‘Coaches’ VS Service Providers, And Passing The Buck
Here's a little rant, from a genuine service provider - who's tired of getting lumped together with the 'coaches' of the world.
It's not just annoying on a personal level (because who likes being lumped together with people they don't see as legitimate); it's also a professional problem: the marketing done by the various sketchy success gurus, 'coaches', and self-appointed 'experts' also lumps us together. And, news flash: we are not the same. The marketing and sales tactics these people teach, don't work if you're running a genuine service-based business. They won’t work for you, if you don’t wanna join that pyramid scheme of coaches coaching coaches to coach even more coaches. If you wanna sell something specific and not just vague dreams of success, you’re outta luck here.
Credit: Mine. All mine.
People don't hire their accountants based on how often they bombard their Instagram feed with 'mindset' quotes and infinity-pools-in-Bali selfies. Neither do they hire French tutors for their kids based on how many sob stories about their autistic trans dog in a wheelchair they share on LinkedIn. For actual service providers like tutors, translators, web designers, gardeners, accountants, psychologists, proctologists, personal trainers...there generally needs to be proof of competence. People hire you because of your CV and potential qualifications - not because you guilt-tripped, FOMOd, or inspirational-woo-wood them into it.
The crappy thing here is: a lot of service providers fall into the 'coaching' web because these 'coaches' market to us (yes, of course I got roped in - hence the saltiness) and claim their 'amazing patented method' (ie. the same stuff everyone else with a similar job title teaches) works for ANY business model. And then usually also...get blamed for the lack of results 🤣
Dear reader, if you're a service provider and considering paying some life and/or business 'coach' to 'help you take your business TO DA NEXT LEVUL!’'...just have a moment to consider this:
Why do you think the vast majority of these people never had any impressive career BEFORE they started selling dreams of success? Hmmm?
Exactly.
It's because DOING THE WORK is a lot harder than convincing someone else to do the work. 'Cause DOING THE WORK usually requires real, industry-specific skills and real, industry-specific knowledge. Sometimes even real, industry-specific qualifications. But "coaching" someone do to the work? That only requires a bit of charm, and a bit of shame- and ruthlessness. It's a lot easier to rah-rah motivate someone to set up their private medical practice, than it is to set one up yourself.
Or, to use another metaphor I've heard: in a gold rush it's a lot easier and more profitable to be a shovel-seller, than a shovel-user. Especially when, for the most part, ♪ there ain't no gold in this river ♪ at this point. So success 'coaching' really is just passing the buck for a living, in most cases. “I couldn't cut it at anything ('cause I don't actually have any valuable skills or experience in anything real), so I'll just make my business helping YOU build yours!”. When there’s nothing else to sell, but you’re still hell-bent on making big, quick bucks: just sell dreams!
I said above that those 'coaches' aren't really service providers. At this point you've probably figured out what they really are - right? Yeah. They're glorified motivational speakers and influencers. Broad generalists who mostly rely on motivational fortune cookie platitudes and generic advice you could Google yourself in an afternoon. A bit of that, a bit of glorified cheerleading, and a bit of amateur-hour psychotherapy from someone with zero psychology credentials (sorry, 'MiNDSeTT WuRk') - that's all you get, as a rule.
As I said: there's a reason why most of these people had an extremely unimpressive professional track record before they started selling dreams of success. Please tread carefully - from one duped and gaslit service-provider to another.