The Issue
Today I spoke to a coach who works with ‘creatives’. She has worked with them for a number of years and invariably ends up coaching them for a very small amount of money (or none at all) because creatives are ‘notoriously short of money’.
I’ve spoken to people who tell me that they coach start-ups, but because start-ups are ‘notoriously short of money’, they coach for tiny fees (or no fees).
Here’s the thing: People buy what they want to buy.
The cost isn’t the issue, the value of the outcome is the issue. Clients can be very creative when it comes to finding money for coaching that they really want.
Mind Monkeys
We coaches are lovely people. We worry about others and in particular (especially if we’ve been in a situation where we’ve been short of money) we worry about their cashflow. Here’s the thing (again); people will buy what they want to buy. That worry is both misplaced and mind monkeys at play.
We are all fully-functioning adults and we choose where we place our money. We will choose to buy coaching if coaching is top of the list of things that we want to buy. If it isn’t, or we have a different priority for our money, we won’t.
Actor Coach
One of our mentees coaches actors. She too had mind monkeys around price and whether or not her potential clients could afford it. This was particularly interesting because she herself had managed to acquire the funds to pay for a coach to help her launch her own acting career.
We talked about the value she gained from her coach and she was full of glowing praise for both the work she did with her coach and the fantastic outcomes she had in her acting career both in the West End and in the USA. I asked her if she thought the money she’d spent on her coach had been worth it? She said that without doubt it made the difference between the success she has enjoyed and failure.
I Want To Coach A Niche Who Can’t Afford Coaching
Of course, there are groups of people who are very short of money. The homeless, the destitute, the desperate are all short of money. Do they deserve coaching? Of course they do!
However…
As a coach, you need to cover your financial bases. If your financial bases aren’t covered, you are worried and anxious, and you don’t coach as well as you could.
If you want to coach the homeless/school leavers/unemployed, do so after you’ve coached enough paying clients to cover your financial bases. You can be altruistic once your business can afford you to be.
Until then, you need paying clients.
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