Coaching Industry Rules I’m Breaking: Holding People Hostage
Why I Will Never Force You to Continue Working With Me if it’s Not Aligned for You
Currently as I write this it is December of 2021. With this month and the winter season, this time of year, comes the season of slowing down, reflecting, and going inward. It’s a time to consider how things are working or not working and make adjustments as necessary. We've just finished the Black Friday /Small business Saturday / Cyber Monday week-long sales extravaganza. I'll be honest I'm thankful it's over. My inbox has looked like a frenzy of last minute deals, Christmas sales, and dozens of requests to change my life, by my course, and invest in my business success. Years ago I probably would have fallen for at least a handful of these offers and truth be told I probably would have actually only committed to finishing half of the programs I purchased.
I've been a student of the coaching industry since 2018. I've been twice certified by two of the biggest names in the business, and I've invested over $50,000 in my business mindset, money mindset oh, and my brand and marketing know-how. All of that on top of having a degree in public relations plus several years experience in that field. I've grown up studying social media marketing and online business and yet 3 years into my own business I feel as though it's all incredibly exhausting and somewhat pointless. That's not to say that I haven't learned from all of these amazing teachers and coaches. I've transformed, I've changed my mind set, I healed from past traumatic experiences and honestly I've had a lot of fun doing all of that but one thing's been missing this whole time: profitable income. I am paying all my bills and easily covering business expenses, but I’m not living lavishly like I thought I would be at this point in my journey. Coach after coach promised me 6-figures within 6-months and none of them have gotten me to that point.
It feels as though the more industry rules I learn about, the more skeezy I feel and the more out of alignment I get. Even the spiritual business practices often feel forced and frustrating as I continue to chug along at a minimum wage salary. Don’t get me wrong– I LOVE my work. I am totally fulfilled and happy working from my home office everyday. In fact, I feel icky if I’m not working on my dream business and moving closer to my goal of transforming hearts and minds everywhere. I’m definitely right where I need to be.
What isn’t hitting the mark is me following “the rules” that all these gurus and experts keep sharing with me. Heck, I’m paying them to shove the rules down my throat and yet time and time again, the rules-consumption is making me sick to my stomach. Why do I have to follow all these dang rules anyway?
I’m Done Painting by Number
When I feel into my heart of hearts and remember what transformed my fulfillment level with another area of my life, I am reminded of my own inner intelligence. I’m speaking about my artwork. All my life I wanted to be an artist. In college I took art classes and learned how to properly mix colors and apply paint to a canvas in a realistic way. We’d look at the photographs next to our canvas and strive to make a painting that as closely resembled that photograph as possible. My most-sold painting came out of one of those classes. A rusty Volkswagen bug sitting in the middle of my dad’s field. I snapped the picture for that art class, painted it on a canvas and to this day it is what people request to order the most. I hate that painting. I hate it, not because of how it looks, but because it was the most painstakingly boring thing I ever created. There were so many rules to follow to make that painting look like the picture. I honestly would’ve rather just photo-copied it and had WalMart print it on a big canvas for me.
My truth spilled forth when I learned to paint from my heart and intuition. Each painting I do now is a giant surprise until the end. I let out what wants to come out and the whole process feels like a wild ride into the unknown. At the end I feel like I’ve pushed myself and truly expressed whatever needed to come up and out. It doesn’t mean every painting ends pretty or realistic, but it is the most fulfilling way I know how to paint.
So why on earth am I still painting by numbers in my coaching business?
It’s time to unleash my inner wisdom and let my real heart and soul spill out into my business. I once heard Leonie Dawson say that the main point of business was to create and share like crazy, then repeat. I like that philosophy, especially for someone like myself who thrives on creating more than duplicating. I feel most alive and inspired when I’m creating something out of thin air; so why shouldn’t I let that life-giving energy into my own business?
In the following series I’m going to be exploring several industry “rules” that I’ve been fed over the years that simply aren’t ticking my tock anymore. I’m sharing these not as a way of enforcing new rules on you or any other of my clients, but by demonstrating how each of us have our own inner wisdom to guide us and by listening to that inner guidance we will go much, much further than by trying to duplicate what someone else has done. Afterall, each of our businesses are as unique as the fingerprint on your hand. Let’s give our businesses permission to be their full, wild, totally-unique selves. Shall we?
