Entering the Competitive Market of Personal Development Coaches
Let’s get one thing clear - the personal development coaching industry in the US and many other areas of the world is blowing up. It seems that more and more consumers can’t get enough life coaching services. Personal development coaches are in demand in all areas of a person’s life. Whether we’re talking about makeup, job hunting, career mobility, interpersonal relationships, or dating, you name it. These types of coaching services are very much in demand. This is due to a wide variety of reasons. People are looking for technical assistance. They would rather get the help of an expert because they don’t want to come up with solutions on a purely trial-and-error basis. They would prefer to save time to achieve results in certain areas of their lives.
The good news is if you have any sort of personal insight or experience, there are a lot of people out there who are willing to pay you for your time to share those insights. Just how lucrative is the market for personal development coaches? Let’s put it this way. Some personal development coaches charge several hundred dollars per hour; not too shabby.
Now before you get too excited, make sure you ponder the following questions. They should help make it clear to you whether you have what it takes to join in the rank of personal development coaches. As the market continues to mature, consumers are beginning to become more discriminating. It would be very tough for you to get people to send you money for your services if you can’t answer the following questions convincingly. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to answer all the questions the right way, but you need to work on any areas that need improvement.
Can you lead by example?
Anybody can talk a big game when it comes to theory. Anybody can even talk in terms of emotional platitudes. Unfortunately, the life coaching industry is developing in such a way that people are looking for specific results. They’re looking for specific outcomes that they can measure. They’re not just looking for somebody who can motivate them. They want people who can produce real results. This is a problem because if you cannot lead by example, people won’t trust you.
For example, if you’re looking to be a personal coach in the weight loss niche, and you are grossly overweight, you’re going to have a tough time finding students. People would find it hard to believe that you know what you are talking about. You have to lead by example.
Can your success be replicated?
If you’re a person who lost a lot of weight because you went under the knife or got liposuction, you might want to think twice about becoming a life coach. People are approaching you for your services because they are under the impression that you would be able to teach them the proper mindset or techniques that would enable them to lose weight naturally. Now, if your weight loss can’t easily be replicated without surgery, then the value of your coaching services would be quite minimal indeed.
Can you teach sustainable success?
If somebody comes up to you for time management coaching, and you are able to get them to save a lot of time by using software that may soon be obsolete, then the success you have them achieve is not very sustainable. This erodes the value of your coaching services.
Are your solutions scalable?
If you’ve come up with some sort of personal hack that enables you to do a lot of work in a relatively short period of time, people are going to demand your solution. You won’t be at a loss when it comes to getting students. The problem is students’ needs change over time. You have to look at the solutions you have come up with and make sure that they are at least scalable. In other words, when your students implement them, they can get more results by simply scaling things up or applying those solutions to many other contexts and areas.
Are you motivated primarily by the desire to help?
Let’s put it another way. Are you motivated primarily by the almighty dollar? There’s nothing wrong with the profit motive. However, if the greenback is your only motive, then this can be a serious problem because if you do not allow yourself to become emotionally invested in your students’ success, they might not become very successful. If this happens, they’re not going to tell their friends, and you might see your client pool dry up quickly.
If you’re motivated primarily by the desire to help others succeed, then you would find the passion required to deliver value that the people can get excited about. The more excited they are, the more they would tell people, and this increases the likelihood that people would seek you out to become your student. It’s that simple. You have to make sure you are offering services for the right reasons. This doesn’t mean profit must be completely out of the picture. However, it shouldn’t be the primary motivating factor for you offering life coaching services.
Do you have a clear idea of your niche specialization?
As the market for life coaches continues to mature and develop, it’s really important to make sure that you differentiate yourself from other personal development coaches. They may be offering different niche advice. Some people might be focused primarily on issues related to the workplace. Other personal development coaches might be focused more on helping you make more money.
Whatever the case may be; the more specialized personal development coaches are, the more likely they would be to produce the kind of results you are looking for. Some coaches are not specialized at all, and they are general practitioners; this can be a problem. If you’re looking for help that has a specific shape, form, and outcome, such generalist coaching might do you little good.
This is why, as a coach, you need to have a fairly tight niche specialization. This is a bit tricky because you don’t want your specialization to be so tightly defined that you basically defined yourself out of the market. It has to be broad enough to attract the attention of plenty students, but not be so broad that you run the risk of being perceived as not delivering specific results.
Can you reduce your system down to writing?
There’s no better university than the school of hard knocks. With that said, you can’t just reduce your personal development coaching services into a long series of inspirations and hunches. You have to make sure you get stuff down into writing. You also have to phrase them in a way that they can be verified. There should be some sort of science that would back up your claims. There should be at least one statistical survey or two that would imply your techniques work. If you have a tough time documenting or rationalizing your system, you might have a hard time getting students.
Can you let go of students who refuse to progress?
For a variety of reasons ranging from monetary to emotional issues, some personal development coaches have a tough time letting go of their students. They just hang on to these students like barnacles. Students go on to fail; they don’t get their money’s worth, and eventually they start talking trash about their previous coach. If you don’t want this to happen to you, you have to ask yourself if you are able to let go of these students.
Understand that these are students who refuse to progress. They are intelligent enough and capable of producing the results you’re teaching them. The problem is they refuse to do it. They make all sorts of excuses, or they are simply hardheaded.
If you cannot let go of students because you feel that you need to hang on to their fees, or you feel so emotionally invested in them, you might face some obstacles down the road. These students and their nightmare stories can mean the end of your life coaching services. Make sure that you are emotionally ready to let go of these people.
Answer then questions above satisfactorily, and you have a high chance of doing quite well after you joined the ranks of personal development coaches.