Are any of you trained, professional coaches? If so, please can I ask you some questions?

[Oh2beatsea]

I am interested in a career change and I'm particularly interested in becoming a coach. I'm not sure which particular aspect of coaching yet, but I'm thinking about life or career coaching, or possibly coaching related to the menopause.

If anyone has expertise in coaching, please may I ask you some questions?

1. Which coaching course did you complete & would you recommend it? Was it accredited? (The costs seem to vary hugely, and I don't want to sign up to something that talks about coaching, but doesn't actually teach you how to do it).

2. How long was the course & did you get to practice whilst completing the course?

3. Did the course explore how to set up your own coaching business?

4. How soon after the course did you start to see clients & how easy/difficult was this to set up? Is it endless rounds of self promotion?

5. Do any of you work as coaches but you are employed by a company to deliver this service? If so, could you give me an idea of the type of companies that might employ a coach?

6. Are there any obvious pitfalls to the role or the training? Anyone regretted doing the training & then have stopped coaching?

7. Any words of wisdom?

I'm 51 and I'm wondering if this is right for me, as you can probably work out from my list of questions! It would be a career change for me & I'm trying to judge whether it's worth dipping a toe/making the leap.

Thanks 😁

Anyone?

I can't help as I would like to know the answers to your question but I'm bumping for you...

Thank you @UniversalTruth 😊
Yes, fingers crossed that Mumsnet has some knowledge on this.

Hello! I’m just catching up and saw your post? Did you get the support you were looking for?
If not, I’m an accredited coach and have recently finished a master degree in coaching and mentoring. I’d be happy to have a chat with you if you’d like to… but if I were to offer one piece of advice I’d make sure the course you do is accredited by a decent body… ie EMCC or ICF and don’t be in too much of a rush, it takes time to train and longer to build up clients. The quick courses are perhaps ones to be cautious of.
This is me if you want to chat more
http://linkedin.com/in/lorna-macdougall-bb773a2a5
[email protected]

I find this thread really weird. Surely to become a coach you should be massively interested, educated and preferably an expert in a particular subject? And then you decide to share your knowledge as you think you’d be a good teacher. How do you think ‘I know, I’ll get a job where I tell people what to do with their lives. But I’m not sure about which aspect though. I’ll ask on mumsnet’. It sounds like the sort of shit person you find on the internet advertising themselves as a dog trainer or weird therapist, who have no credentials and don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing

I was just thinking the same thing! If you want to be a coach you should know where to look for things and Mumsnet is not one of those places!

In my experience, and I work in an adjacent field, there are many more coaches than people who want/can afford coaching. L&D is one of the first budgets to cut in tough economic times, if you need to make consistent predictable money I’d do something else.

Unless you have a specialist skill set that makes you stand out, then it might work.

I've worked with many Mums who are working through change and transition, confidence etc following having had children, so maybe there's some relevance to this space from that angle, ie a safe space to chat and ask for advice. I hope you don't mind me saying but if you've had experience of a coach who 'tells you what to do' I'd question how helpful their training was. Coaching is really about about helping an individual to work out what they want to do, in a way that works for them...

Thank you @LornaMacD for the information and kind offer, I really appreciate it.

@Cookiemiguel and @determinedtomakethiswork I am sorry that my post has caused you such concern. I was under the impression that this platform was for people to ask advice and share experiences. I can only assume from the comments that you have both made that you have no knowledge in this field. If you have ever looked at courses in coaching, you will understand my questions.

The wise insight from @DoThePropeller is the type of information that I am looking for. Thank you.

@Cookiemiguel I am educated to masters level and I do currently work in the field of higher education. My previous career before that has been within healthcare. I hope you deem me suitably qualified to ask a question on Mumsnet.

1- The Coaching Academy - I’d recommend. Great teachers when I did it (2019/2021). Yes accredited. You can have a payment plan.

2- I started in Autumn 2019 and completed January 2021 - you have to practice otherwise there is no way you can pass the assignments which involves live coaching sessions with clients plus a report afterwards. The time to complete is flexible and you have to factor in modules classes availability, clients time, exams dates, feedback dates, coursework and your own time.

3- Yes but only lightly - it is more about actual coaching.

4- You can start straight away on pro bono badis as students at different stages on the journey are encouraged to coach each other for practice, there is a nice community of students on FB. Or you can coach anyone if you find someone willing. It is an endless rounds of self promotion, yes as student and as a professional. I did the bulk of my training during the pandemic and I had a lot of clients and run some workshops.

5- No

6- The pitifalls are the bad coaches in the marketing giving the industry a bad name. If you want to make a living out of it, you would have to charge very high fees which are not very feasible for a lot of people and not easy as a new professional OR have too many clients which will make you truly exhausted. Another problem is that the industry is overwhelmed with coaches that teach coaches to coach - in other words, how to create a successful business and it is more like a pyramid scheme. I also believe the industry is still unregulated?
I had a few paying clients but in the end chose not to pursue it as a career - I don’t regret the training as learning how to coach literally changed my life since I learned how to coach myself and the result is that I found a new career that I love and I am earning 5x more than the job I had when I started my coaching training. I’d never have achieved that if I have not gone throught the traning. Other areas of my life improved tremendously too and I achieved all my goals and more.
Investing in the training ended up being more value for money than hiring coaches to coach me in the areas I wanted to focus on.

7 - Just do it. The Coaching Academy have a 2 day free workshop taster, it is a blast. A lot of coaches that teach coaches how to coach also have free classes. I suspect there might be a lot of content on YT too.
Be careful with charlatans or people who promise too much / guarantee results. Focus on learning how to coach first and how to run the business after.

@dullestofall thank you so much! That's really helpful advice. Thanks for the candid info in point 6. I'm glad coaching has been useful to you. I will definitely look at the taster workshops. Thanks again.