A just-released survey by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) found there is a huge gap between awareness of coaching, and acting on that awareness.
In Canada, while 77% of respondents said they were aware or somewhat aware of business coaching and/or life coaching, only 20% are currently or have previously engaged a coach. They also found 46% would consider using a coach who have not previously used one.
Globally, 73% were aware, while 35% participated in a coaching relationship (however, that number includes both the coach and those being coached).
Of those who have engaged with a coach in Canada, in 55% of the cases their work paid for it, while 45% paid for it out-of-pocket, Globally, the numbers were 40% and 60% respectively.
Of those who engaged a coach, 86% were satisfied with their coaching experience as it helped them to improve their communications skills, self-confidence, productivity, work-life balance, well-being, and team performance — to name a few.
So why is awareness and the willingness to engage a coach not translating into action?
There appear to a few reasons:
- 65% believe it is too expensive
- 58% feel they cannot afford it
- 57% feel they do not need a coach
- 38% are not aware of its benefits
- 29% do not believe it works
Buying – it’s complicated, and emotional
How people make buying decisions usually involves some combination of psychological, social, cultural, personal, and economic factors; it’s not just facts that sway people to buy a product or a service.
Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, believes the answer to why people buy one product over another and develop brand loyalty is emotion, not facts. So while most of us like to think our buying decisions are rational, well researched, and fact-based, most often they are not.
If you are a coach trying to attract coaching clients by running your own website, social media, digital marketing and so on, you already know how hard it is to drive visits and to translate those visits into paying customers. And when your current client engagements end, you have the start the process all over again to find new ones.
Competing against each other, coaches spend often spend as much time on looking for business and maintaining their online presence as they do in coaching sessions with clients, the reason they started to coach.
What if there is an alternative?
The role of Marketplaces
At first blush, it may seem that going it alone as an independent business with your own online presence is preferred over belonging to an online marketplace of similar businesses. Yet, the facts are quite different, and yes I know, emotion plays a bigger role than facts in buying. And the work you have put in, and are putting everyday into your online presence is more than just the blog posts and the web site(s) you maintain, you have become emotionally attached to your content. We all are. It’s normal.
What most of us are not attached to is the work that goes into setting up and maintaining all of that technology.
Marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and the one that started it all, EBay tell us that marketplaces get their sellers in front of far more customers and in far more places than any of them could ever hope to do on their own.
Marketplaces take on the burden of setting up maintaining the technology. They also take on the burden of finding customers, marketing, optimizing SEO, penetrating new markets, etc.
Benefits of a Marketplace
Marketplaces benefit from the network effect. More buyers attract more sellers, and vice versa. So the more coaches in a marketplace the more clients looking for coaches will want to join that marketplace.
Our business is not to drive Coaches out of the market, it’s to expand their market opportunities. There are over 1.5 million google searches every month for coaching services.
The Hive Professional Network will not only have individual clients looking for coaches, we will be adding corporate clients with hundreds and even thousands of employees.
Marketplaces are built to scale. They account for having a large customer base — customers that already have made the decision to buy from the types of sellers the marketplace offers. The more customers that join the marketplace, the challenge switches from finding customers to adding more sellers to meet the demand that existing sellers cannot meet due to their capacity restrictions. Hence, sellers get to decide how big they want to grow to meet the demand of the marketplace to which they belong.
All of the clients who join The Hive have already made a decision to engage a coach, and for any of them it will be a coach just you.
Marketplaces reduce the work of sellers. The time and effort needed to create listings and to maintain them over time is significantly reduced.
The soon to be released Hive Coach Store will enable you to get up and running quickly and add new listings when you are ready. We have more exciting capabilities we will be launching soon.
Marketplaces take care of payments. Marketplaces are responsible for ensuring payment is received before products and services are made available to customers. It not only offloads the worry and workload from the seller, it means sellers get paid sooner.
When clients engage you for your Coaching services through The Hive Coach Store, the payment will be collected immediately and on the way to your bank account within days.
Marketplaces have sellers for every type of customer and price point. Not every customer has the same financial capability or need. Likewise, not every seller has the same level of product or service. Marketplaces provide the opportunity for the range of possible customers to find the range of sellers more in line with their needs and financial capabilities.
The Hive is welcoming to coaches at all levels of experience as we recognize not everyone needs or can afford an executive-level coach. Every Coach had their first year as a practising Coach before they built their reputation and could charge higher fees for their services; this is as true for executive Coaches as it is for life style coaches and personal trainers.
Of course there can be disadvantages to marketplaces as well, as marketplace titans like those listed earlier can abuse their monopolies, and do according to some of their sellers.
The Hive is being built as a safe, secure and inclusive environment for Coaches and their Coaching Clients. Our founders are practising coaches. We intend to engage Coaches and Coaching Clients in The Hive to set strategy and drive the decisions on the capabilities and experience we enable for both so we can ensure it will become and continue as a place they want to be. We will always maintain the perspective that we are here to serve you both.
While you’re here, check out our Coach FAQs. Also feel free to reach out to Greg, Jason or myself for specific questions not covered in our FAQs.
About The Hive Professional Network
At The Hive, we are committed to providing people and organizations with the insights, coaching, and mentoring they need to become who they are meant to be so they can realize their true potential in work and in life. To do this we are building an ecosystem for coaches and those seeking coaches to find their perfect match through our proprietary matching algorithm, unique platform, and strategic partnerships.
Find your Hive
Are you a Coach? Join The Hive and get set to take your coaching business to a whole new level in 2023 and beyond.
Are you looking for a Coach? Join The Hive to find a Coach to help you reach personal and professional objectives.
Author
Larry Cooper is the Chief Strategy Officer and A/CTO at The Hive Professional Network.
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