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How To Start A Coaching Business [21 Smart Tips]

How To Start A Coaching Business [21 Smart Tips]

How can you start as an independent coach? How can you start your own (spiritual) coaching practice (at home), for example as a business coach, life coach or stress coach? Read on and learn the best tips on how to start earning money as an independent coach, including promotion…

Contents of this page:

Tip 1 – How do I set up a practice? Entrepreneurship is simpler than you think: you need 2 things

what you need as a coach

You are already doing business if there are two things:

  1. A product or service: your coaching services
  2. A customer who purchases it: your client

If the above two things are involved, then you are already doing business. Forget the rest for now. It’ll come. This is your core business. Just be busy with this, take the money and secondly think of peripheral matters such as administration.

What about all that administration and taxes? This is the beauty of doing business: the associated administration is free of form. So you can know how to do your administration yourself. If a simple cash book or excel file is sufficient for your business form, then that is sufficient.

And you are also a freelancer, which is the simplest form of business from an administrative point of view. You can just start for yourself from home, without inventory and purchasing.

In fact, freelancers hardly differ from employees. You still use your time for a client, just as if you would have been an employee. So you can ‘just’ apply for ‘promotion’. Indeed: just like an employee!

Tip 2 – Even forget ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘promotion’ and ‘being visible’: just apply

It is mentioned more often in this article, but this is such a major fallacy many coaches make that it deserves its own paragraph.

Many independent coaches suddenly think they are a company. Yes, they are on paper and from a tax point of view, but they also differ very little from employees in a job: employees trade their time for money … and so do freelancers. You see? No difference.

So don’t start thinking about ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘marketing’ and ‘being visible’ as if you have a clothing brand, beer brand, gym or dance school. Just apply to be hired for six months or a year to coach for an organization. Maybe you will end up in your favorite type of school or startup as a business coach.

Then your agenda is nicely filled and you are ready with your ‘acquisition’ in one go. You can also join a coaching platform so that you receive assignments on a silver platter.

To quote an important part from a later tip from this article: Freelancers are hardly different from employees. You still use your time for a client, just as if you would have been an employee. So you can ‘just’ apply for ‘promotion’. Indeed: just like an employee!

Of course you can get promoted in the same way as Coca Cola or Basic Fit would, but don’t lose sight of the core:  you want an assignment and you can just apply for it. A few applications later, you have certainly landed a nice freelance assignment – perhaps within an organization, municipality, company or school – that will fill your agenda with coaching sessions.

Tip 3 – Starting as an independent coach? Do not focus on unimportant matters

frustration peripheral coach practice

Have you spent days with GDPR legislation, registering with the Chamber of Commerce and setting up your administration? Just go and coach. From an administrative point of view, as a freelance coach you have the easiest work there is: you have no ‘purchase value of the turnover’, inventory or other difficult administrative elements.

If you have already received a small assignment of around 1,200 euros, then you have earned enough money in those few hours of billable working time to pay an accountant for a whole year who arranges everything for you. If you don’t expect to earn such money, you can do it yourself. E-accounting is by far the best.

Have you spent months with your website? The most successful coaches I know don’t have a website at all. Everything is done simply by word of mouth. No fuss. Just be busy with your core business. Clients think no less of someone with an offline profession (coaching) who does not have a website. In fact, word of mouth customers are the best customers.

A lot of budding entrepreneurs make a super nice website, which they spend months on, including integration of Ideal, Mailchimp and a nice givaway … all for a ghost town … and then – with a kind of selective outrage – disillusioned and wronged the pull the plug and completely stop doing business.

What are other side issues? Your 6 minute social media inspiration and wisdom videos. Of course if you like it then go for it. Then feel free to go ‘out of your comfort zone’ with Facebook live because ‘life starts outside your comfort zone.’ Do your thing. But if you haven’t actually applied for jobs for months because you were too busy with your videos, then don’t ask me why you don’t have any clients.

In short:

  • Main thing : applying for assignments, investing in targeted advertising & coaching.
  • Side issue : ‘being on social media’, ‘being visible’ and spitting out 6-minute wisdom.

