155 - Why You Should Niche Down in Your Coaching Business

When was the last time you had niche drama? As a coach, you've likely experienced it more than once, or maybe you're still on the fence about your niche. Here’s what I know to be true, if you try to help everyone, you will end up helping no one! And with only so many hours in a week to build your business, dedicating your efforts towards a specific niche will make you much more efficient. 

In this episode, we’ll unpack all things niches, and maybe finally put all that drama to rest. Be sure to listen until the end of the episode to discover how to identify a profitable niche, uncover the secret behind a successful marketing strategy, learn how to find your people, and know what's missing in a struggling niche. So whether you're a new coach or you've been in the game for a while, make sure to tune in to gain clarity and confidence in your niche.

Reputation is built on a foundation of clarity - a clear niche and message make it easy for others to understand what you stand for.

👉 Check out my FREE Canva Workshop and learn how to create stunning graphics for your coaching business! 

👉 Watch the episode on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts! 

👉 Book a free Coaching Business Assessment with me

Don’t forget to connect with me on social media:Instagram | Facebook| Pinterest

Transcript

Preview: If you have a soft approach because you're worried, you're going to run off people because you're worried about sounding pushy or worried about being convincing, then you need to get yourself back in touch with your belief. I don't have to convince you. And I don't have to be pushy with you because I believe so much that what I do is good. It really is different than what anybody else offers. And it really is something you need. So when I talk about that, you guys can see, you can hear it. I have conviction in my voice. So the question is, do you have that?

Intro: Hello, I'm Debbie Shadid, the host of the Life Coach Business Building podcast. If you are ready to have more clients in your life coach business, then you're in the right spot. Each week I'm gonna teach you super simple strategies to grow your business without feeling overwhelmed and without spending money on paid ads. If that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.

So when was the last time you had niche drama? If you're like most of the coaches I know, you probably had niche drama recently. And I'm curious, how many times have you changed your mind about your niche? Or maybe you're still unsure about your niche. On today's podcast, we're going to talk all about niches.

First, I want to talk to you about the basics about niching. And the first thing that I want you to know is that niching is not just about doing what you love or what you're most passionate about. And I know that probably you're like, what? I'm going to do and coach what I know I am born to do. And I do agree with that.

I do like it that you're passionate about what you coach on. But the one piece that I want to add to that is niching to an audience that will pay for coaching is the important part. So whatever it is you're passionate about, if you actually need to earn a living from your coaching business, then I highly recommend that you really consider this niche and you turn your passion into something that is more profitable, honestly, something that you should first consider.

The second thing that niching does is it helps you get focused. We're all loving to learn. We all love to get coaching. We love to get all the free things. We love to keep going deeper and deeper with our knowledge. But what I would like for you to do is take your niche and then allow that to focus on you.

We only have so many hours in a week, so many hours that we can build our business. And if your efforts are focused towards one niche, your education, then you're going to be much more efficient, which is going to free up time for you to do more marketing, more coaching, and more of the other things that you need to do to support your business.

So when you think about deciding on a niche, here are three things that I want you to consider. Number one, do you truly deeply know their pain? I mean, really know their pain. Have you experienced it? Do you truly understand what their victory or your victory clearly looks like? Can you describe that? Do you have stories that are connection points to the niche that you have to the pain, connecting you to the pain, connecting them to the pain, having a story that connects to the pain? And do you have the same for victory? So you're able to say that because of coaching, not just because of some self-help books, but because of the help that I got coaching was the answer. And because of that, I know how to get you to the same result that you want. That's when we know their pain points, we know the victory, and we can tie the connection through stories and coaching. 

The second part is that you want to look for somebody who either wants to change, wants to create, or wants to become. So when you think about your niche, could you say that your person for the most part wants to become something different or wants to create something new, or wants to change something? Most of the people are going to fit into one of those three categories of types of people you can help.

The third piece is the person who can pay for coaching, do they have the extra money and can they make an independent decision about hiring a coach? 

Those are three questions that will really help you sort of get clear on your niche. Again, if you don't need to build a big coaching business, Then narrowing down to somebody who can actually pay to create a profitable coaching business isn't quite as big of a deal, but most people are actually coaching, not just to do something they're passionate about, but they're also coaching to do something that they're profitable with.

Now let's talk about marketing. The essential to marketing and being good at marketing is to really understand and have clarity on a message. And when you have a niche that you're very clear about, you can have clarity in what you say. It gives you an opportunity to again, very clearly define problems, pain points, and solutions.

And it also allows you to be able to create your own signature process to deliver the results that you actually talk about in your marketing. So it helps you have a very cohesive marketing approach. And when you do that, you guys, then people connect to it. You want to become known for something. And when you have a clear niche and you have a clear message and you're consistently doing that, and you're talking about the same things, it actually will help you build a reputation much faster. And people can refer you because they understand what it is that you do because they're super clear about it themselves.

All right. The next part that I want to talk about is finding your people because I know that that's always an issue. It's like, where do I find people to sell coaching to? This again, ties back to your niche and your personal experience with your niche. If your niche is you, then you ought to be able to answer the question of where the people are.

