Stop getting Certifications!

Foreign. Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Welcome to my life where I'm telling you to stop getting certifications. And I'm speaking to the coaches tonight. Happy Tuesday, by the way. Happy October 4th here in Philadelphia. We have dealt with like three days straight of rain. Hi, Emily. Welcome. And if you have any questions during this live, I'd love to answer them. First, I want to start off with why people think they need more and more certifications to actually start their coaching business. Now, one of the things, number one, is therapy and coaching often get like convoluted compared. And it's really, really natural to look at therapists and how much training they go through and think, oh, my coaching training was super short. I only went through like, like. So, for instance, like my coach training, we did five weekends that were three days each and then a six month certification program that was like a call a week and then some extra stuff. We had to do a certain amount of hours. We had to do some supervision and. But it wasn't anywhere near therapy. So one of the reasons a lot of coaches think that they have to go and get more certification is because they're really holding themselves up to this therapist model and this other professionalism model. You know, we're lucky that we don't have the onus and the responsibility that a lot of therapists have around mental health and that our systems are pretty, pretty simple. I mean, if you look at coaching, coaching tactics and methodologies, they are pretty simple. It's one of the amazing things about coaching is that it's pretty simple to learn and it's transformative to do with your clients. Okay, so before we get into why we do this and all this stuff, like, I really, really want to like, name this elephant in the room. Coaching is not therapy. If you are expecting yourself to have as much training as a coach as therapists have, maybe you should become a therapist, like full on, full permission, go there. But you do not need as much training to become a coach as you do to become a therapist, a lawyer, an accountant, whatever. Okay, should you get training, I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it. But what can happen for a lot of coaches is we think, okay, cool, I'm going to start my business after going through this one training and certification program. And you start doing it and it feels scary. It feels scary. And it feels like, oh, God, like I don't know what I'm doing. But you just came out of an environment where you're held and you're Safe. And you were made to feel like you knew what you were doing. So of course the inclination is to want to go back into that safe space base and get more certifications. But here's the bad news. It's not going to result in clients. It's just not. Nothing's going to result in clients like building a business school, okay? Because it's a business that has clients. So that leads me to reason number two. Why? Why a lot of coaches get sucked back into this vortex of I need to go and get more certifications so I get to be more credible, okay? And that's because you've never done this before, okay? Building a business is unlike anything you've ever done before. And building a service based business is different than building like a brick and mortar business, okay? A lot of my clients who have come from retail or they've come from, say, selling cars or running their own real estate practice selling your services feels like it's a much more personal sale than selling something that's separate to you, okay? Selling shrimp scampi is very different from selling your time. Selling of Jeep 4Runner, I think that's a car, is very different from selling your time. Selling a three bedroom, two bath house with a cute backyard is different than selling your time, okay? When you're running a sales call for your service, it's your business, you're selling this service. It feels a lot more personal because this person in front of you, it feels like they're not saying no to the thing. They're not saying no to the shrimp scampi or the car or the house. They're saying no to you. At least that's how it feels. And so for many coaches, like this is. They don't know how to reconcile this in their brain. Hi, Stephen Doyle. Where are you in the world? You're in Belgium. You're normally in Ireland. When are you coming to the US Anyway? But you have. I just lost my train of thought. Got distracted. Where in the world is Stephen Doyle? Did you guys ever watch Carmen Sandiego? That theme song, I swear to God would just get stuck in your head and you wouldn't be able to get it out. It's like the cleanup song by Barney. But anyway, so you just have never done this before, so. That's right. So when you. They go to sell their services for the very first time and they're putting themselves up for basically, you know, potential rejection, it can feel so incredibly vulnerable and it can feel like you're so exposed and you're basically Asking to be rejected. Of course it's natural to want to go back to something that you're good at learning. Of course it's natural. And of course your brain is going to latch on to, oh, let's get more certification. So this doesn't feel that scary because you assume, hi, Jessica. You assume that, like, it'll be less scary to get on a sales call to get clients for