Rule #1: The Hostage Rule
Truth be told, I don't remember ever being “taught” this rule, but it seems to have popped up all across the industry and adapted by Major coaches everywhere. I'm not sure why this is a rule or who initially started this rule, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous on something that I will not be including in my own business.
I'm speaking of the hostage rule. That's a name I made up myself, but it feels like what the road should be called. The premise is that once someone has begun working with you, they aren't allowed to leave; Either at all, or at least not without paying any Hefty fine for canceling.
I understand that the philosophy behind this is that if someone originally chose to work with you it was because they wanted the transformation your marketing copy promised. That being said, as a coach the idea is that you don't give them the option to quit because they hired you to deliver a transformation that you are 100% committed to delivering.
The flip side to this is that when someone is financially unable to fulfill their end of the bargain or they feel out of alignment with what you were teaching, or they no longer desire the transformation they originally signed up for. This becomes a problem because now they feel like they're being held hostage against their will and the coach in question is not allowing them to honor their own inner guidance. In fact, said coach is asking them to blindly continue to trust them regardless of whatever the actual situation is. To me, this feels arrogant and selfish on the business’ end.
I myself have had three encounters with this scenario, two of which were in the past three months. I’d like to share with you each of the three experiences so you can decide for yourself how you feel about this implied rule, both from a receiving end, and ultimately from a business end.
NOTE: Out of respect for the coaches I've worked with I will not be using any names in each of these experiences. I also want to make note that I have not necessarily been unhappy with my experiences. I've just had differences in situation change from the time I started to the time I quit. I would like to further note that I never in my life have been a quitter. In fact my parents raised me to always follow through with what I've started so the fact that I've actually dropped out of 3 programs is actually a big deal and not something I make a habit of.
Hostage Experience #1
The first experience began when I signed up for a twelvemonth group coaching program. The program promise was to teach me how to scale my one-on-one coaching to $10,000 a month and then transform that into a highly successful group coaching Evergreen program.
I first learned about the program in the fall of 2020. I immediately knew I liked the idea of an evergreen group coaching program and I took the coaches many courses and instantly found success in my own business. Needless to say I felt very attracted to the coach and aligned with her values and what she was teaching in Sharing both in her Facebook group and inside many courses that I took in the fall of 2020. I knew instantly that I would eventually sign up for her 12 month program but I needed to get my finances in order before I could do so. She felt high pressure from the moment I expressed interest. I applied to be in the program and then was told I had a limited amount of time before my application would expire. I wasn't ready to invest and I expressed that to the coach however she continued to encourage me to join anyway. I ignored her plea and knew that I would join as soon as I was ready. I definitely wanted to learn more from her and it felt like an alignment it just wasn't the right time for me.
Over the next 3 months she reached out to me a few different times asking me if I was ready yet and it's been devising me with different bonuses and specials. Finally in February of 2021 I joined the program and was Off to the Races with this coach. The first 3 months I loved it I felt totally supported by the program. In fact my one complaint was that if anything I was over supported and didn't have enough hours in the day to utilize all of the support that she offered. She had a team of several coaches that were there to support me in my journey and being someone who likes to go 100% or not at all I felt a little bit guilty for not always being able to utilize as much assistance as they offered. That being said I quickly learned exactly what I had to promise which was how to book more 101 clients and launch a group coaching program. I lost my group program in April of 2021 and things were actually looking up for me and my business.
Then things started to get sticky. I'm not sure why but on top of the highly supportive structure the program shifted. The coach started doing live challenges with us monthly that on top of the curriculum and coursework that we already had weekly, we were also highly encouraged to join the monthly challenges offered. It felt like way too much for me to handle, especially given I already had full-time duties in my business. This made me feel guilty and unsatisfied with myself because, like I said, I like to give things 100% or nothing at all. Anything in between feels icky to me.
