subject: Advance your Coaching Business: Get a Life Coach Certification [print this page] Advance your Coaching Business: Get a Life Coach Certification
Most life coaches don't think that they need to get certified in order to coach. It may be true but in a sense, getting a life coach certification validates you as a coach just as getting a medical license does for a doctor. It signals that you have really learned everything you need to know and has in fact gained a certain level of hands-on training to be able to actually operate on someone. Of course, life coaching is different from being a doctor particularly in the sense that you can still coach without a certification but a doctor can't practice medicine without a license.
If you are a newbie life coach, then I was just like you a few years back. I had experience in sales and was used to talking with people of all different levels so I thought that life coaching should come fairly easily. I couldn't have been more wrong. It was difficult for me to have clients - the paying ones. Of course, I tried by offering to practice on some of my friends or acquaintances but that does not really help now, does it? I couldn't really include them in my resume now, could I?
This is where getting a life coach certification comes handy. Being certified is like getting a stamp of approval from a third party. The fact that your life coach certification is handed out by a third party, ideally a respected and well-known one, gives your potential clients with a sort of guarantee that you really have what it takes to be a life coach and that you have been mentored and trained properly to deal with their problems.
Think of it like this: Would you believe a seller who says that her products are of great quality when the only person who can attest to it is her friend? Or would you rather believe the seller who is guaranteed by a company or has been tried and tested by another person who is completely not related to the seller? Would you personally hire a coach who says he has experience in this or that or hire the one who can show proof of his training and experience in coaching?
Whether you apply for a life coach certification online or actually enrol in a life coaching course at particular university or college, what's important is to realize the advantage that this gives you. By having a life coach certification, you are sort of providing your potential clients with a guarantee - think of it as warranty- long before they actually try the product.