your business when. Yes, Tom, exactly. Everybody do your share. It's less scary to get on a call to sell your service to clients when you have all the certifications because you're thinking, cool, I'm going to be so credible when I get on the phone with them, they're going to see all the certifications that I have and they're just going to be completely blown away and they're going to think, yes, I need to sign up with this person. They're the best coach in the world. And, you know, your brain makes up this whole story. And I had, I hate to break it to you, that never happens. It never happens. I have only ever been asked once by one person if I was trained and certified. Okay. If you're running your business, people generally just assume it's one of the downsides of coaching. But it's. It's what we're working with. Hi, Talia. Tala. I think I'm saying your name correctly. Hello. And so anyway, so it's really, really natural to want to go back to get more certifications just because you've never done this before and it feels really vulnerable and rejection heavy and scary. But let me tell you, more certifications are not going to sell your clients to be your clients. More certifications on your websites are not going to convince people that you're the coach for them. You showing up and being you is going to be the only way to do this. Stephen, I'm back in Dublin. I'm hoping to drive across America in 2024 in a Harley. Oh, my gosh. Stop in Pennsylvania, please. I'll. I'd love to see you then. And be careful. Wear a helmet. Hi, Sandy Milano. Welcome. So that's reason number two why coaches really need to stop getting more certificates. Okay. And I'm not anti education. I just want to. I want to be clear here. You don't need more certifications if you don't already have clients. Okay. If you have a thriving business and there's an area that you feel like you could really dive deeper into for your own personal development and to serve your clients better, absolutely. Go for another Certification. But if you're getting more certifications in the hopes that, that it'll get you more clients or get you any clients at all, stop it. That's not how this works, okay? Building your business is different than becoming a coach. All right? They are separate activities. Becoming a coach is so fun. You get to be a learner, you get to be in a class, you get to make friends. Building a business can be really vulnerable and rejection heavy and scary. And it's just the nature of the game. If you have trouble with that rejection, just know you're not alone. This is one of the things that I work on with my clients in Holistic Selling, which is my digital course that's coming out. I also work on this with my one on one client. So if you're curious about that DM me, Reason number three, why you think you need more certifications before you can go out and get clients is because of the coach training programs who are selling the certifications. Like, can we just acknowledge that that is their business model? Their whole business runs on you believing that you need more training and their certifications to be able to have a successful business. It may not say that outright, but if you look at their marketing, it all frames up to you want to have a successful business as a coach? Join our training, sign up for our program, sign up for a certification, okay? It is part of their, their marketing. They have to convince people that working like doing their program and getting their certification is going to equal a successful business on the back end. Okay? Let's also acknowledge that most of these programs do not have a business building arm or leg or whatever portion of their training. When I went through my training and I love the coactive training institute, I think they're incredible. I think they do a beautiful job on training on the skills of coaching, but their business building tips were awful. Like literally front of room leaders would tell us, you know, just try to coach everyone. Just offer everyone a free session. You're in line at Starbucks waiting for your coffee in the morning. Strike up a conversation with the person next to you and just try to offer them a free coaching session. Ask random coaching coaching questions while you're in the elevator with people. It's. It's really insane. And so it's really insane. That is not good business advice, okay? That's like telling like a newly, a newly certified doctor who's a podiatrist to get clients. Just go out and ask to look at people's feet. Why not? Like you look at their feet, you tell Them what you can do for their feet, and there you go. That's really bad business building advice. By the way, if we do have any podiatrists listening and you focus on runners, a great place to get clients is if you volunteer at the medic tent at races like marathons and ragnar races. Because people, you know, they run marathons, their feet are in trouble anyway. Just a side note there, but so remember, you're seeing marketing because you're a coach. You're talking about coaching online. The Google machine is very smart, okay? It tracks what you do. I know that sounds creepy and scary, but it tracks what you do so that it can show you ads that are relevant to you so that it can make more money. So there are these coaching programs out there that are paying money into ads to show up to people who