Funny place to talk about your professional future. On the banks of the Seine, a thirty-year-old undergoing career change treats himself to a coaching session while walking. Lancelot Royer Borromée, specialist in wine and spirits, needs support to find his way. He paid 45 euros for 45 minutes to speak with Éric Coisne, investor and business creator. What is its added value compared to a psychologist or a job counselor? “It’s just that it’s perhaps less formal, but the added value is just as interesting. It’s not better or worse, it’s just perhaps a slightly different approach,” says Lancelot Royer Borromée.
At least 15,000 active coaches in France
No need for a diploma to be a coach, explains Éric Coisne, the founder of The Walking Coach. “You don't need a diploma for that, you need a lot of listening. It's very important to have real empathy. You don't have to immediately find solutions because the solutions are generally the person who has them,” he says. With his method, the manager has already supported 300 people.
Like him, more and more of them are offering their coaching services on social networks. Business, seduction or even personal development, there are at least 15,000 active coaches in France. Some with questionable methods, sometimes singled out by fraud repression. In fact, 80% of the professionals inspected present at least one anomaly and 20% exhibit deceptive commercial practices.
Scams and pressure
A coach promises her students to make a fortune thanks to her training. Which, according to her, would justify its high prices: 8,000 euros per support. “As I make my clients earn millions, obviously that has a certain price behind it,” she says. A business manager, who prefers to remain anonymous, participated in the training and denounces a scam. "The training really exists. But the level, it's not that it's not worth 10,000 euros, it's that it's not even worth 1,000 euros. No one has the skills to help me, to give me something. I don't even see how my personal coach, who is a hypnotherapist, could help me develop two businesses," she denounces.
She describes aggressive sales methods to push her to pay. With no savings, she had to borrow from her parents. “She managed to make me give in. These are people who have all the mechanisms to make you say yes when we said no just before,” she continues. The customer was unable to get a refund. Her coach assures that she participated in a free and informed manner.
A coach sentenced to two years in prison
Aggressive business methods, and even psychological control. Soraya Kolli says she suffered it for five years. In the middle of a divorce, she decides to use the services of a coach she admires to try to get better. “She’s someone who has a lot of charisma, who is sure of herself, who speaks with conviction. We didn’t have the weapons to stand up to her,” she describes. The mother spends 1,500 euros to follow his lessons.
But very quickly, according to her, the coach interfered in her personal life, isolated and denigrated her. “She completely discredited me by telling me that I had the characteristics of a pervert. Gradually, I felt that I had more and more distress, a lot of sadness,” she says, evoking “the influence and” the operations used among gurus, in sects.
Like her, around thirty former clients have filed complaints for abuse of people in a state of psychological suggestion. The coach refutes all these allegations. She was sentenced at first instance to a two-year suspended prison sentence and a one-year electronic bracelet.
