Integrity and Trust in the Coaching Industry: How to Find a Coach Who Isn’t Part of the Pyramid
There’s this business coach girl who stirred up a bunch in the coaching industry the past week. I don’t know the coach in question, I’ve only sort of heard of her. I don’t typically care about coaching industry drama (there’s something every month it seems).
BUT, I’ve been on the other side of a coaching industry “pyramid schemes” as they’re often referred to.
I was at the very bottom rung pyramid not getting anything…only paying for a terrible “program” that involved no coaching whatsoever with someone I’m calling Private Jet Fluffy Word Salad Queen. IYKYK. (She’s called that because she has clearly studied cult dynamics: she made up words, had her own confusing language yet alluring catch phrases, said lots of words in long rambling sentences where you sort of knew what she was saying, but it was never anything concrete. It was inspirational and alluring, but didn’t actually help you very much).
I’m a coach myself, although I operate quite differently than these kind of business coaches. I should be sticking up for coaches, right?
Well, no. I call b.s. on pretty much everyone involved in this particular recent coaching drama, including the coaches who are calling out the coach at the top.
So, below what I wrote on my Facebook about this recent coaching industry drama… And below it, some additional info I want you to have… especially if you’re thinking about working with a coach and wondering who you can actually trust.
Wait. So the coaching industry drama of the month involves the most notorious pyramid scheme group of players in the industry and people are acting surprised?!? 🤣
Calling out the coaches who call out coaches who call out coaches…
Some coaches paid $25K to get in front of a bigger coach’s audience. They didn’t get what they expected, and now they’re calling that coach out.
But what if their pay-to-play HAD gone well?
We all know what would’ve happened… business as usual. 🤔
Paying to speak is not new. What’s the issue? 🤦♀️
IMHO it’s not the victim/perpetrator of this situation.
It’s the pyramid that they’re ALL knowingly participating in.
I typically ignore this drama as I have better things to do with my energy…
But the amount of coaches I see out there taking one side (against the coach at the “top”) is ridic.
I’ve been a coach for over 10 years and the paid stage model has been around since the industry started.
So what I’d like to highlight is the whole entire posse and their large pyramid. And EVERYONE buying into the pyramid is part of it too.
The only surprise here is that the people calling her out supposedly didn’t get what they expected for their $25K.
And what if they HAD??
… she’d / they’d be out there doing the exact same thing as the coach she’s calling out does.
(Btw, ever looked into the actual past “business” experience of some of these business coaches out there? They paid a business coach i.e., the one towards the top. They learn some things, then called themselves a business coach…that’s their only real business experience. Pay. Regurgitate.)
I don’t have much sympathy for the top coach or most who paid to play and then felt ripped off…. although I totally understand the feeling of being burned and feeling like you didn’t get what you paid for.
And let’s get real here:
We all know that calling out the ones towards the top of the pyramid gets them lots of attention… here I am talking about it!
The calling out attention grows their audience, might get them more clients. Algorithms love divisive content.
That one girl seems to have benefited from the drama of calling out, did she not?
So how much of this is TRULY about integrity??
How much is about gaining from the victim/perpetrator dynamic?
How much of this is just a group of wounded teenage girls pretending to “support” but are just try to make the most money possible with no regards for those they take money from? 🤨
This particular posse of coaches originates from the quantum fluff private jet Queen at the top of the Pyramid (IYKYK) who has been giving the coaching industry a bad name for years.
Heck, she had an entire SubReddit dedicated to her.
Hey, I fell for her bs 6 years ago and spent 5 figures for one of her “programs” that had no actual coaching, no true connection, no “support” from others, and nothing but lots of high vibe fluff word salad! 🥗
(I’ve had an email drafted to this fluff salad ringleader for the past 5 years. Maybe one day I’ll tell her how I feel… but I believe karma is more powerful).
I’ve never trusted a coach who goes around talking about her $5 million dollar year or whatever number they claim.
