The Complete Coach
The Complete coach
The Complete Coach: From Certification to Client Success: Your Guide to Building a Thriving Coaching Practice is the definitive handbook for anyone serious about building a professional coaching career.
Written by Ton de Graaf, Executive Coach and Chartered Business Coach™, this comprehensive guide takes you from the fundamentals of coaching through to running a thriving practice — covering certifications, key competencies, fee structures calibrated to global markets, selling strategies, and a forward-looking deep dive into how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the profession. Whether you're just starting out or ready to scale, this is the complete resource you need.
Are you ready to turn your passion for coaching into a sustainable, rewarding business?
The Complete Coach is more than a training manual — it's a career-defining companion written by Ton de Graaf, a globally recognised Executive Coach and one of the first coaches in the world to earn the prestigious Chartered Business Coach™ (ChBC™) designation.
Coaching is one of the fastest-growing industries on the planet. Every day, new coaches enter a market full of opportunity — but also full of coaches who are great at coaching yet struggle to build a business. This book closes that gap entirely.
From the history and philosophy of coaching to the hard realities of running a practice, The Complete Coach gives you everything you need to know, in one place:
Master the craft. Understand what coaching really is (and what it isn't), learn the ICF and WABC core competencies, develop the key skills that set great coaches apart, and explore proven models and frameworks used by the world's leading practitioners.
Know your worth — wherever you are in the world. One of the standout chapters of this book is the Professional Coaching Fees Guide — a detailed, data-driven breakdown of what life coaches, business coaches, and executive coaches charge at every level of experience. Crucially, the guide maps these rates against geographical realities: from major US cities and the financial centres of Europe to the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Whether you're coaching C-suite executives in New York, SME owners in Amsterdam, or emerging leaders in Singapore, you'll know exactly how to position and price your services with confidence — never undercharging, never pricing yourself out of the market.
Build a business, not just a practice.
Discover your niche, design your income streams, craft your marketing approach, handle objections, and close clients — all through a buyer-centric lens that feels authentic rather than salesy. Learn from real-world frameworks that work whether you're coaching face-to-face or fully virtual.
Navigate the AI revolution with intelligence and integrity. The book's final chapter — Artificial Intelligence and Professional Coaching — is essential reading for every coach operating today. This isn't hype or speculation. It's a clear-eyed, philosophically grounded exploration of how AI is reshaping coaching across five critical dimensions: Safety (data sovereignty, informed consent, and algorithmic bias); Time and Service (how AI frees coaches to serve more clients, more deeply); Leadership and Decision Making (helping leaders develop "algorithmic discernment" in AI-saturated organisations); Health and Wellbeing (the paradox of a technology that promises ease while driving burnout); and The Higher Purpose of Humanity (why, in a world of intelligent machines, the irreducibly human work of coaching matters more than ever).
This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.
Whether you're exploring coaching as a career, completing your certification, or looking to professionalise and scale an existing practice, The Complete Coach delivers the knowledge, the tools, and the strategic clarity to succeed — now and in the AI-transformed future ahead.
The world needs great coaches. This book will help you become one.