Next the coach started changing the curriculum entirely and wanted us to build in a separate course for a business that didn't have anything to do with the original Evergreen group course that I signed up to learn how to build. Regardless, I continued to show up to the twice-weekly coaching calls and tried my hardest to implement the original curriculum, the new monthly challenges curriculum, and the new course curriculum they were rolling out week by week. It felt like they were just throwing stuff out at us from every direction and things weren't fully thought through before they shared them with us. I started to feel really overwhelmed and unsure of the direction that the coach was leading us in. Good and the weekly coaching calls I started to feel very much out of alignment with the advice that the coach was giving. It felt to me like she was encouraging us to push ourselves to the brink of exhaustion and that if we didn't do so we weren't really trying or we didn't really want success. This went against everything that I believed about self-care, self-love, and choosing fulfillment over burnout. This went on for several months before I finally noticed I despised the weekly coaching calls and the new curriculum didn't feel in alignment with my business at all. I also felt like every time I asked for help from this coach the response was basically to just work harder which definitely didn't sit well with me because I was already working really hard.
After about the six months I had realized 100% that this course and curriculum and Coach were no longer in alignment with my inner soul, in fact it felt very much out of alignment and displeasing in my spirit. I journaled about it, prayed about it, and talked to a trusted friend about it. All signs pointed to me being ready to leave this program. I knew I had signed a 12-month commitment but it just didn't feel like there was any point in continuing to pay $1,000 a month for 6 more months when I wasn't even enjoying much less utilizing the program anymore. I reached out to support and expressed my concerns and shared that I was no longer in alignment with the program and I wish to withdraw my participation. The virtual assistant told me there was no way I could break my contract and that I had to stay in for the remaining six months. I told her not to charge my cards and to please drop me from the program. She again replied that there was no way I could leave the program and that the card that I had on file would immediately be charged month to month. When the next monthly charge was put on my card I felt very heartbroken and irritated with the whole company. Not only did it overdraft my account but I felt that it came out of my account against My will. I made one last attempt to reach out to the virtual assistant and asked if they could at least revoke this cement and let me pay it from another card. She said that wasn't an option and confirmed that I could not leave the program. In the meantime I had made really good friends with another girl who was in the group. She also fell out of alignment with the program and had dropped out. I reached out to her for advice and asked how she was able to drop the program. She said she simply quit paying. I hadn't previously thought of that as an option but I loved the idea of it. After a call to my bank I was so relieved to hear that they could actually stop the automatic payment from this vendor. They were also able to file a dispute on my behalf against the coach. I did exactly as my banker instructed and the next month nothing came out of my account. I was so so grateful that I was able to do this. Not only did I feel out of alignment with the program, but I also didn't have the money to continue investing in something that I wasn't using.
I do want to point out that one of the things that was most disappointing throughout this experience was that never once did I hear from the coach herself. All of the correspondence I had was through the virtual assistant. And I really thought that given my expressed concerns that the coach herself would at least try to make contact with me and try to make things right or hear my side of the story; isn't that what a coach is supposed to do? At the end of the day it felt like that coach and her company became hyper focused on making sales in changing their curriculum in the process they forgot all about the people who can make that happen colon her clients.
Hostage Experience #2
My second experience is a little bit different. I invested in a very high-level coaching program for the year of 2021. It was wildly fulfilling, and I absolutely loved the coaches involved, the professional quality of the institution, and the amazing heartfelt community of the other members who joined this Mastermind. Needless to say I was 100% satisfied with my high-level investment. When the course ended in September of 2021 I have to admit I was a bit sad that this community was going to end. I had enjoyed it so much and made so many amazing business partners and Friends throughout the experience. When the coach offered us an amazing opportunity to continue our experience for another year at half the price it was hard to say no. All we had to do was put down a $500 deposit now and then continue payments from December onwards. I honestly thought hey what's the harm in putting down a deposit now? I felt that if at any point before the program began again in January of 22 I could always cancel and get out free.
What happened was actually quite different. At the end of November I got sick while visiting my family in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. For two weeks I was not looking at my email or my phone because I didn't feel good at all. When I returned to work I noticed that $500 had been taken out of one of my accounts and once again overdrafted that account. This was the account I used to put down the deposit for the program. I had wrongly assumed that when it came time to make the next payment I would receive an invoice or at least a heads-up that the money would be coming out of my account. Between September and December it had become increasingly clear to me that I had already received what I wanted out of that program and that there wasn't much of an excitement or a need for myself to continue taking the program in 2022, even at half price.
