3 Myths About Becoming A Life Coach

Today I’m doing some myth busting. My goal is to give you all the information, mentoring and support you need to become successful and to help you start a coaching business.

Myth #1 Once you’re trained …clients will just show up at your door.

Here’s the truth, you can be the best in the world and if you don’t market your services effectively you will have no clients and no successful coaching business. People will not be beating a path to your door. You have to go out and intentionally find and attract your clients.

The skills you’ve learned are valuable and people would gladly want your help, but if they can’t find you, or you don’t show up when they are looking for help you will never be a success. Sorry to be so blunt about this, but if I don’t tell you who will?

Most schools don’t explain that the skills you need to be a great coach are NOT the same skills you need to build a business, nor are your coaching skills going to make you a successful entrepreneur. You will need a sound business plan, business model to have a thriving coaching practice.

While it’s true, you do need great skills you also need basic business building skills.

The business skills are what will help you attract and get hired by clients, and how to get and stay organized so you can make and enjoy the money you deserve!

Myth #2 Everyone knows what coaching is

This generalized statement is far from true. Many people have heard the term coach, but in reality very few actually know what it means or how you can help them.

In fact, people don’t care what you do. Only coaches care about coaching.

They may have heard of Martha Beck or Tony Robbins or one of the other big names in the coaching industry. But unless the person has actually experienced it they will not understand the powerful impact it can have.

It’s up to us to educate people, and the best way we can do that is to coach them.  You can offer a sample session to explain or you offer small laser coaching sessions so they can experience it for themselves.

Some of this confusion comes from how people describe professional coaching. Truthfully it sounds silly when you say something like.

“Coaching is solution based process where the coach facilitates performance enhancement and also possible skill development while acknowledging the client is the expert in their own life.”

What does that even mean???????

As coaches we get stuck in our jargon, we think that because we see it all over social media people understand what coaching is and then we say something like that sentence and confuse the heck out of them”

Here’s an eye-opener, people don’t really care what it is…the only thing they care about is improving their life or solving a problem.

So once you realize people don’t know and don’t care. Then all you need to do is show how it will help them get the results they want. Truthfully, you need to intentionally build your life coaching business.

The easiest way is to invite them to have a sample session, once they begin to see the results in their own lives then they will happily recommend your coaching to their friends and family.

Myth #3: It’s easy to earn 6-figures in your first year

Ok, be honest. If you’re like most newbies you’ve heard this question during a Q&A session.  Someone asked one of the certification program trainers “how much do you charge per hour?”

And the response sounds something like this.

“My clients pay me $300 per hour.”

And you thought.

“PERFECT, that’s so! All I need to do is have 20 paying clients at $300 per hour each week and I’ll be making $6,000 a week. I’ll be earning six-figures in no time and I’ll be only be working part-time. What an easy small business, anyone can do that!!!”

I know it sounds so easy and so perfect. But the truth is starting and growing a thriving coaching business from scratch that pays you for doing work you love takes time and effort.

It is like any service-based business, you need to create and work a marketing plan. Attracting great clients to your coaching programs who happily pay you top dollar for your coaching services takes effort. You need to get good at:

• Inviting people to a sample session,
• Marketing and networking,
• Doing sample sessions and asking people to work with you,
• Following up with potential clients.

When I was new I thought I would spend 80% of time coaching and 20% on marketing. What I’ve found was that it was actually the opposite, 80% of my time was spent marketing and adding value to potential clients and only 20% of my time in doing the coaching.

It’s common for new coaches to get a few coaching clients and then forget about marketing and networking. They slow down or ignore their marketing for a few weeks because they think they’ve got it made. After a while, those first few clients are ready to take a break and if you haven’t been looking for clients in the meantime, and doing samples sessions guess what? You’ve got a hole in your calendar and the income from that client has stopped. Now you are faced with trying to fill it again. This is a common and very discouraging situation for new coaches.

I highly recommend, that you create a marketing action plan and stick with it even when you’ve got all the clients you need, this extra effort at the beginning of becoming a successful life coach will pay off handily in the long run. I also recommend you branch out and offer group coaching as well.

Eventually, most of your clients will come from your satisfied clients who return to work with you and refer others to you.

I hope this article has helped answer some of your questions and busted some myths about how to become a life coach. If you’ve always wanted to become a coach, or you are already well on your way and would like to find out more about how to start a life coaching business that is successful and satisfying I’ve created a special free PDF with you in mind.

It’s called The Ultimate Guide: How To Become A Professional Life Coach. Click to grab your download your copy now >>>  Download Here