To think that women 'life coaches' should just bore off with their thinly veiled MLM bullsh*t

[Hearmeout]

First of all, a disclaimer.

I'm an employed coach, for a large financial institution working in a charitable capacity - coaching IS valuable and can change lives.

Monetising it in such a way as 'YOU TOO CAN BE A LIFE COACH AND I'LL SHOW YOU HOW WITH MY FREE INTRODUCTORY EBOOK INCLUDING WITH EVERY ONE DAY COURSE (ONLY £495.00 + VAT for the first 10 to respond)

It's some exploitative pyramid selling bullshit isn't it. Sick of seeing them all over social media,

AIBU??

Didn't say it was linked to gender, the post is just about this gender though, for the reason stated.

Women exploiting women is not a vibe.

Absolutely, this is my point.

Yes, it’s bullshit. Courses are a popular scam. Crypto ones are really popular too. You have to ask, if you’re doing so well with your ‘investments’, why are you flogging this shitty course online rather than basking in the glow of your crypto empire?

I confess that I don't really understand what life coaching is and how it's different from counselling or therapy.

It requires even less qualifications, experience or skill than counselling or therapy (which anyone can do).

It is often women because women (often those with kids who need flexible work) are being targeting by these scams themselves. Equally, crypto scammers are often men targeting other guys who spent too much time online.

Wow, how fortunate you are that all of your clients are so great to start with!

Exactly! I hate the messaging with a passion, it's either pink and emotive and schmaltzy or something about warrior women staking their claim etc etc and it's actually insulting.

I hate that it's encouraging women to exploit other women with paid courses.

Women are FANTASTIC at supporting each other naturally, its intuitive, communities are built on women building each other up.

We don't need the selling angle or "be a coach like me and live your dream family life weeee"

Urgh.

Agreed.

Exactly that.

Genuinely, I do feel really lucky.

The fact that they have made the approach to come get the help on offer and the fact that I can support them, makes for a great day, most days.

A lot of MLM style schemes target women. It's deliberately exploitative and is done because they know women are more likely to want to or have to make changes to their job after having children/want to have a bit of extra money to buy nice things for the children.

The whole model is about finding women's insecurities and aspirations, then hooking them into a scheme where 99% of people lose money.

Coaching isn't a protected job role, but there's a lot of difference between a skilled professional who has trained for a long time and someone who thinks coaching is saying "you go hun, be a boss babe" and advising you share some motivational quotes on social media, whilst they try to peddle whatever pyramid schemes they're flogging.

this advert came up half way down page 1. Thanks algorithms 🤣

So lucky that they are all so intuitive too #blessed #livingyourbestlife

Exactly that,

I'm all for genuine people genuinely helping people, but overcharging for a worthless product (in this case, course) that will only teach other people how to overcharge for a worthless product - that's a pyramid/MLM as I understand it?

And as with all scams, its targeted at people who are least going to be able to take the loss if they have on.

I have some lovely friends who have gone down this road and disappeared into the spiral that is women (sorry but it is women in this case) selling other women courses on coaching, NLP, manifestation etc etc etc (not discounting any of these btw, no opinion!) But the only bills that are getting paid here are the ones of the women selling the courses.

Books and google are free. So they are selling the inclusion, just like MLM's.

I will die on this hill.

Not the hashtags hun hahaha

You get it!!

😂

Case in point!!

Exactly this 🤨… any time I see someone describing themselves as a “coach” I’m right off them.
It’s all bollox

I know exactly what OP means - you may not have come across this horrible trend yet but it’s been springing up on Social Media for a couple of years now and is gaining traction:

it’s basically MLM - “join my super special group hun and achieve success beyond your wildest dreams”. So you have to pay to be in the group, then buy some rubbish self published book about being a successful woman, then recruit other people to be in your own group. And nobody ever knows what exactly it is you’re selling because there just isn’t a proper product. At least Yoonique and Tropic and all the rest of them have actual products to buy (I still won’t touch them with a barge pole though) - these just sell the vague idea of being a successful woman and are quite cult like. It is a particular problem for women because women are targeted by MLMs and most of these life coach ones are marketed specifically at women.

The ones you mentioned are actual MLMs.
Yanbu

comeon2023 I've had ads for 2 different life coaching companies on this thread. Never seen any on MN otherwise.

It's SO disingeuous.

An old friend has recently got into it and it’s shocked me how easily taken in people are, especially other old mutual friends who have seen all her stuff about it on SM and keep saying thing like “oh, X is doing so well for herself. I can’t believe she’s a published author now, that’s incredible” etc. They are intelligent middle aged women with professional careers who cannot see that she’s paid to publish a 90 page book and is part of a pyramid life coach scheme, selling snake oil. If they can’t see it then it’s no wonder that so many people are taken in by it.

Yabu. I can’t stand MLM either, but don’t get why your post is aimed solely at women or why you’re so belligerent about people querying it.

Tbf to OP, no man ever tried to get me to be my own girl boss. All MLM amazing opportunities I got were from women, so I get why she aimed it at women.
And ffs, they need to stop trying on LinkedIn. It's a shithole, but this is making it even worse.