Discover a Debt Coach in Your Residential Area
If you’re looking for help managing your debt, a debt coach can be found in your area of residence through the National Financial Educators Council. The NFEC has a team of financial coaches who are carefully trained to assist clients in meeting their debt and other personal finance goals. The coaches conform to a strict set of debt counseling standards and are zealous about helping people achieve higher levels of financial health.
The major charge of a Certified Personal Financial Wellness Consultant – the NFEC’s group of coaches – is to give guidance and resources to individuals who want to increase their financial acumen. They place highest priority on your achievements and move you toward your goals by offering custom training, support, and education. Using analytic methods, they will outline your situation, needs, and goals; collaborate with you to set objectives and priorities; and hold you accountable as you progress down your individualized path to financial wellness.
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How a Debt Settlement Coach Gets Qualified
You will have no trouble finding a run-of-the-mill debt settlement coach. But the coaches certified by the NFEC are different: they have verified track records showing their experience, education, and ethical judgment, which helps keep you secure. Earning the NFEC Financial Coach credential means the coach is a fiduciary – that is, he or she has first responsibility to you. NFEC Financial Coaches have completed rigorous training, gone through a stringent background check, and surpassed an 80% score on a tough exam. These coaches also have shown their implementation and performance skills by practicing the coaching process under the observation of a supervisor and documenting the effects.
To generate their qualification criteria for NFEC Financial Coaches, the NFEC called upon four guiding disciplines: consumer and financial protection; psychology and counseling; principles of good coaching; and educational theory. These disciplines were selected because the debt coach must work with individuals on their personal finances, and money is a sensitive topic for many people. What’s required of a NFEC Financial Coach is to ascertain clients’ personal finance goals and needs, help them establish clear milestones, and then guide and educate the clients while keeping them accountable to their own objectives.
Defining Which Life Stage a Debt Coach Serves
The services offered by a debt coach are somewhat limited in scope. Debt coaches can provide some review of your personal finance situation, but what they can offer is restricted primarily to those areas related to credit and debt management.
Alternatively, a Certified Personal Financial Wellness Consultant from the NFEC’s list is meticulously trained and has the right to use the best available resources to support clients across a diverse assortment of personal finance needs. Thus a NFEC Financial Coach is suited to work with people at a variety of life stages – helping them handle current issues while moving toward more promising futures. They are qualified to reassess clients’ situations as circumstances evolve and help them update their plans in accordance.
Average Debt Settlement Coach Service Offerings
The average debt settlement coach will primarily be available to talk with you. NFEC Financial Coach services are noticeably more comprehensive, addressing all areas of your personal finance position. To confirm this assertion, we collected information by searching Google using the search term ‘financial coaching,’ which yielded 137 webpages in the first 50 pages of results; 26 of those had price and package data found on the page with no difficulty.
We discovered that an average debt coach offered coach-to-client contact (by phone or sometimes email) as the top service. After that came education provision (lessons, training, or handouts). An infrequent number of the 26 sites would prepare an individual financial plan based on their status. Only 2 of those had any kind of re-reporting or updated planning to offer when a client’s status changed.
Step 1 – Clarification and Planning
The services of a NFEC Financial Coach are conducted across four steps, further helping them stand out above the average debt coach. The first step involves a thorough review of your financial situation to evaluate your desired standard of living and goals for the future. Your coach will conduct an examination of all your financial factors including income, assets, liabilities, credit standing, insurance policies, etc.
Clarification of your personal finance status and exploration of your full profile will inform the Personal Finance Plan Report your NFEC Financial Coach gives you – a painstaking written document that lays out your priorities, objectives, and achievable action steps to get you there. From there, the coach will support and guide you toward your benchmarks.
Step 2 – Education and Gentle Direction
Your financial decisions are essentially your own to make. The role of the NFEC Financial Coach is simply to educate you and give you gentle guidance toward becoming more self-sufficient at money management. Through consistent meetings and resource provision, NFEC Financial Coaches stand above the average debt coach by tailoring the coaching toward meeting your specific, individualized needs and objectives. Such resources might include information about debt collectors and how to handle them.
Another important task at this step is for the coach to gather ongoing data to assess your evolving financial status and give you progress reports in writing. These reports enable you to monitor how you’re progressing and applaud yourself for reaching goals. The NFEC Financial Coach uses them to provide research-based suggestions for updating your financial plan and priorities.
Step 3 – Encouragement and Substantiation
The third step in a NFEC Financial Coach four-phase service provision – as opposed to a debt coach – is where you are working your plan and have a solid financial base from which to proceed. At this point, you no longer need constant meetings and direction from the coach. He or she can convert into an encouragement and backup position, letting you take the reins while still supporting you when you need a little nudge.
The NFEC Financial Coach also will encourage your forward motion by providing supplemental education when you ask for it, and keep you apprised of changes to the financial milieu that might have an impact on your situation. You can choose for your coach to give you prompts about key dates and deadlines, and s/he will stay on hand to aid with financial decisions related to life stage transitions.
Step 4 – Vocational Expert Assistance as Needed
At Step 4 in the process, a NFEC Financial Coach stands out further from a typical debt coach by providing you with connections to an elite team of financial experts in various niche spheres. While your NFEC Financial Coach is qualified to help you establish a firm foundation, you might need extra support to plan for certain events like homeownership, having a baby, or retirement. Your coach has exclusive access to this expert team with specialized knowledge that meets your requirements.
Rest easy knowing that each member of this elite team is 100% independent – they won’t try to sell you anything – and assumes complete responsibility to the client, i.e. you.
