Life Coaching Certification: Why it doesn’t matter in 2021
Life coaching is hot, it’s a fast growing business opportunity.
It’s a dream lifestyle
You only need a few, high paying clients
Coaching certification is easy to get online (find your options here)
But the most prestigious certifications and experience won’t matter if you don’t understand one simple secret.
You know you need a specific niche
You know you need an online presence
You know you have the passion to help people transform their lives
What No One Tells You About Life Coaching
Life coaching is not a job, it’s a business and success requires a business mindset. The vast majority of people who start life coaching are hoping to create the ideal job. They aren’t focused on being a business owner.
No one has told them there is a difference between a worker mindset and a business owner mindset.
Unless you attend one of the highest quality life coaching certification programs you won’t be taught the importance of a business mentality.
Your certification won’t matter if you don’t know how to run a business.
Many life coach training programs do not teach you how to run a business. Sadly, they actively discourage the mindset. They tell students the key to success as a coach is to run a heart-led program that flows from their authentic self.
A business owner mindset is seen as counter to the ethos of people-centered coaching.
Frankly, this makes me furious! Those kinds of programs are appealing. They work hard to attract the creative, compassionate people who are committed to a making a difference.
They do a huge injustice to their students by taking their money and not preparing them for the reality of being a successful business owner.
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In his book, The EMyth Revisited (which I highly recommend you read and read again) business expert Michael Gerber explains the difference between the Technician and Entrepreneur mindset.
The Technician is highly skilled at what she does, loves what she does and only wants to do what she is best at – pouring her heart into coaching enthusiastic, growth-orientated, paying, clients.
At first she is excited to do whatever it takes to get her business up and running. Eventually she discovers there is too much business to do and not enough time to coach. She got into business to see lives transformed and instead she is spending all her time marketing, networking, doing social media promotions, adding content to her website and more.
Because she trained as a life coach and not as an entrepreneur, the Technician doesn’t realize quite what she got herself into until she’s frazzled and fretting over how much money is going out, compared to what is coming in. Because she is Technician, a worker, and a hard worker at that, she invests in more training. How to master social media, how to write better content, how to market a business, learn SEO…. on and on.
What she doesn’t realize is she is simply learning more job skills and taking on more roles within her business rather than running a business.
A Truly Authentic Coaching Business Model
Authenticity, sharing from your heart, working in a niche where you have a passion are all extremely important elements of successful life coaching. But, tough love ahead:
Based on statistics, 90% of all students never make a living at life coaching despite the facts:
It is one of the fastest growing industries in the entire world
It generates 2.5 billion, that’s billion with a B, in revenue annually
All of the Fortune 500 companies use and recognize coaches as providing significant return on investment when high potential employees receive coaching.
So why do so few people succeed at a life coaching business? Because they approach it with a Technicians mindset and that was sufficient, when coaching was in it’s infancy.
Coaching Certification plus Entrepreneur Mindset equals Success
When life coaching began to rise in popularity, anyone could say they were a coach regardless of the quality of the training they had. Competition was negligible and standards were non-existent.
On the upside – Awareness of the value of coaching has risen tremendously, along with demand.
On the downside – Today consumers are far more demanding. They want coaches who are professional business people.
A life coaching certification is a great first step. Certification doesn’t matter if you don’t pair it with the entrepreneurial mindset that will help you run a successful business.
So, how do you develop an Entrepreneur Mindset? Read part 2
