EP 351 - How to Find Your Coaching Niche in 10 Minutes (Stop Overthinking It)
If you're a coach who has been stuck trying to figure out your niche for months, this video will help you decide today in less than 10 minutes. No more researching, no more asking everyone you know, and definitely no more asking AI to pick it for you. I'm giving you the exact questions that lead to clarity, plus the one thing most coaches miss that makes or breaks whether anyone actually buys.
If you're new to my channel, my name is Debbie Shadid. I'm a Business Growth and Life Coach and the founder of the Business Building Boutique. For over two decades, I've helped women learn how to become coaches, get clients, grow their businesses, and create meaningful income doing work they love.
The coaches who stay stuck on their niche are not missing information. They are waiting for permission, for certainty, or for someone else to decide for them. In this video, I walk you through the questions that put the decision back in your hands, where it belongs, so you can stop spinning and start building.
In this video, we'll walk through:
Why asking AI, your family, or YouTube to pick your niche is the worst move you can make
How to get hyper-specific about who you help (and why being broad is actually costing you clients)
How to identify the real problem your client lies awake thinking about
How to find the transformation your client truly wants and use their exact words to sell it
Why you may not be able to pick a niche until you have actually coached someone
The surprising fifth question that determines whether anyone can actually pay you
How your lived experience becomes the signature approach no one else in the world can copy
By the end of this video, you will have everything you need to decide your niche this week and finally move forward. Your niche is not out there waiting to be found. It is a decision only you can make, and you are more ready to make it than you think.
Ready to go deeper? Grab my Profitable Niche Blueprint, the complete set of questions I walk my clients through to find a niche that pays: https://debbie-shadid-shop.fourthwall.com/en-cad/products/niche-blueprint
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Listen to the Podcast:
Life Coach Business Building School Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085
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Transcript
If you're a coach who's been building your business and still can't figure out what your niche is, this episode is for you. We're gonna decide on your niche today in less than 10 minutes. I'm gonna give you the questions that will set you up for success, and when you stay till the end, I'm gonna share with you the one thing that you probably are not considering that will change - everything for you. When it comes to picking your niche, it will actually help you create success. So here's what I see coaches doing. They are spending months researching, waiting to find the perfect niche. They're asking other people, "What do you think?" They're asking their family. They're watching YouTube. And for goodness sakes, they're going to Chat GPT and saying, "What do you think?" And I wanna tell you, that is the worst move you can make. Do not ask anyone else, and for sure, do not ask AI if your niche is the right thing. When it comes to your niche, you are the only person who has the answer on that. This is going to set you up for success in every aspect of your business. You must decide what it is. This must be something you know inside and out because you're gonna be marketing it for the rest of your years. That's right. You have to market your business, which means you have to be able to talk about it. It has to be something you know and understand. If you ask Chat GPT for the best niche, first of all, it's gonna tell you how amazing you are, and any niche idea you have, it's gonna validate. If you go and look for research to support the niche that you want, it will find research to support anything. So you must say, "I know this is the niche that I want to explore, and this is what I'm gonna do." If you want to decide your niche today, in the next 10 minutes, I'm gonna tell you how to do that. So I'm gonna share with you the four questions. That will give you the answer, and then it's up to you to decide.
Question number one: 1:48
Who do you help? Let's get so hyper-specific. Not just a woman, not just people who are stressed, not somebody in their next chapter. Specific. If they're in their next chapter, who is it? What is their age? What is the next chapter struggle that they're having? Be specific. Your concern is that if you get too specific, you're gonna miss people, and what I can tell you for sure is that you are missing people because you're not specific enough. let me tell you what, everything you say will be easier, and it will make more sense because you're talking to that one person. You, if you are a woman over 50, I know what your struggle is. I can speak exactly to that. That's what I need you to do. Get specific, and the more specific you are, the more likely the right person will say, "She is speaking to me."
Question number two: 2:41
What is the real problem? Like, what is the struggle? You have to be able to say it exactly like it is. What are they venting to their girlfriends about? What are they complaining about their job? What is keeping them up at night? What are they ruminating on? This is what you have to figure out. What is the thing that they are saying like, "I gotta get this fixed. I can't go on like this"? This the problem that you need to solve. This is why I tell every coach, "Look, what you need to do is go interview some people. If you are not clear about what this looks like, go find some people to interview." Now, do not interview your friends. Do not interview your family members. Go interview somebody who looks like your ideal client. Now, you might be saying, "Where do I find those people?" You go to a Facebook group, you go to social media, you ask a coworker or friend of a friend. Just make a post that you're doing some research for a business project, and you need to interview somebody. Write down the key questions that you need to know, which are the questions that I'm asking you, like what are the struggles? Who is your ideal person? What are they thinking? Okay, you gotta be able to ask them those questions so that you get clarity on what people are saying the real problem is. People pay to get out of pain, so you've gotta be able to identify what that is. When you do those interviews, just do it on Zoom, get the transcript. Most people will be happy to do it for you. They love to share their own story. But if you need to compensate somebody, give them a gift card to Starbucks, or I bought somebody an Amazon book, shipped it directly to their house. It's pretty easy to do. All right, the third question
is: 4:15
What do they really want? You can also ask this in your interview. What is it that you really want? If you had this problem taken care of, what would your life now look like? What would you be doing that you're not already doing? This is the transformation that you're gonna sell. You're gonna get people who have this problem. You're gonna say, "Hey, I'm gonna get you to here, and I'm the person who's gonna get you there. This is where you wanna go." You're gonna describe it so vividly, that person is gonna stop and listen. So make sure you know what they deeply desire, and if you've interviewed them, use their words, their exact words so you will get them to stop scrolling.
