This past Wednesday, the BBC ran an article with the headline:
“The seedy underbelly of the life coaching industry”
The article features the story of a woman named Angela Lauria, age 50. Lauria went in search of weight loss and she wound up with a life coach who charged her $100k and got her to spend thousands more on trainings by other life coaches.
We don’t actually find out what happened to Angela in the end, but presumably she did not make her $100k back via new and bigger successes in her life.
I guess the BBC published this article because life coaching is a booming industry and because it’s still relatively new.
The point, the article says, is not to discourage people from seeking a life coach’s services — because there are good life coaches. But it’s the Wild West out there.
I personally think it’s the Wild West everywhere, and always has been.
My estimate — based on having seen behind the curtain at hundreds of businesses while I was a for-hire copywriter — is that 80% of people doing any job are at best mediocre, and more likely, they are actively bad.
Only 20% of people in any industry are genuinely dedicated, skilled, and get good results on any kind of consistent basis.
So what to do? Well, if you’re looking for a life coach, the BBC article has the following good advice:
“Ask the coach how much of their business is referral, call at least three former clients and don’t buy from anyone who won’t do a call with you directly beforehand. And don’t buy from anyone who needs an answer now – scarcity and urgency is made up.”
Meanwhile, if you want to write a personal email newsletter — to distinguish yourself, to prove your credibility, to promote your products and services — then look at my Simple Money Emails program.
Most of the sales for that program came via referrals. And if you’d like to see what a few previous customers had to say, take a look here: