In my last episode I listed off 10
Ways To Be More Strategic In Your Coaching Business as an overview to
my next 10 episodes.
In this episode I’m focusing on the FIRST way
to be strategic in your coaching business. In other words, strategizing this step
is what you do before you do anything else — website, offers, social media
marketing.
What is this #1 way to be more strategic? Choose
a viable coaching niche, of course.
This episode and the other 9 to follow are
all part of my Coaching
Business Checkup series. I will have a free downloadable Coaching Business
Checkup for you at the end of this series, so stay tuned!
One Decision That Rules Them All
MBAs and business experts agree that if you
niche your business in a strategic way from the get go you’ll dramatically
increase your ability to succeed and sustain success.
And that’s truer than ever in this
information age where there are more entrepreneurs and companies flooding the Internet
with marketing messages every day.
You can’t attract clients if you can’t attract attention.
And attracting attention is mostly about
standing out in some way. Standing out in your niche – what you do for whom is
the easiest way to stand out.
If you want your message to get through to
people who could become your clients, then you want to speak to a very specific
group of people about what they care about most.
Strange isn’t it?
The more specific and focused your message is
on a unique target audience and the big acute problem they face, the easier it
is to engage people and build relationships of trust. And then enroll them.
You know, coaching niches are
my super power.
I decided to strategically focus on this big
problem for coaches 17 years ago because all around me I saw that coaches were utterly
confused, frustrated, and in many cases, paralyzed by the niche decision. For
many it’s what had them give up for good on their business.
So for coaches the agonizing question — WHAT
IS MY NICHE? — is the most acute big problem they have. And it’s related to
attracting enough clients who will invest. That’s the other acute problem
coaches face.
And I know that once that niche piece is
settled it opens up ease in all the steps that follow – messaging, offers,
marketing – it all becomes a more graceful and intuitive process once you know
your niche.
It was a smart strategy then for me to focus
in on coaches — my target audience — and on the topic that’s most painful for
them. I could pull in my background knowledge in marketing and my experience
writing coach training curriculum and training new coaches. It’s a good fit.
I wanted to tell you how I came to my niche
to illustrate the strategy behind it. It’s not rocket science but it was a
thoughtful process. And that’s what strategy is.
Many coaches miss this crucial step of
choosing a smart niche. It’s partly because of a misunderstanding of what makes
for a successful coaching niche. And partly, it’s fear.
Can you relate to that?
- Maybe you fear that you don’t
know enough to specialize.
- Or, you might fear narrowing to
one group and excluding others. (Although exclusion isn’t really necessary
because targeting an audience is about ease in marketing not exclusion or
limitation of who you can have as a client.)
- Or you might simply fear making a
decision and committing to it.
All of these are understandable fears.
But here’s the thing that I remind myself of
when I’m fearful. Fear rises up when you’re at an important threshold. It’s how
you respond to fear and still move forward on your dream that builds courage
and confidence. Moving forward decisively is the way out of fear.
What is a Coaching Niche?
A coaching niche is the
intersection between a viable target audience + their biggest problem/desire +
what you bring to the table to help them get there.
Let’s break this down.
- There’s a specific group of
people who are seekers.
(They do invest in their growth.)
- They have a big acute problem
that is in the way of something they really want.
- You can help them solve it and
reach their goals with your toolbox of talents & skills
And so, once you’ve chosen that niche, you
conduct a bit of market research and then create messaging and offers that fit
their top challenges and goals bringing your supportive skills and tools to the
table.
Now, let me illustrate how choosing a niche
can be strategic using examples of niches my recent clients have chosen with my
help.
Here are two that are directly related to
specific subject matter expertise or recent professional background that the
coaches could leverage in their niche:
One coach
helps parents empower their teen daughters to develop confidence, integrity and
resilience. She has a Masters in Clinical Social Work plus experience working
with teens professionally, and 3 teens of her own. Her niche is a great fit.
Another
coach helps executive assistants break through the limitations of their role
and advance to the next level. She has 8 years of experience as an EA and a
string of promotions that rewarded her ingenuity and excellence in her roles.
Her niche is a great fit.
Another
coach with over 20 years experience in nursing and health care is focusing on
helping nurses heal burnout and work differently.
Leveraging your recent experience or expertise
is the most powerful way to niche.
But not all coaches have subject matter
expertise. Instead it may be that your current life circumstances could become
an ideal niche. For example:
One of my
clients stumbled unexpectedly into being a father and a husband. It happens. In
the thick of that he realized it’s a common and difficult experience for young
men. So he’s targeting that group to help them find grounding and maturity in
the upheaval. A heartful niche based on a personal context.
Another
coach decided to work with women re-entering the workforce after a long gap
raising children. She knows first hand the challenges that come with finding
flexible, meaningful work after a big career gap. And as a bonus we realized
her Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology related to employee
recruitment and selection processes was a bonus point of relevance and skill
related to this audience. A super helpful niche!
A client who
recently turned 49 felt called to remake her life from the inside out and
create an intentional journey moving toward 50. So she’s targeting women at 50
to break free and rewrite the rules of their lives. This is a personally
motivated niche.
It’s rare that targeting a specific age makes
for a good niche but after market research it was clear that 50 is a point in time
for women that’s rife with so many physical & emotional challenges and
creative yearnings. And we were able to create a transformational program for
women at 50.
So you can see there are different ways to
approach choosing a niche. The main thing is to think it through strategically.
Remember, don’t just sell coaching to a general audience. Instead, create a program with milestones to help a specific audience overcome specific acute challenges on the way to an ultimate goal.
That’s how you’ll become known quickly and
attract a steady stream of clients who pay well.
Coaching Niches That Lack Strategy
Topical niches can be powerful if they are
closely linked to a tangible outcome that a specific group has. For example,
I’ve known coaches who focus on helping business owners create systems or
coaches who focus expertise in something like the Enneagram to help corporate
leaders master leadership in a personalized way.
But some topics bomb as a coaching niche:
- Stress
- Limiting Beliefs
- Overwhelm
I’m guessing those topical niches bombed
primarily because these challenges are usually chronic problems. They are
challenges that people are used to living with and so they aren’t inspiring
people to actively seek and invest in solutions.
All coaches can help any existing clients
with things like stress, limiting beliefs and overwhelm. But in marketing
messages and on websites these topics tend not to inspire enrollment except for
a short engagement at a low price.
It’s missing a specific target audience and
their ultimate outcome as an anchor point. But even if you did attach one of
these chronic problems to a target audience and their goal, it may not feel acute
enough to the audience to inspire investment.
Similarly, big overarching goals or life
skills can bomb for the same reasons above:
- Self Care
- Work/Life Balance
- Law of Attraction
If you search for topics like these on the
Internet you’ll find millions of articles on them. Great support for free but
not likely to result in paid engagements with long-term clients. And if clients
are short term for low fees, it means you have to work with a lot more people.
And that means more marketing and enrolling moments for less income and profit.
Strategizing a smart niche for a viable
audience isn’t a needle in a haystack kind of equation. It’s more like the
beginning of a jigsaw puzzle where you try to find the opening move that
quickly builds momentum.
If you’re stuck and struggling with your
coaching niche, let me help you over this wall.
Let’s have a Strategy Session. It will focus
you in and give you direction for everything else you create in your coaching
business. It will help you stand out the crowd and build your brand &
reputation.
I’ll send you some exercises to start then we’ll spend 90 minutes brainstorming on the call. I’d love to work with you. Sign up!
In the Next Episode: Are You Solving A Big Enough Problem In Your Coaching Niche?