So let me ask you, where can you be found searching on the internet? What groups are you hanging out at? Where would somebody connect with you? Where would they meet you? Where would somebody strike up a conversation with you? If you can answer all those questions, it's definitely going to help you be able to have clarity on where your person is.

And you're going to have to dig deep into this. When you come up with an answer yourself for like, I don't go anywhere. Like I'm a homebody. That's not good enough. You're going to have to say to yourself, no, wait, if I was going to go somewhere, where would somebody like me with my particular problem or with my particular issue, where would I be hanging out?

When you start thinking about where your person might be hanging out and you don't have answers for it, it also might cause you to decide to narrow your niche further. And you're going to find out probably that it's helpful if you do that. One of the things that I talk about is that I want somebody to raise their hand and say, Oh my gosh, she is talking to me like this lady understands me.

And the reason they do that is because they're so clear. about what you're talking about. So should you narrow your niche even further? I'm going to bet if you and I had a conversation, the answer is yes. How do you do that? You narrow it down by either age, by economic status, by problem, by type of career, by religion, by the feeling that they most commonly experience by their relationship status. Like you could go all the way through many areas of their life. And be able to narrow it down even further. 

Now I'm going to give you a quick example. I had somebody that was going to coach around spirituality. And I suggested to her that she narrow her niche down to like spirituality is very broad. And if we're going to call in women to come and have some coaching over spirituality, then what we need to know is spirituality over what?

And she was really resistant to determining a niche. And one of the reasons was, was because she was a former Catholic. And I said to her, okay, that's a niche. That's just an example. She was somebody who had left the Catholic faith. And so if you are speaking to a general audience, she wanted to have people who had faith, but not anyone's particular faith. Part of her story is, is that she is somebody who has left the Catholic faith. 

Now I'm not encouraging that, but I'm just using that as an example of how you would speak to somebody a little bit more clearly and I want you to be careful because one of the things that you might tell yourself is that if you narrow down your niche, that there might not be enough people. You don't want to cut out people, right? I'm sure you've said that to yourself. And the deal is, is that there are so many people that are just like you in the niche you're talking about.

The world is huge. So there are a lot of people that you could be talking to that want coaching on your specific topic. Just go looking around the internet and see what there is, because even on Instagram, y'all know I'm a new grandmother and I swear to you, there is every type of parenting coach for children, babies under one.

There are even grandparent coaches. I mean, there is everything you can think of. And these women have huge followings. So there's an opportunity for every kind of niche, every kind of eating for a baby. I mean, I'm not kidding, sleeping coaches, you name it, maybe you know this if you're a grandparent too or if you have a little one at home.

So narrowing it down actually is better. And will you miss out on some people, maybe, but I can also tell you that over the years that I've had a very clear niche, I still have today. Even though I say only coach coaches, I still have today people who are unrelated to coaching that say, you know, I've watched your Canva workshop and I really connect with you, can you help me with X, Y, and Z. So people will outside of your niche still connect with you. 

All right. What if your niche is not producing the results that you want? Now, if you have gone through this and you know that you meet the criteria all the way along, you know that you're clear about this, you know people will pay, and you know that your marketing is good. Then I want you to check in with your conviction about your coaching because I'm going to guess that that actually is the problem. What I find is that so often it takes people several months, actually maybe three, or four months of really working on their business, marketing it, talking about their coaching, doing some coaching to really build up conviction.

So what is the difference in me today compared to the me, I don't know, a couple of years ago is today I'm completely sure like you're crazy not to work with me. I know what I'm doing and I know for sure what I'm doing is the best. I know what I offer that no other coaches offer. That same conviction, you guys, is the way you have to talk about your own business. 

So if you have a soft approach because you're worried, you're going to run off people because you're worried about sounding pushy or worried about being convincing, then you need to get yourself back in touch with your belief. I don't have to convince you. And I don't have to be pushy with you because I believe so much that what I do is good. It really is different than what anybody else offers. And it really is something you need. So when I talk about that, you guys can see, you can hear it. I have conviction in my voice.

So the question is, do you have that? And I'm going to guess that if your niche is not working, and if you're consistently marketing, and if you've got your message right, that this conviction is a missing piece. Oftentimes coaches come to me and they're looking for one more answer of how to do the marketing one more place. Like, can you review my message? And I do all of that. But so often it just boils down to confidence, self-confidence, and their ability to solve a problem, in their belief about themselves, and the belief that they're worth money. So check in with yourself. 

All right. That is what you need to know about niche. Now I want to encourage you to look at your niche. Make sure it's a money making niche. Make sure that you're super clearly communicating it, and then check in with your conviction about it and work on the belief that what you have is irresistible and it will be. All right. You guys have an amazing week. I'll talk to you very soon. Bye.

Outro: Okay, ladies, that is it for today. Before we go, I want to invite you to head over to debbieshadid.com. I have this incredible Canva training, specifically designed for life coaches where I'm gonna teach you how to use Canva to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week. I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.