Coaching is a highly profitable business model. As a coach, you sell your experience and personal time to help people transform their lives, and it can be very rewarding. It's a skill that you learn, so spend some time thinking about the name of your company, but don't spend too much time on this step. Choose a name that makes you feel good and move on. Trainers can reduce the time they spend driving to and from meetings by having clients come to an office.
The business part of coaching is another beast, but there are plenty of great resources and help for when you're ready to start your business. Some coaches start with this step: they think in terms of the number of sessions and the length of those sessions. If you practice techniques that you learned in your life coaching course with other coaching students, you can hone your skills. I love training and partnering with my clients, watching their growth, and experiencing their “AHA” moments. I wrote a business plan, went back to school, rented an office space, and started creating a Life Coaching practice.
I joined networking groups, interviewed more than 20 local coaches, coached for free, created group training events, and when I didn't see paying clients knocking on my door, I changed my game plan. The other (hard) truth is that any tangible skill is approximately 10,000 times easier to market than training, so out of love for Buddha, don't give up on them entirely to become a life coach. In addition, it takes a certain type of person to succeed in business, and it's not necessarily compatible with the generous and kind-hearted nature of most coaches. I can see the possibility of being a serious businessman with years of work experience training someone else or a dietician who helps people transform their eating habits, but this industry is asking for a lot of money out of the pocket of someone with no experience in psychology. Many life coaches have started their businesses working as a part-time coach outside of business hours, while remaining employed part-time or full time, and then became coaches as their business grew. If you choose not to receive certification directly from the ICF (International Federation of Coaching), you can find life coach training programs accredited by the ICF through its Training Program Search Service (TPSS).
Classes and seminars can be especially successful after a coach has a list of established clients to recruit for a class or seminar. Life coaching is a challenging career, but if you're up for the challenge, starting a life coaching business can be a very rewarding experience. But obtaining life coach credentials from a recognized organization such as the ICF increases your credibility, especially when you're just starting out and don't have a lot of customer testimonials yet. Make sure you choose a life coaching certification course that provides you with life coaching training and knowledge on how to develop the coaching business.
