Coaching Business

[JamieLondon]

Hi,

After a period of reflection I’m very interested in setting up my own coaching business, specifically careers coaching. I have a degree in psychology and some counselling knowledge, and feel that my skills are very aligned to this area. However I have no experience of being self employed or working within careers related work, such as HR (I'm an IT guy). I live and work in London.

My questions are:

What experience should one get before starting?

What’s the best training /qualifications available for this area?

What time frame is realistic to get a new coaching business up and running?

What are the realistic long term financial rewards?

Is this a very competitive industry?

How do I find a mentor?

Any answers, or pointers, much appreciated.

 

[billmccallum1957]

How can someone offer a career coaching service if they cant manage the development of their chosen career? Or am I just an old cynic?

 

[JamieLondon]

Ha, that's a fair point.

Well my interests lie in matching someone's strengths, motivations and interests to the careers that would suit them. I'm good at helping people discover who they are and perhaps what's holding them back.

What I don't have is experience in running my own business. Part (just part) of my research is reaching out by using websites like this, in the hope of getting useful, constructive feedback like yours..

 

[Mr D]

You can find a mentor by paying someone. May luck into finding a free one.

Realistic long term financial rewards? Depends how well you do.
Realistically you can well go periods of time with zero income and having some costs. With spending money on marketing your business without an income to support that spend.
With earning a fraction of your current income in a month. Or several times your current income.

If you have too much month left at the end of the money you know exactly who can do something about that. You.

 

[The Byre]

What experience should one get before starting?
What’s the best training /qualifications available for this area?
What time frame is realistic to get a new coaching business up and running?
What are the realistic long term financial rewards?
Is this a very competitive industry?
How do I find a mentor?

• Life.
• Life (and see below).
• 5-10 years.
• Thin.
• Yes.
• Lift a rock in the yard. If the creature dwelling under that rock is not an actor, musician or a DJ, it will probably be a mentor, or just one of those funny creatures that has loads of feet and rolls itself into a ball, though I've forgotten what they are called*.

Quite honestly, a degree in psychology and some counselling knowledge (i.e. an ability to ask daft questions, like "And how did that make you feel?") does not make you a careers adviser. Some further qualifications in Industrial Psychology, with a speciality is employment/careers and a knowledge of the economics of the employment markets would be a start.

The sad fact is, most careers advisers are useless, as it is something somebody does at a school or university, because nobody else wants to do it. Either that, or it is something somebody like yourself, who does not have the facts and figures of a specific industry and does not know how many graduates are entering that field, which courses are useful and which are best avoided and how many employers are really out there.

The reality of tertiary education in the UK is one of wholesale betrayal of young people. They are told that there are all these fantastic jobs in IT, gaming, music, film, TV, art, photography, design, etc. and they then waste three or more years of their lives on some Mickey Mouse degree that is not worth a bucket of warm spit.

This happens because nobody in the education industry is prepared to tell these poor youngsters that, yes, there are fantastic careers to be had in those activities, but only for those who attended a select few universities. The most extreme being music technology, which has at least 2,500 graduates every year pouring out of universities, all looking for jobs in one of the 50-or-so UK recording studios, unaware that the industry only wants graduates from the Surrey Uni 'Tonmeister' course, or possibly LIPA. Abbey Road gets about 1,000 CVs a year, but nearly all the interns and engineers there are 'Tonmeister' grads.

Even IT suffers from this. Three years of study and one would expect solid programming skills, using most of the popular languages and raw code. Instead, all some of them can do, is build websites, which TBH is today a consumer activity.

So by all means become a careers adviser, but your main problem will be that neither kids nor parents will want to hear the truth and 95% of those employed in tertiary education are in the business of selling false dreams.

We know that they are dreams, because you have to be asleep to believe them!

*Just remembered - they are called 'entrepreneurs' and there's a lot of them about.

 

[JamieLondon]

Thanks for your reply, The Byre.

It's not a careers adviser role I'm seeking and I agree those people at school were a waste of time!

I'm talking about careers counselling/coaching. Many people are stuck in the wrong job because they happened to fall into a particular field, or chose a career for the wrong reasons. A detailed appraisal of who they are and what they really want can, I believe, help them steer themselves into more suitable directions.

I agree with you, many people in this field are useless. But I also believe that there's an enormous market out there for good quality careers counselling - just think how many people hate their job despite having many qualities and talents that could be utilised more productively elsewhere.

This isn't about telling kids who are good at art that they could work for Pixar, or encouraging people with good singing voices to give it all up and become pop stars; it's about a realistic appraisal of one's values, interests and talents to assist them in developing a plan for a career/life change.