Tip 4 – No coach clients yet? Did you make the necessary effort?

develop self discipline how to

I regularly hear the following from coaches:

“I don’t understand why I don’t have any customers yet.”

My question is always:

“Okay, so what have you done so far to get customers?”

Their answer?

‘I worked on my website and Facebook page for no less than three months every Monday and Thursday evening!’

Ehmm …

But how many sales calls have you made? How many job applications have you done? How many managers have you spoken to? How many sales pitches have you given? How many (online) advertisements have you placed in which you actually sell something? How many coaching collectives have you applied to? And what have you done to your website? Five pages full of egocentric stories laid out to perfection for just three website visitors or actually built hundreds or even thousands of empathetic pages so that you do get those 100,000 website visitors? ‘

I have a question for you: why are you annoyed with the results not received,  while you have not done the necessary work?  Did you take the (right) steps, put in the right amount of energy? If you haven’t, I don’t want to see you fed up. That would be illogical and hypocritical.

First you have to  pay , and then you get the  reward .

Everyone can use the internet every Monday evening for a while. That is why not everyone actually has customers. There are no shortcuts to success. It is not given, but it is earned. No one is going to bring it to you on a silver platter. Get moving and work for your success.

Waiting for people to come to you is not a strategy. You get ‘accidental success’ if you just work really hard. And rest assured: it is not necessarily annoying to do the necessary work … Feel free to make the process fun too!

Our happiness is as great as the courage we show.
– James McCrae

Tip 5 – Eight website visitors p / m gives you more than 100,000 website visitors p / m

getting assignments-as-coach

I can’t believe how many times I’ve heard the non-problem ‘I only have eight website visitors a month’ from coaches …

If you haven’t realized it by now: as a coach, with a few large customers per year, you are a completely different type of entrepreneur than a dance school owner, with hundreds or thousands of small customers per year. And even the dance school owner does not have to do any promotion at all because the students come in by word of mouth.

There is a very good chance that you do not need 100,000 website visitors per month at all, but that you will need eight website visitors per month.

Why? There is a good chance that you are a self-employed coach and that two large customers of 30,000 euros each are enough per year. You met these people through your own network and sent them to your website via your ticket.

And indeed, that’s ‘only’ eight website visitors per month. However, this is a gigantic return of 60,000 euros per year from eight website visitors per month. So manage your own expectations about insignificant ratios and figures and non-problems like ‘I only have eight website visitors’.

Tip 6 – Promote your coaching practice? You’re a coach, not a Facebook editor …

how do you start a coaching practice

Of course you also want to promote your coaching practice. You learned in the previous tip that word-of-mouth advertising is more than enough.

It helps to create a little bit of content. However, the keyword is: it helps . It’s not your main thing.

Nevertheless, it is useful to also give this a boost with your promotional activities. Then there is a hard and easy way …

The Hard Way: Craving Social Media and Blogs
Regular social media posts, so posts you don’t pay for, are meant to be – as the word says – social. Not to sell. And yes, you can play Facebook editor for 6 months and spend hundreds of hours of your time building your social media channels and maybe even a blog …

The easy way: just targeted advertising
Or you are going to advertise very specifically so that you have your first customer tomorrow. Advertising on social media makes you rich, posting for free on social media for months makes you social. You can advertise through Adwords, Facebook ads or you can just use an already existing and warmed audience from other blogs and social media channels so that you have your first customer tomorrow.

You should only be advertising for a very short time.
Once you are on the road with your first customers, you should be able to do little or no promotional activities. At some point, the most successful coaches no longer engage in promotional activities because they have an overcrowded waiting list based on word-of-mouth.

Tip 7 – Correction: you are not even a coach, but you are a {dot dot} coach

Before my major tennis tournament starts, do I need to improve my service and train my mindset? Then there is no chance that I will give my 5,000 euros to a normal ‘(mental) coach’ if I can also spend that on a mental tennis coach.