are talking about coaching a lot. You to try to make this case that, hey, if you don't have any clients and you want to have a successful coaching business, you should sign up for our program. You should sign up for our program. You're going to learn how to be an incredible coach, and that's going to be that. That's their job. They have to do that. They have to make money. But here's what I want you to know. If you're trained and certified already in one modality, that is enough. You do not need any more than that, all right? You have enough to go out and get clients just as you are. If you're struggling to build your business, it's because you never learned the steps in building a business, okay? They are separate to the steps of becoming a coach. All right? We. We have this really insane way of expecting ourselves to naturally in our bones already know how to start and run and scale a business, okay? This isn't something that we're born with, okay? Just like I wasn't born knowing French, I also wasn't born knowing advanced algebra or chemistry or how to use a fork. You know, like, these are all skills and, and things that I had to learn from other people. You know, Thankfully, I had really great parents who taught me how to use a fork. Thankfully, I had some pretty decent teachers in high school and middle school who taught me chemistry and algebra. Thankfully, I had great language teachers just to teach me French. Thankfully, I moved there and learned French from like the actual French people. One of the best ways to do it, I highly recommend it. You, like, you're not built in with any of this knowledge. The only things that you're built in with are like, this this instinct your body has to breathe, to breathe and to have this drive to get up and walk around and eat things and drink things and form human connections. That's it. And, and seek shelter. That's the other one. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You're and have. If we're talking the whole pyramid, you know, it's like having sex. It's reaching that higher purpose. Nowhere in there are you naturally born with the ability to build a business or to know how to sell your services. One of my favorite movies, the Deer Hunter, some of it was shot in Clarendon, Pennsylvania. Oh, awesome. So you're gonna see that on your drive. I can't wait to see you. Okay, so if you're struggling with building a business, there are resources out there who can help you. One of these resources is me, obviously. You're on my life. I. I actually have a really awesome way for my people to access me. If you're not ready to hire a business coach yet, if you're skeptical of signing up for something where you're paying money, I do a free group call every single Friday at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time. It's called the Brave Biz Lab. And literally it's a one hour group coaching call that's free to anyone in my community who potentially has a question or needs some support or needs some guidance on how to do the next thing. Okay? I'm incredibly generous in this call. There's no hard sales pitch at any point. And literally, whatever you're stuck on in building your business, we're going to work on in that call. Hi, Brandon. Welcome. And I do this every single Friday unless it falls on Christmas, because on Christmas, I like to hang out with my family and eat lots of chocolate. It doesn't quite fit in with the, with the schedule, but I want to, I just want to reiterate. Here are the reasons why you think you need more certifications and you actually don't. Okay? So number one, we get. Coaches get compared to therapists all the time, okay? And it's natural because coaching can be very therapeutic. It is not, however, therapy. Okay? Therapists need to have far more training than we do because they have to diagnose problems, okay? They have a different code of ethics. They're actual doctors, okay? They are. They are legally restricted, responsible for their clients well being, okay? They have, they need to have that much more training because they're trained to look out for a lot more things. Us as coaches, what we're doing is we're showing up and saying, cool, here's where you are in your life. Amazing. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to go? We're not diagnosing. We're just saying, where do you want to go? What are we doing? Like, okay, what's your mindset block to get there? Great. We're going to move through it. Okay, Here are some resources. Coaching requires far less training than therapy. Okay? You do not need as much coach, as much training as a therapist to be a coach. Okay? Congratulations. You pick coaching. It's so much easier. Okay? So that's number one. Number two, you have never done this before. Okay? It's natural, it's scary to put yourself out there. It's. It's vulnerable AF to ask people to spend money on your time for your service. Okay? It's so normal for you to see that and start going through the business building process and think, oh, my God, this is so scary and so vulnerable. And I don't think I can do this. I'm going to go back and get more training thinking that those certifications are going to get people to decide to work with me before we even talk on the phone. Okay? Those certifications are never going to be the thing, the reason that people work with you, however, they just aren't. Because