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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU - coaches- creepy human pyramid schemes -

98 replies

Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 20:05

I have decided this needs a thread dedicated to it.

Because AIBU- for the rant below?

Yes yabu- people are motivated and able to sell themselves we should champion and support.get a life abs stop being so judgemental.

No- yanbu- I have noticed and am similarly irritated .

The coaching thing is driving me crazy of late. Constantly over my news feeds are these coaches who are “ transformational” published with ... , 10,000,000 a year income . Only looking to work with “serious” clients who are ready to earn thousands a month Confused...

It’s a human pyramid scheme ... The coaches never seem to have any clients who aren’t coaches themselves ..

all spurious testimonials that I think they paid for on fiverr... and don’t get me started on their ‘podcasts’ .. + the interviews with their own ‘celeb coaches ‘
(Where they have clearly ripped off a 2 second clip of them asking a question in a webinar to make it look like they are in an intimate interview ....)

Oh and also the BIG SELL - If you are serious you will “invest” 29,999 in their coaching ... ( I got quoted an amount like this once to be coached )

God- I’m aware that I sound incredibly bitter ... I think I have been holding this rant in...

It’s just yucky

Oh and their qualifications are usually a 20 quid NLP course from future learn or similar bullshit ...

Sorry but just Sad

I am aware that I am being an awful judgemental person . This pandemic has encouraged my awfulness no end I
am afraid.

Feel free to correct my outlook.

OP posts:
suspiria777 · 25/02/2021 20:14

with you 100%. It's a human pyramid scheme.

FortunesFave · 25/02/2021 20:14

YANBU it's a disease. I've worked for myself as a content writer for over 11 years now and I still get people contacting me on LinkedIn trying to sell me a course that will help me "grow my business"

I WRITE the shite sales pitches...you can't try them out on me pal!

TotsAndPears · 25/02/2021 20:18

Oh... You've discovered the coaches who coach coaches to coach coaches to coach coaches....

YANBU

SwanShaped · 25/02/2021 20:24

What do they coach? I see loads of employment coaches advertising themselves. Is that the ones you mean?

Original poster
Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 20:25

Flowers for you all for making me feel a little
less like a monster - and yes ....the coaches , who coach coaches to coach coaches and so on and so forth seemingly forever ....

I wonder how coaches who cut their teeth through genuine hard work and rigour in life before the coaches who coach coaches came along .. feel about this

OP posts:
Original poster
Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 20:26

@SwanShaped

What do they coach? I see loads of employment coaches advertising themselves. Is that the ones you mean?
@SwanShaped I think they coach everything and anything - usually I see a lot of empowerment- finding your fire, your worth , your inner magic , your power message or something akin to this
OP posts:
mynameiscalypso · 25/02/2021 20:27

Well, yes. Just look at NXVIM...

ghostyslovesheets · 25/02/2021 20:28

frustrates me so much - career coaches especially! It was bad enough when the Gov decided people with NVQ3 in guidance could be 'careers advisers' and teacher could also just do the job - no I have a post grad in careers guidance - a further year on the job training and a commitment continuous professional development - it way more complex than giving out leaflets - sorry I got ranty - YANBU

MissEverdene · 25/02/2021 20:29

Agreed, it's dreadful and seems to attract those who are financially vulnerable.

(I geel the same way about scentsy, aloevera drinks etc.

HoldontoOneMoreDay · 25/02/2021 20:29

Yeah, it's a bit of a worry and also a pet peeve. One of my clients is a - bloody good - exec coach and she's fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole on this recently after losing a lot of business due to Covid. I'm quite worried about her to be honest. She's gone from fuck that nonsense to signing up for one of those build your business courses very quickly.

MadameButterface · 25/02/2021 20:30

At one time ‘becoming a counsellor’ used to be the career path du jour of that one friend everyone has who is a total flake lurching from disaster to disaster, now it’s ‘becoming a life coach’

Bless

BigHandsomeBeast · 25/02/2021 20:36

I have one of these coaches on my Facebook friends list, we were briefly in school together. She categorically does not earn what she claims to. She even went so far as to post the Right Move page of a mansion she claimed she was buying recently. The sale very surprisingly fell through as the 27 bedrooms of the castle she manifested weren’t plentiful enough so she decided to stick to her 2 bed HA property in the end but was forever blessed. I cannot unfollow her due to some unkind mixture of fascination and horror. [detective] [eyeroll]

SwanShaped · 25/02/2021 20:42

Maybe it’s slightly different then. I see lots of career coach stuff. But not sure if they try to recruit other career coaches. I’m on some job fb groups and for every question that someone poses, there seems to be plenty of people offering their career coaching services. Not really sure what they do but there’s loads of them.