$1M isn’t actually $1M when you spend $700K to get it. 🙄
And yes of course there are coaches making millions. I have respect for the ones who do it without the pyramid. I did it myself without scamming people. (I don’t make millions now but I have made millions. There’s a big difference there! Some of the “I made $5M…” are when people add up the numbers from their pre-expenses numbers from the past 6-7 years. Hah, hah… that’s very different)
I’m not perfect. Yes I’ve f’d up. I’ve gone through personal crisis when coaching a group program.
But I’ve never scammed someone or run a pyramid scheme.
I have never had an “ascension” upsell from my Mastermind or my private coaching in order to uphold the pyramid.
I have never sold my clients placements to get in front of my audience. (I’ve platformed some them because they were a good fit for it!)
I know many coaches who are doing really GREAT work, who’ve never had a pyramid or scams or dramas like this week’s flavor does.
Some of the best coaches I know have little online presence. Those who know, know.
I’m going to stick up for those who never bought into the industry schemes. Those who don’t care about our follower count who do good work and actually have solid life and business experience.
Greed is a powerful force. In this fast changing world, I won’t be surprised if it gets worse.
You are sovereign.
Be discerning.
Walk Your True Path.
Okay that’s enough drama for the next 10 months.
I’ll continue doing my own thing, walk my True Path and skillfully go forward with good intention to serve with my full heart.
Why I’m glad I was at the (very, very) bottom rung of a coaching pyramid scheme years ago…
I spent 5 figures on a program with the Private Jet Fluffy Word Salad Queen coach. I knew she was totally full of it, but for some reason I trusted some industry friends and joined her year long “program”. I was going through a rough time in my life after a breakup and just wanted some distraction, inspiration, community, and support (it was distraction but barely anything else).
I trusted her fame and follower count. I trusted others I knew who fell for her smoke and mirrors, I trusted her multi-millions-results. (Remember the “mean girls” crew of girls in high school? This is similar. FOLLOWERS is meaningless. Influencers who are full of fluff are getting less and less trustworthy as more people wake up and see through their illusions).
A coaching pyramid scheme explained. (And, the majority of coaches are NOT running pyramid schemes).
How was this one woman running a pyramid scheme? Well, her big program was a $100,000 mastermind (and that was in 2021-22). I was in the very bottom “entry level” program that hundreds of women were in, I think it was $8000-10K. I forgot. (I had paid $15-26K for different masterminds over the years and I had mostly great experiences. So, this was considered “cheap”)
Word Salad coach would promote her top $100K-paying and private clients and their work in the program I was in, and her free FB group that has gazillions of women in it, and that’s how many of those clients of hers got their clients.
I’m glad I wasted money on this pyramid scheme woman. Because it made me realize and commit that I will never be that way to others. I never was, never have been. But feeling it from the inside made it crystal clear.
My group programs and private coaching have always cost wayyyyy lower than the industry standard. I’ve always been more fair than most coaches I knew. Mostly because it just didn’t seem morally right to charge such an extreme amount to the kind of clients I work with.
My clients tend to be people going through really big pivots and transitions in their business or their career. Or people who are new and just starting out. Some are established and looking for growth, but I’ve mostly served people in the first 0-4 years in their business.
There’s a fine line when charging for coaching. Yes, you need to be compensated for your time. But overpromising and underdelivering, scamming people out of money, charging extreme amounts, doing things that are not morally right… it will come back to bite them. Just like we’re seeing right now in so many situations like the one in my post.
As they say, karma’s a bitch.
My clients who came to me after getting burned by other coaches
Over the years, so many clients have come to me after a bad experience with other business coaches. And the story is usually some version of the same thing.
They were sold into higher level programs, some $30K and up. When they weren’t even really clear yet on what it was they were offering, and didn’t know how to talk about their work.
They didn’t have the basics. The root chakra of their business.
I’ve had clients come to me who invested five figures into a sales team (!!) when they weren’t even clear on what their offering was to sell. WTH?!?!
First.. how the heck could they even be needing a SALES team when they didn’t even have a clear offer?? That sales team should have never sold them their services.
Two, they hadn’t even proven that the offer was wanted by anyone. And, three, the sales team talked them into hiring them when they didn’t even know how to sell their own offer themselves.
It’s always important to learn sales yourself if you’re going to eventually grow big enough to hire a sales team. I personally had a sales team for a year and decided to never hire any sales team again.
