I belong to lots of coaching groups on both Facebook and LinkedIn. In one of these groups, a coach commented that they don’t believe a niche is a choice. They insisted it’s like a plant that grows and evolves, revealing itself when it’s ready.
I love the plant analogy, because it perfectly illustrates why they’re wrong. If you have a plant pot and you place a seedling of your choice into it, you can tend it and watch it grow. If you have an empty pot and crossed fingers, that plant simply won’t appear – ever.
Some coaches have monetiseable credibility. This credibility is often built during a stellar corporate career, and these coaches are in the privileged position of being able to use their existing network to acquire clients and coaching contracts. This works for them, because they are already known, liked and trusted by their network. This kind of coach didn’t need to think about a niche, because they already had one – their existing network.
The Myth That Keeps Us Stuck
There’s a pervasive belief in our profession that your niche will reveal itself over time. That if we coach enough people, work with enough variety, and stay open to possibilities, our perfect niche will emerge naturally from the work.
This is an expensive myth that stops coaches from understanding the fundamental truth, which is that a niche is a choice you make, not a revelation you wait for. Let’s face it, if we had enough people to coach, we wouldn’t be scratching our heads about how to find clients, would we?
Logic Leads Us Astray
The logical and intuitive belief that casting our nets wide HAS to be the right approach feels entirely sensible. Reaching as many people as possible surely means more opportunities for clients to find us.
However, we may not realise that this logical and intuitive belief is incorrect because we lack an understanding of how client acquisition actually works. Marketing without focus isn’t marketing at all – all marketing is focused.
Delivery -v- Marketing
We’re taught never to insert our knowledge and experience into coaching sessions. It makes us better coaches, prevents our assumptions from contaminating the process, and keeps us curious rather than directive.
This principle is so fundamental to good coaching that many coaches don’t realise it categorically does NOT apply to marketing. These are two separate skill sets required to run a coaching business, and confusing them is fatal to business growth.
If we want to find our own clients rather than relying on associate work, we have to be able to explain to potential clients why they might want to part with professional fees to work with us. That requires us to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of their world, and explain to them why they might want coaching.
Resistance Has A Cost
When I tell coaches their niche is a choice they need to make, the resistance can be immediate. I am aware that some people who have become coaches, left their careers due to burnout or worse, and these coaches are often viscerally opposed to working with people from that background. They fail to realise they’re not going back to working in that environment, just utilising their knowledge and experience of the people they know best.
Others struggle when our coaching focus has nothing to do with careers or work, because surely anyone could (for example) experience anxiety and overwhelm? What we fail to realise is that we spend most of our lives at work, and having a solid understanding of how work affects all other areas of life for the people we want to work with is essential for marketing any coaching business, even one focused on non-work issues.
Some coaches don’t want to use their professional background for different reasons – perhaps they feel it’s not interesting enough, or they want a complete fresh start, or they believe people in their industry won’t pay for coaching. Each of these beliefs creates resistance to making the choice that could transform their business. It’s always worth asking ourselves what assumptions we’re making about those who work in a career we have left that makes us not want to coach them.
What If I Choose The Wrong Niche?
We sometimes worry that we’ll spend time, energy and money on the wrong niche. However, providing we choose a niche that we know well, and do the work required to make sure that it’s viable, the very worst that might happen is that we need a slight tweak – not a complete rewrite.
A niche isn’t a prison sentence that we’re stuck with forever. It’s a starting point that we can refine and adjust as we learn more about our market. The only wrong choice is not choosing at all.
Don’t Wait – Choose!
Those of us who wait for our niche to evolve usually fade away from the profession. They flap around, trying everything they can think of to find clients, and when nothing works, they decide either that marketing doesn’t work (though I’d ask them how they know, since what they’re doing isn’t marketing) or that the coaching profession is saturated, which it absolutely is not.
The coaches who choose their niches, find clients and go on to build thriving businesses. They don’t disappear into the 82% failure statistic because they made a decision rather than waiting for divine inspiration.
The Hard Truth Nobody Wants To Hear
Some coaches can’t be persuaded that their niche is a choice. They think they know best, believing their situation is unique and that the rules don’t apply to them. I see them quietly disappear, another casualty of the belief that clarity will come if they wait long enough.
The hard truth is that if you are not one of the circa 20% of coaches who have existing monetiseable credibility, your niche won’t find you any more than a plant will spontaneously appear in an empty pot. You have to choose what to plant, tend it carefully, and give it time to grow.
The choice is yours to make. You can keep waiting beside your empty pot, or you can choose a seedling and start planting.
An Opportunity
If you’d like the opportunity for a robust conversation about this – or to just flat-out tell me why I’m wrong – why not join my next free challenge, Nail Your Niche? Wen run it several times a year and there’s even an option to upgrade to a VIP version, which gives you 3 x 60-minute group mentoring sessions with me for just £99 (inc VAT) – that provides us with time for a lot of robust conversations!
Are you ready to choose a focus for your coaching business? Join the waiting list for the next challenge by clicking here.