Income from Life Coaching??

flowergal

Hey guys, I'm new to the forums! first time i'm posting.

I have recently decided to start a business from home, self employed, as my employer will be making me redundant mid this year

I have always been interested in counselling/helping other people and I have come across the idea of becoming a life coach. However before i start training for this or joining any courses, i wanted some advice on whether its a worthwhile career to pursue, whether there is much of a need for lifecoaches and what are the rates they charge. Any advice will be most appreciated

Sparhawke

Welcome to MSE Flowergal

Basically the best way to do it is making a blog to start or hubpages, and starting to write, if people like you they will follow you and if you have some relevant amazon affliate links in your blog maybe they will click on them and earn you up to 10% commission.

This will then give you a presence and some people to practice on! lol

I do not know the specifics of this area yet as I am just learning but this is the girl to ask and she will give you some valuable feedback

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1894337

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1654189

I hope you do well and try it, as they say the only way to be successful in eating an elephant is starting to chew the first bite

Annie_Other

Before you spend your redundancy money on training, check out the thousands of life coaching/mentoring websites, many of them are pushing the training to become a life coach...ask yourself if they are so busy with their own 'fee paying' clients how do they find time to deliver all this training?

Annie_Other

Before you part with any cash, let your training provider know you at risk, you will qualify for fee remission on some courses.

If you are going to retrain, ask about the long term currency value of your intended qualification in the job market; a counselling qualification will have more currency than a life coaching certificate.

teabythesea

Personally I wouldn't do it. It's a scam/rip off for people who don't know where to turn. You should have to go and get a degree in psychology, and have loads of life experience, work experience and such before even thinking of doing this... I study this at uni, so many people think it's easy .

Sparhawke

It is only a scam or rip off if you buy up loads of crap from other "life coaches" in order to learn how to sell other crap to other people in a vain effort to get back the money you lost in such a pyramid scheme.

If you actually start doing it independently and starting with the "7 most self destructive blocks to a happy working ethic" or "how to clear your weeks work schedule in just 7 hours!!", something and just get on with it you will have more success than most who never even take that step.

(The number 7 has almost mystical powers in Christian/western language, the same as the number 8 has in oriental)

The idea of life coaching is to inspire others to actually do something from your leadership qualities, most of these bogus sellers never actually do this, simply keep on telling you what they will be doing in some far distant future magical fantasy world.

Thats my thoughts on the matter anyway, take them or leave them but I do agree with Teaby, do not buy a single thing over the internet that hopes to teach you how to be a life coach, you will simply end up losing your money.

If you have the natural ability it will be there, it is not really something you can learn.

Nelski

The most important skills you will need to even start to make this work are not Life Coaching but Sales Sales Sales! How good are you are promoting yourself? How honed are your marketing skills with local papers, radio, tv? How good will you be be at public speaking to encourage people to call you? People will have to find you before you can start to help them so I would focus just as much on learning how to sell as I would learning to coach. Life coaches are in abundance particularly ones who think a quick training course will bring them in a good income whilst they can stay at home and carry with life as normal. (not saying this is you btw but there are lots in this catergory) Good life coaches are very rare and easy to find because they spend time on promoting themselves and gain much of their business through successful referrals.

You also need to consider how much the average person is able to pay for your help and whether it will be worth your time. Business Coaching is a lot more profitable but of course you may need to gain different skills for this.

Personally I have done both types of coaching and now focus on business coaching as the life coaching was very time consuming and not very profitable. On the other hand I do know a very small handful of highly successful life coaches so it can work if you are very very good at it. You might want to consider focusing on one area such as giving up smoking, weight loss, career guideance etc I guess it will depend on your area expertise.

Feel free to pm if you would like any more thoughts from someone whos been there and doing it:D

Sparhawke

Nelski wrote: »

The most important skills you will need to even start to make this work are not Life Coaching but Sales Sales Sales! How good are you are promoting yourself? How honed are your marketing skills with local papers, radio, tv? How good will you be be at public speaking to encourage people to call you? People will have to find you before you can start to help them so I would focus just as much on learning how to sell as I would learning to coach. Life coaches are in abundance particularly ones who think a quick training course will bring them in a good income whilst they can stay at home and carry with life as normal. (not saying this is you btw but there are lots in this catergory) Good life coaches are very rare and easy to find because they spend time on promoting themselves and gain much of their business through successful referrals.

You also need to consider how much the average person is able to pay for your help and whether it will be worth your time. Business Coaching is a lot more profitable but of course you may need to gain different skills for this.

Personally I have done both types of coaching and now focus on business coaching as the life coaching was very time consuming and not very profitable. On the other hand I do know a very small handful of highly successful life coaches so it can work if you are very very good at it. You might want to consider focusing on one area such as giving up smoking, weight loss, career guideance etc I guess it will depend on your area expertise.

Feel free to pm if you would like any more thoughts from someone whos been there and doing it:D

Which is why you need to first be able to coach yourself, why would anyone ever hire a coach who cannot be bothered to do something themselves?

Nelski

Sparhawke wrote: »

Which is why you need to first be able to coach yourself, why would anyone ever hire a coach who cannot be bothered to do something themselves?

I agree you have to be extremely self motivated to start any new business or make any major change in your life and you need a lot of your own inner resources

The people who benefit the most from coaching imo are the ones who come to the party with the energy to work with the coach and follow advice/tasks given. If I wanted to learn any new skill .......as an off the wall example plumbing......I believe it would be better to approach an experienced plumber and learn from them......my roundabout point being that if you are going to be a coach you should have a start of some expertise not just a list of goal setting questions which can be got from 100s of self help books - which is what a lot of em do

LuckySeven_2

Nelski wrote: »

The most important skills you will need to even start to make this work are not Life Coaching but Sales Sales Sales! How good are you are promoting yourself? How honed are your marketing skills with local papers, radio, tv? How good will you be be at public speaking to encourage people to call you? People will have to find you before you can start to help them so I would focus just as much on learning how to sell as I would learning to coach. Life coaches are in abundance particularly ones who think a quick training course will bring them in a good income whilst they can stay at home and carry with life as normal. (not saying this is you btw but there are lots in this catergory) Good life coaches are very rare and easy to find because they spend time on promoting themselves and gain much of their business through successful referrals.

You also need to consider how much the average person is able to pay for your help and whether it will be worth your time. Business Coaching is a lot more profitable but of course you may need to gain different skills for this.

Personally I have done both types of coaching and now focus on business coaching as the life coaching was very time consuming and not very profitable. On the other hand I do know a very small handful of highly successful life coaches so it can work if you are very very good at it. You might want to consider focusing on one area such as giving up smoking, weight loss, career guideance etc I guess it will depend on your area expertise.

Feel free to pm if you would like any more thoughts from someone whos been there and doing it:D

Very well said Nelski - I agree all the way!

There are other areas of life coaching that you can work with Flowergal, not just the one-to-one personal coaching. I'm working one a few new ideas this year and also run successful workshops in my local community.

I haven't yet explored business coaching as I love focusing on life coaching at the moment, but I know a few other coaches who have and very much enjoy it.

Like Nelski, I'm very happy for you to PM me.