If you're a life coach, do you think the sector is totally oversaturated? Thinking of career change...

[Bollyhood]

Exactly that. Thinking of life coach as a different route workwise. Yet to refine my area of interest, but have a few ideas. I'm doing a lot of research but I'd love to hear people's thoughts who are currently working in that space.

What qualifications do you have/ are you hoping to get?

Not sure why that is relevant?

Well why would someone hire you as a life coach

(they're all charlatans anyway, its quackery at its finest and most expensive)

Honestly, that's a really dumb generalisation

My friend's husband quit work to become a life coach. She now works all hours to support the family because he earns next to nothing.

I always think life coaches must be failures.

They drop out of the role they were doing, so presumably they couldn't coach themselves into being successful.

Instead they expect people to pay them, for them to tell their client to do things that they couldn't.

Is it though?

Life coaching is what people who want money without having to do much work want to do. Therefore the sector is oversaturated and it’s not a respected job.

With cost of living, discretionary spending on things like life coaching will surely be at its lowest.

I’ve been a dating coach in the past. Most of my customers were in America. I made a decent amount of money as a sideline but it was hard with the time difference and you have to do a lot of social media type stuff and lives which I disliked doing. I don’t think there’s as much market in the uk if that’s were you are.

That's a ridiculous assumption - 'they drop out of the role they were doing, so presumably they couldn't coach themselves into being successful.'

So people can't just want a life change? That's simply not an acceptable reason?

I find these responses really interesting. Thank you.

Yeah, it really is.

The question on what qualifies you is absolutely relevant. Generalist life coaching is completely saturated and there absolutely are a lot of charlatans. I've seen people be able to make a living where they have a very specific skill set and focus area. Eg someone who focuses on people transitioning from the service sector to the corporate world, or from classroom teaching to other areas, or focusing on support for people with disabilities or a focus on career paths within a specific sector.

You need to build on your existing skill set though. Otherwise you won't have credibility. There's a life coach who targets people in my sector but no one I know is interested because when you look at her CV it's clear that whilst she was in the sector at a very junior level a long time ago, there's nothing to give confidence that she really understands current issues, or issues above a non junior level. She might be great, and she might have learnt this stuff over the years by talking to clients, but her CV isn't strong enough for me to believe she could add more value than me talking to friends in the sector.

This, I completely agree with.

With all due respect, if you're not willing to listen to what people think then you won't know an angle to take when recruiting clients. You'd then not make a successful business. Maybe listen and you might learn and be able to tailor your marketing accordingly.

Personally, I'd never use a life coach but I sure as heck wouldn't use one who snipes at people in response to a perfectly valid opinion.

With all due respect, you know nothing about me, my background or my willingness and ability to speak to people in real life.

I see one of your skills is listening and hearing what people have to say. Well done. I would definitely hire you!!!!

Every time I see another life coach I just roll my eyes. I am now doing a career change myself but would never in the world consider paying money for something like that.
If you are a career coach (help with CV, interview, job search strategies) then I would absolutely hire you.

Out of curiosity, what does a life coach do? This is a genuine question as I don’t think I know anyone who is a life coach or has used one.

This is real life. Just because it's on a screen doesn't mean there's not real people behind it.

The thing is "life coach" is just a bit vague and woolly isn't it? If I needed help, at least a counsellor or psychotherapist would have both training and professional regulation. I could then at least expect some understanding about boundaries, safeguarding, therapeutic techniques etc and I would hopefully have some redress if things went wrong. As I understand it, anyone can call themselves a "life coach" and there is no way of checking quality or ensuring a level of protection.

So true

You may not feel this is fair, but it is absolutely the perception of life coaches. You need to ensure you have the credibility to overcome this. This is the hard part and why most life coaches are unable to build a viable business.

So, taking teaching as an example. The type of person who could be a successful life coach is either someone who has been SLT in teaching, but has decided instead to focus on how to support others to progress at the early stage of their careers. This is on the basis that someone who is SLT has been there, done that and gas coached others on how to progress as part of their SLT told. Another option would be from someone who has been in the recruitment industry for an agency that targets teachers wanting to career change moving into coaching that group. Again, lots of experience of what the options are, what challenges are and what skills a client needs to show.

What will fail is a teacher who decides they don't want to be a teacher anymore, and instead decides to be a life coach for teachers looking to transition out or teaching. Or someone who never made it to SLT advising others on how to get there. The individual may be great at that, but they have no way to challenge the perception that they're just trying to tell someone else how to do what they couldn't.

(Note above, particularly the SLT stuff, may not actually be correct for teaching - I'm not in education!)

OP, I am a certified life coach.

When I first went into coaching it was with a view to helping people to find the tools to achieve their goals, most importantly in my case in confidence building.

But since I qualified the market changed very much from individual life coaching where the client was at the forefront of the relationship, to these coaches who run seminars on how to become great people, and how if you’re not committed to pay £££ then you’re clearly not committed enough to turn your life around.

It turned from an industry based on the client, to an industry based on the coaches, and how rich they can become.

There is a whole swathe of books and courses run by ex life coaches, to encourage existing coaches to sign up to see how they can “hustle” to get better relationships and earn more money.

And frankly that’s not an industry I want my name associated with, so I backed away.