Your Corporate Experience Is Your Coaching Credential
👋 Welcome - Your Weekly Spark
Hey there,
When experienced professionals start exploring their next chapter, they usually consider consulting, courses, or coaching—sometimes all three. Each path has its appeal, and honestly, most people I talk with are just trying to figure out which one fits.
This week, we're focusing on coaching specifically. It's one of those options that sounds simple on the surface, but the moment you start thinking seriously about it, the doubts show up fast.
If you've ever considered coaching and immediately wondered "who am I to charge for this?"—this one's for you. Let's look at what the transition actually requires.
—Curt
🌟 Words to Inspire
"In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later." — Harold Geneen
You've already collected the experience coin through decades of professional work. The question now isn't whether you have something valuable—it's whether you're ready to convert that accumulated experience into the cash coin in a way that honors the lifestyle you want at this stage.
📖 Featured Story: From Corporate Professional to Career Coach—The Transition Blueprint
After forty years in the corporate world, there's a moment many of us experience: someone asks for your advice, then says, "You should coach people." And your first reaction isn't excitement—it's doubt.
Who am I to coach? Don't I need certification? Why would anyone pay for something I used to give away in hallway conversations?
Here's what most people miss: your corporate experience is often more valuable to clients than formal certifications. Your lived experience is the credential. Let me show you the blueprint.
Your Corporate Experience IS Your Foundation
If you've navigated 20-30 years of budgets, politics, restructurings, promotions, impossible deadlines, and tough conversations—congratulations. You've already earned what most coaching programs can't teach.
Clients aren't hiring you for theory. They're hiring you for pattern recognition from seeing the same problems repeat across teams and organizations, strategic thinking that helps them see three moves ahead, and organizational fluency about how decisions actually get made—not how they should get made.
Large-scale research on founder age shows that entrepreneurs in their 50s and 60s are roughly twice as likely to build successful companies compared to 30-year-olds, largely due to accumulated experience and professional networks. That same advantage applies directly to coaching: you've lived what others are just learning.
You don't need to reinvent yourself. You need to translate what you've already mastered.
Start here: List 5-7 recurring career challenges you solved repeatedly throughout your career. Managing difficult conversations? Helping technical people communicate with executives? Navigating organizational politics? These become your coaching foundation—not invented methodologies, but proven approaches you've applied hundreds of times.
Test Before You Commit: The 90-Day Framework
You don't need to declare yourself a full-time coach tomorrow. A low-risk validation period is exactly what works for experienced professionals.
Weeks 1-2: Get Clarity
Define the specific transformation you deliver. Not "career coaching"—too broad. Think: "I help emerging leaders navigate managing former peers" or "I help mid-career professionals escape career plateaus."
If you can clearly state the "before" and "after," you're ready to test.
Weeks 3-6: Test Your Approach
Offer 3-5 complimentary strategy sessions to people who fit your target client profile. The goal isn't volume—it's insight. After each session, ask yourself: "Would I have paid for this conversation when I was in their position?"
If yes, you're onto something. Use these sessions to gather testimonials and identify the questions clients ask repeatedly. Those recurring questions become your content foundation.
Weeks 7-12: Soft Launch
Move to paid coaching at an introductory rate—perhaps 50-75% of what you'll eventually charge. Your goal: serve 5-10 paying clients while refining your process. Track what creates breakthroughs and where you get stuck. This data shapes your methodology.
This week: Identify 3 former colleagues who fit your ideal client. Reach out for an informal conversation—not a pitch. Ask what they're struggling with most. That single conversation might be the validation you need.
Build for Realistic Time Commitment
At this life stage, you want meaningful work that doesn't consume you. Here's what a sustainable coaching practice actually looks like in terms of time investment.
A Flexible Weekly Model (start at 10-15 hours, scale to 15-20):
- Client delivery: 6-8 hours (4-6 clients at 60-90 minutes each)
- Session prep and follow-up: 3-4 hours (notes, resources, planning)
- Business development: 3-4 hours (content creation, networking, LinkedIn presence)
- Admin and systems: 2-3 hours (scheduling, invoicing, client communications)
Start closer to 10-15 hours weekly as you test and learn, then scale toward 15-20 as you gain momentum and clients. That's sustainable income generation while preserving time for travel, family, and whatever matters most to you.
