How Much Can You Earn As A Career Coach
How much money does a career coach make?
Most career coaches charge around $100-500/hour.
But theres a lot of room to increase your rates when you start getting results.
Think about it:
You help your clients achieve their career goals. That means more personal fulfillment, but also more money in their pockets. Not just now, but for years to come.
In fact, some of my clients charge $10,000 for a 3-month coaching program.
To make the process of starting a career coaching business as easy as possible for you, I recommend my clients to start out with a 3-month coaching program and price it at $1,500.
This helps you get confident about your coaching pricing and quickly increase your rates.
Want more on setting your rates? I talk more about your pricing options in this video:
Pursue Career Coaching Certifications And Training
Today, anyone can claim they are a coach. As a result, the coaching industry is sadly saturated with fraudsters looking to make a quick buck off unaware job seekers looking for a new career. Coaching certifications enable you to not only stand out in the saturated coaching market but also demonstrate your commitment to the craft. Moreover, professional certifications are the perfect opportunity to hone your knowledge and sharpen your skills as a coach.
You want to find the combination of career coaching certifications that make sense for your business niche and goals. Because my expertise is in job search and career growth, I chose to become double-certified through The Myers-Briggs Company. I am now Strong Interest Inventory® Certified as well as an MBTI® Practitioner. I also completed Successful Strengths Coaching through Gallup. These specialized credentials and advanced trainings complement my formal education in teaching and learning, health education , counseling, and nonprofit management and philanthropy.
Invest In Your Own Coaches
As you grow as a career coach, you will find yourself celebrating big wins as well as facing new challenges, and it makes sense to invest in your own coaches. Coaches complement mentors and will make the process of growing your business more efficient, rewarding, and fun. Investing in your own coaches also pushes you to continually grow and evolve as a business owner and human.
Importantly, be sure to conduct your due diligence before investing in a business coach. Many coaches will curate a large social media following to create the facade of a successful business. However, a massive social following does not equate to an effective coach and business mentor. Instead, invest in a coach who is truly walking the walk and can support you in reaching your goals more quickly.
Finally, keep in mind that becoming a career coach is not an overnight journey. Rather, building a coaching business takes strategy and intention, time and energy, and a plethora of grit. If you stick with it, you can build an authentic, thriving business. Youve got this!
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Ways You Can Be Your Own Career Coach
At some point during your career, you may feel the need for a little extra motivation, insight, or accountability. For many, the solution is to hire a professional coach who can help you move in the direction you want. IBISWorlds 2015 Business Coaching report estimates that the sector has grown to $11 billion annually in the U.S.
But what if youre not readyor willingto add your cash to that pool? Is it possible to coach yourself?
Yes, says career coach Susan Bernstein, PhD, who is based near San Francisco. While it can be enormously helpful to have a dedicated professional focused on helping you achieve your goals, there are a number of principles you can apply yourself in order to reap the rewards. Here are seven actions you can incorporate.
1. Study The Gap
A good coach helps you take inventory of where you are versus where you want to be, says Bernstein. But chances are that you have a good idea of that yourself. Think about the areas of your life where youre stuck or dissatisfied. What will it take to make you happy or fulfilled? What specific goals do you want to achieve? Think about where you want your life to change or improve, being as specific as possible, and think about the actions and behaviors that are going to need to happen to get there, she says.
2. Journal
Notice your thoughts and emotions around the things that youre tracking and track metrics , she says.
3. Know Your Focus
4. Find Accountability
5.Get Good Feedback
6. Engage In Self-Inquiry
How A Lawyer Is Building Her Career Coaching Business Without Sacrificing Family Time
Toni Patterson, toniapatterson.com, is a career coach, lawyer, and a single mom. So how does she manage it all? Lets find out.
Look: You dont need an AHA moment that makes you realize that career coaching is your biggest dream and purpose. It can happen more organically than that.
Thats what happened to Toni.
As a single mom who is a successful litigator in an Am Law 100 law firm, her co-workers would often approach her for guidance in navigating their own careers and lives because it seemed like she had it all figured out.
That way, she realized that she had a passion for mentoring and guiding women who were trying to figure out how to be successful in their careers without sacrificing their home lives. And with the process she had perfected for herself, she was able to help them get just that.
