4 Pitfalls to Avoid when Starting a Life Coaching Business

Are you considering starting a life coaching business and you‘re wondering how to ensure that your business will be a success?

Or are you already a certified life coach, but your business hasn’t grown to the level that you’d like, and you’re not quite sure why?

If you have a passion for helping others, a desire to make a positive contribution to the world and you’d like to earn money doing something that you love… heart-centered life coaching is the career path that can provide all this, and much more!
As you will see in just a second, there are 4 common pitfalls that most life coaches fall into without even realizing it that can slow or even completely sabotage the success of their business…

• PITFALL #1: Thinking you have to have a “perfect life” before you can help others
• PITFALL #2: Confusing heart-centered enrollment with “manipulation”
• PITFALL #3: Not having access to a proven curriculum of transformation
• PITFALL #4: Trying to “go it alone”

How to AVOID the 4 Common Pitfalls
When Starting a Life Coaching Business

PITFALL #1: Thinking you have to have a “perfect life” before you can help others

Have you ever heard a little voice inside your head saying, “How has my life been an example for others? Why would anyone listen to me?”

To hear that voice inside your head is partly because you’re human. This is the pattern that pulls you back to the familiar. This is the voice of constriction that tries to keep you right where you are — inside your comfort zone.

There’s also another voice that you likely hear, one that encourages you to move forward with your goals and dreams. This is the voice that you want to be listening to, because it’s the one that will guide you toward a freer, fuller, more expansive expression of what you were put on this earth to be, do and give.

The fact is, you don’t have to have a perfect life to make a difference in the lives of others. In fact, if I had waited until my life were perfect before I started coaching, I’d still be waiting!

Not one of us is perfect. We only have to be one rung up on a ladder in order to reach down and give someone else a hand up.

If you have…

• A passion for helping others
• A proven business strategy
• The right support system in place and…

you’re willing to follow the “still, small voice within” that is urging you forward, you WILL make the difference you desire and grow your business to the level that you envision.

PITFALL #2: Confusing heart-centered enrollment with “manipulation”

Having enrollment conversations with potential clients is always going to be a part of starting a life coaching business, or taking your existing business to inspiring new heights.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait, is this sales?” For some people, when they hear the word “sales,” they tend to think of being taken advantage of or being talked into something they don’t really want.

But that is manipulation, not heart-centered enrollment. These are two TOTALLY different things.

Have you ever told a friend about a great movie that you saw… or a restaurant you tried and loved… and they were so enticed by what you shared that they went and watched that movie or ate at that restaurant? Or have you ever given someone advice, coming from a place of caring and service, and the person you spoke with actually followed your advice?

If your answer is YES, you already have the necessary skills for heart-centered enrollment!

In these situations, you weren’t trying to convince someone that they needed to go and do something, and you weren’t trying to manipulate them into anything.

You were simply sharing something that you were passionate about, that you genuinely thought they’d enjoy or benefit from… and this is what heart-centered enrollment is all about.

When you speak from the heart and from a place of service, this is not “hard selling,” and these are not uncomfortable conversations. These are fun, powerful conversations about possibilities. They are invitations to step into a greater life.

These heart-based conversations leave the people you speak with feeling so safe, warm and cared for that they say “YES” to investing in themselves and their dreams by means of saying “YES” to a coaching program with you.

PITFALL #3: Not having access to a proven curriculum of transformation

There has never been a better time to be a life coach. In fact, Forbes magazine recently called life coaching “one of the fastest growing six-figure careers” in the United States, and this growth is happening all over the world.

More and more people are realizing that there is a hidden pattern to success, and they want help understanding this pattern and applying it to their lives in a way that will help them produce extraordinary results quickly and easily.

But, your potential clients aren’t going to want to sign up for a program with you simply because you tell them that you’ll help them create a happier, healthier life…

They’re going to want to know that you have a proven curriculum of transformation that they can follow that will take them to where they want to go!

Consider this – when looking for a doctor, you want someone who is trained and certified and who understands how the body works. You want someone who will listen to you, diagnose what the issues are, and who will then create a treatment plan that you can follow… so that you achieve the end result that you’re both looking for.

People who are searching for life coaching are no different.

When it comes to helping others see and step into new, untapped possibilities for their life, so that their vision for what they would love becomes their living, breathing reality… they’re going to want to know that you are trained and certified in a proven system of transformation that will give them the results they are looking for in their life.

Having a system that your clients can follow is crucial to your success.

PITFALL #4: Trying to “go it alone”

Starting a life coaching business, or growing your existing business, is an exciting and fulfilling adventure…

But, if you lock yourself away in your home office for example and try to create success in a bubble, your progress will likely be very slow. This is because you currently have a specific way of viewing things and doing things, and you will never be more successful than your current level of thinking.

Albert Einstein once said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

To grow your life coaching business effectively and powerfully, collaborate with others who are working toward the same goals that you are, and find mentors who have already achieved what it is that you desire.

Truly successful people seek out groups, mastermind communities and mentors that can contribute to, and that will support them in transcending to the next level of thinking in business and in life. They also find that they become of service to those same people and can contribute to THEIR success as well.

For more step-by-step training on how to create a life coaching business that transforms your clients’ lives and allows you to earn an abundant income working from anywhere that you choose, click here for access to my FREE 4-part “Intro To Life Coaching” video course.

By Mary