Has the coaching industry changed? A real opinion from a coach who has been in the biz for 15 years.

The coaching industry has changed. And it hasn’t changed at all.

I started Uncaged in 2011, living in my old Chevy campervan and trying to figure out how to be a digital nomad.

Back then, building a “lifestyle business” was all the rage. In fact, selling the lifestyle itself was often a key marketing angle that coaches took.

And I was bought in. I wanted to be able to build a career that let me live on my own schedule and travel as much as I wanted (rock climbing was my drug of choice back then and Uncaged was built on rest days from pulling myself up mountains by my fingertips).

     

The industry back then was a bit of a wild west – it still is, but it was different back then.

Coaching wasn’t as well known then as it is now, but we were in an era of personal development going mainstream, and coaches were popping up all over the place.

A lot of the marketing of new coaches was garbage and false promises – this was the era of doing photoshoots in luxury jets and posing next to the Eiffel tour in a ballgown with a glass of champagne. 

Lots of coaches were selling the idea of a luxury lifestyle without having to really do much for it.

This kind of coaching business was the antithesis of what I was building (and what I was living at the time as I was roaming around in my ‘81 van, having swapped out the gown and pearls for grubby rock climbing clothes and only weekly showers).

And while yes, some of those coaches were making some money at the time, for the most part they were frauds, touting to live 7-figure lifestyles while in reality they were signing up for coaching with me because they couldn’t figure out how to make any money in their business (how ironic). (Note: I didn’t condone lying and we almost always helped them switch niches to something they actually felt more confident in and could be truthful about).

The ones that were pulling in clients didn’t take long before they were exposed, either in Reddit threads or in Facebook groups, as having sold people into a program that didn’t actually deliver results, or worse, was actually an MLM scheme (no kidding, one program I was privy to was built on the concept of teaching people how to teach other people how to build a luxury lifestyle, coaches coaching people to become (crappy) coaches themselves and selling the same BS promises). Ick.

It should be noted that alongside this female dominated coaching industry phenomenon, was the male equivalent, which featured men touting Lamborghinis and gold jewelry, promising people that they too could bring in the bling with only working 5 hours a month.

As more and more of these businesses got exposed, the coaching industry started to be seen as a bit of a joke (at least those in the online marketing and business coaching space – the average person still probably didn’t even know what coaching was).

And clients started to be more discerning, making sure the coach they wanted to hire had real testimonials, could tell them exactly what their method was for helping them get results, and asked around for referrals and testimonials, not just believing whatever the coach put on their website.

That shift happened around 2016, 5 years after I came onto the scene.

I realized then that I had to double down on sharing my clients actual results and messaging clarity on what I do, and lean less into the lifestyle around “Uncaged”.

This wasn’t a problem for me because I actually was selling a real program that helped my clients with real things, not just the idea of a lifestyle with nothing concrete to back it up.

It’s been 10 years since that shift happened, and the industry is again in a state of change.

While some may argue that things are different now, I would say they are the same as they have always been – clients are more discerning, coaches need to be even more clear about how they can help and what results their clients get with them, and they need to be able to show (not just tell) prospective clients their results with case studies and testimonials.

Do you need to niche even more now? Yes.

But you always needed to niche, and even back then in the coaching heyday, the coaches who did the best and got clients the fastest always had clear and specific niches.

I will always remember the first coach I hired.

I had already done my training in CTI and I knew a lot of coaches at that point (so yes, you could say that I was already on board with coaching as a modality, which the average person isn’t necessarily).

I was new to Toronto and was feeling in a bit of a funk. I had all these things I wanted to do, but just wasn’t doing. I wanted to start a garden. I wanted to get a bike and learn my way around the city. I knew something was up because I couldn’t find the motivation to do the things I wanted to do (and I am very much a go-getter usually). I wasn’t depressed – it was clear to me that I didn’t need therapy. But for some reason all the coaches I had met at CTI didn’t feel like the right fit (I couldn’t put my finger on why, I just never really felt inclined to hire them).

A coach I knew from CTI said to me “I know someone perfect for you. Her name is Quinn. She works specifically with people in their late 20s who are who are trying to figure out what’s next in the next phase of life and who are feeling disconnected from what they want.”

I was sold. The fact that she worked with people my age and understood what I was going through was everything.

Quinn and I started coaching that week.

I realized after that the reason the other CTI coaches didn’t feel like a fit is that they weren’t speaking directly to me. I am sure that any of them could have helped me, but it was the specificity of what Quinn was selling, matching exactly what I needed, that sold me.

The best coaches aren’t the ones making the most money. The coaches who are good at marketing and at making their clients feel heard and understood, are the ones making the most money.

The difference is that the good coaches actually KEEP making money, because they build a reputation, get client testimonials, and get even better at marketing the more they help their clients because they learn how to articulate their results even better after doing it over and over and over.

It’s why when I work with students in my Uncage Your Business program, we focus on beta testing their offers a LOT.

I want my students to be GOOD at coaching within a niche, and feel confident when they get on sales calls, being able to clearly tell people what kinds of results they have gotten for people.

So has the coaching industry changed?

Yes, and no.

There are 1000x more coaches now than there were when I started my business.

But you have always had to be CLEAR about how you help and be CONFIDENT in coaching people to those results.

Now more than ever as people have less discretionary income and are more discerning about what they are investing in.

But I would argue that niching in, being clear, and being confident in your offer was always necessary as a coach (and is the reason I created my Uncage Your Business program in the first place).

Yes, it’s still about building a business that lets you live the lifestyle you want (see photo evidence below of me working from a beach on Vancouver island while my baby naps in my Sprinter).

But I will never BS you and tell you that it’s easy or that you can do it in 5 hours a month or that you don’t have to hustle. 

You can make your business happen. It takes work and dedication and the willingness to learn marketing and work on your coaching confidence.

But I have students who work full time who build it on the side.

I have students who are full-time stay-at-home parents that do it on the side (working during naptime and after bedtime is tough – I see you. My son is 18 months and is home with me full time right now).

And then I also have students who don’t have a lot of other responsibilities who have more time and energy to dedicate to it.

The truth is, everyone has an equal chance of success.

And you do too.

So don’t let anyone tell you that coaching has changed or that people aren’t buying coaching. We are just in a similar pattern to where we have been before, where coaches need to invest more in learning how to market and sell coaching, and anyone can learn how to do that.

You can too.

x becca