The expansion of technology has been one of the key factors in accelerating the business coaching industry: paving the way for making business coaching more accessible, expanding its reaches across the globe, and increasing the public’s awareness of coaching.

This growth, however positive, has come with its fair share of pitfalls that every business coach and client must learn to navigate.

Here's why technology can make finding a business coach a lot easier or a lot harder if you don’t know where to look.

The Pitfalls of Popularity

With popularity comes market saturation, and according to Forbes, the business coaching market is officially a saturated market replete with coaches waiting in line to be picked for their services.

By definition, market saturation happens when it’s easy for competitors to jump into a market that has a high demand.

With more and more people acknowledging the value of business coaching and looking to hire a business coach for their services, the market has been flooded with new coaches, some with excellent coaching skills and others with little qualifications who are simply jumping on the bandwagon hoping to reap some of the industry’s successes.

While this may seem great for the public, it has made it more difficult to hire a business coach that best fits a coachee’s needs, here's why:

Soaring Prices

In any other industry, a saturated market, by nature, causes prices to plunge. As people fuel the demand, prices are lowered to stay competitive and beat out the competition.

However, this trajectory has yet to apply to the coaching business; the increased popularity of coaching has, in most cases, caused prices to remain expensive.

We know the coaching industry is notorious for its price tags; this elite mentality aims at overpricing services to appear “valuable.”

In other words, anyone with industry experience knows that most coaches work under the assumption that expensive coaching sessions equal high-quality coaching, and anything less is a waste of time.

And so, on par with this mentality, as more coaches flood the market, prices are raised to be more competitive and “stand out.”

This may be good for a coach but not for a client’s wallet.

Overwhelming Options

More options mean there’s more—way more—room for error.

Like in any sector, some people jump on the bandwagon to make money and have no interest in offering quality services.

The popularity of coaching has led to hundreds of thousands of clients improving their professional and personal lives; still, it has also opened the door for scams and mediocre coaching services from underqualified individuals.

And while it can be a good thing that the coaching profession doesn’t officially require certain certificates and training, technology can also make it easier for scams and sub-par coaching services to happen.

It’s like finding a needle in a haystack; how do you find the needle—the perfect coach for your needs—among a worldwide haystack of other coaches?

Hazards of Social Proofing:

With the advent of the internet and social media, we rely on social proofing for almost everything we buy.

But the hazards of relying on reviews and testimonials online are quickly becoming apparent: we now know that 61% percent of reviews on Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and other online retailers are fake.

What’s more, it’s also harder than ever to spot fake reviews over real ones.

It is easier than ever to pay people to review your products and services. The public’s reliance on social proofing is opening the door to more scams and inadequate business coaching services.

There IS a Way to Find Quality Business Coaches

I know I just listed several reasons why technology has added obstacles to find a business coach online.

But tech and the internet are also the best way to find a coach online—if you know where and how to look.

Online business coaching platforms, like CoCaptain, are making the business coaching industry more accessible, affordable, and safer.

An online platform for coaches acts as the middleman in connecting a client with the most qualified business coach for their needs.

Here’s How A Coaching Site Like Cocaptain Offers Solutions to the New Problems of Finding a Business Coach

Quality Over Quantity

Some coaching platforms and websites have upwards of 500 coaches to choose from and are fueling the market saturation. They focus on adding coaches to their sites without careful vetting to have more coaches than clients.

However, CoCaptain is especially selective when signing a new business coach onto their platform to carefully balance supply and demand for both the client and the coach.

When looking for a coach on CoCaptain, you don’t have to endlessly comb through endless options that all seem the same.

You can be sure that each business coach has been carefully vetted by a team of experts with a wealth of industry knowledge and given the resources and tools to be the best coach for their clients.

Furthermore, CoCaptain focuses on inclusivity and variety when hiring each business coach; they want to offer quality over quantity but still offer access to a well-rounded selection of different coaching types and styles to their clients.

Safe Administration

Like we mentioned, doing business with strangers over the internet does increase your likelihood of getting scammed, online coaching included.

