Business and Life Coaching Certificate
- Are you unsure whether to be a business coach or life coach?
- Do you want to start your own coaching business?
- Not sure where to specialise?
This could be the qualification for you!
Study Business Coaching AND Life Coaching.
Highly Experienced Tutors.
Study in Your Own Home and In Your Own Time.
Modules
Note that each module in the Certificate in Business and Life Coaching is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
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Thoughts from our principal: John Mason)
The things people buy and the way they are buying them is changing very fast.
Some of these changes may just be fashion cycles (ie. styles of clothing or popular foods going in and out of fashion); but other changes are brought about by more permanent changes to our global marketplace, including:
- Expanding markets –more people becoming affluent in more countries, as well as a growing global population is increasing both the number of people who buy things and the range of what they are looking to buy.
- Political changes and globalisation – opening markets in countries that were previously inaccessible – political boundaries are being weakened.
Developing Ideas for Businesses
- Try thinking outside the box.
- Try thinking ahead.
If you conceive a business now, and launch it in three months; it may be six months before you can achieve significant awareness among a large number of potential customers. If this is your time frame; you need to be developing a business to supply something that will be in demand in six months time….not something that is in demand now.
Primary Industries
Primary industries like mining, forestry and farming, provide the raw materials for products.
Food
People will always want and need food products like meat, vegetables and fruit. The demand for food may not diminish; but there are variables that can be taken advantage of in order to create a unique business opportunity. Here are some ideas:
- Set up a farm closer to the end user, in order to supply fresher foods to the market in a big city. Hi tech urban farms can be created using technologies such as controlled environments (eg. greenhouses), vertical farming, aquaponics or hydroponics.
- Introduce products that are not generally available in the market, such as exotic vegetables or fruits.
- Value add by processing produce to create unique, branded food products.
Mining
Mining can be a costly business to establish. Mining costs are broken down into the costs of exploration, extraction, transportation to processor, processing then distribution to end user. At each step of this process, there may be the opportunity to do things better. Often one of these stages may have prohibitive costs at one point in time; but over time, that situation can change.
Examples:
- Gold mining that was no longer viable 20 years ago, may become viable again because the price of gold has increased so much.
- As the supply of a particular mineral is concentrated within one or two countries or controlled by one or two businesses (reducing global competition); the need for other suppliers begins to grow, making new players more viable than before.
Manufacturers
Manufacturers take raw products and create new or improved products.
Distributing
Distributors take raw materials or processed products and move them on to someone who needs them. The environmental impact of transportation is increasingly important; people are increasingly buying on line. These and other changes may change many things about the distribution industry.
Retailing
Retailers take products and sell them to the end user.
Professional Services
This type of business provides expertise to a customer.
It depends upon “expert” staff. If the owner already has expertise that is in demand; the start up will be cheaper and easier; otherwise, the owner must employ an “expert”, or take time to develop expertise (eg. by taking a course).
Growth Areas in the Future
Governments in many countries have traditionally provided services in education, transport, defense, health, social welfare, environmental management, and various other things.
Government costs in providing such services have been escalating over the past decade; and look set to continue to escalate. This is partially due to the rise of global terrorism (putting pressure on defense and police budgets), scientific advancements increasing the quality and costs of health care, and population expansion (among other things) causing environmental problems.
Governments are increasingly looking for ways to cut budgets. Certain services will become increasingly non negotiable; while others may need to be increasingly serviced by the private business sector. Examples:
- If government cannot provide free leisure services, there may be a growth spurt in businesses providing leisure services.
- If government cannot provide an adequate level of policing, there may be a growth in private security services.
- If government cannot afford to fund an adequate level of counselling, education or other services, there may be a growth in self-funded services in such areas.
Other services have traditionally been supplied by businesses – eg. trades, massage, architects, engineering services, environmental consultants, accountants and bookkeepers, personal trainers, child minders.
All of these services are likely to continue being needed in some way, shape or form; but there are many dynamics at play that can change the viability of a particular type of service in the future.
Examples:
Accountants at one point in time, did most of the work people needed to be done in relation to managing money; but they are expensive, so bookkeepers emerged strongly as a “cheaper” way to provide some of the services previously provided by accountants. Financial Planners also emerged to help ordinary people navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape in the developed world.
Personal Trainers and Computer Games – Personal trainers can be expensive so video game producers created games, such as WiFit to enable people to have a “computerised personal trainer” in their own home. This created a new market for personal training. A few years ago, a computerised personal trainer would not have been an option, now it is.
Not everyone may be able to set up a computer game like Wifit, but many personal trainers, nutritional experts, life coaches, fitness experts and so on now offer online services, websites and online advice for clients, as a way for clients to access their services and a way for them to offer services to clients across the world (potentially).
Counselling services are another area where the use of technology is changing the industry as cyber-counselling or e-counselling increases. The idea of a counsellor face to face with their client still exists, but some counsellors now also offer online counselling so clients do not have to attend a face to face session, they can retain their anonymity and so on. This is a service that may suit many clients, thus it is a potential growth market for counsellors. As with online personal training, this is something that would not have been available in the past, but now is a new way to deliver a traditional product.
Time Saver Services and Products
Everyone seems to live busy lives today and offering “time saver services” can be a good way to set up your own business. Consider the growth in business such as – gardening, cleaning, childminding, car valeting, house repair, ironing and so on. Time saver services can be a good way to start a business:
- the services help people save time
- often you don’t need a high level of expertise
- often you do not need a high financial investment
- these businesses are built upon good service, personal relationships and organisation
- these businesses do not work for people who cannot keep appointments with 100% reliability.
It does not just have to be a service, think of all the time saver products that are also available today. Floor cleaners, easy mops, easy dusters, vacuum cleaners or hovers that work themselves! All of these products were devised by someone and marketed. Not all of them may be successful. Think about all the products you use in your own home or at work that you may not have done 20 years ago.
Businesses can fail for a number of reasons :
- lack of marketing knowledge
- lack of backing capital
- lack of planning
- Lack of research into their market – good business people will analyse their market, see if there is sufficient business there for them to grow, see if there is a niche in the market they can fill and so on.
- Lack of infrastructure to support the business.
- Lack of personal qualities to make the business succeed – determination, business knowledge, good networking skills and so on.
At a fundamental level, unless the product or service you plan to offer is a good one and has a potential market, then it doesn’t matter how great you are at marketing or planning or research, the product or service just will not sell.
So before starting any business, it is important to reflect, and seriously consider what you plan to offer. So going back to our initial points, you need to decide:
- The scale of business you wish to start.
- Whether you will offer services or products (or both).
- The amount of resources you want to invest.
- The amount of risk you wish to take.
- The industry you will operate in.
- Your target market.
COACHING IS A CAREER FOR THE FUTURE
This course is designed as a first step towards becoming any sort of coach you choose to be.
When you understand the role of a coach and pair that understanding with some basic business skills; you will have a foundation to move toward establishing yourself, whether as a life coach, business coach, health coach or something else.
Coaches are in some respects a little like a consultant, counsellor, financial planner and even fitness instructor; all rolled into one. Depending upon what type of coach you are though; the emphasis of how you help clients will change.
The "coaching" profession has been a growth industry over recent decades. The type of opportunities are constantly changing in the field of coaching. Just as one type of coach becomes trendy, inventive newcomers to the industry seem to keep inventing new types of coaches.
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