In response to that article I received an email from a coach in which she shared that “while some coach training programs are over priced… I don’t think $6K is too much. Coaching is a profession that requires commitment, time and investment, just like other professions.”

All of this lead me to these two questions:

1. How does the cost of coach training compare to the cost of training for other professions?
2. How many hours of training are needed for certification?

Challenges With This Type of Comparison

There are some inherent challenges with this. Are we comparing apples with apples or apples with oranges? Or even apples with eggplants? (I believe it was the latter.) Some professions have regulations stipulating what training must be taken in order for someone to get a license and practice in that profession. This will differ between countries and even between individual states and provinces. For the purposes of this article I chose U.S. based training and professions regulated in Washington State.

Given all that…. just use these figures as a ballpark comparison… I didn’t include exam fees or books unless they were included in the total price. The sources of data for each profession can be found at the bottom of this article.

* Tuition is based on credits. The cost per hour calculation is based on 1 credit being equal to 16 hours of class time. In addition, the tuition is for a Washington State resident. Out-of-state students would pay quadruple that rate, effectively moving the cost per hour on par with coach training.

All professions above, with the exception of coaching and personal training, are regulated professions in Washington State that require a license to have a private practice. (For details visit: www.dol.wa.gov/listoflicenses.html)

Observations

Coach training is more expensive, on a per hour basis, than the other professions noted. As noted under the comparison table, tuition at the universities would be on par with coach training if out of state tuition fees had been used.

Personal training, like coaching, is not regulated as I write this article (Feb 2011). In other words coaches and personal trainers do not need to be licensed to call themselves a personal trainer or a coach. Most of the associations that certified personal trainers in the U.S. did not require any previous training or education, other than CPR and First Aid. Some required a high school education. Most, but not all, coach training organizations do not require any previous education or professional training/experience either. The exception would be coach training programs designed for therapists and helping professions.

This, however, may change for personal trainers. In 2008, the Fitness Professional Licensing Act was proposed in New Jersey. It if passed it would require professionals to have a minimum of 300 in-person hours of training, including 50 hours of supervised unpaid internship. Exempt would be those with Associate or Bachelors in PE, Exercise Science, Exercise Physiology or Adult Fitness. (Maryland and Georgia also tabled proposals in 2008 to license personal trainers).

I was surprised by the number of hours (both training and apprenticeship) required to practice as a manicurist and barber. A barber needs twice as many hours of training as a licensed massage therapist!

The number of hours needed to become an ICF Professionally Certified Coach (PCC) pales in comparison to the other professions notes here, with the obvious exception of personal training. The Master Certified Coach credential requires 200 hours of training. But… you do not need to be certified in order to have a private coaching practice, like you do with the regulated professions noted in the table.

What Do You Think?

What are you thoughts about the training and fees for coaching as compared to the other professions? Should the ICF require coaches have more than 125 hours to be certified?

Source of Data Per Profession:

Coaching: I used the average tuition calculated for the Affordable Life Coach Training post. 125 hours is the minimum hours of training needed to apply for the ICF Professional Certified Coach credential (in addition to the other requirements such as coaching hours, passing the exam etc.)

Certified Counselor: Based on the tuition fees and 180 credits required for a 4 year undergrad degree from the University of Washington. Tuition fees are for a Washington State resident. Fees quadruple for non-residents. A Certified Counselor can have a private practice.

Certified Dietician: Requires a 4-year undergrad degree in human nutrition, foods and nutrition, dietics or food management. The fees are from Washington State University for Washington state residents. To call yourself a Certified Nutritionist you must get a Masters or PhD in the topic area.

Personal Training: There are no minimal training requirements that I could find. This profession is not on the list of regulated professions in Washington State (link below above table). The 7.5 hour training is from ACSM and the 32 hour ACE exam prep training is from Triton in Texas. Other than an undergrad degree in Kinesiology, the only lengthy training I found was the 500 hour training provided by the National Personal Training Institute.

