How to Become a Life Coach in Australia
We have lots of enquiries from people who are interested in pursuing life coaching as a career in Australia. With almost twenty years of experience as a life, business, leadership and career coach in Melbourne, Kate James shares her tips below about how you can pursue a career as a life coach.
Step 1: Choose the right life coaching school
The first step is to find a credible coach training organisation. You need to be selective when choosing a school to ensure you find a course that is ICF accredited.
Once you’ve done some extensive research, make a short-list of at least three schools that appeal to you and ask them for an outline of their life coaching training program, their fees, the duration of their training program and the delivery options. Many schools offer all of their training online but there are some that offer face-to-face sessions as well.
Ask to speak to students who have completed their program. A great coaching school will be happy to accommodate.
If you’re interested to look at the excellent program where I trained, I’m including a link to International Coaching Academy.
Step 2: Be clear about your niche
There are lots of coaches out there so one of the most important things you can do is to get really clear about your target audience and the problems you’re going to help them solve. Generally speaking, you’ll draw on the aspects of our life coaching training that you loved most as well as some of your own life experience.
If you’re not clear about your ideal client, take some time to learn about your own personal values and strengths and think about challenges you have overcome in your own life.
Step 3: Write a business plan
As well as identifying your target audience, start to think about the kind of life coach you want to become. Consider your service offering, how you’ll deliver your services, your pricing and your branding.
You may also want to draft some financial projections and consider how much income you would hope to make in the first year of starting your business and how many clients you can expect to be working with. The reality is that when you first become a life coach, building a business takes time. It’s not uncommon for people to begin a coaching business while continuing with other work. If you’re lucky enough to have a great network, a very specific niche and some great marketing skills, you may find that you can hit the ground running.
Step 4: Start marketing now
Even if you haven’t created your life coaching website yet, set up your Facebook and Instagram pages and make a start to build your brand. Think about the kind of content you can share to make a difference in people’s lives and to showcase your specific areas of expertise.
Step 5: Start life coaching now
This is maybe the most important step of all if you want to become a coach! If you’re not confident to charge people yet, offer pro bono coaching to a few acquaintances or friends. Getting practise not only helps to build your confidence but it will also help you to understand the kind of life coaching you do best.
Ask for feedback to learn how you can improve your coaching offering and if your clients are happy, ask if they’d be happy to write a testimonial for you to use in your marketing material.
