Positioning in business is always a challenge, but to find your coaching niche seems to be extremely hard. Picking a niche means to leave lots of people behind you might be able to help ¬– you might be afraid it will get boring fast – you might fear to not get enough clients for your offers – or you feel you just can’t pick as you love everything the same…

But did you know that there is scientific proof that niching your business is actually a smart thing to do?

You might know that I have a master’s degree in marketing, but I also have one in information technology, and I am sometimes a super nerd. I love data, facts and tweaking numbers, problems, processes until I feel I got to the root of the problem or topic or a system or process is working smoothly.

I also like to know if I am not just buying into a modern myth and believe what someone says. And that’s why I also scrutinize my own topic to see if there is scientific backup for niching your business.

Et voilà – there is! Let’s dive right in…

According to Forbes 42% of startups fail because they did not niche their business and don’t provide a solution for a perceived problem. If you break it down this includes two reasons: no market need and poor product.

(pst… I looked at the source Forbes gave and it is actually 43%, just in case you wonder doing the same 😉)

And while startups are not directly comparable to coaching services, we still should perk our ears.

We are living in an era of overabundance of information and media input. Information is not our problem, interpreting the input, deciding what is worthwhile and taking action is.

So, unconsciously we are using a filter – all of us do, otherwise we could not cope.

Remember, when you are on a party and someone at the other end of the room mentions your name and you are all ears?

Yep, this is one of the filters in full action.

So, your and also my well-meaning communication, helpful articles etc. have to pass the filter of our ideal clients. Which means it has to be relevant to THEM.

And for this it needs to hit their trigger points, which we can’t know if we don’t know what their dreams, hopes, fears are.

Which brings us back to having a niche and really understanding them.

And here comes something else into the game. The perceived problem is not necessarily the real problem. Sometimes your ideal client might not even know at all what her problem is.

Only when you know your ideal client intimately, you can join the dots. Let’s get specific…

Your prospect might say “I feel like wading through mud to go through my day…” and search for “help with low energy” or “what can I do to get more energy”.

You on the other hand might be the expert on natural hormone therapy and have that all over your website. You are solution-aware: get the hormones balanced.

Your client instead is problem-aware, if she never heard of natural hormone therapy it is highly unlikely that she will find you when you are not addressing the problem as well. She might even end-up at her general doctor and undergo lots of tests just to hear, that “well, nothing is wrong” …

Over the last few years, I heard all too often, that a health or life coach wound her business down due to lack of clients and money influx.

I suppose you agree that this is sad – for the coach and for the people she might have helped and now won’t help.

Even if we don’t know each other and might never, I beg you: find your coaching niche and skip this reason for failure, because there are a lot more, that we have less influence on, that we need to battle.

If you don’t know where to start, I got good news… I developed a short checklist/worksheet that will lead you through the process of finding your niching sweet spot.

I got another shocking number for you: By working on only two projects simultaneously, you lose 20% of your work time, if you work on 3 projects, you lose already 40% and well, the other numbers you don’t want to know…

As you now know I also have some IT-blood inside me, and these numbers come from the IT world of running software projects. But they hold true for each and every one of us.

The scary thing is that – especially as women – we have so many different things on our plate, that we just can’t focus on one project. We have a household to run, kids to take care of, maybe even our parents…

So, winding down to one seems like a lost cause from the start. Doesn’t it?

But let’s see where we have influence and can help ourselves.

Another thing in IT is compartmentalizing, which means building different areas (your hard drive does this to keep things separate). 

And we can do this too: build areas and keep them separate.

These are just a few ideas to get you started, if you feel that your productivity is the problem, do some more research on productivity and set yourself up for success.

In most cases, we might think it is our productivity, but it really isn’t. It is our monkey brain that is jumping from banana to banana, indulging. So be prepared to work on your self-discipline too.

Last, you need to make a decision and chose the niche you want to focus on.

Again, some insights form the project world: If you run two projects one after the other you will be finished with both projects faster than if you had opted for working on both simultaneously.

So, if you really think you can’t live with only one niche, here is your silver lining… start with the one you are best suited for and if you have everything set up (website, content, all communication materials e.g. flyers) and have been working with clients and refining, then start with the next one.

Chances are high, that you enjoy your situation then and will still get enough clients, that are not quite what you envisioned as your ideal client to keep your work interesting and varied.

I really hope, I’m doing my job well and getting you closer to defining your niche 😉

Not sure, where to start and how to get to the core? Get the checklist here…

Being found must be your first focus, when you want to gain traction with your coaching business. Being recommended is wonderful and what we all hope for, but it might not fill your calendar enough.

As with investments, you should never put all your eggs in one basket and define a few different ways your ideal client can find you.

For this, being clear about who you serve and what you achieve for them, is super important. Because the more specific you get, the easier it is for your ideal client to identify with the message and content you put out in the world.

Specificity allows your ideal client to have an instant picture in her head and feel if you are speaking to her.

But it also allows her to find you when searching on google or pinterest.

How much competition will you face when your niche is “health coach for women”?

How much competition will you face when your niche is “helping overworked business women in their thirties finding the inner balance and physical state to get pregnant”?

A lot less, you will also know, which long-tail keywords (aka a set longer phrase people are searching for) you can use to get your ideal client on your website, interact with your pins or find you one of the review platforms perusing through social proof.

Talking about social proof… the more specific your clients talk about you and honour what you did for them when giving feedback, the better.

In today’s world with masses of information, we are craving the piece of information, that helps us solve a problem or achieve a goal.

Our filter has to get narrower to survive the constant influx.

Loop back to you hearing your name at the other end of a room – that’s the unconscious mind at work. For it to bring a piece of information to our awareness, it has to be relevant.

Just another health coach is not relevant, not even if you are overworked, 35 and ache to get pregnant. But a headline addressing this issue is and will stop the scroll.

Are you ready now to niche down or even rethink your current niche? Get my worksheet and find your niching sweet spot.

So, let’s wrap this up:

Keep moving

Photo via canva.com