Life coaches -- getting leads from someone on behalf of others who has not agreed to coaching?

Meridith_Alexander1

Life coaches -- Curious whether you are getting a regular influx of leads from 3rd parties on behalf of someone who has not agreed to coaching? I have recently discontinued offering my services to those below the age of 24 because I was getting so many parents reaching out to me before checking with their kids to see if they are open to coaching. I'm still getting others reaching out on behalf of sisters, husbands, etc and I'm still finding that most of those individuals are not on board. These people tend to opt for coaching "per coach's recommendation" which means that I get hit with a very expensive charge of $97 on each of these occasions.

In the interest of continuing to improve the TT experience, I'm wondering if there is enough of this to have TT consider offering an additional question of "is this coaching for someone else"? If that's the case, I would love to see more of a price break. A few of these DO come through but the majority end up with the potential client ghosting me and never even wanting to have a discovery.

The cost of leads has jumped so significantly that I no longer recommend TT to my clients who are new coaches especially now since so many more leads reach out and then decide that they can't afford this. Unless they are really good at converting the discovery calls, they can get hit with a huge expense and get very frustrated. When the cost for leads was in the high 60's., I felt that it was reasonable. Now when the majority of leads seem to end up costing almost $100 combined with more leads appearing to not have noticed the cost prior to reaching out, the return on TT has definitely gone down. I still am committed to TT but would love for the charges to be modified for some of these things like leads who haven't consulted with the person who would be coached. Many leads still ghost us when we reply and SMS us so we're already having to factor that in to our assessment of the ROI for being here.

Curious to hear others' experiences? @DustiO

DustiO

@Meridith_Alexander1 Have you requested refunds for requests made by a third party?

I think this is, unfortunately, something that happens sometimes when potential clients don't quite think it through before they submit a request. But, I would submit refund requests for those!

Sean_Hayes

I agree. When I started Thumbtack in 2019 as a Life Coach the leads were $30-60 per lead. This added up but was affordable. Leads now over $100 are insane so I can have the privilege to compete against 4-5 other coaches. I’ve had to stop using the “Life Coaching” side of the platform. I will no longer recommend Thumbtack to my clients and peers.

Theresa

@Meridith_Alexander1 as a health coach I also get 3rd party requests. I've had mothers fill out the questions as if it's for them only to learn it's for their daughters. I don't work with teens and I've ended up not getting a refund.

Eryn

I have gotten these too…someone hiring on behalf of someone else but that person didn’t know…& then not hired because the person never agreed…I have never received a refund for these people…😞

Meridith_Alexander1

Sad to see that TT has gone from a platform that I recommended highly to one that I'm actively removing from my lead gen strategy as of 2024. As we've all been noting, when I started working with TT, leads were $35-65 per lead. Now, to have to commit to leads costing as much as $165 in order to be "competitive" just doesn't work with the numbers. When you take into consideration that I'm now seeing many more leads who "ghost" after inquiring (even when I respond both on the TT platform and via text within 5-15 minutes), it becomes a losing scenario. It is disappointing to say the least that TT just seems to have made these changes arbitrarily while trying to package it like they're doing a favor for the Pros. I don't know whether they simply are out of touch with what a $165 means that a coach would have to charge based on the number of leads that convert to actually calls that (even with a high conversion rate) converts to a paying client -- or whether they just don't care. Either way, it's sad to see TT price their platform in a way that makes it seem as if they want the coaches off of it. I have been so loyal to it, but I just can't sustain the loyalty any longer. The numbers make zero sense.

Sean_Hayes

interesting how TT doesn’t respond.