It can be tough when starting out on your coaching career journey, setting up the business side of things, deciding whether or not to take a coaching certification program, and on top of that actually figuring out the right coaching niche for you. How do you know which one to pick? What methodology is used to choose? Is it better to coach in a niche that has many other coaches or one with few coaches? Generalist or specialist? Rest easy; we’re here to help you with all of this.

Do You Need a Coaching Niche?

Yes. The old adage ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ relates to the business of coaching, too. If everyone is your client, no one is your client. A niche enables you to be more focused with your time, energy and effort on attracting your ideal clients and build their trust along the way. For example,

1. Finding a niche allows you to be laser-focused and better serve your target market than with a general ‘everyone is my client’ focus.
2. Finding a niche brings clarity to you as a coach and your business.
3. Marketing your services to those looking for help with their problems is essential to being found.
4. Your energy in a niche area becomes much more focused than addressing a general wider audience.
5. Identifying your ideal client’s pain points and showing how your coaching service truly solves their problems means you can specialize and eventually charge a higher price.

How To Find Your Coaching Niche

Choosing a coaching niche doesn’t mean avoiding other subjects or topics completely. Once you enter a coaching niche market and start developing specific and targeted coaching methodologies and techniques, you can start to appreciate other peripheral coaching areas attached to the client’s problem. For example, while a client may be seeking, say, end of relationship coaching, they may also seek out dating coaching, stress management coaching or financial coaching as they move forward improving their lives.

The following are key questions to help you flesh out your interests and work or life experience to find interesting coaching niches:

1. What [topic] excites you when talking to others?
2. What is it you’re interested in or which makes you happy?
3. What do you like to do?
4. What is it that really troubles you?
5. What are your life or career skills?
6. What skills do you have that others compliment you on?
7. What experiences and expertise matches the thing you enjoy doing the most?

Now, follow these steps:

Step 1: Write out the above headings then underneath list everything that comes to mind about your skills/strengths/expertise/passions under each of the headings above. Aim for a list of about 10-20 items.

Step 2: Then make a list of the main types of people and problems you fully understand and with whom you can identify. Narrow your list down to those among them who could be your target market. Aim for a list of about 5-10 different types of people.

Now create different combinations of the two lists.

Step 3: Combine your best skills/expertise/passion with the different client personas on your list. These parings are coaching niches to explore.

Step 4: Continue until you have tested the best skills/expertise/passion for each type of person on your list. And so, on until you match each top skill/expertise/passion with each type of person.

This methodology will narrow down potential coaching niches where you are already skilled and focus on for your coaching niche.

What’s Stopping You Narrowing Down Your Coaching Niche?

You’ve probably spent hours thinking about your specific coaching niche and asking other people what they think, too. But here’s the thing: unless they’ve ever gone down the same path, they probably aren’t going to be much help. Your coaching niche has to be the thing that excites you and for which you are passionate about.

Fear comes in many forms in life. If you are having trouble making a decision, you may find you need to have a hard conversation with yourself in the first instance about what’s holding you back. If you dig deep to you will know all the answers to the above and be able to work through the issues to figure it out.

Also, don’t worry – coaching niches are ever-evolving just like any other business who needs to constantly evolve and adapt to the market.

Create an Ideal Client Persona

Creating an ideal client persona can help you narrow down your niche. You can do this by writing out who and what you imagine that client to be and their demographic. That in turn will help you be laser-focused on who it is you want to speak to and attract when putting out content or advertising to attract your ideal client.

Mistakes To Avoid While Picking Your Coaching Niche

There are a few mistakes to avoid when defining your coaching niche:

1. AVOID BEING TOO Vague

If you choose a vague coaching niche such as general life coaching, you run the risk of people not finding you in the noise, or not knowing the specific value or pain points you can help them with. People understand specifics – the clearer you are with your niche, the easier it is for your ideal client to find you and you them.

2. avoid Low-Demand Niches

Different coaching niches will make more profit than others. Passion is an important criterion when choosing a niche, but you should ensure your passion is marketable and that people will be prepared to pay for your services.

3. avoid choosing A Niche You’re Not passionate about, or Committed To

Some people decide to start a coaching business just because they want a life or career change and to make more money full or part-time. And those are great reasons to start a coaching business. But you’re less likely to be a successful go-to coach if you’re not passionate about or involved in the subject matter you’re coaching.

Factors to Consider When Considering a Coaching Niche

Finding a niche early in your career is a good decision, but it should be fully thought through too. Here are some things to consider when trying to narrow down your niche:

1. Is the coaching niche high demand?
2. Does your market analysis indicate there’s a few or a lot of coaches in your area of interest? Too many and you may get lost in the noise, too few may indicate it’s not an area of high demand.
3. Will people pay for a series of niche-specific coaching sessions in your target area? Cost can impact client commitment, and non-completion.

Profitable Coaching Niches To Explore

While there are several popular coaching niches like life coaching, business coaching, career coaching, relationship coaching, time management coaching etc, being more selective or descriptive in carving out your niche could help bring better clients to your door. For example:

1. Lifestyle Improvement Coaching

2. Relationship Coaching

3. Weight Management FOR WEDDINGS coaching

4. RETIREMENT TRANSITION Coaching

5. Stress MANAGEMENT TOOLS Coaching

6. Spiritual Coaching

7. Emotional Intelligence Coaching

8. Life Direction Coaching

9. CROSS-CULTURAL Coaching FOR ORGANIZATIONS

10. Burnout Prevention Coaching FOR ORGANIZATIONS

Still Stuck?

Still stuck or unsure you’re on the right track? Pick up our e-guide ‘5 Easy Steps to finding Your Coaching Niche with Bonus Worksheets‘ and move forward choosing your coaching niche with confidence!