Online Coaching Red Flags to Look Out For

So in spite of all the drama going on in online coaching spaces, it’s about time we have a conversation about online coaching red flags so that you can make better investment choices and you can have better discernment when you are looking to work with a particular. Coach. So today we are diving in and we’re gonna be discussing all the red flags to look out for.

For those of you who dunno who I am, my name is Amanda Abe. I am the founder of Make Money Your Honey. I am one of the top female sales trainers online, and I have been in the online space since 2010. I had a business as a content. For eight years in the financial space. And then people started asking me, well, how did you build that business?

So I started creating coaching programs and training programs and all of that to say , I have seen a lot happen in the last 12 years some things   ???? .That I started calling out way back in 2017 when I had a column for Inc. And I had an article that said the business coaching industry is going to implode.

Here is how to survive. That was back in 2017.  At the time of recording this video we’re in 2022, and there has been one online outrage after another railing against coaches. For being scams, for being con artists. Uh, you know, I’m on sales calls all the time where people spent, they spent, say they spent 25,000 on coaching programs and nobody really taught them any skills.

So, Obviously it’s high time. We have an important conversation about online coaching red flags. So before diving in, if you actually wanna learn some skills that lead to money, meaning how to talk to people, how to close deals, how to do follow up, all those kinds of things. Make sure to check out our sales script vault in the description.

It is a collection of over 20 sales scripts that you can use for different situations with potential clients. Past clients and social media followers. So you can start getting some deals across the table. Okay, let’s go. So let’s start talking about, um, what you need to know, right? How to do your due diligence.

And something really important, right? So before getting into the  online coaching red flags,  we have to establish one thing, and that one thing is, as a consumer, you need to know exactly what it is that you are looking for and what you need. Now, I know this is very confusing, particularly in the business spaces and all those kinds of things, and, and business is my jam.

Marketing and sales is my jam, so that’s what I’m going to use as the example. Let’s say you are. Let’s say you are in the beginning stages of a business. If you’re in the beginning stages, meaning you’re probably less than six figures in revenue, you really need to be focused on a couple of things. Three things really,  how to put offers together   how to market and get in front of people,   and how to sell.

so one of the things that I see happening a lot is a lot of coaches and consultants may have a good program, right? And they may have something excellent. Maybe they teach some sort of a sales system, maybe they teach paid advertising. The problem is those things are for scaling. Once you’re past six figures in revenue.

Now, the issue that we’re running into is that a lot of people, Sold into programs that are not for them. So for example, you could be under six figures in revenue. You need to figure out offers, marketing and sales, but you get enrolled or choose to go into a program that is making all these promises about how you can use this particular system to get X result and so on and so forth.

And then it turns out that that program is talking about things that are way over your head and that you are not. For yet. So when you’re making these decisions, be very clear about what stage you’re in and what it is that you need in that moment. Now, how do I know this happens? Because y’all end up in my dms, like I’ve been in programs that were clearly for sales systems, clearly for marketing systems.

Clearly for scaling beyond six figures, and then I have more of the beginners in my dms who are very confused because they don’t even have basic foundations in place yet. So that’s just something to be aware of. You need to know exactly what stage you’re in and what you need. For example, at this stage in my business, I’ve done enough investments in the last two years to last.

Years like I did it with the long term in mind, I don’t really need anything at this point. Right. And I’m already invested in what I need to be invested in. I don’t need to be looking for anything else. At this point, right? So it’s really important to understand what stage you’re in and what it is that you actually need.

That’s number one. Number two, always do your due diligence. Y’all, some of y’all get into trouble just because you don’t read contracts. Some of y’all get into trouble just because you don’t actually read the sales page. Some of you get in trouble because the information is right in. Face, but you’re choosing to filter what it is that, um, you decide to do, or you choose to filter the information that you decide to take in, even though it’s right in front of your face.

So, I wanna be fair because I’m a business owner and I know there are lots of business owners that watch things. We all know con like that some consumers not all don’t read and don’t do their due diligence and, and, and don’t, you know, start making. Investments into things without having read the sales page, without having read the terms and conditions, without looking into what it is that they’re actually doing.

Sometimes it’s like a super emotional decision. We’ll get to that later in this video because that is a red flag to look out for if you’re very high in emotion while you’re making these decisions. But really just do your d.   Read the terms, read the sales pages, ask questions. I love it when people ask me questions in sales conversations.

I don’t want you coming to work with me if it’s a completely emotional decision, because you’re gonna be the first one. that in two weeks decides that you’re overwhelmed and you don’t wanna do this anymore and wanna back out of a contract.

