The Personal Development Checklist is a great way of gaining some valuable insight about your life and the way you want to live it.

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Independent Advice about Life Coaching Courses and Coach Training

The information on this page is free, totally impartial and will help you pinpoint the best coaching courses while avoiding the cowboys.

Choose the right coaching course for you.

There’s a huge variety of coach trainers out there, many of them excellent, others less so. How on earth do you tell the difference? Follow the guidance below and you’ll avoid the cowboys and end up with a short-list of great coach trainers. Be inquisitive and methodical – and take your time.

Factors to Consider

Why Do You Want Coach training?

Get this as clear as you can right from the start. Are you aiming to build your own personal or corporate coaching practice, are you looking to use it for business purposes, or do you want coach training mainly for your own and your family’s personal development ?

Personal and Corporate Coach Training

Many coaches like to work with both personal and corporate clients. Many others feel happier in one sphere or another. In terms of the basic coaching skills they are pretty similar – but in terms of perspective, style and client needs there can be major differences. So when you investigate a coaching course make sure you understand how that trainer has tailored their courses to meet the needs of your prospective clients.

Life Coaching Accreditation and Qualifications

Sad to say, but as yet there is no industry standard coaching qualification or accreditation.

Please don’t take that to mean that you can’t find excellent coach training courses. You can, and there are plenty of them. But you will need to understand exactly what accreditation your chosen coaching course is offering and how that qualification compares to similar courses.

If you are particularly academic or are looking to coach in a market that requires top academic qualifications, then several UK Universities offer an MA in Coaching (often Coaching and Mentoring). There’s no doubt that an MA in Coaching offers a lot of clout, but you do not need to study at that level to become an excellent coach with powerful coaching skills and a good qualification.

OCN (Open College Network); NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) or ICF (International Coaching Federation) are three accreditation bodies to look out for. Click here for more detail about these awarding bodies.

Beware of In-house certificates

Many trainers will offer an in-house certificate alongside the the independent award body certificate. That's fine - I have one and value it greatly.

However there are trainers out there who offer only the in-house certificate. You need to make your own judgement about these courses. They may well be offering coach training at the level you are looking for. But some of these courses are very short. I've heard stories of people becoming 'qualified' after one day courses. If all you are looking for is an introduction to coaching techniques, then these courses may be right for you. But if you are looking to become a professional coach in whatever form, you owe it to your clients to do some serious learning.

You will need to do your research on this and make your own decisions. My advice is to short-list the courses that deliver what you need in terms of coaching skills and styles – and then use accreditation as one of your deciding factors between your short-listed coach trainers.

Other Types of Coaching

As well as standard life coaching and corporate coaching, it’s worth knowing about the other styles of coaching that you might want to consider. These include:

NLP Coaching
Cognitive Behavioural Coaching
Emotional Intelligence Coaching
Confidence Coaching

While you don’t want to confuse yourself with all the options, it’s helpful to at least know what those options are. One of them might be exactly what you are looking for.

Methods of Study for Coach Training

The best coaching courses contain a blend of the following elements:

Face-to-face tutoring – often done at residential weekends. The best are truly inspirational.

Distance learning – the majority of your learning will probably be in the form of home study. Take note of how each course structures this.

Practical coaching experience – formalized as part of the program. Practical coaching experience is an essential. You can’t learn to drive a car simply by reading about it – and you can’t learn to coach that way either. Make sure the practical element is substantial and well structured. Some courses offer mentored coaching practice, with a mentor coach listening in on you coaching. I highly recommend this option.

Personal coach-mentors – take care here: some coach trainers cut corners on this one. If you feel that mentoring is an important part of the coach training process (I definitely think it is) then make sure you understand fully what prospective training providers mean by it.

Mentor questions to ask:

Are mentors experienced coaches with their own coaching practices?

What is the student/mentor ratio?

What access do you have to your mentor?

Written and Practical Assessment – Make sure your coaching course properly assesses your practical ability to actually coach. If it doesn't then it’s letting everyone down – you, your future clients and the greater coaching profession.

The two main methods of assessing your practical coaching skills are as follows:

Viva - an assessed coaching session, performed live and with your assessor listening in. Highly recommended!

Written work - a written response or reflection of how your student coaching abilities have developed. With this method it is your written response that is assessed, not the actual coaching. I know some good coaches who have gone through this kind of assessment, but my personal opinion is that viva assessments are far superior.

Support materials – what support materials are provided or available?

Course study manuals and workbooks

Conference calls

Multi-media material

Online support and information

Coach Trainers Large or Coach Trainers Small

The size of the training company isn’t necessarily a guide to the excellence of its coaching courses. So don’t be taken in by ‘we’re the biggest so we must be the best’ claims. I know this may not seem terribly helpful, but some of the large coach trainers are excellent and some are less so – and that goes for the smaller trainers too.

You might also want to distinguish between companies that are coach trainers first and foremost, and those who offer training on lots of subjects, coaching being just one of them.

Here are three factors to consider:

The track record of the tutors – What experience do they have both as tutors and successful coaches

Student class sizes – smaller coach trainers may have the advantage of being able to offer a more personal service, with smaller student intakes and class sizes. Some of the larger companies work with student groups of 40+ and sometimes much larger.

One company that works with larger numbers but also gets great feedback is The Coaching Academy. Through my coaching contacts around the country and at the Sheffield Coaching Exchange I’ve heard consistently good reports direct from the students.

Post graduation support – find out what your prospective trainers offer in terms of post-graduation support. Do they wave you out of the door, certificate in hand, and never want to see you again? Or are they committed to offering you continuing support and membership of a coaching community.

Selling Styles

The coach training sector is extremely competitive. That does mean that you’ll be exposed to some fairly slick marketing. I think it has to be that way in a sector with so much choice of providers. But it does mean you'll need to be savvy about this aspect of choosing a good coach training provider.

First of all, I’d personally be very suspicious of anyone focussing their selling on what you can earn as a coach. It’s a good career, often a very rewarding career, but I’ve never met a top coach whose first motivator was money.

Once you’ve got in touch, be aware of how they follow up on your enquiry. You should expect a successful coach training provider to follow up professionally, and certainly they’ll try to help you choose themselves as your final option. But good selling practices should also give you the time and space to make a considered choice. Don’t let them rush you with offers of massive time-sensitive discounts. And if you feel a provider is simply going over the top with their follow-up, tell them to back off – or even show them the door.

I guess the bottom line is this: if you feel a coach trainer is not marketing ethically, how comfortable would you feel receiving a coaching course from them? Not very, I’d imagine.

Final Words

Well done if you’ve read this far – you’re clearly serious about becoming a great coach. Follow this guidance, take your time and be as methodical as you can, and you should find one of the many excellent coach training providers.

Good luck in your search for a great coach trainer – Andrew Leigh