Rachel Roberts works with freelance language teaching professionals to fully monetise their skills and experience so they can transform their lives and those of their clients, through her deep dive programme, Designed to Flourish https://earnlearnthriveinelt.com/designed-to-flourish-group-programme/           

 

Note

The text originally appeared on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trust-gap-coaching-rachael-roberts-1j0re/

 

The question

How many times has a client, or potential client, told you that they’ve been circling around whether to work with you for a while? Imagine how many more people are probably out there that you don’t know about? What is it that causes that hesitation? Of course it could be a variety of things, including timing or cash flow, but very often, even maybe most often perhaps, it’s because it’s just not clear enough yet how it will help them with what they want or need. And when your offer is a more ‘open ended’ coaching type offer, this can be compounded.

 

Where the hesitation comes from

 For coaches whose work is relational, and responsive to the individual, this hesitation can feel confusing. After all, the very thing that makes the work so impactful - that it’s tailored, emergent, and shaped by the person in front of you - is often what you lead with.

And yet, for many clients, especially those who are new to coaching, “tailor-made” can raise a question in their minds:

If you don’t yet know what I need, how do I know this will help me?

 

Why coaching can feel unclear

Many of the coaches I work with are trained in approaches that place ethics, responsiveness, and the whole person at the centre of the work. In traditions such as Neurolanguage Coaching, developed by Rachel Paling, the quality of the relationship, the learner’s internal state, and the conditions for sustainable change are foundational. Outcomes aren’t imposed; they emerge through careful, attuned work.

That commitment to integrity is very important, and quite rightly so. But it does create a very real communication challenge. Potential clients are rarely choosing between methodologies. They’re trying to decide whether this support will meet them in their situation.

And when everything is described as responsive, bespoke, and emergent, clients can struggle to locate themselves in the work - even when it’s exactly what would support them.

This is where a coaching approach can unintentionally feel vague. And when it feels vague, people don’t move forward. Not because they don’t value the work, but because they can’t quite see how it connects to their situation.

 

The role of uncertainty

There’s another layer here. Ethical coaches are often careful not to claim too much. They resist certainty and avoid big promises. They know that real change doesn’t work like that.

But from the client’s side, too much uncertainty can feel unsettling rather than reassuring. Saying “we’ll see what you need once we start” may be true. It may be ethical. And it may still leave a client wondering whether you already understand the kinds of challenges they’re facing.

Trust doesn’t require guarantees. I’m certainly not saying we need to make wild promises about becoming fluent in three months. But it does require a sense of being understood.

 

The shift that makes the difference

The work I do with coaches at this point isn’t about forcing structure onto the work. It’s about helping them articulate what tends to change, without claiming certainty about how it will change for any one person.

Rather than leading with theory alone, this means connecting your approach more explicitly to:

• the situations people tend to come to you in
• the tensions or blocks they describe early on
• the directions in which things often begin to shift

The work itself remains open-ended and responsive. What changes is the grounding of the conversation. Clients don’t need a scripted outcome, but they do need reassurance that you understand the territory.

 

An example from practice

Lisa, a language coach I worked with, illustrates this well. Her work was grounded in Neurolanguage Coaching, and that clarity mattered to her.

But potential clients sometimes struggled to connect that label to their own immediate concerns - feeling tense when speaking, losing confidence under pressure, or wanting to express themselves more freely without overthinking. Even though these are exactly the concerns this coaching approach aims to address.

The shift wasn’t about changing her approach. It was about making that connection more visible, so clients could see more clearly how her work related to their experience.

And once they could see that, it became much easier to trust the process without needing guarantees. That shift didn’t just change how her work was described. It changed how easily people said yes to it.

 

What actually builds trust

The coaches I work with don’t promise identical outcomes. They don’t predict exactly what transformation will take place.

What they do learn to articulate are:

• patterns they’ve seen repeatedly
• abilities and capacities that often strengthen
• pressures that tend to ease

They speak in terms of likelihood and direction, not guarantees. And that clarity makes it much easier for the right people to move forward. It’s not a marketing technique, though it certainly helps with marketing- it’s just another level of empathy and care.

If you’re recognising yourself in this, it’s not a sign that something is missing from your work with clients, but rather a sign that your work hasn’t yet been translated in a way that allows the right people to recognise themselves in it.

This is a big part of the work we do inside Designed to Flourish. Helping you articulate your work in a way that builds trust before someone has experienced it.

We’re starting the new cohort soon, and I have a small number of places available. If you’d like to explore whether it’s the right next step for you, you can:

 

Follow up reading

https://earnlearnthriveinelt.com/designed-to-flourish-group-programme/

 

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