Do I want to get rid of my stress? Then there is really no chance that I will go to a ‘general coach’ with my money if I have been recommended a stress coach.

The profession ‘coach’ does not exist. The profession of ‘relationship coach’ does exist. In other words: choose a small niche, sell more ‘no’ to everything outside it and you will get the most valuable customers with ease.

Do you have the ‘I want 1% of China’ syndrome? Just take 100% of Luxembourg and the Belgians will be alarmed.

Tip 8 – Start your own coaching business? Don’t make these 4 mistakes …

how to start coach practice

Read this article for the four most common mistakes when starting a (coaching) business and acquiring clients. In it you learn that you don’t even need a website – and certainly no Facebook page as a coach.

Tip 9 – What name should I choose for my coaching practice?

In all business courses you will get serious bad grades if you use a vague English term as a company name for no reason.

If you are a mobile baker, call yourself ‘The Mobile Baker’, and not ‘Baking Creation in Motion’. If you are a train hairdresser, call yourself ‘The Train Hairdresser’ and not ‘Styling Rail Service’.

Ultimately, the name is not absolutely important to freelancers as the clients come to you as a person and will refer to you with your personal name. As a result, it is not a disaster if you are a relaxation coach and call your coaching practice ‘Your Inner Voice’. It is vague, but it’s your choice.

Tip 10 – What does a life coach earn? The same as all other entrepreneurs… or more than 6 figures …

start as an independent coach how

Maybe you have a good heart, you have a ‘mission’ for the world, you sing Kumbaya and you want to coach the audience that cannot pay more than 70 euros per hour. Maybe you even want to coach the audience that has to make use of the supplementary insurance, and you know what: maybe you don’t even let them pay for the intake interview.

That’s seriously admirable. Feel free to do it. There is nothing wrong with doing such loving acts. In my life I have been taken by the hand in this way by several people and I feel a lot of love and gratitude for these coaches for the rest of my life.

And don’t expect that you will earn a lot, that you will get clients who appreciate what you do (I happen to be someone who does appreciate my coaches) or that you can make ends meet with ease. It is then survival just like any other entrepreneur. But if you are driven by your heart, why not?

You can also earn a lot of money as a coach (tons and millions). There are a few conditions for this:

  • If you are really good at something. And you will soon be really good at something. What are you an experience expert in? Are you a business coach who can easily bring in five customers a day and turn over hundreds of thousands per month? Then you are worth no less than 1,000 euros per hour. Fewer questions would be ridiculous.
  • If you focus on the millionaires of the Netherlands. There are many of them. The Netherlands has 112,000 millionaire households.
  • If you focus: are you the Netherlands’ leading stress coach or blog coach, and not just any ‘coach’? Then you have a focus.
  • If you can prove that with testimonials from famous clients. If you are a stress coach, you can safely ask a millionaire for a program of 100,000 euros if you have had many famous Dutch and famous entrepreneurs as a client. If you are a blog coach, you can safely ask for 100,000 euros per project if you have actually set up one of the top blogs in the Netherlands yourself. Then you could just get a famous Dutch person such as Mathijs van Nieuwkerk as a customer who you will coach in setting up his / her own blog.

In any case, always sell packages / subscriptions. A good coaching rate for starting coaches would in any case be: 997 per month (in a month there are exactly 4.34 weekly sessions of three quarters of an hour), 4,997 per 6 months or 9,997 for 12 months.

Tip 11 – But how can I justify my higher price even more?

Suppose you are an equestrian coach. The most expensive competitor costs 150 euros per hour. How can you be above that price?

Personally, I would take the gasoline model as a metaphor: gasoline is just gasoline everywhere. So it is difficult for the different companies to increase the price compared to competing companies …

… unless they change the names to make it look like a unique product worth paying extra for:

  • Shell V Power
  • BP Ultimate
  • Total Excenium
Read this next:  SMART Goal Setting: Step-by-Step Explanation

If you then also read the product descriptions for those fuels, you will see all ‘unique features’ and ‘bonuses’ such as “BP’s waste-handling fuels are specially designed to keep your engine running more efficiently and reduce your risk of breakdowns and unexpected maintenance shrink, “when it’s all just gasoline.