What about income? Let's be realistic. If you're charging $150-250 per session (a reasonable range for experienced professionals just starting), and you have 4-6 clients meeting twice monthly, you're looking at $2,400-6,000 per month. Not life-changing money for most experienced professionals, but solid supplemental income that can grow as you refine your approach and raise your rates.
Industry rate surveys show that seasoned coaches often charge roughly twice what newer coaches command, with specialized executive or career coaches sometimes earning even more—but you have to build to that point. Start with pricing that reflects your experience without overshooting the market.
The lifestyle advantages matter more than the initial income: total schedule control, choosing clients whose challenges genuinely interest you, working from anywhere with internet, and scaling based on your energy and goals.
Try this: Sketch your ideal week. Block non-negotiables first—family, exercise, hobbies. Then see where 10-20 hours of coaching work could fit naturally. If it feels impossible, you're probably not ready. If it feels doable, you might be closer than you think.
This Is Your Strategic Approach
This isn't about adding "career coach" to LinkedIn. It's about intentionally architecting a meaningful next chapter. For many professionals I talk with, coaching provides something they didn't know they were missing: purpose that pays. A sense of contribution. A way to stay sharp without being consumed.
The transition from corporate professional to career coach isn't about reinvention. It's about finally getting paid directly for the wisdom you've been giving away for decades.
You may discover you're far more ready for this transition than you think.
🎁 Partner Spotlight
If you're serious about building a coaching practice, you need more than just expertise—you need infrastructure that doesn't fight you. That's where Kajabi comes in.
I use Kajabi to run the entire Retirepreneur platform: website hosting, course delivery, community management, email sequences, and payment processing. All in one place. For coaching specifically, it handles client onboarding, scheduling integration, resource libraries, and automated follow-up—the kind of operational backbone that lets you focus on client transformation instead of tech headaches.
Here's what matters for experienced professionals: Kajabi isn't built for twenty-somethings chasing passive income. It's designed for people delivering real value who need professional-grade tools without a steep learning curve. You can have a coaching landing page live in an afternoon, not a month.
They offer a 14-day free trial, which gives you enough runway to test whether it fits your workflow.
Full disclosure: This is an affiliate link, which means Retirepreneur earns a commission if you subscribe. I only recommend tools I actually use.
⚡ Your Quick Action Step
Challenge: Create your "coaching clarity statement" this week.
Complete this sentence in 20 words or less: "I help [specific type of person] achieve [specific outcome] so they can [transformation or benefit]."
Example: "I help mid-career finance professionals transition into leadership roles so they can advance without sacrificing work-life balance."
The goal isn't perfection—it's clarity. If you can articulate your transformation statement clearly enough that someone immediately says "I know three people who need that," you've nailed it.
Immediate win: Write three different versions of your clarity statement and test them with trusted colleagues. The one that generates the strongest "I need that" reaction is your winner.
🔄 Strategic Life Change
Coaching isn't just another business model. For many experienced professionals, it represents the first time in decades they've been able to choose the problems they solve, the people they serve, and the hours they work.
That's not retirement. That's strategic design of your next chapter—maintaining intellectual engagement and income while reclaiming control over your calendar. You've spent your career optimizing for others. This time, you're optimizing for you.
💡 How We Can Help
Building your second act doesn't have to be complicated. Here are three ways Retirepreneur supports experienced professionals like you:
🚀 FREE Retirepreneur Hub
Complete resource library with step-by-step guides and frameworks designed specifically for professionals 55+. Access business templates, pricing guides, and startup checklists—no credit card required. NEW: We just added the Coaching Practice Builder guide with frameworks for positioning, pricing, and launching your coaching practice.
📖 Retirepreneur Guides
Comprehensive guides on business models, tools, pricing strategies, and content workflows. Substantive resources you'll reference repeatedly as you build your expertise-based business.
🛠 Business Tools & Resources
Curated tools that actually work—vetted by daily use. Honest assessments of platforms, software, and services with exclusive partnership benefits for Retirepreneur members.
Pick one resource and spend 30 minutes exploring it this week. Your most successful chapter is just beginning.
🛑 Parting Words
The confidence gap between what you know and what you believe others will pay for? That's not a credential problem. That's a translation problem.
You already have the expertise. The next 90 days are simply about testing whether your particular flavor of experience resonates with people willing to invest in their own growth. That's a low-risk experiment worth running.
See you next week,
—Curt
📮 P.S. Know Someone?
If this resonated with you, chances are it will resonate with someone in your network. Forward this newsletter to one person who's been saying "I should coach people" but hasn't taken the first step yet.