How Toni builds her business while managing a demanding career and taking care of her family
How does Toni do it all?
Her #1 priority is being available to her daughter, so the first thing she schedules in her calendar are school recitals and events. She then schedules everything else because when she sees what shes supposed to be doing, it makes it much likelier that shell get it done.
And when she really needs to focus? She schedules herself into a hotel overnight with the goal of completing one project from start to finish during those two days. These hotel stays have been some of her most productive time.
How Toni went from idea to business
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Is This Business Right For You
If you love working with people, are a great communicator and motivator, career coaching may be a great fit. Generally, career coaches have been in the business world for some period of time, may have advanced degrees, have spent time in a consulting firm, or perhaps are retiring from executive leadership positions.
Want to know if you are cut out to be an entrepreneur?
Take our Entrepreneurship Quiz to find out!
Find Your First Coaching Client
Before jumping headfirst into a full-time career as a coach, consider beginning with a single client. I am a proponent of harnessing the power of your immediate network to market yourself and your coaching services. Start by sharing your services with family, friends, classmates, colleagues, you name it. More than nine years later, the vast majority of my clients still come from word-of-mouth marketing and referrals.
You may also consider marketing your services on popular gig sites. In addition to Fiverr, many of the coaches and resume writers I speak with successfully market their services on freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Thumbtack. While these sites tend to result in race to the bottom price wars, they can be a good starting point for finding and securing new coaching clients. You can then leverage these clients into referral sources for future work.
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What Kind Of Training Do Career Coaches Have
Most career coaches dont hold a specific certification. Instead, many have become experts in their field and decided to market their skills to help the next generation enter careers theyre passionate about.
While some schools offer career coaching or career counseling certificate programs, such a certification is not indicative of a career coachs quality. Their resume, expertise and references are much more valuable than any certification.
How To Become A Career Coach In 8 Steps
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
Career coaching is a profession that allows you to help others advance in their career. It can be a fulfilling career choice for those who like serving others. Understanding the skills, certifications and job experiences you need to become a career coach can help you decide if this is the right career path for you. In this article, we discuss what a career coach does, how to become one and the professional outlook for the role.
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How To Become A Career Coach
Career coaches offer a wide range of services, from helping clients overcome their professional struggles in finding the right work profiles, to improving their job performance, guiding them through tough work situations/office politics, and helping them address mental & emotional roadblocks that are hindering their career path, etc.
The career coaching process is all about helping the client get from where they are to where they want to be professionally.
Career coaching can be a noble venture helping people out in their profession has a domino effect on other aspects of their lives, helping them feel more secure, self-confident, and happier.
But for the career coach, it is also his/her means of livelihood and that necessitates a business plan for its success. Becoming a career coach who can achieve that fine balance between the altruistic and the commercial is the golden median that all career coaches look for.
Lets delve into how to become a career coach, help clients achieve professional transformations and also how to make a success of your career coaching business.
Who Do You Want To Work With
First, you need to figure out who YOU want to work with.
#1: Individuals. Youre hired by individuals to help them achieve their career goals. If youre in it because you love helping people find their dream careers and get paid more, this model is a great option.
#2: Companies. You work directly with a company to help its employees. If you love helping people develop skills and building team culture, this could be the model for you.
Once you know what type of client you want to work with, the next step is to determine your target audience.
Ask yourself:
Is there are specific target market you want to work with?
Maybe millennials, women, minorities, baby boomers, or someone else?
Whichever target market you look at, keep this in mind:
Who has the ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to pay?
For example:
A newly graduated and currently unemployed college graduate might not have the ability to pay.
And sometimes, people lack the willingness to pay, even if they have money to spend.
I talk more about it in this video:
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How Much Does It Cost To Hire A Career Coach
Similar to the fees many professionals charge, the cost of hiring a career coach varies depending on their experience and credentials, field of specialty, success rate and the location of their practice. A career coach who is well known and respected in their field, such as a published author, will be able to charge more than a coach that is not considered an expert. Career coaches who are in high demand or work in cutthroat fields may also charge higher rates.
Generally, career coaches charge $75 to $150 per hour. More in-demand career coaching services can run from $250 to $500, occasionally even higher. When youre choosing a career coach, the bargain option may not be the best option. Ask the coach if you can talk to their former clients before you agree to fork over any cash.