In addition, it is valuable to look at Kotler’s product model with which you can design the so-called “tangible product” and “expanded product” in such a way that the total picture is worth more than 150 euros per hour. Because if you offer ‘normal equestrian coaching’, you can indeed not exceed 150 per hour.

And building on this comes the great secret that ensures that you can, for example, charge 300 euros per hour for your coaching service, while all your competitors compete in the price area and the same coaching cannot be sold for more than 150 euros . See next tip …

Tip 12 – Do not sell a product / service for 150 euros, but sell an offer of 7,000 euros 300 Euro

Hopefully this is your biggest inspiration from this entire article: coaching is coaching, a phone is a phone, and an Alibaba laptop stand is an Alibaba laptop stand. You can’t do that much with the price of products and services .

If you purely sell the coaching product , it makes sense that you cannot charge more than 150 euros an hour as quickly if all your competitors are below that price.

Therefore, do not sell products or services, but sell an offer : what can you add to the total package that you are going to offer?

Do you want some inspiration? Here it comes: answer the questions below so that you eventually have a list of items to add to your offering , which will skyrocket the value of your offering …

  • Can I include an audio package or audio bonus with additional support tips for my customer?
  • Can I make an extra checklist with tips and points of attention for my customer?
  • Can I give my customer an extra book? For example, your own (e-) book ?
  • Can I offer my coaching clients a special community in which they can help each other and in which I also take charge and guide my clients, for example in the form of a private Facebook group?
  • Can I offer them additional group coaching calls?
  • Can I interview an expert and pass it on to my customers as audio or video?
  • Can I give them a top 10 list , for example a top 10 list with helpful videos?
  • Can I give them an extra content piece with the 10 most common mistakes in the area in which you coach your customers?
  • Can I do an extra challenge with them with daily or weekly assignments?
  • Can I offer them a spot as an interviewee in my own podcast?
  • Can I give them an extra ticket for one of your events, masterclasses or retreats?
  • Can I give them a recording of a masterclass you’ve ever had before?
  • Can I include a walkthrough or tutorial video ?
  • Can I summarize an important book for them on a whiteboard – and give it a video recording?
  • Can I give them an accompanying app or piece of software that you had developed?
  • Can I give them some more physical products ? Small extra useful items that you have purchased from Aliexpres, for example.
  • Can I give them extra coach tickets (that you have made up yourself)?
  • Can I give them certification and / or accreditation ?
  • Look at the previous paragraph under ‘Extended Product’. What elements can you add from that spectrum?
  • What additional potential questions and problems may your clients face once they have completed your coaching?
  • What else would be useful during or after the coaching process to support the coaching process?

Have you made a list? Now add the value of each item. For example, you can value those extra coaching calls at 1,970 euros, the master classes can be valued at 997 euros, the community access at 897 euros, the audio bonuses at 297 euros, the e-books at 57 euros, and so on. .

Do you see what is happening yet? If you just put that whole package worth maybe 5,000 euros extra in your offer for the customers who want to take your 1-on-1 coaching, you can easily ask for 200, 300 or 500 euros per hour while all your competitors ask 150 euros per hour.

The more you increase the value, the less expensive it feels.

Tip 13 – Do I need absolutely nothing to do with online marketing?

coach practice starting online marketing

You may have realized by now that I think online marketing & freelancers is a mismatch. In my experience, freelancers differ little from employees and therefore do not benefit much from online marketing … in the same way that employees do not benefit from online marketing.

Yet it is good to always have the option for yourself to do something with online marketing. If you wish, let yourself be guided through the material of some internet marketing course.

What is a way to effectively apply online marketing for your coaching practice? One of the tactics that my teacher teaches us, I have explained for you in the following tip …

Tip 14 – Call warm telephone numbers to create clients

Earlier in this article you learned that you only need two things:

  1. Your product / service.
  2. A phone to sell your product / service.

In this tip, we add an extra nuance to this: what if you make sure that the telephone numbers you are going to call are no longer cold? This is possible with a well-known and important tactic from internet marketing.

