Mistakes Life Coaches make while starting a Coaching practice

When novice coaches start their private practice, they tend to make some errors. If you are just getting started as a Coach, you might be curious to know about the mistakes Life Coaches make while starting a Coaching practice. Some of them are mentioned below:

1. Denying the need to do free discovery sessions – For commencing a coaching practice, the most effective approach is, to begin with offering free trial coaching lessons to the maximum possible number of individuals. Numerous life coaches offer free sample lessons for publicity and increasing conversions even though they are making more than $100,000 a year.

A free discovery session usually lasts for 20 to 45 minutes and is a rare chance for potential customers to get to know your style and dedication to work. The smart decision would be to offer only one free session to an individual. Providing a complimentary session for individuals at the beginning of your practice has many advantages.

For example, being able to acquire a real-life experience in coaching individuals, becoming familiar with being a coach and sending the message that you’re are out there and doing this. A few of your free trial customers might eventually end up becoming loyal customers and may, therefore, recommend you to their friends and relatives.

You should know that there are several coaches who don’t even have to offer free trial sessions when they begin their practice. These individuals are usually the ones who have already worked as a handsomely paid advisor or a consultant of a particular field and are therefore bound to have a large network of people who are inclined to give a lot of money to be able to get their services. That is why it is important to offer something that will attract customers if you are a person without many connections. The sole purpose of this is to join the race and to not get yourself thrown out of the competition.

2. Focusing on your website and brand, giving it excessive time – Most of the newbie coaches spend much of their time on advertising and do not spend time with the potential and existing customers. Spending time with the customers is a major step in setting up your image at the beginning of practice. The free trial session helps you to become familiar with how to interact with the customers, gain confidence and to build your entire network which will, in turn, get you a lot of customers who will have to pay to get your services. Amongst many other mistakes, Life Coaches make while starting a Coaching practice, this one has the maximum impact.

3. You can’t be selective in choosing the type of customers to work with – you should work with as many people as possible at the start so that you increase your chances of becoming a successful coach in the future. Although some customers are impossible to work with because of their mental condition or general attitude, those can be the only exceptions.

But you should always challenge and encourage yourself to work with people who are not going to be easy to deal with. If you continue to keep on this course, you will become an extremely skilled coach as a result of your persistence and hard work. And then there will come a point when you won’t have to deal with all kinds of people. You would be able to choose your customers since you would have already established a brand for yourself.

4. Over and undercharging of your coaching facilities – It is essential to ensure that you are completely satisfied with the fee you’re going to charge for providing coaching facilities. It happens often that the newbie coaches charge so much for their services that customers don’t like it and so they don’t want to acquire their services. They are unaware, but this poses a strong threat to their advancement. Similarly, it is also a bad idea to charge very little for coaching services because they also don’t want to employ someone who is too “accessible”. This is another reason which prevents advancement. Make sure that you get your pricing strategy right. Mistakes Life Coaches make while starting a Coaching practice gets discussed during our Integrated NLP Practitioner and ICF approved Program.  Pricing strategy is very important to understand, especially if you are just starting.

5. Fear of not being good enough – It is natural for newbie coaches to be afraid or to feel insecure about working with a client. They have this fear in their mind that they might end up doing something that they are not supposed to do or that they are not experienced enough to be coaching individuals. This type of fear is faced by almost all the newbie coaches. But this fear can be easily eliminated by practicing coaching with many individuals. Free trial sessions assist in creating credibility and insight as a coach and reduce the pressure on the coach. This is also one of the reasons why they are considered important.

 

Another plus point of trial sessions is that the customers don’t have too many expectations from you because you are giving the sessions for free and therefore they will be more accommodating. Another advantage is that you can prove your worth to the customers and hence, it can result in a great opportunity for you to make them your permanent customers.

6. Failure to cope with your restricted views and problems about becoming qualified as a coach – One of the most efficient ways of moving forward in your profession as a coach is to first understand your limits and capabilities and then learn to use them to your advantage. You should never give up on understanding and improving yourself. If there ever comes a point where you feel that you are not getting the results that you were expecting from your life or profession, think of this as a sign that there is something that you should do. Find out the origin of this problem and fix it.

You should always keep in mind that the best coaches are the ones that are willing to improve their views and solve problems constantly.  They have access to top mentors and coaches, who they can trust to always encourage them to maintain the top position even if they have to get out of their comfort zone to do that.  Also read why are Life Coaches necessary to become aware of the importance of Life Coaches in current times, and in future.  If you want to become the best in business, and want to be known as the best Life Coach in India and beyond then gear up for hard work, smart work, and long term commitment.

As you have become aware of some of the mistakes life coaches make while starting a coaching practice, make sure that you act on them.