Another client joined my mastermind program after she’d really gotten burnt by a previous mastermind. When I talked to her about it, it was because the mastermind she was sold into was made for people who already had a well-established business making at least six figures. She hadn’t even really gotten clarity on what her offering was. And she hadn’t sold enough of her offering to be in one of those higher level programs.
So she joined my group mastermind program, which is focused more on newer entrepreneurs and coaches just starting out.
The biggest problem with some of these high-level masterminds is that they move VERY fast. They can be intimidating…especially if you’re not even really clear on what you’re offering, how to speak about your work, and where to find your ideal clients… you can’t just jump into one of these high-level masterminds thinking you’re going to “make millions” and become insta-famous. (Yes, it IS possible…but it’s rare and it takes more effort, money, work, time, money, dedication, and yes, more money, than you might realize).
You end up just getting overwhelmed, stressed, and in “compare despair”… feeling bad about yourself because you feel like you’re not good enough and not worthy enough compared to all these other people in the mastermind with you.
This is where a lot of newer coaches end up wasting money, giving up on their business, and getting burnt by these kinds of coaching programs. Because they’re not REALLY designed for someone like you at your specific level of where you’re at in your business.
It’s like trying to grow the branches before the tree has any roots. You can’t…the roots come first.
It was never that these clients weren’t capable, they were just sold something they weren’t ready for yet… and those coaches should NOT have sold them their programs that they weren’t ready for.
Nobody can *guarantee* you’ll make millions or become Instafamous or fill all your retreats. (I’d run from any coach who does!)
Sometimes people pay for something with higher expectations than they should have, when they should have known the risks involved. (Like the women accusing that business coach of whatever it is they’re accusing her of. They knew the risks!)
In this situation, I know these women paid a lot of money to speak. But paying to speak on stage never really guarantees you’re going to get anything from it.
I always say to people… I wouldn’t trust any kind of coach or business coach who tries to guarantee you’re going to make $X whatever amount of money if you pay them $25K or whatever they want.
What I tell my clients is this: what I’ve seen over the 10 years I’ve been doing this. The people who are more likely to get results are the ones who show up in their integrity, in their heart, and stay centered in themselves. Who get out of their own way. Who work with me to get past their blocks and limiting beliefs and the deep programming that’s in the way of whatever it is they want.
Finding a coach you can trust
As you’re looking for support, you might want to consider letting some of these guide you:
- Look into their actual life and business experience. Did they ever build something REAL before they called themselves a business coach?
- Is the program/offer at the right level for where you’re truly at in your business.
- They say they’re making millions in passive income… how do you truly KNOW they’re making millions?
- A good coach will tell you honestly if you’re right or not right, or ready or not ready, for their program yet.
- Starting a new business takes work, effort, consistency, structures, systems, strategies… in addition to everything else.
- Be wary of anyone who guarantees you’ll make a certain amount of money or promises tangible number-based results. Anything is possible. Nothing is guaranteed.
- Don’t judge by follower count…POPULARITY does not equal INTEGRITY, EMBODIED WISDOM, or clients or money. Some of the best coaches out there have built their audience in other places. IE, their email list, through their communities, via word of mouth, or through genuine co-creation. The world is changing and “influencers”, as you know, are getting less and less trustworthy.
And trust yourself. You already know the difference between being met and being pushed. You can feel it in your body.
I don’t want any of this to scare you away from getting support. The right coach, at the right time, can change everything. I’m eternally grateful for all the coaches I had over the years, and I still work with some.
This journey isn’t about a coach DOING anything for or to you, it’s about you stepping into your own sovereign power to be able to do it for yourself. Guru: Gee You Are You.
If you’re looking for a coach or guru, or someone to make false promises, promise you insta-fame, keep you comfortable, and tell you what you want to hear, I’m not for you.
If you want someone to hold you in a transformational journey doing the deeper work that will help you become more in rapport with yourself, more sovereign and confident, and expand your life into it’s next phase, and help you to hold yourself to more accountable than you currently are, we might be a fit.
You are sovereign. You get to be discerning. And you get to walk your True Path with people who genuinely have your back.
