Need an answer to the question: How to become a personal coach? There is the obvious answers – sign up for a coaching program, earn your coaching certificate, find ways to use your own life experiences in your coaching practice. You cannot become a personal coach without taking these steps, but there is one more step that needs to be taken before you can really call yourself a personal coach.

Here is a zen koan for you – If a coach opens a coaching practice and no one is there to see it, is that person really a coach? The answer to that riddle is both yes and no. If you have the education, the certification, and even the office space, you are, in fact, a coach. However, if you have no clients you are not coaching, and therefore, not really a coach.

How to Become a Personal Coach – You Have to Market!!

This is the step that most coaches hate. They get great training, they earn the right certifications, they analyze their strengths and weakness and choose the right segment of coaching, but their marketing efforts are lacking. There are many good coaches out there, but not all of them have a good coaching practice. Many individuals are not cut out to be business owners – it takes a certain je ne sais quoi. Part of what makes someone a good business owner is the ability to market and promote, or to effectively delegate this task to someone else.

Marketing Takes Time

It is important to realize how much time you will need to spend on marketing if you decide to open a coaching business. Coaching is not only about coaching. Most coaches love helping people and have a real passion for coaching. However, the vast majority of coaches detest marketing. It is a challenge to start and maintain a profitable business, and marketing is the biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs. The question – How to become a personal coach? The answer – spend time marketing!

Marketing Tips

Now that you know the answer to the question – how to become a personal coach – is marketing, here are a few tips to get your marketing efforts on on the right foot.

1. Be a laser and not a flood light. A flood light illuminates a wide area while a laser light focus intense light on a small speck of area. You marketing efforts should target a niche. Even if you do not define your coaching practice within a nice, your marketing efforts should be niche-specific. You can move from one niche to the next and then to another, but targeting a niche will keep cost lower and allow you to design a more effective marketing campaign for potential clients.
2. More media, more money. The more types of coaching you do, the more potential income streams you have. This means that you can market you coaching as one-on-one, group, seminars, online, through DVDs, through books, and whatever media you can use to get your coaching practice to the most people.
3. Don’t act like a wireless company. Don’t you hate those two-year contracts you are required to sign when you get wireless service? Most people hate those and you should never even think about doing anything like that as a coach. Your marketing efforts as a coach should never include the words, “long-term contract.” Having a rigid contract schedule is another way to make clients run for the exit! Your marketing efforts should make it seem easy to walk in your door and easy to walk out if not satisfied.

How to become a Personal Coach? You know all about the training, the certifications, the knowledge, but do you know marketing? You cannot answer the question – how to become a personal coach – without the word, “marketing.”

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Fred Philips
Business Coach
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