The coaching industry has experienced exponential growth in recent years, with training programs springing up across the globe.
These programs promise to train individuals in life coaching, leadership coaching, and countless niche derivatives, ranging from ADHD coaching to group facilitation coaching and others.
However, a glaring gap in this ecosystem is leaving many newly certified coaches stranded. Put simply, what do they do next with skills and certifications they’ve learned and earned?
They lack training or a meaningful skill set on how to build a profitable and sustainable coaching business.
The Problem with Some Coach Training Programs
Coach training programs are usually designed around the process of coaching itself—teaching participants frameworks, techniques, and theories to help clients achieve results. Many programs include rigorous curricula that emphasize interpersonal skills, active listening, and questioning techniques. Once training is complete, participants are encouraged—sometimes pressured—to pursue an expensive certification specific to the training organization, which promises increased credibility and marketability as a coach.
It’s interesting that many faculty members of such training programs make the bulk of their living from teaching coaching skills or capitalizing on the requirement that in certification, a candidate has to hire a coach.
What’s often missing for new and upcoming coaches is practical, actionable guidance on the business side of coaching. There are exceptions, of course – the Positive Intelligence Certification program has an excellent business development track.
Coaches frequently complete these programs with excellent coaching skills but no understanding of how to find clients, communicate their value, or build a sustainable practice. Here are some key issues:
- Misplaced Focus on Selling Coaching Instead of Results
Many coaches enter the market believing they need to sell “coaching,” which potential clients often don’t understand or value in abstract terms. What clients care about is their specific problem and the outcomes a coach can deliver. Coaches must learn to frame their offerings in terms of client needs and results.
- Lack of Niche Development
A coaching niche refers to a specific area or audience a coach serves, such as helping mid-career professionals overcome burnout or guiding parents of neurodivergent children. Without a niche, coaches struggle to stand out in a crowded market. However, some coaches who have been in business for a long time thrive by having no niches and welcoming all comers. Most training programs fail to address how to identify and develop a niche, leaving graduates without direction.
- Insufficient Understanding of Client Acquisition
Building a coaching practice is largely a numbers game. Research suggests it takes about ten meetings with prospective clients to secure one paying client. Coaches need a repeatable process for networking, marketing, and conducting consultations, yet few programs offer training in these areas.
- Weak Messaging About Value
Coaches often struggle to articulate their value in a way that might resonate with another coach, but NOT with prospective clients. A clear, concise statement addressing the client’s major pain point(s) and the results the coach can deliver to relieve that pain is crucial but rarely used. Again, it’s the coach trying to sell “coaching” – and not selling “results or outcomes.”.
- Recognize That the Value You Provide Is Worth the Cost
Coaching provides transformative value by helping clients achieve meaningful results, whether it’s clarity in their goals, personal growth, or overcoming challenges. As a coach, charging for your services reflects the worth of the outcomes you help clients achieve and ensures a commitment to the process from both parties, ultimately driving greater success.
- Closing the Deal
Even when coaches manage to engage potential clients, many lack the confidence or skills to know when and how to make the offer for their coaching services and close the deal. This hesitation often results in missed opportunities.
Key Takeaways
- Coaching is about outcomes, not process. Clients care about the results or outcomes they will achieve, not the certifications or methodologies a coach uses. It’s all about the client – not the coach.
- A niche makes you memorable. Specializing in a specific audience or problem helps you stand out in the marketplace. It also makes it easier for you to effectively target your message to your desired audience.
- Messaging matters. Coaches must clearly communicate their value by addressing the client’s pain points and desired outcomes. Coaches sell OUTCOMES – NOT COACHING!
- Client acquisition is a numbers game. Generating clients requires a scalable and repeatable process to meet and engage with prospects. It generally takes 10 meetings with prospective clients to generate one client.
- Charge for your services! You provide value to your clients. So don’t be shy – charge for it!
- Closing skills are essential. Knowing when and how to confidently offer your services can make or break your practice.
- Coaching certification isn’t enough. Training programs must do more to prepare graduates for the business realities of coaching.
Conclusion
The proliferation of coaching training programs has created an industry rich in opportunity but fraught with challenges for new coaches. While these programs provide valuable skills and knowledge, they often neglect to equip graduates with the tools they need to build a successful business. Without a focus on client acquisition, niche development, and value communication, many coaches find themselves struggling to recover their significant investment in training and certification.
To succeed, coaches must shift their mindset from selling coaching to selling outcomes and results. They need to identify a specific niche, craft compelling messaging, and develop a consistent system for targeting leads within their niches, generating free sessions or meetings, making the offer at the appropriate point, and closing the deal. The coaching industry; needs to recalibrate to provide this crucial training, or risk leaving countless talented coaches underprepared for the realities of running a coaching business and bitter about a bad investment.