Ah, a question that doesn’t always have an easy answer.
What do you call yourself?
I’d love to know. Use the survey tool to the left or post a comment below.
Do you use one of the “standard” titles?
- life coach
- business coach
- executive coach
- corporate coach
- professional coach
Do you incorporate your niche or specialty?
- career coach
- relationship coach
- transition coach
- creativity coach
- leadership coach
- team-building coach
- ADD/ADHD coach
Do you reference your training?
Are you California woo-woo?
(I live in the San Francisco Bay Area so I can say that, right?)
- achievement coach
- empowerment coach
- motivational coach
- self discovery coach
Okay, so I’m having some fun here, but it is an important topic. A lot of coaches struggle with what to call themselves.
For example, a client was recently redesigning his business cards and needed to decide what to put on his cards. The main focus of his business is high end one-on-one coaching.
He works with senior level executives, small business owners and sole proprietors. Most of his clients are in high tech and live in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area.
The majority of his coaching would be considered life coaching, although he definitely does some strategic/business/career coaching with his clients.
He is also a PCC, Professional Certified Coach through the ICF.
He considered these options:
- life coach
- business coach
- executive coach
- professional certified coach
He chose professional certified coach and he feels good about his decision.
What do you think? Post your comments below!
“I took Michelle’s training somewhat desperate to generate five clients quickly for my upcoming coaching certification program. I was not only impressed with how many marketing tools I received, but also how many practical ways and examples to apply them. I chose to start with “Grassroots Marketing” and to my elation, I was able to generate 11 clients (better than a 50% return) by just applying a couple of the techniques she shared. I found Michelle to be an extraordinary teacher, who is wholeheartedly committed to helping her students create financial success and freedom.”
“Before getting the Coach & Grow R.I.C.H. system I was not even coaching anyone but after I met Michelle at workshop in San Diego I decided to buy it and try it out. The program has a lot of great material that helped me wrap my head around what I was doing and get clearer on my goals. I’m really looking forward to going through the course again and use the material more since I’m really trying to launch my business this year. Michelle’s program helped me to take the first big step – starting my coaching business! I already developed my first website and had the confidence to do it. Now I’m working on starting a group. After going through the program I gained confidence that I can actually do this simply by seeing that so many other people at different levels are currently doing it as well. In the past I was getting stuck at times because I always want to do everything perfectly but now I know that it was holding me back! This is definitely my year!”
“Michelle, I continue to benefit from the training I received from C&GR – my company made a six-figure profit last year, and is on target to multiply those results again this year!”
Thank you for your article. I found this useful.
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Career coach in seattle, WA
I retired in the education field and can offer many professional development, training and learning tools. Is it sufficient to call myself an education consultant and just list my services? Thanks.
I didn’t have any problem coming up with a title for myself: public speaking coach.
However, some people still insist on calling me a life coach, and it drives me nuts.
Hi Rich,
Business Coach sounds like a good title for you. If you wanted to be more creative you could play with something like profitability coach or success coach.
What you coach on also impacts the title. Is there a main thing, specialty, area, that you work on with clients? That would be the thing you could incorporate into your tagline, or title.
I call myself a business coach, but your blog has me thinking that perhaps I need a “title” that is a bit more unique and creative. Most of my clients are entrepreneurs or business owners with revenues from $500K to $25 million. Got any suggestions? :-)
How about High Achieving Coach?