood all I needed to about beliefs.
What a surprise to find out not many years ago that most of the beliefs that were actually driving my life were ones I didn’t even recognize I had!
It is usually these unconscious beliefs that are the extremely appealing to work with, because they are typically more deep-rooted, and, since we need to make a little bit of attempt to see them, we may not have. Yet.
Now, because of the nature of the job, we coaches are inclined to divide all beliefs into empowering or disempowering, which is just self-development-speak for “do they work for you or not?” – just in case you were thinking that the belief “I can jump off tall buildings and soar” is incredibly empowering.
Needless to say, if someone has some disempowering beliefs, it can be exciting to help transform those so that they can get the results they wish for, regardless of whether it’s in the field of career, relationships, spirituality, health and fitness, developing their business, etc. etc., or even “just” learning to like themselves.
You might be wondering: if my unconscious beliefs are, er, unconscious, how do I understand what they are? Here are two analogies that might help.
Firstly, throw yourself into a river. Any river will do, although a fast-flowing one is best. Then, swim down the river. Now turn around, and swim the other way. One direction is going to be simpler than the other. If your voyage down the river of life is easy and the waters appear to carry you easily along, you have a harmonious/empowering set of beliefs. You could possibly modify them to go even more speedily, perhaps take superior swimming lessons or even get a power boat to go faster and keep yourself dry, but things are running pretty well as they are.
If you find, on the other hand, that the current is at all times pushing you back, you need to look at, and address, the stuff underneath that doesn’t want to let you past.
For those of you who love mathematics, here is another way of viewing it:
25 (your conscious beliefs)
? +
12 (your results)
You cannot directly see the second number you’re adding, but you can deduce from your results that it’s a negative one, and to guess that it has a 13ish flavor to it is also not difficult.
Of course we have beliefs that we’re conscious of too. A favorite one is “but you don’t understand – it really is other people’s mistake that I can’t be happy”. These can also pull down the value of your life, and are at times actually harder to shift than unconscious beliefs for the reason that their understanding makes them seem more “real” and as a result more worth(?) defending.
Distinctive disempowering beliefs are “I’m not lovable”, “I don’t deserve it”, “Money is something other people have”, “You have to be clever to be successful and I’m not” (two for the price of one there!)
Sadly, most people endure life weighed down by their conscious and unconscious beliefs, as if they had no option. But if all we require is a better quality life, it becomes essential to analyze and if need be, transform the beliefs that we have at present. This is an amazing way to start.
A belief, conscious or unconscious, is like a train. You might find that the train you’re on is taking you around the least attractive areas of town, and when you ask the driver the final destination he says “the run-down depot in the middle of the wasteland”. Of course the train can’t make a decision to jump the tracks and go off somewhere else, so then you know it’s time for you to change trains.
Live the difference Life Coaching is based in Melbourne which offers transformational one-on-one coaching both face-to-face and on the phone. People come from all walks of life and live in and around Melbourne, interstate and overseas. Visit http://livethedifference.com.au for more information on Life coach Melbourne
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