How to Start a Life Coaching Business
Looking to start a life coaching career? Uncover the traits, skills, and services you need before learning to attract clients and promote your business.
Life coaching is becoming an ever-increasingly popular industry, helping individuals to improve their personal and professional lives. And with a 33% increase in the industry since 2015, 68% of individuals who hired coaches claimed it was a worthwhile investment.
However, despite the demand, becoming a life coach is no walk in the park. Professional life coaches require the necessary training and experience before they start a successful life coaching business that can positively influence the lives of its clients.
In this article, we explain how to start a life coaching business with the necessary traits, skills, and services before delving into practical methods to find clients and promote your practice.
How to Start Life Coaching?
So, you want to become a great life coach. But first, let’s assess if you have the ideal type of personality.
What Are the Traits of a Life Coach?
Desirable personality traits for a professional life coach include the following:
- Compassion and empathy
- Patience and assertiveness
- Honesty and openness
- Professionalism
- Social and outgoing (Extraverted)
- Enterprising
- Creative
- Realistic and rational
Despite being a professional industry, due to the one-on-one nature of life coaching, your personality becomes a factor in the effectiveness and success of your business. Your first step is to have the self-awareness to understand your personality and how that can support your clients while recognising areas that you can improve.
Gaining a greater understanding of yourself is supported by creating a survey you can pass on to friends, colleagues and associates, alongside completing the online 16 personalities test.
Essential Life Coach Skills
Alongside recognising the personality traits that make a good life coach, there are also crucial life coach skills to consider, including:
- Organisation
- Communication (Active listening)
- Problem-solving
- Interpersonal ability
- Business administration
- Emotional intelligence
Some naturally seem born with the appropriate personality traits and capabilities to become excellent life coaches. Others may need to take the time to learn and adopt new skills.
Nevertheless, becoming a life coach requires the necessary training and education. As with any profession, you can’t just wake up one day and decide that’s what you can do. It takes time, dedication and, at times, a little soul-searching.
How to Train to Be a Life Coach in the UK?
So, now you’re confident you have the necessary traits and skills, let’s investigate what training you need to build a successful life coaching business.
Life Coach Training for Beginners
Let’s assume you’re starting from scratch. What better way to kick things off than an exciting introduction to life coaching?
UKCPD offers a five-module introductory course that provides an overview of life coaching with goal-setting objectives and market insights.
The five modules include the following themes and stages:
- A brief history of coaching
- What really is coaching and how does it work?
- Exploring the “GROW” coaching model
- Exploring the “APROCESS” coaching model
- Understanding coach training accreditation
The course also includes video recordings of professional coaching sessions, with downloadable support documents.
Courses to Start a Life Coaching Business
With the fundamentals of life coaching understood, you can begin to think about establishing your life coaching business.
UKCPD provides award-winning, AC–accredited Foundation Diploma in Life Coaching across live day events and pre-study content before full training days. Follow-up one-on-one coaching offers further insights into the life coaching models.
Finally, you will complete an assignment proving you have gained the skills, knowledge, and confidence to start your life coaching business. Registration includes a copy of ‘Life Coaching: An Introduction’, alongside a year-long student membership from the AC professional coaching organisation.
Combination Life Coaching Courses
You can bolster your life coaching business with further knowledge and coaching approaches by utilising our combination courses, such as the Foundation Diploma in Life Coaching and NLP.
This award-winning opportunity suits life coaches who have a vested interest in improving their coaching capabilities through NLP methods and techniques. The qualification level of this course is equal to a Level 3 Ofqual regulated qualification and accredited by the ANLP.
Further combination life coaching courses include life coaching and business performance. Here you’re given the skills to understand your clients in relation to business, gain comprehensive coaching tools and the power of appreciative enquiry in executive coaching.
The qualification of this course is Level 4 Ofqual regulated qualification and accredited by the AC.
Decide on Your Life Coaching Services
With the knowledge and skills, the next stage is defining the life coaching services you will offer your clients.
Life coaching services can vary across the following subjects:
- Goal setting and motivation
- Personal and professional development
- Health and wellbeing
- Confidence and lifestyle
- Career progression
- Relationship management
- Change management
- Time management
In theory, life coaching subjects can be anything someone wishes to improve or needs support. You should specify your life coaching services on a passionate topic you have dedicated and professional expertise on. That way, you can deliver the best services to your client and charge more money.
How to Find Clients as a Life Coach?
Once you have the training to establish and bolster your life coaching business, it’s time to devise an effective strategy to find clients.
But before you start promoting your life coaching business, it pays to specify your client profile to attract the most suitable clients.
Depending on your skills, knowledge, and experience, you can attract the right type of individuals to your business. From business owners to entrepreneurs and even people who require personal support and emotional stability.
Now with your ideal client profile established, you can begin targeting these individuals across various marketing campaigns. By researching your client demographics, you can align social media platforms to connect with people and share your ideas. Developing your personal brand on LinkedIn will be a crucial part of this process.
Other marketing materials can include videos, podcasts, and blogs, with a website providing the essential platform to promote your business.
How Much to Charge as a Life Coach?
In the UK, life coaches can charge between £30 – £2000 an hour with salaries ranging from £20,000 – £500,000. How much you can charge as a life coach depends on your expertise and the prestige of your services.
For example, if you’re coaching CEOs, directors, and executives to handle intense, high-pressure business situations, then you’ll earn significantly more than a beginner life coach.
Start Your Life Coaching Business with Specialist Support
At UKCPD, we’ve been helping aspiring life coaches realise their dreams of starting a life coaching business for over two decades.
Through our award-winning and accredited training courses, you can develop the skills and knowledge you need to make a successful business in life coaching.
For more information on how we can help you reach your goal of establishing your professional, high-earning life coaching business, get in touch today.
Want to know more?
This post: The Life-Changing Benefits of Becoming a Qualified Life Coach outlines some additional benefits of training to be a Life Coach