if they're working with you, chances are they don't even really understand what coaching is. They're not going to understand the benefits of all your certifications. All right? Lastly, one of the reasons that you're convinced that you need more certifications is because the coaching programs are marketing to you that way. They're telling you that to be more successful in your business, you have to have this new modality of coaching. You have to be certified in this new thing. You know, sign up for our program, sign up for our certification. They have to do this to stay in business. Okay? It's, it's not, they're not bad for doing it, but you get to give yourself full permission to see, okay, I already have enough training. I'm good here. I'm fully baked. Okay? I don't need more, more coach training. I was talking with a client today who's kind of in this vortex of like, I think I need to go back and get more training. And it comes from a place of wanting to build their skills and do more personal development for themselves. And it's really a delay tactic that our brain likes to play on ourselves because a, we think, okay, I'm going to get more certifications. I'm going to be more qualified. People are going to See that? And they're going to sign up with me. And B, it's this personal development thing because we get coaching when we go through the training, right? So we're like, oh, cool. Well, I'm not perfect. And if I'm telling people I can help them with their lives, with their work, with their leadership, why would they trust me if I'm not perfect? So I better go and do all the personal development stuff to make sure that I'm perfect before they sign up with me and find out that I'm not perfect and think I'm a fraud. Okay? Then I'm going to build the business. Okay? That's not how this goes. You're never going to be perfect. You're never like, no one's perfect. There's no such thing as perfect in the human race, okay? Except for Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds might be the exception. I think he's perfect. He's so funny and really good looking. Anyway, if I ever meet Ryan Reynolds now I'm gonna be so embarrassed that I just said that. Okay, Anyway, back to this. And you have to build your business because building your business is going to reveal to you the skills that you need to add on. For instance, one of the things that I'm adding on into my business is I know that a lot of my clients struggle with their relationship with money. And so I'm getting certified at with sacred money archetypes to help them realize like, what their typical personality type is around money. And also. And hi. Hi, Leah. I'm also getting certified as a trauma of money specialist or coach. So I can help my clients work through some of that trauma that they have around money because those are huge blockers. Now, I wouldn't have known that I needed those things for my clients or that I wanted to add that to my skill set until after I'd worked with clients. Right. I also wouldn't have had this revelation like, wow, I might need to work on this more myself unless I built my business. Your business is going to reveal all the shadow work that you're going to need to do. Okay. It's like the great news and the terrible news of building a business. It's going to reveal all of the skeletons in your closets that you have to deal with. Your personal work is going to be constant as you build this. Okay. And the skills that you need to do to have to work with your clients, if you're missing any, it's going to be revealed to you in working with clients. And here's the thing. Your Clients aren't going to know the difference because they're just working with you as their coach. They don't realize, you know, where there is something missing. Okay. This is just their experience with coaching. You get to add something more, more to the experience later. So with that, I hope I have thoroughly convinced you that you do not need more certifications to run a coaching business. You can go and get them, tiger. You are perfectly fine the way you are right now. And if you need any help in building this, I want you to reach out to me. Come to the Brave Biz Lab call that I have every single Friday at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time. It's free. It's free. It's literally a group coaching call that I do for my community because I enjoy it, because I love giving back. And if you're curious about any of my programs and DM me, I'm happy to give you more information. Anyway, want to say thank you to everyone who came. Stephen Doyle, Tom Campbell, who's an acc. Hello. Let me see. And then on Instagram, I'm doing that thing again where I balance my phone against my laptop. So if you see my eyes kind of going up and down, that's why. Emily, Jessica Talla, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Sandy, Brandon and Leah, thank you all for joining this evening. I'm going to be continuing with my evening and winding down. I. I will be going live tomorrow and the day after and the day after. I've decided to go instead of every day of October. Every weekday of October just seems so much more reasonable, doesn't it? Anyway, thank you so much for joining. I hope you have an amazing Tuesday night and it's dry where you are and I will see you tomorrow. Bye. And now's the awkward time where I end on multiple platforms.