C Choose Your Career Coaching Niche
You have the credentials, soft skills and the practical experience, so starting out as a career coach should be a walk in the park, right? But there are thousands of career coaches in the market, so how do you stand out in face of stiff competition and carve out your distinct place?
The first thing to do is to identify who you want to work with individuals or organizations, young executives, college students, women professionals, etc.
Of course, even if you are passionate about helping people find their dream careers, gauging the realistic ability of paying clients is also necessary. Working with individual clients will have different demands than working for an organization . So, determine your target customers, choose your career coaching niche accordingly to market your services
The chances of making a success of your career coaching business are more if you work to your strengths, so select a niche that best suits your talents and experience.
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Gain A Trusted Sounding Board
While we love that our friends and family support us, we also need to trust that we can get direct feedback from a source that isn’t emotionally incentivised to sugar coat things.
A career coach is an outside observer. They aren’t a family member or friend that has biases and a history with you, a coach can say it as they see it. This means they can better help you to also be more objective when making career decisions.
It’s good to have an external adviser who is free from social pressure that you can bounce ideas and thoughts off.
Stop The Comparison Game
- Recognize your triggers and label them. This is a great way to stop feelings of comparison before they start.
- Keep a gratitude jar. Place a note inside of one thing you feel grateful for each day. Read them all at the end of the week.
- Set limits for all of your social media appseach day. This is a deep well of compare and despair for most of us. If you find yourself exceeding your limits, remove the apps from your phone altogether.
- Use comparison as motivation to improve. If youre envious of what someone else has, examine that, and, if its healthy motivation, use it as a guide for what you want.
- Volunteer your time to a community organization. Through an experience helping others, youll often have more appreciation for your own progress, life, career, and more.
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Become Your Best Friend
Part of coaching yourself is learning whom to listen to inside your head. We all have an inner coach and an inner critic, and there will be times when your inner critic will creep in and start to take control. This might sound like Im not smart enough to figure this out or I cant do this so I should give up now.
To quiet your inner critic, try talking to yourself in the same way your best friend would talk to you. Imagine yourself having a conversation with that person and write down three supportive sentences they would say. Perhaps they would remind you of previous successes or how youve overcome adversity before. Or maybe they would talk about how much they admire your determination or bravery. Keep this person in mind when your inner critic creeps in.
Our careers can frequently feel uncertain, but self-coaching is a capability we all have control over. Committing to the development of your self-coaching skills can help you overcome obstacles and open up more opportunities for your growth. If theres one skill you spend time learning, practicing, and improving in 2022, coaching yourself is a good place to start.
Improve Your Social Network Profiles
You might primarily use social networks to keep in touch with friends and family and occasionally laugh at a funny animal video. But a good career coach would tell you that you should leverage these networks to grow your professional circle. After all, the social media realm can be a goldmine of career opportunities. And improving your profiles can help you meet the right people that will open new doors for you.
With that in mind, focus on building a professional digital presence on social networks and start expanding your list of connections. Leverage the power of LinkedIn to land a better job in 2021. At the very least, meet the people that can take your career forward in the months to come.
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How To Become Your Own Career Coach
Coaching helps us understand ourselves, uncover new options, and get unstuck, but the opportunity to spend time with a qualified coach is only available to a fortunate few individuals and organizations who can afford it. Self-coaching is the skill of asking questions to improve self-awareness and prompt positive action. Using the three essential skills presented in this article, everyone can learn to coach themselves, regardless of experience or expertise. Our careers can frequently feel uncertain, but self-coaching is a capability we all have control over. Committing to the development of your self-coaching skills can help you overcome obstacles and open up more opportunities for your growth. If theres one skill you spend time learning, practicing, and improving in 2022, coaching yourself is a good place to start.
Theres no such thing as a straight line to success in careers today, and the past few years have created an environment where weve all had to become accustomed to constant change and increased complexity. Coaching is a valuable way to create clarity and deal with the uncertainty of an increasingly squiggly world of work.
Coaching helps us understand ourselves, uncover new options, and get unstuck, but the opportunity to spend time with a qualified coach is only available to a fortunate few individuals and organizations who can afford it. We know coaching can make work better, but we need a better way to make it work for everyone.
