The Transformational industry that I love so dearly is rapidly changing right now, and I want you to know what you can do to ensure that you are a practitioner who is totally in integrity, totally fulfilled, totally doing the deep and sacred work you’re meant to be doing…and to ensure that you are one of the practitioners who will actually have staying power as we leap into the next decade of this industry.

Before I get to the critical pieces here, let me say this: I’m going to be sharing some hard truths, but with love and compassion. I want you to know that even with all of the critiques and hard truths I’ll be sharing, I absolutely love the coaching & transformational industries. It is one of the honors of my life to be one of the leaders of the industry. I believe there is so much goodness and so many wonderful practitioners. I believe that we are indeed making a very positive impact in the world.

The Current State of the Union

If we are being totally honest with ourselves, the truth is that even with all of the amazing & wonderful things happening in the industry, there are lots of clients out there who are disgruntled, disillusioned, feeling duped and totally not trusting anything that any coach is selling them.

And it’s no surprise that a lot of people are feeling this way because if you look at trending over the last few years, you’ll see that most marketing in the transformational industry has become more and more glamorous and inflated…and you’ll see that more and more and more of the promises being made in that marketing are empty and unfulfilled promises.

All of this must stop. It is out of integrity. It is eating away at the incredible magic and value and transformation that is available in this industry.

Potential prospects can now smell bull-doody a mile away and run in the other direction when they sense it. Or….they don’t….and they buy…and what happens a lot is that the practitioner has spent so much time focusing on their marketing that they haven’t adequately trained or prepared to actually deliver the results. So, their clients don’t feel fully held or seen in the ways they thought they would. Or….the practitioner can’t help her clients through their fear and resistance…or the practitioner is doing a pretty good job, but it’s clear that things could be going much deeper….that more breakthroughs and shifts could be happening…that they aren’t really delivering the transformation and results that they intended.

And it’s not only prospects and clients that are feeling disillusioned.

Disillusioned Practitioners

More and more practitioners or folks considering becoming practitioners are becoming disillusioned too. A new coach or healer is born every minute, and it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out.

More and more practitioners are feeling pressured by business gurus or by what they see others doing on Facebook. Deep & Soulful Practitioners, new or seasoned, are feeling like the ONLY way to grow your businesses is to overly-accentuate your marketing, to jump on the bandwagon of slick headshots and glamorous branding and complicated funnels.

More and more practitioners are spending the bulk of their time & energy marketing…and less and less and less mastering their craft, and learning how to co-create real change with their clients.

And more and more seasoned practitioners are feeling a little bored with their work, like their work isn’t as meaningful as it could be because they are just skimming the surface.

With all of this focus on more and more marketing, and bigger and shinier and better….The big, unspoken secret over the last few years in the coaching and transformational industries is that practitioners are actually quite worried that they aren’t really impacting their clients lives on a deep level, that they are taking money but co-creating results in exchange, that their clients would be more satisfied working with someone else.

Practitioners are having trouble leading their clients through resistance, through self-judgment, through Victimhood, through self-sabotage. They are having trouble helping their clients create the awareness about their patterning and reactivity habits that are holding them back. They are not able to help clients cultivate the self-love, the self-accountability and the organizational skills needed to actually achieve their goals. Practitioners are often worried their clients aren’t satisfied…and in some cases that their clients don’t even like them.

And all of this is hurting practitioners’ businesses. This is hurting their confidence levels and ability to feel at peace with themselves. And this is hurting their reputations.

As an industry, somewhere along the journey….we lost our way just a little bit.

The Industry’s “Teenage Years” & Opportunity

I realize that this all might sound depressing and doom-filled, but I promise you it is not at all. There is so much hope and potential and opportunity here. And the absolute truth is that the world needs us more than ever before. We are here to make a massive positive impact. There is no question about that.

I like to think of the transformational industry as a younger industry….in its teenage years. Teenagers aren’t fully mature yet, so they often go through an identity crisis, they often temporarily lose their way. But if they are aware, if their intentions are in the right place, if they are committed to change, if they have the right adults to guide them….the identity crisis actually ends up being an incredible growth opportunity and they mature into amazing and impactful adults.

What You Can Do to Evolve the Industry & Grow Your Business

So what does it take to move this industry into maturity and what does it take to have staying power?

A couple of things:

#1: Exchange glamour for authenticity. Be yourself. Show your heart. Speak your truth. In all of your work and in all of your marketing.

#2: Choose Your Rates with Integrity. Whatever your rates are –choose them with integrity, not because some guru coach told you to raise them.

#3: Take Your Marketing Promises Seriously. Only make promises that you can deliver on, and only take on clients that you can truly help. End of story.

#4: MOST important: Provide QUALITY Coaching, Facilitating and Teaching.

In short, what’s required in order to have staying power in the next evolution of the industry is a commitment to the HIGHEST quality service, a commitment to go deep with your clients instead of skimming the surface, a commitment to becoming highly skilled at helping clients through their fears, blocks and obstacles so that they don’t get stuck or self-sabotage, a commitment to leveling up your skills so that you know the exact right questions to ask and exactly what to listen for, a commitment to not giving up on or getting fearful of clients that show up with resistance, a commitment to not rely too heavily on consulting but instead to expertly combine with the coaching that will make the consulting advice come alive and actually become more effective, a commitment to supporting your clients to NOT take the easy way out when there is deeper work to be done, a commitment to guiding clients to confront their shadows and find healing there instead of blindspots….a commitment to raising the bar on the quality of the transformational industry as a whole.

In a world that is saturated with coaches and practitioners, those of us who are the cream of the crop, those of us who are doing the real work, those of us who are going deep, we are the ones that our clients will remember, we are the ones that will generate referrals because of our track record, we are the ones that will organically grow our reputations, we are the ones that will feel fully confident in the marketing promises we are making…

…and we are the future of this incredible industry!

I hope this article has been inspiring and helpful for you. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it – join the conversation in our Facebook group!