Massage Therapy: 500 hours of training are required from a state approved school. Fees and hours are the average of those for: NW School of Massage, Cortiva, and Massage Connections.

Animal Massage: 300 hours of training for either small animals or large animals is required. Fees and hours from the NorthWest School of Animal Massage. They actually offer 450 hours of training but since only 300 hours are required, I used the tuition cost for 300 training hours.

Manicurist: 600 hours of training and 800 hours of apprenticeship required. Fees and hours from Total Cosmetology Training Center.

Barber: 1000 hours of training and 1200 hrs apprenticeship required. Fees and hours from Total Cosmetology Training Center.

I’m curious – if regulation were to occur, who would be the head regulator?  Would it be at the
international, national, regional or municipal level?  Who would deal with offending coaches?  And how?  Would they be fined?  How would all the internet marketing professionals, for instance, who offer ‘coaching programs’ be dealt with?    It could be a logistical nightmare!

The coaching industry is not alone.  Regulation is also an issue in personal training, for example. Certifications are offered but the industry itself is not regulated (from what I can surmise).  While there are regulatory bodies for massage in many US states and Canadian provinces, I highly doubt that all the  people offering massage services via print ads are certified.  Yet these same ads appear week after week.

It’s easy to say that the coaching industry needs to be regulated.  The reality is it’s much more complex than we may think.

Until then, the onus is on the client to ask questions to find out if the professional they wish to hire has adequate training.

Let’s just say I was a wee bit (ok a whole lot) skeptical.

First of all, how can you learn ‘everything’ you need to to succeed in just 2 days? I think that statement is a bit misleading.  You could learn what you need to get started as a coach, both coaching skills and basic business building concepts, but not everything.

Unless a prospective coach has previous business experience or training, it takes time to learn how to build, market and operate any business, including a coaching business.

Secondly, can a person be skilled enough to be worthy of certification after just 2 days of training?

That aspect warranted further investigation.

Coaching Certification

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of certify is:  “to recognize as having met special qualifications (as of a governmental agency or professional board) within a field.”

It follows that a certified coach has skills that are of a specified standard.

If you’ve been researching the profession of coach, you’ve likely figured out that  coach certification designations are offered by coach training schools and by coaching associations, like the International Coach Federation (ICF) and International Association of Coaching (IAC).  The standards and requirements for certification can vary widely.

Life Coach Certification vs Sports Coach Certification

I thought it would be interesting to compare entry level certification requirements in both personal coaching and sports coaching.  I thought about adding counseling or therapy to the mix but there were certifications for every type and I had no idea which organization was considered the ‘gold standard’ for each type.  For this article we’ll stick to life coaching and sports coaching.

The ICF offers three levels of certification with the Associate Certified Coach (ACC) being the most basic level of certification available.  Anyone applying for it must have completed at least 60 hours of coach specific training and have coached a minimum of 8 clients for a total of 100 hours.

The National Coaching Certification Program of Canada has 3 levels of certification with 2 additional levels for master sports coaches.  Each level has three components: theory, technical and practical.  If you want to become a level 1 certified coach in field hockey, for example, you’d take a 2-day seminar on theory (approx. 12 hours), a 10.5 hour technical workshop to learn how to teach field hockey skills and strategy, and then complete 25 hours of coaching experience.

Both require more than a 2-day seminar to become certified.  As with everything, there may be the occasional exception, which leads us to skill-based assessments.

What About Skill-Based Certification?

To be fair, I must mention the certification offered by the IAC.  It is a skill-based assessment and has no coach training or client hour requirements.  It’s ideal for those who already have masterful coaching skills perhaps as a result of previous training or work as a therapist or other helping professional.  It would be interesting to see if someone with just two days of coach training could pass their assessment.  Given their high standards, I somehow doubt it.

What is the Answer?

Good question.  We find ourselves back at the beginning question again.  Can a person be skilled enough to become a certified coach after two days of training?  What do you think?

In addition, what effect could the varying standards and requirements for coaching certification have on the coaching industry and the public?

Share your opinions by leaving a comment.  I’d love to know what you think!

Sue