Having a difficult time trying to decide what your coaching niche is going to be?
Not sure if it’s the right niche or if you will be able to make money with that niche?
Do you have too many niches that you can’t decide which one will be best for you?
Yep, all these questions can leave you feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and unsure of your coaching business.
The key to feeling confident with 100% clarity on the niche your are going into is to avoid these 5 most common mistakes that coaches make when choosing a coaching niche.
- Not aligning niche with your talent’s, strength and story – Now this one may seem obvious, but think of the story you can tell and the credibility it will build with your audience if you have gone through what they are going through. Sure you can coach people around a whole host of problems that you have never had, but the relatability, credibility and authority factors will not be there. Your audience wants and needs to have confidence in you that you will be the person to help them through their hard times. Many times it is the stories of your struggle that will inspire and motivate them to push through their fear, to break down the barriers that hold them back.
- Choosing a Niche before aligning your Mission/Vision/Values – Sharing your purpose and passion will be key for attracting new clients. To do this have a solid knowledge of your Vision, Mission and Values. This will create a deeper connection with your audience and they will get to know, like and trust you, faster and easier. This give you the ability to share exactly what you do, with who and most importantly why you do it.
- Picking a niche that is too wide and general – You’ve likely heard it before, “Narrow your Niche” But how far do you have to go? You may be thinking, ‘If I get that narrow now one will find me…’ and I totally agree with narrowing your niche, but when you do, you better know that your niche is there and your not trying to market to 3 people in the entire world. Here is where being able to tap into the resources of today’s top data companies will give you the stats, data and confidence to know the size of your niche and how to get in front of them. Imagine Google, Amazon, Facebook & Linkedin where able to use their servers to validate your niche, knowing that they are there, searching for you at the same time you are searching for them. When you pick a niche that is too general you speak in general terms and general terms do not resonate with people. You need to use the words they are using in their minds.
- Missing the Message – So many coaches finally pick a niche and start to market and talk about it to their audience and they totally miss the message. The message they send out isn’t one that resonates with the audience and they end up clientless. Stop talking about what it is that you have to offer, they’re not looking for what you offer. Most people start searching online, they start searching for the problem that they’re having and start reading about it. This leads them to many different sources of information, websites, videos, forums, blogs, books and more. Make what it is you have to offer simple to understand, speaking in terms of the problems your niche audience is having. The other miss in messaging is using the wrong words. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could just know the exact words that your audience is actually using to describe their problems. Then you could just transition their problems into your solutions and you have a winning combination to drive more clients. Know exactly the words and phrases that niche audience are using so you can show up in front of the right person, at the right time, with the right message.
- Not deciding or starting with too many niches – Many coaches I’ve met either don’t decide or have more than one niche in mind. When you don’t decide on a niche, you likely think that everyone can be your client. This leads to generalized information, messages, and lack of connection with your audience. Niching down is the fastest and easiest way to create packages, courses, books, coaching programs that sell, because that audience knows exactly what they are going to get. The other challenge is having more than one to start. You likely switch back and forth, not wanting to miss out on offering something to the other niche, but this puts you in an endless loop accomplishing very little. The best way to overcome this is to look at the niches you would like to go into and evaluate which one should come first. Prioritize it, and attack each niche, one by one. With lack of focus comes analysis paralysis and longer times to market. This causes coaches to never start, to never launch their business… start with one, become profitable, automate as much as possible, then start on the next niche.
The gap I’m talking about is the “knowing doing gap”. Now for all you city folk you know from the subway there is a “mind the gap” reminder on the subway floor so you don’t fall between the train in the platform. It’s a reminder we all need to mind the gaps in our lives. We are all doing things that we know we shouldn’t be doing and we are all not doing things we know we should be doing and most times those are the exact things that will give us exactly what we want.