This is why hiring a business coach through a coaching platform like CoCaptain is a much safer route.

CoCaptain has secure billing software that makes every payment and transaction safe and stress-free.

The administration software tools include secure scheduling options and secure communication options, so you know that your information will always be safe from third parties.

Accessible and Affordable

CoCaptain was founded on the goal of making coaching accessible to everyone and affordable to every budget.

The way they do this is by only partnering with coaches that have built their career with the desire to authentically improve their client’s professional and personal lives, not see how much money they can get out of them.

Secondly, while most platforms set the prices for each business coach, CoCaptain allows each business coach the autonomy to set their own prices; this ensures that there is something for every budget.

For example, there is executive coaching that caters to those CEOs with CEO money; there is executive and business coaching for the business leaders, business owners, working professionals with any experience level who don’t have that CEO money yet but are still worth coaching to get them there—and there is everything in between.

One-Stop-Shop For All Your Coaching Needs

Other coaching platforms only offer one type of coaching service, whether it be a career coach, business coach, leadership coaching, etc., —but never a mix.

And so, being matched with a coach that will fit your needs becomes more complicated when you look for services on these platforms—more often than not, you might end up with a service you don’t need.

CoCaptain’s platform, however, is made up of a broad range of business coaches that offer different types of services.

Executive Coach

If you are a leader in any capacity— team leader, manager, CEO, leading a business—big or small—the most qualified professional to help you become a great leader and tackle your responsibilities with success will be an executive coach.

Many well-known CEOs have been very vocal in the past few years about how the business goals, business growth, and professional and personal development they have achieved. All from perfecting their leadership skills with an exec coach's guidance.

Business Coach

Business coaches are the most qualified coaches to fit entrepreneurs' needs and any business owner and professional from every industry.

Whether entrepreneurs need someone to hold them accountable to reaching their goals, guidance on making business decisions, increase business cash flow, or expand their business services—the possibilities of growth are endless with the right business coach.

Small Business Coach

A small business coach is a lot like a business coach, but they specialize in helping small business owners with their business growth.

Most small business coaches have been successful small business owners themselves and know the recipe for success when running small businesses.

Subject Matter Expert

Subject Matter Experts have years of experience in a specific field, and much like their title suggests: they are experts in their subject matter.

These coaches are focused on different niches and areas of the business and professional world.

For example: if you are a small business owner and you know you only need help with marketing, you probably need the guidance of a marketing specialist; or if you have questions about learning how to make your businesses more inclusive of the LGBTQ community, then a subject matter expert on inclusivity and human resources would be a good fit.

Advisor

An advisor is a coaching service that is exclusive to CoCaptain. It is a coaching alternative for those individuals who are not ready to embark on a long coaching journey and wish to tackle a few issues in one or two quick sessions.

Whatever question a client may have can be answered by an advisor in a concise session that allows the client to take what was learned and readily apply it to their professional lives.

Life Coach

If a client’s focus is to improve their personal lives, a life coach is the most suited to guide them on their journey through personal growth.

So How Does CoCaptain Work?

There are 2 routes to take when starting your search for a business coach on CoCaptain:

1. Using the Site’s Recommendation Engine

If you would like to conduct the search on your own from your device, set up an account with CoCaptain for free.

You can then proceed to find a coach that fits best by sorting coaching categories or by key words such as “career,” “entrepreneurship,” or “communications.”

The site will then give you a few options of coaches that have the strengths, goals, background, skills, and coaching style to fulfill your needs.

A client can choose on the spot, or they can conduct free exploratory sessions that are like interviews where they assess whether the coach, price, and service is a right fit.

2. Human Communications

If you would like to skip this online experience, you can conduct your search by speaking directly with a team member who can take you through the process themselves.

Bottom Line

Business coaching has proven to be valuable to professionals in every industry; that’s why the business coaching industry is full of options that continue to multiply.

And just like there’s a right business coach out there for you, there’s a right business coaching platform.

Use CoCaptain to narrow down your search and get you closer to the finish line of hiring the best coach for your needs.