How Can I Avoid Life Coach Training Scams?

Life coaches offer a service that is a mix of therapy, financial counseling, and motivational speaking. As a career, life coaching can be very lucrative, with some counselors charging upwards of $100 an hour for personal sessions, and close to $100 an hour for sessions by phone or email.

Some people consider life coaching a scam because it doesn't offer any tangible product. Yet each year, thousands of people happily pay for sessions to get their lives on track. What may be scams are training courses for would-be life coaches. Though there is no fixed official route to becoming a life coach, many people flock to special coaching academies. These academies are often run by other life coaches in what amounts to a pyramid scheme.

If you want to become a life coach, but are wary of training scams, this article will show you how to avoid being suckered.

The first step in identifying a life coach training scam is to research the school's curriculum. Scam schools will not have a set number of courses needed for completion, but rather, they will let you take an indefinite number of classes that you can pick and choose. They may even let you repeat life coaching courses over and over as long as you pay. A legitimate school will have more structure to its life coaching program.

Investigate the accreditation of the life coach training program. A legitimate school will be recognized by a non-profit organization with a fixed set of criteria for accreditation. A scam school may be accredited by an entity that merely sells accreditation. Just because a school is listed as "accredited" doesn't mean that it has been vetted.

Look at the life coaching academy's tuition schedule. A life coach training program with a pay-per-class, or pay-as-you-go system may be a scam. Genuine career training schools charge tuition for the entire program upfront. This ensures that students complete their education and graduate. It also ensures that only the truly dedicated students will enter.

Allowing students to pay as they go is a marketing tactic that draws in more customers.

Make sure the cost of classes is proportionate to the number of hours, cost of text books, and other class materials.

Watch out for schools that promise you more than a certificate of completion. A school that awards life coach degrees, or life coaching licenses is a scam. Life coaching is not a regulated industry, and there are no national or state licensing boards. A legitimate life coaching school cannot offer such advanced levels of certification.

Research the teachers who run the life coaching school. How they are qualified to teach life coaching skills?. Do they have degrees or licenses in business, counseling, or therapy? Are they themselves successful life coaches? If the program directors make more money by training coaches than they do by actually coaching, the school is probably a scam.

Before you sign up for any life coaching classes or training programs and open your wallet, do your homework!

© Had2Know 2010