Namely to create warm telephone numbers that you can call to sell your service. Be aware that your online efforts do not directly provide customers, but indirectly because you can ultimately call warm telephone numbers.

How do you proceed?

  1. Collect suspects for your newsletter. For example with advertisements.
  2. Send newsletters to your audience for a while.
  3. After a few months, browse the profiles of your subscribers in Mailchimp (or another email program) and find the profiles of hot prospects. Warm prospects are, for example, people with 4 or 5 stars on Mailchimp. This means that a group of people reads almost all your newsletters and always clicks on a link in your newsletter. If at any point you asked them to enter their phone number, you can call those 4 and 5 stars and they will immediately respond warmly and cordially because they are finally allowed to talk to you. The official term for these people is: Sales Qualified Leads.

In short: you focus on your newsletter and you call your most interested and active readers (4 or 5 stars) after a while. This hot calling is therefore only possible after a few months, once those people have become warm with your newsletters. So it is not a method for direct results, but it is for the somewhat longer term.

Yes, you already know quite a bit about these people. In the Mailchimp profile of such a person you will find a lot of information about someone, such as which mails they have opened, what content they have read and which links in your mails they have clicked. The telephone conversation is therefore between two acquaintances of each other.

Within the marketing world, email marketing is still the usual way to acquire telephone numbers and warm them up until they are turned into a Sales Qualified Lead and can be called.

All very expensive marketing software such as Hubspot – with a cost of thousands of euros per month – are built to apply this procedure: get an email address, warm it up and call the warmest people after a while. Mailchimp is also sufficient with a free version or basic version for a few bucks.

Tip 15 – The first steps to get customers? Learn what already works for your profession …

what already works in terms of marketing

What can I do directly to get customers? The answers you found in this article are best practices. So those are general advice. General advice is secondary to specific advice for your situation.

Your specific question for your coaching niche is best answered in a business plan . A business plan does n’t have to be a whole book – just an A4 is enough.

How do you get data to draw conclusions to answer this question? For freelancers like you, I think the # 1 way: competitor research by interviewing competitors. Kindly ask if they can get a novice started by answering some interview questions. Questions like:

  • How do you do your acquisition?
  • How was it when you just started and how are you now?
  • What are the mistakes you made at the beginning and not anymore?
  • How many customers do you have on average per year?
  • How many non-billable hours is that per year?

Tip 16 – The first steps are the only steps for acquisition …

For freelancers, often only the beginning months will be intensive in terms of promotion / marketing / acquisition because once you have a number of clients, freelancers will normally enjoy continuous enough word-of-mouth promotion. So it only takes a bit of work at the beginning.

Tip 17 – Learn to emphasize your client’s pain

pain stress marketing

If you were to change one thing about your communication texts, it would be this: communicate the pain of your potential customers. This shows empathy. You show that you understand your customer’s problem, instead of telling a super happy, positive and generic story.

Here you can read more about writing these types of (web) texts.

Tip 18 – Invest in a good basis for your marketing knowledge

There are many marketing gurus. Are they all good? I’d venture to say that most marketing gurus just rob your time and distract you with ‘free webinars’ and vague secondhand advice. Take a good, serious course!

Tip 19 – Have you started at all? You just packed your suitcase …

coaching start preparation

Did you know that a bizarre number of entrepreneurs and freelancers quit after 10 months? Do you know what they say? “It just didn’t work.” “I’ve been working for 10 months now and it’s so difficult to set up that administration, learn to make invoices, devise a website, write texts, give pitches and arrange flyers …”

I always ask: “I agree with you completely, and did you even start at all?” Look, setting up the administration and arranging those flyers and website are not the real work. It’s just ‘packing your suitcase’. You should do those things in the first few months, after which, in principle, you rarely have to worry about it.

