Maybe its my imagination, but the claims made online for personal change courses seem to be at an all time high. I recently queried a remarkable claim on social media which stated
“Our program gives you the skills and qualifications to set up in full-time private practice as a Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner and Healer in just five weeks.”
This seemed like a pretty bold statement and my advice to any prospective booker is to look into such claims in more details. As the old saying goes “Let the buyer beware” or “Caveat emptor”
Interestingly a week later an all singing dancing disclaimer appeared alongside the statement –
“Earnings and income representations are aspirational statements only of your earnings potential.
These are exceptional, non-typical results and are not intended to be and are not a guarantee that you or others will achieve the same results. Individual results will always vary and yours will depend entirely on your individual capacity, work ethic, business skills, level of motivation…”
The disclaimer of course (for those who bother to read the small print) renders any such claims totally meaningless. Note the terms “aspirational” “non typical results” “not a guarantee” “results will always vary” etc In other words BOOK AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Of course people have the absolute right to spend their money on what they want. The problem for the personal change business is that many such claims can create all manner of grand expectations for customers and in many instances lead to inevitable disappointment.
My own personal experience is that there are some really excellent trainers around, BUT there are also many who create totally delusional expectations for potential customers and this kind of hype does little to enhance the credibility of the field as a while. From what I see to date there are no checks and balances from accreditation and certification bodies, so they can sometimes become complicit in presenting an image that in my opinion actually creates problems for the field as a whole?
Too harsh? Agree? Disagree? To paraphrase Groucho “These are my opinions, if you don’t like them, I have others”
