Thriving in Your Niche: Four Essential Questions for Coaches

Each of us has a unique blend of skills, strengths, and experiences that we bring from our personal and professional lives, which, when combined with our coaching expertise, make us stand out.   Embracing this uniqueness helps us overcome imposter syndrome and highlights our distinct value as coaches. By focusing on what makes us unique, we can confidently make our mark and succeed in the coaching world.

Four Essential Questions to Help New Coaches Thrive

1. “Who am I as coach?” - This is your niche, your speciality. 
2. “Who do I coach?” - This is your Ideal Client. 
3. “What do I offer?”  - These are the specific coaching services you offer.
4. “How do I market myself?”  - This will help you find the right marketing channels

Being clear on these four questions is absolutely critical to helping you find clients and thrive as a coach. By taking the time to reflect on and answer these questions, you'll be better equipped to define your niche and attract the right clients:-

Question One: “Who am I as coach?”

Start with your niche.  Firstly, take some time to decide on the broad area of coaching you want to do into. Could it be personal, life coaching? Perhaps you’re more interested in working with entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses? Would you like to work with leaders, managers and others in the corporate world? Or is working with young people, parents, teachers and those in the education setting for you?

Questions Two: “Who do I coach?”

Once you’re clear of the broad ahead of coaching you’re interested in, it’s time to go deeper and consider who your Ideal Client is. What is the specialist area of focus for your coaching? What is the demographic of your Ideal Client? 

Go into as much detail as you can, I have worked with many coaches to help them find their niche and few great examples include:

• Career driven women returning to work post maternity leave
• Professional sportsmen, aged 30-40, looking for a future career
• Male leaders entering early retirement, aged 45-60

These are all great examples as they are really clear about who their Ideal Client is.

Question Three: “What do I offer?”

Create a coaching package or programme to directly appeal to the needs of your Ideal Client. A package would simply be the number of coaching sessions or period of time you would work with your client. A programme would be more specific and would layer your experience with your coaching skills so your client would work through a defined programme of coaching sessions to work towards their desired outcomes. For example, a coach working with male leaders entering early retirement, may offer a package of six hour-long coaching sessions over a twelve-week period. Or they may offer a programme which has a specific focus for each and every coaching session, using defined tools and techniques.  I use both of these approaches in my services offerings and it open ups the scope of coaching to directly meet the needs of my Ideal Clients. 

Question Four: “How do I market myself?” 

Once you’re really clear on your coaching niche, have identified your Ideal Client and created coaching services which directly speak to the needs of your Ideal Client, I can assure you that marketing becomes so much easier! You will now be able to choose the right marketing channels where you know your Ideal Client will be. This will ultimately save you time, save you money and provide a clear focus for your marketing efforts.

Conclusion

Remember, your niche, your Ideal Client and your coaching services don’t have to be set it stone – It is about what’s right for you and who you are now as a coach. I know from experience that a niche may evolve. When I started out as a coach, I was burnt out from 15 years in the corporate world. I wanted to focus entirely on working with small business owners. I combined by experience and coaching skills to create programmes to help small businesses launch and grow a successful business, while maintaining a work life balance. 

While I still love working with small businesses, over time my niche has evolved and I also now work with leaders, emerging leaders and their teams, helping them work more effectively, increasing productivity, while maintaining a work life balance. That’s the thread that has run through all that I do. 

I would recommend, you take some time to consider what is the key thread or theme of your coaching could be for you. Take time to review and reflect, periodically. Consider what’s working well, what could be changed and the integrate those changes as you develop and grow as a coach. 

About Author:

Rachel Russell an ICF Accredited Coach, Mentor and TCA Trainer who empowers business leaders, managers and their teams to create and achieve their vision of success, increase productivity, work more efficiently, retain and attract both clients and team members, improve their marketing and sales, all while maintaining a work/life balance.  

If you would like to hear more from Rachel about the world of coaching and training to become an accredited Life Coach, book your free place on free 'Introduction to Life Coaching' webinar!