Episode 24 replay | May 21, 2026 | 25:40

When I left corporate America to start coaching, I had a list in my head of everything I thought I needed before I could really begin. Almost two decades and a lot of hindsight later, I can tell you that most of what was on that list was slowing me down. Here’s what actually matters when you’re starting a financial coaching practice.

Key Takeaways

 The fear of regret can be more powerful than the fear of failure, and recognizing that shift is often what moves someone from thinking about coaching to actually starting.
A dream fund is a way of believing in your future self before you know exactly what that future looks like. It’s a step of preparation that says, “I know I’m capable of more.”
There is no certification required for financial coaches. What people are really looking for when they look for one is permission to feel qualified, and that permission has to come from you.
A way for people to connect with you is enough to start. The device you’re reading this on already gives you that.
Before forming a business entity, check your local requirements. Most of the complexity people imagine is complexity they’re borrowing from businesses that look nothing like theirs.
Depth on one topic creates more impact than breadth across many. A single session that explores one financial challenge from multiple angles will move a client further than five sessions that skim.
Skill is built through reps. Knowledge becomes skill through practice, which means gaining clients and doing the work.

If you’re thinking about starting a financial coaching practice, you probably have a running list in your head. The certification you should probably get, the website you need, and the LLC you think you’re supposed to file. The topics you still feel like you should master before you can call yourself an expert.

I had that same list. And I want to walk you through what I learned about it, because if someone had done this for me when I was starting out, it would have saved me months.

There was a point, while I was still working in corporate America, when something shifted in me. The fear of regret, of never trying to dedicate my life to financial coaching, became stronger than my fear of failure.

There came a point where the fear of regret of not trying to dedicate my life to financial coaching was stronger than my fear of failure.

The fear of failure was real. I had thoughts like, “I might not be a great financial coach” and, “I won’t be able to make a living at this.” Those thoughts stayed with me. They just got quieter as the pull toward coaching got louder.

So Michael and I started a dream fund and gave ourselves a one-year runway to set up the business.

A quick tangent on that: Do you have a dream fund? Do your clients? We do, and a lot of my clients do, too. It’s a way of believing in your future self before you know exactly what that future looks like. Sometimes our dreams feel unclear, and sometimes they smack us square in the face and suddenly feel urgent. A dream fund means you’re ready for either. I’ve always thought of it as a step of believing in yourself, a way of saying, “I know I’m capable of more, and I’m preparing for it.”

That first year I spent a lot of time bootstrapping because I only had so much I could invest. If someone had helped me sort through what I actually needed and what I didn’t, it would have saved me months. So that’s what the rest of this post is for.

The case for trusting what you already know

There is no certification required for financial coaches. What you’re really looking for when you look for a certification is someone to tell you you’re qualified, and that belief has to come from you first.

You have to trust that what you know today is enough to help the people you want to help. You might not have the deepest financial knowledge of anyone out there. I still don’t, and I’ve been doing this for almost two decades. But I believe the knowledge I have is enough to help the people I serve. And the people I serve don’t have what I have.

Here’s a useful exercise: Ask the people around you what certification they think you need to be a financial coach. Chances are they have no idea. They’re probably thinking, “I don’t even know what certifications exist.” When someone asks about your credentials, the question underneath is usually, “How can I trust you?” Trust gets built through how you show up, how you talk about what you do, and how you connect with people.

You do not need letters after your name. You do not need someone to tell you that you are qualified to do this. There is no certification that is required for financial coaches.

Think about every profession you can think of. Skill comes from doing the work. Some of the worst professionals in any industry are fully certified. Some of the best never pursued formal credentials. The credential itself does very little to determine who’s good at the actual job.

I’ll add a note here, because the landscape has changed since I first recorded this episode. Later this year, we’re launching the SpendFirst® Certification. And you might wonder how that squares with everything I just said.

Here’s how: The SpendFirst Certification is designed for coaches who have already been doing the work and want to go deeper into the methodology and the craft of coaching. It’s a development milestone for coaches further along in their work. Starting and deepening are two different stages of the same career, and the first stage doesn’t require the second.

If you’re earlier than that, still figuring out whether financial coaching is the work you want to do, that’s what Financial Coaching Essentials is for.

A simple way for people to reach you is enough

You don’t need a heavy-duty hosting server, all the widgets, or all the flashy things a fancy website can do. When you first start, you need a place where people can reach you. If you’re reading this on your phone, tablet, or computer, you already have a way. You can give people your email or phone number to start with.

Going down the rabbit hole of learning tech is the biggest time suck for new business owners. Coaches have been gaining clients long before websites existed. Can a website make things easier? Sure. It gives you a set place to send people. But a website is not a magic pill.

The most valuable part of your business is you. You are where the value comes from when it comes to financial coaching.

The valuable part of your business is you. The value comes from how you think, how you listen, and how you help someone see their financial situation differently. That can happen with a phone number and an email address.

Start with what your state actually requires

Before worrying about business checking accounts, tax IDs, or formal business plans, check what your state actually requires. You might need a local business license or to register as a sole proprietor. A sole proprietorship is a one-person business that doesn’t have to be registered with the state in order to exist. If you’re the sole owner, you become a sole proprietor simply by conducting business.

Nolo is a guide to establishing your business based on what state you’re in. Or call your corporation commission or Secretary of State and ask what you need to start a coaching business by yourself. Use the word “coaching” rather than “financial coaching” when you ask, because financial coaching is a subset of life coaching, separate from financial advising. As soon as you say “financial,” it can create confusion about what you do and don’t do.

Depth on one topic creates more impact than breadth across many

Going deep on a single topic creates more impact than covering a wide array of subjects at the surface level. In one session, pick one topic and explore it thoroughly. Tackle it from different angles, ask different questions, look at it from the past, the present, and the future.

That depth provides more quality in your sessions and creates a bigger impact for the client. The kind of specificity I mean looks like this: Coaches who help couples save and pay for fertility treatments. Coaches who help nurses prioritize their own needs over their caretaker tendencies. Then there’s the coaches who help professionals get ahead without picking up extra shifts. And coaches who help newlyweds start their marriages with mutual financial goals.

These are specific areas where you can develop real expertise. Take the knowledge you already have and explore it more fully rather than trying to cover everything. Tune into our episode about the client journey to guide you.

Skill is built through reps

You probably know more than you think you do. Now you need to put it into action. You need clients. Because you can’t get great at coaching without actually coaching, the same way you can’t get good at running by reading a book about it.

In order to be a great coach, you have to coach. You can gain knowledge from a certification, but that doesn’t mean you are now in a position to actually demonstrate that knowledge.

You’re going to learn so much by doing the work. The skill that makes you effective gets built in the room with a real person, working through a real financial situation. Every client teaches you something the previous one didn’t.

Why this matters for your practice

The list of things you think you need before you can start is almost always longer than the list of things you actually need. If you’re sitting at the edge of building this work, the most useful question to ask yourself this week is: What’s the smallest version of this practice that I could actually run starting tomorrow? Not the version that looks polished on Instagram. The version where one real person could connect with you and start working on their money. Most of what you’ve been waiting on is already in place. The rest gets built once you’re in motion.

If this episode left you ready to actually start building, The Builder is your next step. It’s a free, self-paced course that walks you through the eight core business decisions every financial coach has to make, one per week. Get access here.

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