Should I Register Trademark Or Tradename Life Coach Business

Final updated: 28 Dec 2021

Legal Guide for Life Coaches, Business organization Coaches and Mentors – This footstep-by-stride guide outlines everything yous need to know, from an Australian legal standpoint, about being a Life Coach, Business Coach or Mentor and running a coaching business. Nosotros cover:

Coaching licenses, certificates and accreditation
Agreements you should become your coaching clients to sign
Legal notices you should post on your website, and
Setting up your coaching services business organisation

The life coaching marketplace in Australian is booming. Awareness of the benefits of using a Life Passenger vehicle or Mentor is becoming more widespread. And organisations that offering Life Coaching preparation and accreditation seem to exist popping upwards everywhere.

But beingness a Life Bus or Mentor is not without its legal risks. And so protect yourself from lawsuits and follow these straightforward suggestions.

Legal issues covered in this guide

Click on any of the questions below to spring to that section of this legal guide.

Licenses, Certificates and Accreditation
- Do Business Coaches or Life Coaches need a license or certification?
- Who regulates or accredits Business concern Coaches and Life Coaches?
Selling Your Coaching Services
- How tin I exist sure my client'due south expectations lucifer my Coaching service?
- Am I liable for the Coaching advice I give?
- In the outcome I am sued, how can I limit my liability?
- How can I protect my IP and coaching materials from beingness copied?
Coaching Services Agreements
- What legal agreements or notices should I use in my Coaching business?
- Should I use a Coaching Services Agreement with my clients?
- What clauses should my Coaching Services Agreement include?
Website Legals
- Should my website include my coaching services Terms and Conditions?
- What Terms and Weather condition should my website include?
- Should my website visitors "actively" agree to my Terms and Conditions?
- What Privacy Policy should I have if I collect personal information?
Structuring Your Coaching Business organisation
- What concern structure should I apply to sell my Coaching services?
- Do Business Coaches or Life Coaches demand insurance?
- Should I trademark my Coaching business name?
- Should I register my Coaching business concern for GST?

If after reading this guide yous still have a question, get in touch equally we'd honey to proceed adding your questions to this comprehensive guide.

Licenses, Certificates and Accreditation

Do Business organization Coaches or Life Coaches need a license or certification?

No. In Commonwealth of australia life coaching is more often than not unregulated and anyone can phone call themselves a Life Double-decker, Personal Coach, Business organisation Coach, Professional Autobus, Mentor, Holistic Health Coach, etc.

However, in order to differentiate themselves, the more professional person coaches accept taken courses and graduated from coaching programs that are accredited. Then to maintain these credentials and go along upwardly-to-date, these coaching programs dictate that their coaching graduates must too undertake continuing teaching courses that they run.

Who regulates or accredits Concern Coaches and Life Coaches?

At that place are two major international organisations that offer accreditation of coaching programs:

International Coach Federation (ICF – Australasia) with 27,000 members worldwide and 1,200 members in Australia
International Association of Coaching (IAC) with 13,000 members worldwide

ICF accredited coaching programs are offered by a number of organisations in Australia, including:

Life Coaching Institute
The Life Coaching Academy
Australian Institute of Professional Coaches
Constitute of Executive Coaching & Leadership

Graduates of these ICF accredited programs are awarded ICF coaching credentials and can become members of the ICF organisation.

Selling Your Coaching Services

How can I be certain my client'south expectations match my Coaching service?

image of legal guide to life coaching in Australia

Misunderstandings between you and your clients can easily arise, peculiarly regarding exactly what you are delivering or your client's expectations of results. The best way to avoid mismatched expectations is through full and frank discussions with your customer. Then follow up these discussions with an email clarifying whatever key points.

Think, a newspaper trail might exist helpful down the road if your engagement does not go as planned!

Am I liable for the Coaching advice I requite?

Yes. As a Passenger vehicle or Mentor yous are vulnerable to claims where clients may rely on your information or "advice". Clients may merits that they relied on your advice and suffered financial loss, emotional distress, adverse health effects, made detrimental decisions based on your "advice", etc. and claim you are responsible.

You demand to ensure that you are non considered to be providing "advice", unless it is intended to be relied upon. This is particularly important if you are offer any grouping sessions.

In the event I am sued, how can I limit my liability?

You lot need to have a signed Coaching Services Agreement with your client that includes a 'Limitation of Liability' clause. In the unfortunate issue a claim is made against you lot, a well-written clause should limit your financial downside. This is particularly important where you are a Sole Trader. To limit your liability further, you should consider setting upwardly and running your services nether a 'Pty Ltd' company.

