Are we chasing or even worse, fuelling a culture where certificates seem to trump learning gains?
In this article, I am going to talk about a very basic yet very necessary topic i.e. “Why you shouldn’t be chasing certificates to be a successful trainer or coach” and how we can protect ourselves from the systematic spread of falsehoods associated with certificates in the Indian Training Industry.
When you are building your training and coaching career, one very common insecurity that people have is “I’m not yet certified”.
This is something even I was guilty of doing initially in 2006 when I started training. The only thing I used to tell in every client meeting of mine was that “I’m an NLP certified trainer and practitioner” and I soon realized that there was nothing special in that ‘declaration’ because essentially what I had done was I had just attended a practitioner program at the end of which they give you a certificate. I realized that certificates don’t bring you business.
What brings you business are the skills of Marketing and Selling. But a lot of trainers get stuck in this thought or notion that, “If I get more certifications under my belt, my profile will grow and then I will get more clients, I can charge a premium and I can demand more money.”
In fact, when you sit and tell your clients, “I’m PMP certified”, “I’m a certified Image consultant”, “I’m a certified NLP practitioner” or “I’m a certified life coach” or “I’m a certified whatever…”, what you are actually doing is, you are capping your brand because you are saying, “I’m one amongst those 10,000 people who went and got an ICF certification, or this certification, or that certification…”
So, two things that I feel have to shift. Firstly, I’m not saying that people should not go to certification courses. I’m saying do the certification courses because you want to learn the skills, don’t do it because you live under this notion that by getting this certificate, I’ll get business. In fact, the moment you pitch your certificate you are restricting your brand, because when you say “I’m a PMP certified trainer”, the client automatically thinks, “Ok the PMP practitioner I get for Rs.5,000/- for one day” or “I can give Rs.2,000/- to an Image consultant…” and so on, they cap your value.
So, it is a fact that when you use certificates to market yourself, you are only telling the client that you are insecure. Instead, just focus on doing the certifications for learning. Don’t market the certificate, market your capabilities and your understanding of the client’s challenges and their world.
That’s what makes you relatable, that’s what makes you buyable.
Secondly, learn the skills of Marketing and Selling. Heal your beliefs about Marketing and Sales. Embrace Marketing and Selling as an important skillset to develop because just being a good trainer is not enough to build a successful training and coaching business.
