Having a niche makes marketing much more simple. It really does but I know that many (most?) coaches don’t believe that.
The difficulties that coaches have with niching are one of two things.
- They think that having a niche will limit the number or type of clients that they work with or
- The think they are their niche
Neither of these two things are true.
You Are Not Your Niche
Whether you’re a mindset coach, a transformational coach, a personal development coach – whatever kind of coach you are, you are not your niche. Mindset, transformational, personal development – those are either a course description, or a job title and neither of those things is a niche. (As an aside, aren’t we all mindset, transformational and personal development coaches? Isn’t that what coaching is? ?)
A niche is not about what you deliver, it’s about whom you deliver it to.
I know that for many of us, we can honestly say that we could coach anyone. Our training means that when someone is sitting in front of us as a client, we can coach them and so we get muddled up in our understanding of what a niche is for. After all, if we can coach anyone, why do we need a niche?
The reason you need a niche is to make sure that there actually is someone sitting there to be coached. Niching is about marketing, not about coaching.
A Niche Is An Audience
Choosing a niche is the same as choosing an audience. The kind of people who want to see a performance of Shakespeare at the Globe, are not the same audience as those who want to see the latest gory horror film at the cinema. Yes, there could be some overlap, but it’s probably not much.
A niche is a group of people. A small, finely-tuned demographic group of people who share a common problem, one which coaching can help to resolve.
There is no truth to the idea that ‘all the good niches are gone’. The fact is that there are as many niches as there are coaches, because your niche comes from you – you choose it.
A Niche Is Valuable
Having a niche that contains people whose problems you understand, means that you can speak to them directly. It means that when they read something you write, or they hear something that you say, they’ll think ‘gosh, they’re talking about me!’.
Having a niche means that you know what to say when you talk about how you can help people. It means that you can move beyond ‘helping people to reach goals and overcome limiting beliefs’ to being very specific about the things that your potential clients can overcome. As no one cares about either goals or limiting beliefs, but they care very much indeed about their own 3am worries, this clarity will make an enormous difference to your ability to attract coaching clients.
The Coaching Revolution teaches coaches how to market their coaching businesses comfortably and effectively.
Comfortable, effective marketing starts with having a well-chosen niche.
May I offer some help? On 23 November, and again on 26 November, I’m running a workshop that is going to look at marketing a coaching business. We’ll cover how to choose a niche, as well as the benefits of doing so.
Better yet, there are 3 CCEUs available for attending the workshop.
Best of all, it will be fun. See you there?
(Click here to find out more and to register)
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