When you travel, do the following:

  • Tidy up your house so that you leave everything tidy.
  • Arrange your tasks so that you can go on holiday without any worries.
  • Purchase travel items, such as sunscreen and sunglasses.
  • Pack your suitcase.
  • To the airport.
  • Fly.
  • To the hotel.
  • Unpack the suitcase.
  • So, all of the above took two days . That was the preparation. And then you can sunbathe by the pool for a fortnight .

Back to coaching: entrepreneurial coaches who don’t think they are successful fall prey to these two things:

  • They don’t start. They think they should keep packing the suitcase and preparing it, which only takes two days, to do forever.
  • So … they stop before they have passed the initial phase – making the preparations – without having been past that preparation phase at all.

So are you thinking of quitting before the first ten months are up? Stick with it at least another ten months and at least enjoy the preparations you’ve made so that you also get some of the real thing.

I will list some of the tasks that fall under “packing the suitcase”, namely these items:

  • Create website
  • Make website beautiful
  • Make flyers
  • Create email funnels
  • Create optin forms
  • Writing a script for your online training
  • Record your online training
  • Create bonus modules
  • Make module 7 of your online training
  • Make a giver
  • Make up giver
  • Add Dispatcher to funnel

It makes sense that these items are on your to do list. They belong there. And you shouldn’t be packing your suitcase for the rest of your life. You pack your suitcase for two days, get on the plane, arrive at your holiday destination and then sit by the pool for 2 weeks.

What I want to say is: you may feel like you are ‘drowning in endless to do’s’ but it is not infinite at all! If all goes well, 80% of these items will not return for a very long time. They are only briefly in the start-up phase. This is just literally the start-up phase.

You only have to create that website once. Your funnels and videos too. Then it is ready and you can sit by the pool. How dare you give up at this stage? Soon your giveaway, funnel and premium training will just be there and you will not have to do anything about it.

Tip 20 – Go for fewer marketing tips, techniques, tactics and strategies

how to start your coaching practice - less tips

One method, tactic and / or strategy is sufficient. They all work anyway. What makes the difference is sticking with that one chosen way – without wanting more methods – and sooner or later it will work! There is also a word for this: ever heard of focus ?

In short: choose one good step-by-step plan, one good promotional tactic, one good marketing strategy, one good marketing guru, one good marketing course … and get started.

Tip 21 – Put your offer (partially) online with your own online program

We purposely saved this tip for last. We know that your heart actually tells you that you really want to meet people – in person – and that digital coaching may make your heart sad.

Nevertheless, we must mention the possibility to put your product, service or entire business online – with group coaching, 1-on-1 coaching calls and an electronic learning environment. It saves time, it adds value, increases your asking price and it creates – yes, there comes that horrible itch word – passive income.

We have set out a step-by-step plan for you how to achieve this. In this article you will learn how to create your own online training / coaching / program.

That was it! Good luck starting as an independent coach! You just know enough now and it is now just a matter of doing it. Feel free to click on a new article for more tips.

About The Author

Rubin

Hello! Thanks for reading these articles. My intention is to make happiness as simple and clear as posssible. By the way, excuse my English. I am not a native English speaker since I live in Amsterdam. Much appreciated if you use the comments to make suggestions on my grammar. See ya in another blogpost!

11 Comments

  1. Iris

    Dear Rubin.

    I have a question.
    At the moment I am still working on the Care IG training in the exam year.

    After this (or possibly during) I would like to become an (experience) coach for people with autism and possibly also for the elderly, given my previous education and past in care. The reason for an experience coach / expert is because my husband has autism and I would like to guide other people and become familiar with living together with someone with autism (man / woman / child, etc.)

    My current (autism / family) counselor wants to help me start my own business and help me on my way to clients. I could then become a subcontractor with her or with another organization to see first what is for me and which clients suit me best.

    Do you have any other tips that I can look at and can / should pay attention to in this industry?

    I am also very happy with your article. Nice to read and I have also registered for the NLP moments

    Greetings Iris

    • Rubin Alaie

      Dear Iris,

      Because secretly tips 12 (imitating a mentor) & 13 (completing initial assignments) are the most powerful tips – and since you hardly need anything else once you’ve done those things – you can’t wish for a better start.

