7 Crucial Protections Every Coach Needs in a Coaching Agreement Template
Are you a life, business, health, fitness, relationship, accountability, or other type of coach? Your coaching agreement template must have these crucial protections no matter what your niche may be.
The coaching profession gives you a lot of freedom, but if you're anything like me, you want to ensure that your freedom and also your money are protected. As a lawyer myself who creates coaching templates for all types of coaches like you, I am giving you all the key protections you need in your coaching agreement template.
You will learn about the critical protections you must have in your coaching agreement template, regardless of whether you have a life coaching agreement template, a business coaching agreement template or a simple ICF coaching agreement template.
After learning all about the important protections you must include in your coaching agreement template, your time, energy, and money will be fully protected, and you can keep running your coaching business with complete freedom!
This post is all about the key protections every coach must have in a coaching agreement template to protect their money, time, energy, and freedom.
Fundamental Coaching Agreement Template
Key protections for any simple coaching agreement template
Protection #1: Disclaimers on your profession
You want to ensure your coaching agreement template includes the proper disclaimers for your profession as a coach and for your specific niche.
Depending on the niche you work in, you may provide coaching in a field that other licensed professionals are in. Because of your knowledge in that field and your services being very similar in certain situations to that of a licensed professional, the lines can become a bit blurry for certain clients without that necessarily being your fault.
Therefore, you want to ensure that it is crystal clear to the client that you are coaching the client and are not giving the client any professional advice you are not licensed to give.
Hopefully, this will never happen, but let's say your client made certain decisions with bad outcomes and blames you for it. The client could start court or arbitral proceedings against you, claiming it's your fault because the client made that decision based on professional advice you have given for which you are not licensed.
Assuming you were not giving advice you shouldn't have, if you do not have a comprehensive coaching agreement with clear protections regarding your status, you could get in a lot of trouble.
Therefore, your coaching agreement template should contain clear wording for your specific niche. Here are a couple of examples:
If you are a life coach, your contract should include disclaimers stating that you are not a licensed psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist and that any information or advice you give does not constitute psychological, psychogeriatric, or therapeutic advice, treatment, or support.
If you are a real estate coach, your coaching agreement template should include disclaimers stating that you are not a licensed real estate agent, broker, or professional and that any information or advice you give does not constitute legal, financial, or professional real estate advice, representation, or services.
If you are a career coach, your agreement should include disclaimers stating that you are not a licensed career counsellor, human resources professional, or recruiter and that any information or advice you give does not constitute professional career counselling, job placement, or HR services.
Protection #2: Disclaimers against bad outcomes
Especially in the coaching space, clients tend to put coaches on a pedestal, thinking they are all-knowing in their niche and that those clients will get the same outcomes just by being coached by that same person.
Often, coaches have been very successful in a certain field, and because they found the right way for them to do it, they want to help others achieve the same with their methods and strategies.
But as you know, not everyone will get the exact same outcome with that same method or strategy you used for yourself or other successful clients. It depends on the everchanging circumstances, the client's capabilities, efforts and execution, and external factors that you and the client have no control over.
Thus, you can't guarantee any client any specific results or outcomes they may wish for. Not all clients will be happy with their results and outcomes, and they might turn on you.
Therefore, your coaching agreement template should include disclaimers stating that you are not responsible for
any results and outcomes (good or bad),
the effectiveness of your coaching, or
any decisions made by the client or anyone else based on your coaching.
Protection #3: Indemnities for what your clients do
Not only do you want to make clear to your client that you are not responsible for the decisions they make, but you also don't want to be liable for any damages or costs that come with their decisions.
You have no control over what your clients do or how they interpret your advice. Even when you think your strategy and methods are straightforward and your explanation is clear, you do not know how any of them translate to a certain client. Even if 500 of your clients do A, there will always be that client who does B. And whatever B may be, it may turn out to be costly or even harm someone else.
You do not want to be held liable for any costs or damages that may result from that only because that client did something based on their interpretation of your strategy, method or advice.
Therefore, your coaching agreement should include indemnities, meaning that the client will compensate you for:
actions and/or omissions, whether done negligently or otherwise, by the client,
violation of any laws, regulations, rules, or ordinances by the client,
violation of any provisions of this coaching agreement template by the client, and
infringement by the client of any intellectual property rights or other third-party rights.
