Life Coaching: Getting Hours for Certification

By dougnau on Oct 31, 2008 in Life Coaching

If you’ve read many of the articles on the internet about Life Coaching, you may be hearing things like - ‘This is the fastest growing high paid business’, or ‘Thousands rush into life coaching’, or ‘Work from home with great pay’. They display a picture of the potential of what coaching can become but do not necessarily represent the experience a new life coach will have the moment they open their doors.

Having gone through the process of getting certified with an ICF accredited program with essentially no life coaching, counseling, or consulting experience in the past, I approached my business growth with realistic expectations and a well defined plan for building a practice. After 1.5 years of building my coaching business, I eventually transitioned to working as a coach with a business (a salaried position), as my personal mission was so well aligned with this organization. Regardless, I’ve shared the path and held hands with numerous coaches working to get started, and one of the biggest challenges up front is simply getting hours for certification.

How Can I get Hours for Certification?

Currently, if you are looking to become a certified life coach with a program accredited the International Coach Federation, they’ll require that you obtain a minimum of 100 hours of practical coaching experience in addition to working with a mentor coach and going through the coach training course work. Its been my experience that it takes at at least 1 year to complete such a program realistically, and for most its closer to 1.5 to 2 years. The hardest part – getting the hours and building the business.

Most coaches starting their company are not established business owners. Because of this, they typically do not have a large network of referrals they can mine, and starting from scratch is no small undertaking. So how does one get these hard to come by hours when they are first starting?

Well, if you are working through a coach training program, you already know from your mentor coach the tips I am about to give:

Go to networking groups
Talk to all of your family and friends (many times) – ask for any lead you can garner
Speak publicly – get in front of any group that you can
Join all groups that represent the area of coaching you are interested in
Try online or print marketing (I never had any success with this until years later as my blog readership has grown – and now I am not looking for clients!)
Hand out cards to everyone
Hold booths, go to trade shows
Persist, persist, persist

I apologize if you can feel the cringe I am making as I think back to this process! It can be frustrating to promote a business model that resides in an industry that is clearly in its infancy stages. Despite some of the dazzling articles that the media publishes, building a life coaching business from the ground up can be a long and arduous process – particularly if you struggle to get the hours required for the initial certification. Those hours are so important in developing your skill set as well as your confidence (even if you are the best coach there ever was!).

What my Mentor Coach Doesn’t tell me about getting hours? Is there another way?

Everyone wants to get paid for the work they do – but most credential programs allow for a significant amount of your hours to come from ‘pro-bono’ or ‘free’ clients. Without pro-bono clients, many life coaches could never get started. If you are struggling to get hours, consider this option. You may even be struggling to get pro-bono clients, and if this is your case its a real shame because there are literally thousands of people (maybe millions) whom would love the services of a life coach, but either can’t afford it, or are relatively uncertain of what it is and are not yet willing to plunk down money given that uncertainty. The question - How do you find these people? Again, you need a network, or reach to talk to a lot of people. And I know it can be hard to offer one person free coaching while another is paying. That’s why the anonymity of the internet is so perfect.

Get Hours Now!

Here’s something that I am offering. This website gets thousands of visitors searching for the keywords of life coaching and wellness coaching. If you are looking to connect with a client, simply put a comment on this blog article with your name, contact info and the type of client you’d like to work with. Soon I’ll be shortly writing a blog article that refers people looking for free coaching to your listing. It will even get you a free link to your website from one of the most popular personal growth and coaching websites on the internet! If you are in this boat, there’s really nothing to lose.

I don’t know how many coaches will respond to this offer (Google analytics does not tell me how many coaches read this blog :O) ). Depending on the response, this is a potential goldmine for a coach looking for clients.

If happen to be a potential client looking for free coaching, understand that these are coaches in training, and you will be the best judge as to whether or not they are a match for you. Keep in mind, most coaches still have no certification whatsoever, so its likely these are some of the more genuine coaches out there and they are adhering to strict ethical guidelines. You’ll be the best judge by doing your homework.

No Strings Attached

There are no strings attached to this offer. I am simply trying to provide and match value in the world. I see it as a great win-win opportunity, and that there is a need for this sort of service (even better when its free). I hope it works out well for anyone getting involved. In the future, I’ll be looking for a more sophisticated way to match these sorts of services – perhaps through a forum, so I’ll keep you posted on any such developments in the future (sign up for my newsletter to be informed of new developments).

Again – coaches looking for pro-bono hours, post a comment below with your contact information, website, and/or any information that will support a client in knowing that you may fit your area of expertise. I hope this works out well for everyone involved!

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well