      So it pleases me to read this:

      “My current (autism / family) counselor wants to help me to start up my own business and help me on my way to clients. I could then become a subcontractor with her or with another organization to see first the what for me and which clients suit me best. ”

      That’s the best action you could wish for. This way you stand with both feet in the work field.

      I have no substantive tips to add. No more content is needed. In fact, if I were to add a tip, it would be: less content, less tips, less tactics and less strategies. Just continue that path that you have now started.

      Good luck!

      P.S. Furthermore, you are always welcome to ask your question – “Do you have any other tips that I can look at and can / should pay attention to in this industry?” – more specific.

  2. Marie

    My son also has plans to set up his own coaching company. He has learned a lot about communication in his career and would like to put this into practice by coaching others. In any case, I will forward the tips. Hopefully it will help him get started!

    • Rubin Alaie

      Good choice from your son Marie. There is enough demand for this in companies.

  3. ivan

    This complete masterclass helped me quite a bit. I used to be a fitness instructor. I want to pick up this activity as a freelancer, but then as an online fitness coach. I do have the feeling that I am doing well. Finding a niche in particular, that’s the trick.

    • Rubin Alaie

      Super!

      An online coaching business is also very interesting because you can then work with e-learning and memberships, for example.

      Good that you are choosing a niche.

    • Mariëlle

      Dear Rubin,

      Do you have tips / advice for someone who wants to start a coaching / counseling practice but has been in the Wajong for almost 17 years due to autism?
      I have done several courses such as weight consultant, counselor complete and coaching for autism. I also hope to be able to follow practitioner level of an energy work training this year.

      For example, do you always need starting capital to start and is a course necessary to start a practice yourself or do things eventually turn out for themselves and how do you find a mentor?

      The UWV does not believe that I can work, so they are not going to guide me to work or set up my own company. I personally believe that as a woman with autism I have something to offer.

      Greeting,

      Marielle

      • Rubin

        “Do you have any tips / advice for someone who wants to start a coaching / counseling practice but has been in the Wajong for almost 17 years due to autism?”

        Absolutely: it is possible. You certainly have something to offer. You can do people a great service, both as an expert or in some other way. Whether you are going to do it on a voluntary basis so that you keep your benefits – or on a paid basis, so that your benefits cease … I cannot make a statement about that, however.

        “For example, do you always need seed capital?”

        No, because you don’t need starting capital to apply for a job, do you? Coaching is also a ‘job’ – even if you are an ‘independent freelance’ coach. So no start-up capital is needed.

        “Is a course necessary to start a practice?”

        Yes, but certainly not necessary. Things are indeed self-explanatory. All it takes is that you open Microsoft Word, write at the top:

        Dear wife, lord {gatekeeper of an organization},

        I would like to do an open application as a {coach}.

        {Past performance} {Motivation}

        etc.”

        And then you take that letter to the organization where you would most like to work as a coach.
        And you repeat that 20 times until you succeed.

        “How do you find a mentor?”

        1. Show up at a workshop from your ideal mentor.
        2. Be the most contributing, enthusiastic and helpful during the workshop.
        3. Help clean up afterwards.
        4. Offer to help with his / her next workshop for free.
        5. Slowly introduce your admiration for that person and offer your help one more time.
        5. Offer your help again and show that you would like to learn something from him / her.
        6. Perhaps an implicit or explicit mentorship bond emerges from this bond.

        • Mariëlle

          Thank you for your answer. It is helpful to come up with goals and take steps.

          I think I could start voluntarily with the aim of eventually getting paid for my services. You got to start somewhere!

          What I find very important is to be your real self, so not put on a socially accepted straightjacket and do it your own way. Be you, be unique!

  4. simon

    This informative blog about setting up an online coaching business helped me a lot. Thanks to corona I was forced to go back to freelancing. One of my activities is teaching online language lessons. Fortunately, compared to the past, the administrative side of freelancing has become a lot easier.

    • Rubin

      Excellent Simon!