Protection #4: Shutting down angry or mean clients
Whether it is warranted or not, any client can become angry with you or have ill intentions. There are many ways in which they can hurt your coaching business and damage your reputation. Therefore, your coaching agreement template should include prohibitions against:
is illegal or violates the rights of anyone,
is offensive, obscene, defamatory, abusive, profane, hateful, misleading,
disparages or discredits you,
etc.
That's just to name a few.
What remedies should your coaching agreement template include if your client violates these rules? Your contract should have the proper provisions included that entitle you to immediately:
terminate the agreement without compensating the client, and
if the violation is not that bad, but you want the client to stop doing whatever the client is doing, then you should have the option to suspend your services, meaning that you will temporarily stop providing your coaching services to the client until the client stops that bad behaviour.
Protection #5: Safeguarding your methods and strategies
You have worked hard to create your methods and strategies. So, the last thing you want is for one of your clients to take everything you taught them and start their own coaching business based on your unique coaching program.
So, to protect yourself from copycats, your coaching agreement template should include unambiguous, comprehensive intellectual property rights provisions. They should explicitly include the following prohibitions:
A prohibition to share or even resell the information and materials you shared with the client with anyone else. Your services are meant for the client who paid you only, not anyone else, without being fairly compensated.
A prohibition to use what the client learned from you to coach or provide similar services to others.
A prohibition against creating derivative works from your coaching program, like an eBook or online course.
Protection #6: Protection against greedy clients (even if you do offer refunds)
I usually do not recommend to my service-based clients to offer refunds to their clients. Why?
A service is something that you give to a client that the client can't just return, like with products.
Clients usually gain at least some value from your service, so why would you pay them back?
Especially in the case of coaching, whether the coaching strategy or method works is usually not the issue. The issue is usually the client's own efforts or lack thereof.
Another major issue with refunds is whether the client meets the requirements to be eligible for a refund.
But even if you do offer refunds, you have to watch out for those clients who are leeches, trying to get the most out of everything and everyone for free. So, they actually did get value out of your coaching services, but they don't really want to pay for it, so they ask for a refund.
To protect yourself from these situations, your coaching agreement template should include the following:
A refund policy stating whether you do or do not offer refunds.
If you do offer refunds, clearly state under which specific circumstances your clients may request a refund.
Another thing you should add if you offer refunds is that you may offer a refund, but you can decide to do so at your sole discretion. This means that if you suspect that your client is just trying to abuse your system, you can simply say 'no'.
Protection #7: Protection against lack of capacity
Another issue you should protect yourself from is the lack of capacity of your client. 'Lack of capacity' means that a person lacks the ability or authority to enter into a contract. That could be because either that person:
is not of the legal age (18),
is not actually authorised to represent the business with which you are contracting (if you are a business coach and are not contracting with an individual),
does not have the mental capacity to enter into a contract, meaning that person has some kind of mental illness or has some sort of cognitive impairment,
is intoxicated (under the influence of alcohol or other drugs).
In these cases, you run the risk of the contract not being binding upon the client and, thus, the client not being obligated to pay you for your services.
Thus, your coaching agreement template needs to include wording that your client warrants and represents to you that the client is 18 years or older and has the legal capacity, power, and authority to enter the agreement.
Want a comprehensive coaching agreement template that goes beyond just any simple coaching agreement template?
Want a coaching agreement template that has all the protections you need? I am selling one in my contract shop!
It includes all the protection you need AND protections you need specifically for your niche.
Want to learn more about what you need in a life coaching agreement template?
Are you a life coach? I have written a blog post specifically on what you need in a life coaching agreement template.
Read this blog post on the 5 Essentials Every Life Coach Must Have in Their Life Coach Terms and Conditions.
Want to learn more about what you need in a business coaching agreement template?
Are you a business coach and want to know what a coaching agreement template should have specifically for business coaches? Read this blog post on the 7 Essentials Every Business Coach Must Have in Their Business Coaching Terms and Conditions.
This post was all about the crucial protections every coach must have in their coaching agreement template to safeguard their energy and money and keep doing business with complete freedom.
Want to learn more about how to protect your boundaries? Read this blog post on the 10 Vital Boundaries Every Online Coach Must Set in a Coaching Contract Template.
Are you considering using online coaching terms and conditions instead of contracts to engage clients? Read this blog post on the 5 Reasons to Use Online Coaching Terms and Conditions Instead of a Contract.
Want to know how to implement your coaching terms and conditions template most efficiently? Read this blog post on the 7 Simple Steps to Implement a Coaching Terms and Conditions Template For Easy Onboarding.
Get your coaching contract template that includes all the boundaries you need (and more) on this page of my contract shop!