I don’t want that. I don’t want that in my business. I want you to do your due diligence before you decide to work with me. Um, and then final thing. Don’t fall for shiny objects. Good branding doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Lifestyle marketing doesn’t mean a damn thing. I did a live stream about, uh, Marketing trends going into 2023 moving forward, and one of the things that I said is lifestyle marketing isn’t gonna have as much pull   as it used to really look for stats, really look for results, not whether or not they have a Chanel bag and a nice aesthetic.

Now let’s start going into some of these online coaching red flags. Number one, no website, no sales pages. Nowhere to find information on this person or what you are buying into.

So there’s this thing online that they started called  Invisible Offers.  And basically what that is, is, uh, you don’t know what you’re buying . You apparently trust the person so much that you just give them money. before you know what it is that they’re selling to you. And it caused a bit of a hoopla because people would buy things without knowing what they were buying, and then they would get upset when they got the product.

So if there’s no sales page and no information, it’s a red flag. Red flag. Now, do you have to have all your funnels perfectly figured out? No. Do you have, um, do you have to have all the sales page copy? Perfectly figured. No, I have definitely sold offers before a sales page existed, but at the very least, I had an outline and I could tell people, this is what we’re covering.

This is how many calls we’re doing, this is how much time it’s gonna take. If you don’t have any of that information run, don’t do it. Number two. If they are telling you that all the results in your life are based on energetic frequency, run for the freaking hills, y’all. I am not kidding. I have seen so many of you get duped by this, and I’m a very spiritual person.

I talk about mindset on this channel. I am all into that stuff, but I will also tell you that there’s work involved. These videos don’t make themselves. The sales don’t make themselves. I still gotta go talk to people. I still have to do things and sometimes I have to do things when I don’t feel like doing them, and I’m not necessarily high vibe.

So if they’re telling you that it’s all about your vibe, And all about your energetic frequency and it’s all that but zero strategy run for the hills, especially when it comes to stuff like making money. Because when it comes to making money, there is skillset involved, there is strategy involved, there are things that you need to understand in order to, um, have the container for bringing in money on a consistent basis.

Things like market. Things like sales, things like how to put offers together, things like systems. When you combine that with mindset stuff, then you do very well. But if you have some sort of a coach telling you that it’s all mindset, it’s all energy.   Don’t worry about all the other stuff. It’ll just show up.

Run. Run, run, run, run, run. Red flag. Um, okay to that, to that effect.  Another one is blaming everything on   money blocks  or blaming everything on mindset. It’s not all your mindset, guys, I’ve done this before. Sometimes it’s not your mindset at all. It’s just a lack of skillset. So if they’re telling you that everything is mindset and that’s all you need to worry about, run for the hills.

Next thing with online coaching industry red flags is one size fits all strategies. So if you have a coach that’s giving you pushback, and I’ll give an example of where this happens, cuz we’ll, we’ll talk to clients and they’ve had this experience. So one of our main things that we do in my company is we teach sales skills.

We’ll teach you how to fill a pipeline. We’ll teach you how to talk to people. We’ll teach you how to handle objections, we’ll teach you how to follow up with people, all that stuff, actual skills that people need in order to consistently bring in money in the door. And one thing that we’ll hear from people pretty often is that they may have worked with another coach or trainer and they express some sort of a concern, like they want to customize something to their own business. Like, Hey, can I change the script this way? Can I do this with the marketing? Can I do this with the offer?   And the mentor, the coach is always giving them pushback, basically saying It’s my way or the highway. And this works for everybody.

If it doesn’t work for you, there must be something wrong with you. That happens all the time and is one of the biggest online coaching industry red flags. In the space and in our programs, it’s the exact opposite so even with the sales script, like check out the sales script vault below. Even with that, I tell you, customize this to your own business. Make it work for you.

There’s different nuances. In every single business, and that matters. And you need to know what that is. If you need help with that, come work with us on a live capacity and we can help you customize it. But never will I sit here and tell you there’s a one size fits all solution. So if they’re insistent on a one size fits all solution, and if they are insistent on you must be doing something wrong.

Red flag leave. Um, and then finally, This is for the business coaching stuff. If their first business is business coaching, red flag, leave, leave, they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They haven’t been in this space long enough. There are some of us who’ve been in here in this space longer, like coaching and teaching people.

Sales is my second business. I built a whole ass business before I even got to this one, and that’s where a lot of the experience comes from. That being said, there is uh, something like maybe they have a corporate background, right? And that can still apply to certain things within business. But when it comes to actual business coaching, make sure they actually had a business before they were teaching you skills.

For business. That’s super helpful. If they didn’t, red flag. All right guys, I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know if you have found any other red flags in the comments. Also, make sure to check out our sales script vault, like subscribe, do all the things and I’ll see you guys next time.