Training Q&As

Want to know what previous delegates thought of the course? 

Or find out what's involved?

Or hear a fuller account of the training from our delegates perspective?

Here's a selection of questions often asked by people interested in our training courses:

The training attracts people from all kinds of backgrounds, not just financial advisers. Only about 25% to 30% of the people coming on the training have a financial advisory background. 

Some are coaches or therapists. Others are accountants or have experience working in the finance industry in areas such as marketing or management. Others are money bloggers, say, or simply have a keen interest and passion in personal finance without necessarily any qualifications or work experience - for instance, the go-to-person amongst their friends and family when it comes to dealing with questions around money. Or have a coaching background and interest in specialising in this area.

Having a financial services background gives people the confidence to deal with any financial matter that comes up with a client, but is not absolutely required depending on the service you plan to offer. Without the experience of working with individuals on this topic, your role as a financial coach will be less of an expert role and more of a coaching role (helping them find the solutions for themselves).

We've created a competency checklist we share in the training, which identifies all the key topics which require knowledge, skills or experience that may come up in a coaching session to help you self-identify any further training needs. This is available on request in advance of the training. We have also developed another course - our Personal Finance Seminar Series - offering three 90-minute virtual trainings (via Zoom) run by Dr George Callaghan, an Economist at the Open University teaching in the area of Personal Finance, in the 3 weeks leading up to the start of the Financial Coach Practitioner Certificate course. 

It tends to attract people who feel out of control when it comes to their finances. Not so much the financially disadvantaged, more about people mismanaging money - perhaps earning well, but nothing to show for it or in debt. Some may be low earners wanting help to shift their mindset to attract more money in their lives. Or people who have an emotional block when it comes to money and want help to transform their relationship with money.

Clients may also seek out financial coaching as a stepping stone to the world of personal finance. Perhaps newly in a position of having wealth to invest, and wanting to explore options before seeking advice or considering a DIY approach. Or it could be a client who wants to start making financial plans and is seeking some help with this and someone to hold them to account on their goals. 

Or they could be considering a decision which has financial implications and be seeking a sounding board or financial expert to help with the figures. Such as: "Can I afford to retire?"; "Can I afford to leave my partner?'; 'Can I afford to take voluntary redundancy and write that book?'.

Take a look at this page of my site for further information on the different ways I help my clients.

Currently, all trainings are being held on Zoom. Take a look at our new site for further information and to register your interest.

Wise Monkey's Financial Coach Practitioner Certificate Training is an intensive eight week course, with 54 hours of live online training sessions, plus access to an online training platform, which offers an unrivalled blended learning experience. The platform offers access to a wealth of valuable additional resources, recorded sessions, demo coaching videos and exercises which everyone can access for at least 6 months following the training. Plus you’ll get online access to a Dropbox folder containing all the resources developed by Wise Monkey and a broad and wide range of additional resources, and spreadsheets which will help you get going with your own Financial Coaching practice.

The course teaches you a broad and comprehensive range of skills for coaching clients both in relation to behavioural change as well as the practical aspects of money. You're taught a number of coaching models and through interactive role plays are able to consolidate your learning process. You're taught about the practical aspects of money management including budgeting, debt management, the differences between coaching, mentoring and advice, and how to gather the information required to coach clients effectively. You also spend time learning about money and emotion, common money behaviours and challenges and are then shown a number of methods and techniques for promoting successful behaviour change. At the end of the course you have everything you need to coach clients on both the behavioural and practical aspects of money. 

The Certified Money coach course is a distance learning programme taught remotely via zoom from the US. It provides a certification after completing case studies based around the course content. The course teaches a very specific 4 stage process designed by the Money Coaching Institute in helping clients to identify their behaviours and patterns around money, and provides a structure for working through these patterns and behaviours to promote change where behaviours are challenging. You learn about brain function and chemistry and the history of money as an introduction to the theory. You're also taught how to use the Institute’s money archetypes (as detailed in Deborah Price’s book ‘Money Magic’) as both a theory and tool for working with clients to promote behavioural change. The course therefore gives you a specific and focused method to follow with clients on creating money behaviour changes. 

It depends what you charge and how many hours you coach and whether you limit it to a pay as you go hourly service, package your sessions and/or offer group coaching sessions.

As an example, if you charge £100 per hour, say, and charge for 14 coaching hours per week, working 46 weeks a year, this would add up to about £64K per annum turnover. Profits then depend on your business expenses.

The training is held in a central part of Brighton, in the North Laines area. There's a large range of accommodation in the surrounding area to accomodate any budget, from cheap hotels/guesthouses to boutique hotels/guesthouses or Airbnbs. You could check the following sites:

https://www.visitbrighton.com/accommodation

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotels-g186273-Brighton_East_Sussex_England-Hotels.html

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/a/Brighton--United%20Kingdom