And actually it's not just about career change. Many people are in the right industry but not progressing in the way they want, such as being ignored for promotion, or being given the same repetitive work. They might need help in changing attitudes and behaviours that are limiting them in their role. They might be bored, lack confidence or any number of things that are negatively affecting them. A good careers counsellor might help them with this, for instance finding more rewarding work in the same area.

I'll just add that I do in fact have some knowledge of this industry and the world of work (having worked in retail, sales and IT - but yes formal qualifications are a must!), but wanted to ask these questions here for possible fresh perspectives.

 

[The Byre]

In which case, I must apologise for my somewhat blunt appraisal of your chances! The failure of the UK tertiary educational system is something I am somewhat passionate about (no kidding Holmes!)

People stuck in the wrong careers - well, that's all of us! Some end up here, wanting to become 'entrepreneurs' - me, I just roll the dice and start a new venture! (Though I have learned to not throw away what I have done in the past, which was my usual gag!)

 

[JamieLondon]

No problem at all and I agree with you on the subject of tertiary education in the UK. It's very sad that there are so many young people studying for inappropriate degrees and coming out of university with thousands of pounds' worth of debt.

 

[Mr D]

No problem at all and I agree with you on the subject of tertiary education in the UK. It's very sad that there are so many young people studying for inappropriate degrees and coming out of university with thousands of pounds' worth of debt.

Yes, much easier now than it used to be. Back when I left school it was common for teenagers who went to university to come out with thousands of pounds in debt from overdraft, credit cards etc.
These days they don't have to have any debts but they are subject to the graduate tax on income above £21k. Don't earn that much then never have to pay.

 

[Nochexman]

What experience should one get before starting?

I'd try it out on some friends or family first and see what issues you come against and start from there.

 

[barryo]

Anyone who's seriously interested in reviewing their career direction can get all they really need by looking for the advice on how to do it, for example via the 'dreaded' self-help literature or nowadays even more easily via google. I know this because I've done it successfully for myself (twice) in my 30+ year business career and I've also (as a mentor) given occasional guidance to family and friends.

The conundrum is probably that if they are serious they'll do it for themself; if they aren't serious they're unlikely to want to pay for it.

Amongst the admitted dross of psycho-babble that's out there, there are also some really powerful self-assessment tools. Some are free and some are low cost.

There is a higher revenue niche in careers advice, which is usually offered by recruiters as an adjunct to their main services. In fact my own son paid around £3k a few years ago for a package which included such advice, but the bulk of the service was helping him to brush up his CV and actively marketing him to their client companies. After it was all over and he'd paid his money, he admitted that it was bad value. (Of course, he couldn't follow dad's advice because dads know nothing!!).

 

[JamieLondon]

Thanks for your replies so far everyone.

@barryo. Totally agree that there's a lot of psycho-babble out there, unproven approaches like 'NLP' and worse. But I also think that psychometric tests have their limitations. The problem with them is that they just re-reflect back to you the answers you've supplied to them!

And also they often just tell you how you're feeling about things right now, rather than giving insights into your real personality. As an example, imagine someone who hates their office job. They might (think they) yearn for working in the fresh air. Consequently, they'll answer psychometric questions based on the fact that what they really want is to be a million miles away from their current job, so they'll answer yes to questions like "I enjoy working outside away from other people" (not saying that's a typical question, but you get my drift.)

It's only by probing questions, testing answers, asking about history and so on that a good counsellor can root out what's really motivating the client. Perhaps my hypothetical client doesn't really want to work in the open air, what he really needs is a more stimulating and accepting office culture. By just accepting what one test told him, he may make a very bad and costly decision.

I'm not saying psychometric tests aren't useful to a degree, but I don't think they're the complete answer.

Your point about whether people will do it for themselves is interesting, although someone must be doing it because a typical careers counselling session can cost several hundred pounds - so the opportunities must be out there. Question is, how many?

 

[barryo]

There probably are quite a few people out there prepared to pay for the service you're thinking of offering, but that begs the questions:

• Are there enough of them for you to make a living from, and
• Can you reach them and convert them to paying clients?

You might be s**t hot at IT and building websites but as we all know, a website's as much use as a chocolate teapot unless it appears on page 1 of google. And that can take a lot of investment in PPC, SEO etc. And then they have to be close enough to you to make it worth the costs and time of travel.

As for psycho-babble, there are some very credible validated systems out there. And anyone who doesn't use several good ones to gather a range of indications isn't really taking their search seriously.

 

[barryo]

Most of the careers counselling packages I've seen include much more than identifying real motivations, such as CV and cover letter development (critical skill sets in themselves) and defined job search.