The fourth question: 4:57
How are you gonna solve it? What is your unique approach? Now, let me say, if you have never coached anyone, this might be the reason why you can't pick a niche. Let's be honest. You are qualified to coach, and maybe you've talked to all your friends and, like, you're the go-to person that everybody sends somebody to for this particular problem. But if you've not really had a coaching session with somebody, you need to do that because you need to know that you can solve it. You need to know that you have a unique approach. You need to show yourself, like, "I got this. I know how to do this," in a real coaching situation. So get those same people maybe that you interviewed and do follow-up coaching sessions. It would be a simple 30-minute coaching session. Pick one problem, coach them on that, and just show yourself that you've got the experience, whether it's from your career, your life, a certification, that you are the right person to help them. Your lived experience and all of the combined things that you have learned and read and studied, all of that is how you create your signature approach. That will set you apart from anyone. The way that you think about things, you're the only person in the world who thinks about things the way you do. You're the only person who has your unique combined skill set. That's your signature offer, your signature methodology. You're the only person who does that. So how you solve it, that's the fourth question. That might require that you do the coaching to get the answers to that. When it comes to AI, I've got to make sure you understand. If you let AI decide on a niche for you, here's what happens, and I'm seeing this over and over. Doing the marketing is difficult because you're not connected to it. As I said, you're gonna have to market for a lifetime. A lifetime of marketing. I know it sounds like a big task, but it is so simple. Like right now, I'm talking about niche. I didn't have to plan this. I'm just talking about what I know inside and out. I can get on social media and people say, "You make it look so easy." Look, it's not easy to put yourself out there, but when you're talking about something you know, it is so much easier than when you're trying to follow a script. So if you let ChatGPT or Claude or whoever decide on your niche, you're gonna have a very difficult time marketing. You're not gonna be able to talk in a tone that really sounds like you know what you're saying. People always say to me, "Debbie, you sound so convincing." Like, I know. I'm passionate about this. I get it. I see this. I've been there. I understand it. This is where you step into your zone of genius that AI cannot pick for you. The zone of genius that you have lived, experienced, and come through. That is what you do. That's where your credibility lies, and that is what I want you to pick for your niche. All right, here's the last question that if you don't get this one right, nobody's gonna buy coaching from you. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. Most people miss this one. Who can pay for the coaching? If you've answered all those other four questions correctly, if you've been able to say who it is specifically, what the problem is, what they want, and that you know you're the person to solve the problem, if they can't pay for coaching, they don't have extra funds, they are not your ideal client. You cannot sell coaching to people who cannot afford to pay you. If you are passionate about a certain cause, a woman that's, been in distress, I mean, she's maybe been kicked out of her house, something like that, then you need to do charity work, and I mean that in a really loving way. But either you're gonna do charity work or you're gonna have a business. If you need to make a living, then you gotta find a niche of somebody who says,"I have money, I am willing to spend it on coaching, and I don't have to ask anyone else if I can do it." This is a key piece. I want to work with women, this is me specifically, who, number one, can decide for themselves. Maybe they tell their partner"Hey, I've made a decision. I need support with my coaching business, but I'm not going and saying, 'What do you think?'" Can you guys see the difference? so you're selling to somebody who has money, and they can make a decision for themselves. They might have that conversation, and I respect that. In fact, I say sometimes, like, "Look, if you need me to talk to your partner, I will do that, too," because I want to be the one to do the selling, So if your person decides for themselves, has the money to pay, and you can answer those other four questions, my friend, you got the perfect niche. Let's decide today. Let's get on with it. This is the way that you build your boutique-style coaching business. I'm Debbie Shadid. I help female coaches all over the world build profitable boutique-style coaching businesses that they will love without spending money on paid ads. If you still have questions, check in the show notes. I'm leaving a link for the Profitable Niche Blueprint. This is my e-book where I'm gonna walk you through a complete set of questions, more information about how to pick your niche. Let's pick it this week, and let's get on with it. All right, you guys have an amazing week. We will see you soon. Don't forget to subscribe. This is a 10-minute series where I'm gonna give you exactly what you need to do to take actionable steps to build your coaching business.
