I heard yesterday that from a class of 22 coaches, from a big respected coaching training provider, two years after ‘graduating’ only eight were still pursuing a coaching career. Out of those eight, most people were scrabbling around for clients, and no-one had cracked how to earn a six-figure income as a coach. The big coaching training providers, CoachU, The coaching academy, CTI, Results Coaching are churning out thousands of newly ‘qualified’ coaches every year.
Many new coaches have been lured into the world of coaching thinking that it is easy to set yourself up us a coach and earn a six figure income.
I’ve got a wake-up call for anyone out there which believes this myth perpetuated by many coaching training providers.
Establishing yourself as a coach, is not easy, and takes time, long hours and effort. In an ideal world, you would jump from newly qualified into established and be inundated with lots of interesting clients effortlessly, and marketing yourself solely via word of mouth. However, most coaches will not make the jump from newly qualified to established, and seek alternative employment within two years of starting up their own business. To gain business via word of mouth takes credibility and an established brand and profile.
In my experience, unless you are able to gain corporate coaching clients, it is very difficult to earn more than about £50k a year as a sole trader. The reason for this? Although you will get repeat business from clients over the long term, there is minimal potential in a coaching relationship for upselling or recurring coaching fees. Unless you have a suite of products or a different service to offer your clients, it will be nigh on impossible to earn more than £50k in a year. Until you are established you will get caught in the trap where you need to spend time marketing, to get more clients – but the time spend with your current clients, is stopping you marketing yourself.
Don’t believe me? Well look at most of the coaches you know, apart from a few high profile coaches, most of them are a coach AND A… For me, I’m a coach and a learning & development consultant.
For a person to decide to work with a coach, they need to feel that the coach is credible and trustworthy. To do this means taking the time to be visible with any potential clients, and investing in the relationship before a formal engagement has been agreed. An advert in the parish magazine, may be cheap, but is unlikely to yield you clients, as most people don’t hire a coach based on an advert in a paper – they tend to initially seek out recommendations.
So, what’s the solution? There isn’t one solution that will work for everyone. However, here are some solutions that will work for some people – seeking out associate work until your own business grows, niching their business, pricing your coaching assignments via the value you bring rather than a time based fee, providing a range of products, writing a book, taking on a speaking engagement, providing paid for content…
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