Original poster
Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 20:46

@MadameButterface

At one time ‘becoming a counsellor’ used to be the career path du jour of that one friend everyone has who is a total flake lurching from disaster to disaster, now it’s ‘becoming a life coach’

Bless

@MadameButterface You see I understand a fair bit about psychology and counselling . I think this is a misconception - “proper qualified ” counselling and psychology is a hard and arduous path of training , self reflection and learning . It can take 5 years or more to be fully trained in a “ proper route “ I would not call anyone doing this a flake at all.

I’m sure there are great coaches - my rant is based on judgement and this new endless repetitive coaching spam .. which I really do think sucks in vulnerable people.

OP posts:
GloGirl · 25/02/2021 20:46

There's one man who aggressively adcertises on Facebook for Linked In, Instagram, and Twitter Masterclasses.

I was trying to boost my small business on Instagram so out of curiosity I popped over to his feed to see it was incredibly poor. As a Petty Betty I spent 5 minutes finding the exact moment his paid for likes kicked in, he went from 3 post likes to 546 overnight, and then upwards to 1000.

Be much cheaper to buy my own likes than pay for his shitty course. Upset people fall for it to be honest.

ladybee28 · 25/02/2021 20:52

@Hufflepuffmamma

Flowers for you all for making me feel a little less like a monster - and yes ....the coaches , who coach coaches to coach coaches and so on and so forth seemingly forever ....

I wonder how coaches who cut their teeth through genuine hard work and rigour in life before the coaches who coach coaches came along .. feel about this

I'm f&*king sick of it.

I've been distancing myself from the word for years - it's a big part of what I do, but it's not how I answer the 'so what do you do' question anymore.

It's tough, because it's an unregulated industry, so anyone can call themselves a coach, even if they have no qualifications.

And even the coaches that ARE qualified, many of them just came through the coach training factories and can't coach beyond the models they've been taught to parrot.

It's shit.

LunaHeather · 25/02/2021 20:53

Where are you seeing these please?

GeidiPrimes · 25/02/2021 20:56

Grifters gonna grift...

CristalCarrington · 25/02/2021 20:57

The “life coaches” I know are all people who have no other qualifications, scrape by while pretending to be successful and are nowhere near as spiritual or emotionally wise as they claim to be.

But don’t have the motivation to become qualified counsellors. Just want the same hourly rate and kudos, for spouting nonsense, and often throwing a bit of “NLP” into the mix.

MadameButterface · 25/02/2021 20:57

Oh god yeah, i’m being overly flippant, totally - i really get what you’re saying, and i know someone who’s kind of been suckered in by this type of thing, who posts lots of ‘inspirational’ material and i just find it a bit creepy really - constant ‘positivity’ and the message seems to be that ‘you are the only thing standing in your way’ etc etc - which is bollocks really as it completely ignores the fact that structural inequality around sex, race, social class, education is a real thing that really exists and holds people back. Magical thinking really.

I once picked up a bit of work doing admin for an events space for hire, and one evening we had a booking from a speaker who had something like this going on, except it was billed as being aimed at young Black men from deprived areas. And it was all a big ‘sign up and i will change your life blah blah’ thing (i had to stick around and lock up so i was noseying). So totally with you on people exploiting people who are already struggling.

KindKylie · 25/02/2021 21:00

I'm so confused by these people.

I've somehow ended up following someone who seems to have a ft job in self promotion, but never really explains what it is that she does, as a 'coach'. How do you make it make money? Who pays to be coached?!

Original poster
Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 21:03

I would just like to say that I actually love you all !! Possibly we have the foundations of a great MN coaching academy right here...Grin

@ladybee28 I empathise with you. I am in a similar profession - which is why it gets my goat I guess. It’s also really draining as all the things I wanted to do .. I feel like I couldn’t raise above the noise of coaching coaches.. even though I have years of hard Grift and no glam. I am bitter I guess - not great. Maybe I need a coach ...Blush

OP posts:
Original poster
Hufflepuffmamma · 25/02/2021 21:05

@LunaHeather

Where are you seeing these please?
@LunaHeather it’s more like where Aren’t I seeing them. In the main fb. But also anywhere a bloody advert can sneak in ( and I check my preferences a fair bit )
OP posts:
Handsnotwands · 25/02/2021 21:06

I know someone who’s set themselves up as a business coach. They’ve never attained any kind of senior position in any kind of successful company and have flitted from one unsuccessful fad to another. The mind boggles

terrywynne · 25/02/2021 21:08

I keep seeing a whole lot of paid Facebook adverts that have a whole lot of words, and carefully crafted 'hooks, anecdotes etc, a few emojis. And by the end I still have no idea what they are offering.... And no I won't sign up for a free taster, or a challenge (even though I am curious as to what a launch challenge actually is) because I don't want to be hounded forever. There also seems to be a divide between those offering to coach you in launching your offering with challenges etc, and those saying launches and challenges are outdated (and they can show you a better way).

There are also the people who will sell you the newsletter and social media post templates you need for a year of promoting your business in x industry (but most seem to not work in that industry, suggesting they make more money from selling the templates than from the industry they are encouraging other people into by giving them advice)