 Hey coach, welcome back to our channel. So today I want to talk about coaching licenses now something I get asked on a regular basis is do I need a coaching license to start a private training business? Now the official answer is no, you don't right there isn't at this point a yet an actual official qualification or coaching license that you need in order to become a one-on-one or a small group training specialist. Now what I do is when I speak to coaches who ask me this question I'll break it down in a couple of steps right the first one is what's more important than a license in for me is experience right so I would say number one is no you don't need a coaching license but you do need a lot of experience working with players from different ages and different abilities because once you start your business officially you're going to have players from all levels that are going to come to your your business looking for extra and supplemental training so having experience working with players of different levels what that does is that gives you more expertise about what each type of player needs right at this point in my coaching career personally I've worked with every single age group at the youth level out there so I've worked with five year olds I've worked with seven year olds I've worked with nine year olds ten eleven and so on so you as a trainer you need to make sure that you have that experience before you get comfortable working with clients so something I would recommend coaches all the every time I speak to them is make sure you have a good year's worth of experience not just one year two years maybe about three years of experience studying and working and actually you know working with players of different age groups so that when you start to get your own clients then you know right this player is nine years old he's playing a high level this is what he needs okay so number one is experience right experience in my opinion is hundred percent more important than a quote coaching qualification right ultimate a license is a piece of paper anyone can get it right by experience that in my opinion is priceless okay that's number one now second right I know I've mentioned that it's not important but if once you have experience I think the next bit would be to get at least the basic qualification or basic license that gives you a little bit of an insight into working with teams okay what you need to remember is that a lot of the clients that are going to come to you they play on teams so you have to have some knowledge about what specific positions what specific strategies teams that teams play from the clients that you work with right because you have to then design your training based around how that player plays on this specific team right so what coaching licenses do essentially is they don't really focus a lot on the individual type of training they focus more on how to train and coach groups right how to essentially coach teams so yes it's not important right and you don't need a coaching license in order to start an individual training business but it is I believe recommended because it gives you an insight into what coaches or what teams use or strategies they use that your clients are playing in those teams okay so if you're for example training a girl and she's a she's a striker on her team right you've got to have some knowledge of where they play within the team right are they a striker that plays on the last the last defender are they a striker that drops deep right how does the head coach of that team what type of system do they use so that you can have an understanding of right you can picture it okay in a game situation right this is what the movements that I want you to make in order to be successful okay so essentially what coaching licenses do is they focus more on the team specifics rather than the individual okay but again it's not a requirement it's not needed but it's always good to have it because it gives you extra knowledge of a team environment right so that's the second thing the third thing is once you have the experience you you get your basic coaching licenses the next bit is now working or learning from experienced individual skills trainers okay so something I did right before I started getting clients is I done some research on my local competitors and what they were doing what they were offering okay and what I did is I went to watch their sessions and I had a game that that little activity that I did gave me an insight into exactly what that coach works on with their players right so you have to have knowledge of your local market what do what do players in your local area need that your local competitors aren't offering okay so what does this have to do with coaching qualifications is because if you don't go down the route of getting qualifications then you have to be knowledgeable about your local market right so what's what's the struggles what are the problems that you players within your local area are having that you can solve for them okay so I'm gonna break it down again in three steps right the first one is we need to get experience working with players so a way I did I did it at the beginning when I first started coaching is I volunteered at local clubs a lot in my area and that allowed me to get in front of players get in front of parents and start working with players of different age groups I remember when I first started I was working with a U9 and a U12 boys team and those are two completely different age groups which required two completely different types of coaching right and after I moved on from that club then I went into a paid position and I started working with different age groups all across that my the company I was working with right now gave me a lot of experience of what what players of certain age groups require what they need and what type of coaching I should be implementing into my sessions right now second bit is once you have that experience then I would recommend getting a license right you don't have to go through the whole coaching license pyramid right but I would recommend maybe getting at least the foundations of the coaching license so it might be the level one two or three in whichever country you're in so that just gives you an extra bit of knowledge about teams right what do teams require because again you're going to be working with individual players who play on teams right so you have to understand what type of systems of play coaches are using you know how players are training with their teams what is the focus right you've got understand a little bit more about what what are the requirements for seven aside what the requirements for nine aside what the requirements for eleven aside soccer in whichever country you're in right the third one is learn from someone already in business so as I mentioned at the beginning what I did is I learned from my local competitors right so I went to their sessions and I observed what they were specifically working with their players on and what that helped me to do is as I grabbed a lot of that data and I created my own program because I noticed that right one thing players were lacking in my area was confidence right confidence was not there it wasn't being touched on in training in team environments there's just too many players on teams for coaches to focus on them individually right so also the confidence side was more the mental side how can I motivate players mentally inspire them and push them so that they build their confidence get repetition in the training sessions okay so to give you an example what I noticed is right my competitors all their sessions were in groups of 10 or 12 players in my eyes I thought do you know what that's too many players to give personalised attention which meant that right what I needed to do I need to create a program which makes the group smaller so I can focus on each individual personally and provide that extra value that my local competitors weren't doing at the time right and stuff like that doesn't require a coaching license that just requires you to get out there you know research your local market watch a hunt well watch loads and loads of training sessions and just network with other trainers to see what they're doing you know what struggles they're having with their clients and just learn more about your local market okay now if you want more one-on-one help okay visit the candidly link in the description of this video you can set up a free 15 minute call with me where we can jump on zoom I can learn a little bit more about your business see where you are see see where you want to get to right if you don't want to do that just send me an email directly to make money coaching sports at gmail.com okay thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video