Once again I reached out to the virtual assistant on file and asked if I could revoke the $500 payment and withdraw my participation in the 2022 Mastermind. I'd like to again point out that this exchange happened in December of 2021 and the program did not begin officially until January of 2022. I was really disappointed to hear back from the virtual assistant. She said that the company had a no refund policy and that to cancel I would have to pay a cancellation fee of $1,500 on top of what I had already paid.
I slept on this news for several nights before responding. I couldn't believe that this was their company policy for one, and for two it was really disappointing to learn that this coach I had so enjoyed working with conducted her business in such a way. A $1,500 fee to cancel my participation in the program that hadn't even started yet? That seemed pretty excessive to me.
I never reached out to buy the coach of this business either, but I wasn't surprised because she was much higher up than the coach in experience number one. This business at least offered for me to set up a phone call with an assistant coach to talk about how I could reconsider my decision. I politely declined and again asked to be retracted from the program, of course they insisted that I pay the $1,500 cancellation fee.
Hostage Experience #3
My third experience actually took place in Spring of 2019. This was a much less expensive program. In fact it was a $100 a month membership that I was considering joining. The membership was all about business Basics and how to create an online business that brings you fulfillment without burnout – sounds great for what I'm wanting right? Before joining the program I had already invested heavily in my business and mindset so I was wise enough to ask if there was a cancellation policy should I decide to discontinue at any time. The owner of the business himself who also happened to be the head coach directly responded to my email and assured me that I could cancel my membership at any time and that his business, “did not believe in holding people hostage against their will.” I was thrilled with his response and decided to join the membership because of it.
Unfortunately my situation changed in summer of 2019 because my boyfriend and I quit our jobs to travel by Van throughout New Zealand. we definitely had the ultimate hippie Adventure however we had to cut all unnecessary finances in order to make this happen. We stayed in the country for almost a year and I supported myself with 1 freelance position. That being said I dropped out of the membership after only a few months even though I really enjoyed it. I told myself and the owner that I would definitely rejoin someday but that it wasn't the best investment for me at the time.
Fast forward to the fall of 2021 and I felt that it was time to rejoin the membership. What I like most about these two coaches is that they really encourage full cell mint and satisfaction of Lifestyle over burnout or exhaustion in business. I thoroughly enjoy learning from their teachings and will continue to stay in the program probably for life, as most of their Community does.
I've got to say their philosophy of not holding people hostage is something that I will never forget, and it's something that has repeatedly come to mind as I've encountered experience 1 and 2 this year. I fully appreciate this principle and the Integrity of the coaches who run this business. I see it as an inspiration to not only myself but how I would love to see other coaching businesses run in the future.
Why I’m choosing to model my business after #3
For me it's a no-brainer. As someone who experienced two different models of being held hostage in a program that no longer fit my needs or desires I definitely do not ever want a client of mine to feel like that. Perhaps it is no coincidence that around the same time. I also had a client who dropped out of one of my programs because she had recently found out that her cancer had returned. Of course I could have played Hardball and held her to her commitment of our contract that she signed, but what good would it do for me personally? How could I feel comfortable taking money from someone who wasn't financially or physically in the position to utilize the services I was offering her? I released her from her contract effortlessly and told her I hope she made a full recovery instantly. who knows maybe she will recover and we'll resume our contract, but regardless I believe that her health and her self-care come way before her commitment to me as a coach.
I realize that cancer is an extreme example, but if a client of mine ever feels out of alignment or uncomfortable with what I'm teaching I wouldn't want them to continue working with me. If they have a change in their financial situation I also wouldn't want them to continue. Of course if they're still paying for what they will receive that's a different situation, for the most part I believe that people choose to work with us out of free will if at any point they choose out of freewill not to work with us–well– that's their decision, and I as a human being choose to respect that.
What about you? What are your thoughts? Do you agree with holding your clients to their original contract regardless of their changing situtionat? Perhaps you feel clients should come and go as they please. Share your thoughts below. I’d love to hear how you are going to digest this information and use it for your own business procedures.
*NOTE: (Full transparency I am a long standing member and affiliate of business number three, which because I actually believe and support them, I will reveal them.) The business is called Wandering Aimfully and they exist to help entrepreneurs create a business that feels authentic and sustainable. If you’d like to learn more click here.