In addition, your website should have a Website Disclaimer. You cannot command how some website visitors may read and rely on your written content – and a Website Disclaimer will limit your liability in such circumstances.

How can I protect my IP and coaching materials from existence copied?

If you've spent fourth dimension developing your coaching materials and intellectual belongings, you need to protect them from being copied, shared, used or sold by your clients, or other coaches, without your permission.

Make sure that your Coaching Services Agreement has suitable intellectual belongings protection clauses – so your client is aware that your coaching materials belong to you and should non exist shared, published or used in a manner you have not authorised. In addition, active monitoring of the Net tin take hold of any plagiarism or unauthorised use of your materials. But you'll demand to exist vigilant and follow up with Copyright Infringement Notices and Google take-down notices, etc. – all of which takes time.

Coaching Services Agreements

What legal agreements or notices should I apply in my Coaching business?

Here are the legal agreements and notices that we recommend you apply in your Coaching business organization:

Coaching Services Agreement: This clarifies the details of the coaching services you are providing, including payment terms, cancellation policy, intellectual property protection, limitation of liability, disclaimer for reliance on communication, etc.
Website Disclaimer: Protects you lot from claims past website visitors for relying on information on your site and incurring losses. Additionally, y'all must include a copyright discover to protect your Intellectual Property.
Privacy Policy: If you collect any personal data, such as electronic mail addresses, physical addresses, telephone numbers and credit card numbers, your website needs a Privacy Policy statement.
Terms & Atmospheric condition: To clarify service expectations with potential clients, evidence you comply with the latest Australian Consumer Law, protect y'all from frivolous lawsuits and evidence you're a Professional person organisation.

None of these legal forms are complicated – and using them volition show y'all're a professional operator. Plus, as we said at the beginning of this guide, doing things correct will aid avoid legal problems and protect you and your business from lawsuits.

Should I use a Coaching Services Understanding with my clients?

Yes. You need to have a signed Coaching Services Agreement with each of your clients – this is the almost important document you should utilise as a Coach or Mentor.

You demand to make sure that your client has acknowledged and agreed to your terms. This is for your legal protection. They tin admit your terms with whatever of these methods:

Signing your Agreement using an eSignature service
Signing, then scanning/photographing your Understanding and returning by email
Acknowledging your Agreement past email, or
Acknowledging your terms by ticking a box during your online purchase procedure

Each of these methods offers a different level of protection. But if y'all have no proof of a contractual agreement, your terms may be invalid and not able to exist relied upon to protect you lot.

What clauses should my Coaching Services Agreement include?

Your Coaching Services Understanding should include, at minimum, clauses that cover:

Detailed description of the coaching services you are providing
Payment schedule and term or length of your engagement
Intellectual property protection for your own materials
Confidentiality and privacy of personal data
Termination, cancellation and refunds
Dispute resolution
Indemnity with Limitation of Liability, and
Governing law

Your Coaching Services Agreement should exist tailored to each specific client, detailing the services you lot are providing to them. A well written Agreement will not only provide yous with legal protection, it volition also help manage your client'south expectations.

Website Legals

Should my website include my coaching services Terms and Conditions?

Commonly your website is for your general company and eastward-commerce Terms and Weather. Your specific Coaching Terms are unremarkably provided to clients only. You tin can still publish them on your website, just hide the link and only provide it to clients when they engage your services. You should also take an Understanding available that yous tailor to your specific services and provide to your clients.

Yous need to make sure that your Terms are easily found and not hidden from website visitors or potential clients. The norm on the Internet is for your website legal notices (Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Terms & Weather) to exist linked to from the footer of your website – and available from every folio on your website.

What Terms and Weather condition should my website include?

The Terms and Conditions y'all publish on your website should include clauses that cover:

Your compliance with the Australian Contest and Consumer Act
How your handle returns and refunds
Intellectual holding protection and Copyright
Indemnity with Limitation of Liability, and
Governing law

Once more, make certain that your Terms and Conditions are hands found past linking to them in the footer of every folio on your website.

Should my website visitors "actively" agree to my Terms and Weather condition?

To get extra protection, you can have users of your materials "actively" agree to your Terms. For case, if you have gratis (or paid) eBooks or courses available on your website, go users to tick a checkbox agreeing to your Terms before download or checkout.

