Red flags to watch out for in a freelance career coach
There's no shortage of charlatans out there trying to take our money, but here's how you can spot them
The world of coaching is big business in 2025 - in the UK alone, it’s estimated to be worth about £10 billion, but I’d wager it’s even more than that. And as with any industry where people are promising to give you their secrets in exchange for your hard-earned cash (wellness, fitness, beauty… the list is endless), there are no shortage of snake-oil merchants. Now, full disclosure here, I coach freelancers too. But I also look to hire coaches myself for specific business skills I want to develop, so I’ve tried to come up with a system to tell me whether someone is the real deal or not.
Before I give you my patented (not really) system of telling whether someone is a coach or a roach, I’ll tell you both why I coach people and why I love working with a good coach myself. (side note: I don’t think I’ve ever written the word “coach” so much in a single paragraph.)
As a solo business-owner, it’s hard to develop every single skill you need. Most of us are skilled at a particular craft - writing or designing, for instance - but haven’t been taught the business side of things. But if you’re a freelancer, the business side of things is actually a fundamental part of whether you succeed or fail. And while you can develop these skills, they can often take years to hone, and even then, it just may not be your forte.
For example, while I am pretty nifty on Canva, when I wanted professional branding done, I hired an incredible designer to help me. She has expertise that I will never have, no matter how much I tinker around with design late at night.
So while I will most likely get more skilled at business as the years go on, it could take decades to learn what I can hire a coach to teach me in a few months. And those decades will come with costly mistakes too. I think of hiring a good coach as getting secret codes in a video game helping you level up much quicker than you would otherwise.
So what are the major red flags to look out for?
1. Style without the substance
Look at the social media of a coach you might be interested in working with. If all you see is the smoke and mirrors of “Cindy absolutely loved working with me, she said it was a dream! 🩷🪄🦄” or “Work with me and I will show you how you too can swan off to the Maldives for Christmas” without them giving you anything of value, any meat and bones you can hold on to… be suspicious.
They need to be able to demonstrate: What is working with them actually like? What do they teach? What are their values? Do they give anything for free or do you need to pay just to speak to them?
2. Pretending to be a therapist
This is a huge no-no for me - I’ve chatted to coaches who see themselves as the next Brene Brown (who is actually a trained therapist) and while therapy-speak can infiltrate our language easily these days (boundaries, anyone?), people who give the impression they are a therapist should be a hard no.
It’s not just coaches either; I’ve come across people who run journalling workshops, who find that they are working with incredibly traumatised people, and just encourage them to “keep writing” rather than seek medical attention.
Writing can be therapeutic, as can speaking to a career coach - but you know what is actually therapeutic? Seeing an accredited therapist.
3. Constant upselling
I’ve been on courses or in 1:1 sessions with coaches who are selling to me even before they’ve finished coaching me.
While every coach has to sell in order to bring in business, selling to a client on time they have paid for reveals their priorities - it’s all about the money and it gives me the ick like nothing else. Like, how are you selling me a piece of cake when I haven’t even finished my ice cream?
4. Making ludicrous promises
This is maybe the worst of them all. The promise of money, working just a few hours a week, the lavish lifestyle and so on, that reels you in. I mean, let’s face it, who doesn’t want to work just one day a week, rake in the big bucks, and chill on a beach?
And some talented coaches can get your business to that point but as always the question should be, how? Like specifically, how is working with them going to help you? If you don’t get specifics run a mile.