 

[JamieLondon]

Yes I agree, marketing is key. As is offering the whole gamut of services. As for the size of the market, that's for me to find out, but I think the world of work is changing pretty rapidly and so these services are going to be more in demand than in the past. We shall see..

 

[barryo]

Good luck...

 

[Gecko001]

You will be an advisor and not just a counsellor. You will be giving advice that people will act on to change their career and their whole financial prospects. You will need professional indemnity insurance as you could be held financially responsible for any poor advise you give.

I would contact a reputable insurance broker who specialises in professional indemnity insurance. I would even do that before contacting legal advice on what disclaimers etc. you should give your clients.

I think it could be a viable business if you can get PII and good legal advice, but it might have to operate by being ultra conservative with the advice you give to clients. You might not in fact be able to be seen to encourage clients to leave their present job. If they seem determined to change career, then you probably could only be seen to suggest ways in which they should do that which would not immediately involve them leaving their job such as a move sideways in a large company or by doing evening classes in a subject to get qualifications that would help with a possible career change at sometimes in the future.

 

[JamieLondon]

Thank you Gecko. I wouldn't embark on the project without getting accredited training anyway, and part of that would involve counselling techniques (I already have some basic training in this area). Long term I'd be looking at something like an MSc in careers counselling (offered by Birkbeck) and yes completely agree with your points about giving advice. It should always be the client who makes the decisions - the job of the counsellor is to help the client make the best choices.

 

[Gecko001]

Thank you Gecko. I wouldn't embark on the project without getting accredited training anyway, and part of that would involve counselling techniques (I already have some basic training in this area). Long term I'd be looking at something like an MSc in careers counselling (offered by Birkbeck) and yes completely agree with your points about giving advice. It should always be the client who makes the decisions - the job of the counsellor is to help the client make the best choices.

Clients always make the decision when professional advice is sought. If you go to a solicitor or accountant or architect they will advise you, but you make the final decision on whether to sue or take someone to court or become VAT registered or have a certain design of house.

It is good that you are seeking some qualifications but qualifications are not the same as experience and that is something that most people starting out in any profession will want before they set up in practice for themselves. Have you thought about applying to the universities to get such experience?

 

[JamieLondon]

I haven't decided yet how I'm going to approach getting experience, I may work in a role allied to consulting to get that experience. I'm going to see if I can get some (paid for) advice from people in the industry (probably in regions that aren't London so they'll be more receptive to the idea of helping me!). I'll be honest, I'm still at the 'market research' stage of this, to see if it's a viable business. I'm not going to rush things. But your suggestion re universities sounds interesting, thanks for the idea.

 

[ethical PR]

Yes I agree, marketing is key. As is offering the whole gamut of services. As for the size of the market, that's for me to find out, but I think the world of work is changing pretty rapidly and so these services are going to be more in demand than in the past. We shall see..

Who have you identified as a target audience who would benefit from your services?

How would you makes yourself stand out from the hundreds and hundreds of other life/careers coaches out there?

What channels would you use to reach your target market/s?

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Personally i think you have invented a job that nobody has heard of and nobody really needs

Many people wake up and think I am fed up with this job, but the question is "what would I like to do"

Nobody ever thinks I will go to a councillor to find out what type of jobs I am suitable for or where I should work, instead they look at adverts for jobs and if inclined pick on

Job advice at schools seems very poor in that these days there are such a vast selection of jobs the normal person has never heard about or thought about, you can advise on basics like Mechanic, Chef, Nurse, University, but few have thought of Hydrographic Surveyor, Geophysicist, Car electrician, Botanist and many thousands of other jobs

Last I think to be any sort of councillor you need vast amounts of life experience and not as common these days a few weeks or months course

 

[JamieLondon]

Chris, it's not a job that I've just invented as there are many established careers coaches out there. I share your view that careers advice (and note I'm not talking about just being a careers adviser anyway) being poor - but that represents an opportunity, not a threat.

As far as specific careers is involved, I think some people need a steer on what avenues to pursue, based on a real understanding of what would make them happy. It's then just a matter of research to see what's out there. No coach in the world can have complete knowledge of what's out there - the idea is to enable someone to find out themselves.

And I agree, life experience is very important (some of us do have it, you know!) and you can't just learn this in months - which if you'd read my previous comments you'd have seen I was in no way suggesting!

Also, as I said before, it's not just about people changing career, it can also be about helping people to be more successful and happy in their current job.

 

[JamieLondon]

@ethical PR. Those are good questions, and I think I'd look at a long term organic approach, which would be ideal anyway as I'd have time to gain training. I'd use a combination of digital marketing, writing articles and traditional marketing. I'll be honest though, I haven't thought about the finer details of this very important area.