Life coaches are those people who have expertise in assisting people to constructively deal with changes in their personal and/or professional lives. The personal life coach gives a new or existing perspective that his/her clients could not see or discover by themselves, thereby helping them to reach a greater level of professional or personal attainment. This service has grown into an industry and is earning about $2 billion in revenue per year as per the report of the International Coaching Federation or ICF. The ICF itself in the United States is the biggest one with their membership of about 20,000 members globally.
This industry is thriving due to hard economic times and the uncertainty that is prevailing globally due to various political, economic and social factors. Experts agree that the demand for coaches including holistic health coach, spiritual coach, business coach etc grows when the public confidence decline and people's ability to handle issues on their own comes to standstill. For instance, when the housing bubble burst and U.S. economy fell into recession with consumer confidence having plummeted resulted in Americans to seek out the assistance of personal life coaches thereby benefiting the coaching industry.
As per the report of the ICF in 2012, there are over 15,000 personal life coaches presently operating in North America. On an average, they charge $214 a session, thereby earning an estimated income of $47,900 annually. The study also found that businesses that offer this services to their employees have shown to regain a 300% ROI (Return on Investment). These statistics do prove the point that life coaching is becoming one of the fastest growing professions in the United States. This industry is now a worldwide phenomenon that has grown organically from various fields of self-development especially in the areas of humanistic psychology or popularly called Third Force.
The role of internet in the form of blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn has also contributed in accelerating the this industry's growth as majority of life coaches are not good at marketing and seem more comfortable in seeing their services as a brand to market. However, an increasing number of 'niche' coaches are emerging in the market with their fantastic websites and tweets to support their devised brand of coaching. People or clients (85%) who have consulted or taken the services of ICF certified coaches have opined that they were satisfied with their services.
People are hiring the services of life coaches for the reasons such as for optimizing individual or teamwork performance, to expand their career opportunities, to increase their self-confidence and self-esteem, to improve business management skills and to manage their work life balance. As per the ICF 2012 Global Coaching Study, there are now approximately 47,500 professional coaches doing the life coaching business worldwide as compared to 2100 professional coaches in 1999. This trend indicates to a growing industry also evidenced by ICF adding 2000 members every year.
This industry is thriving due to hard economic times and the uncertainty that is prevailing globally due to various political, economic and social factors. Experts agree that the demand for coaches including holistic health coach, spiritual coach, business coach etc grows when the public confidence decline and people's ability to handle issues on their own comes to standstill. For instance, when the housing bubble burst and U.S. economy fell into recession with consumer confidence having plummeted resulted in Americans to seek out the assistance of personal life coaches thereby benefiting the coaching industry.
As per the report of the ICF in 2012, there are over 15,000 personal life coaches presently operating in North America. On an average, they charge $214 a session, thereby earning an estimated income of $47,900 annually. The study also found that businesses that offer this services to their employees have shown to regain a 300% ROI (Return on Investment). These statistics do prove the point that life coaching is becoming one of the fastest growing professions in the United States. This industry is now a worldwide phenomenon that has grown organically from various fields of self-development especially in the areas of humanistic psychology or popularly called Third Force.
The role of internet in the form of blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn has also contributed in accelerating the this industry's growth as majority of life coaches are not good at marketing and seem more comfortable in seeing their services as a brand to market. However, an increasing number of 'niche' coaches are emerging in the market with their fantastic websites and tweets to support their devised brand of coaching. People or clients (85%) who have consulted or taken the services of ICF certified coaches have opined that they were satisfied with their services.
People are hiring the services of life coaches for the reasons such as for optimizing individual or teamwork performance, to expand their career opportunities, to increase their self-confidence and self-esteem, to improve business management skills and to manage their work life balance. As per the ICF 2012 Global Coaching Study, there are now approximately 47,500 professional coaches doing the life coaching business worldwide as compared to 2100 professional coaches in 1999. This trend indicates to a growing industry also evidenced by ICF adding 2000 members every year.