Can you be both a career and life coach? Can you work in both segments of the coaching industry? Or, should you choose only one and stick with it?

Life Coach or Career Coach or Both?

I would suggest you specialize in one before you try your hand at both fields. Being a career and life coaching expert right out of the gate is a difficult and daunting task. It’s difficult enough to be a great coach in one field – trying to stand at two starting lines at the same time is nearly impossible.

When to be a Career and Life Coach

The best time to combine both coaching fields into your practice is when you are completely comfortable with one field and have built up a solid reputation in that field. You should also make sure you have training in both fields, and it’s an extra bonus to be certified by an accredited program before you start building your client base. With the coaching field becoming increasingly competitive every year, being certified by an accredited coaching program or governing body will inform potential clients that you have made the effort to be the best you can be as a coach.

Which Coach First – Life or Career Coach?

The answer to this question depends. It depends on whether you have any experience or skills in either field. Go with the one in which you feel you have the most to offer. Do you think you’ll be better at finding outcomes for your clients as a career coach or a life coach? For example, if you worked as a career counselor or in an HR department, your best bet would be to start out as a career coach first.

Your career as a career and life coach begins with one small step, and that step should be towards the area of your strength!

Others Have Done it and So Can You

If you peruse the Internet, you’ll find a plethora of coaches who work across coaching disciplines. You’ll find many who work as a career and life coach. It has been done successfully, and you can also make it work.

4 Tips to being the Best Career and Life Coach

• Pick one specialty first. Focus on being the best you can be at one before moving on to the next one.
• Build up a happy client base, develop a positive reputation, and brand yourself as an expert in one field before trying to do the same in another field. Being a prosperous career and life coach means you need to be recognized as an expert in two fields.
• Develop and design a practice in which sessions can be centered on just one field, and other sessions can work with both fields.
• Create a brand that can easily be used for both fields. If you start out in coaching knowing you want to be both career and life coach, then this is easy. Take some time to create a brand that will mean something and be recognizable in both coaching segments.

Being both career and life coach provides you with more potential clients and more avenues for income. It also takes more training, more diverse skills, increased knowledge base, and greater marketing efforts. However, if you are up for the challenge, the rewards can certainly be worth all the extra effort!

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “ Master Coach Blueprint” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your master coach blueprint videos.

Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community