In general, at that place are 3 options for checkbox placement:

A checkbox with link saying "I hold" or "I have read" the Terms & Conditions side by side to your "Download" or "Add together to Cart" link
A popup window or page during the download or checkout process where a user can read and agree to your Terms
Terms & Conditions that need to be agreed upon before entering your website

What Privacy Policy should I have if I collect personal information?

It's likely you will collect personal or confidential information almost your prospects and clients. This ways you will take to comply with Australian Privacy law and publish your Privacy Policy on your website.

Your Privacy Policy detect should include:

What personal information you collect and store
How the personal data is collected and stored
Why you lot collect and how you use this personal information
When is the personal data updated or destroyed
When you lot might have to disclose this personal data
If the personal information is shared with overseas recipients
If the information is shared overseas, in which countries are the recipients
Your business organisation contact details

And remember, you demand to abide by your Privacy Policy. For example, if yous say you purge your customer database every yr of non-current customer data – then that is what you should do.

Structuring Your Coaching Business concern

What business construction should I use to sell my Coaching services?

In Commonwealth of australia, at that place are generally 4 options for structuring your business:

Sole trader
Pty Ltd Company
Partnership, and
Trust

The best business structure for you will depend on your personal circumstances – and getting this decision right is very important. So talk to your accountant well-nigh the pros and cons of each choice. Here's a quick summary of each pick.

Beingness a Sole Trader is the simplest and least expensive choice. Designed for business owners who are the sole proprietors of their companies, this structure doesn't give you much protection if things go wrong. Your personal assets are unprotected from any claims arising from your business.

Incorporation (i.e. forming a Proprietary Express Visitor) effectively makes your business a split up legal entity from you. This structure involves quite a bit of paperwork and can exist more expensive to maintain but it offers your personal assets protection from liability. Only your visitor assets are at risk in the consequence of any legal actions and company debts.

Creating a Partnership allows yous to go into business organization with multiple people and share income. Partnerships are easier and less expensive than Companies to gear up. However, all partners together are personally responsible for business debts and actions against the Partnership. And each partner is individually liable for debts incurred by the other partners. This means you have unlimited liability, unlike a Company structure.

A Trust isn't an organisation at all, but instead a legal structure to hold assets. For example, you might ready upwards a Trust to concur your business assets, and so engage a Trustee to manage them. Usually, the Trustee is a Company and the Trust provides asset protection and limits liability from operating the business. Trusts are very flexible for tax purposes. However, a Trust is a circuitous legal structure and establishing a Trust costs significantly more than than a Sole Trader or Partnership.

For more detailed data on each of these business organization structures, see our feature article: How to Cull the Right Business organization Structure in Australia.

Do Concern Coaches or Life Coaches need insurance?

An choice for protecting your business and personal assets is to buy professional person indemnity/liability insurance. All the same, it's difficult to observe specialist insurance policies that properly comprehend Coaches and Mentors in Commonwealth of australia, or Australian policies that cover overseas clients. Insurance policies can also be expensive and very difficult to make a successful claim from.

If yous practice choose to buy insurance, make sure you read the policy advisedly and ask your insurance broker to answer specific queries near your coverage in writing. It'south a practiced idea to listing your business services, whatsoever risks you are concerned about and ask your broker to confirm that your policy volition comprehend yous for these eventualities.

Your best protection will come from:

Using a well-drafted Coaching Service Agreement with each of your clients
Having robust Terms & Conditions on your website, and
Operating under a 'Pty Ltd' company structure

A 'Pty Ltd' visitor limits your personal liability and any claims to the assets of the company. It may as well exist less expensive than maintaining professional indemnity/liability insurance.

Should I trademark my Coaching business name?

Just because you lot set upward a 'Pty Ltd' company or registered your business name with ASIC, this does non mean you 'own' your make name. Any business organisation could start using your brand name!

This concept is 1 of the most misunderstood aspects of starting or running a business. And concern owners ofttimes contact us because someone is using their brand name. The only way to protect your brand proper name and restrict its use, is to register it as a trademark with IP Commonwealth of australia.

Should I register my Coaching business for GST?

If your Coaching business organization has annual revenues of over $75,000 and so you must annals for GST. If y'all have annual revenues of less than $75,000 and then talk to your accountant about your options.

We promise you found this legal guide for Life Coaches, Business concern Coaches and Mentors helpful.

Vanessa Emilio (BA Hons, LLB, ACIS, AGIA) is the Founder and CEO of Legal123.com.au and Practice Director of Legal123 Pty Ltd. Vanessa is a qualified Australian lawyer with more xx years experience in corporate, banking and trust police force. Follow this link to read the full bio of Vanessa Emilio.