I recently hired an excellent coach to guide me through Simon Sinek's process to ‘Find Your Why'. If you haven't already, it's definitely worth checking out his Youtube talk or reading the bestselling book, “Start With Why”.
After completing the process, and coming up with a rock-solid WHY statement for myself, that completely fits all my life experience up to this point, I realised something that might be helpful to you:
Most coaches get their ‘WHY' completely mixed up, enmeshed and entangled with their coaching ‘niche'… and then often struggle to come up with a niche at all, and instead offer a vague value proposition, like ‘change your life'.
Having personally supported hundreds (maybe thousands at this point?) of coaches to uncover their ‘perfect' niche, I can safely say, this does not work.
It's wonderful to uncover your ‘Why' – who you are at your natural best. I've found it to be empowering, motivating and it gives me a clear filter I can use to make certain life decisions.
And, if you want to build a coaching business, in practical terms, it's even more important to uncover your ‘niche' – who you work with and the specific result you support them to achieve. In my experience, this one realisation makes everything else in your business fall in place.
Your marketing practically writes itself. Your ads, website pages, emails, product names, coaching programs, all take on a life of their own, and flow effortlessly from your mind and into the world.
This does NOT happen if you know your ‘why' but don't know your niche. It DOES happen if you know your niche, but haven't articulated your ‘why'.
Your ‘Why' is for you. Your ‘niche' is for your coaching business and the people you serve.
Do some coaches get away without having a niche at all?
Yes.
But they usually fall into one of two categories: celebrity or old-school coach with long-standing client base.
If you're a celebrity, contact me and I'll show you how to maximize the benefit of your fan base, for your coaching business.
On the other hand, if you're very experienced at coaching, and have some kind of lead source that consistently grows your list and brings your clients, then you *might* be able to get away without a niche. I've seen some coaches do it – but they tend to be people with a long-standing client base spanning decades, who started as professional coaches, before coaching was even considered as ‘profession'. To the most part, they're coach-trainers who receive leads from the coaching school they train for, and although they haven't articulated it, many of their clients also tend to be ‘coaches' who want to grow their practices.
The problem is, the more the coaching market becomes saturated with new “Instagram Coaches” popping up every day, the more and more rare the option of not having a niche becomes.
What I recommend, if you're unclear about whether your niche is rock-solid, is to reply to me with your niche statement, summarised in one sentence. The less wordy it is, the better. It should include two crystal clear things:
- Your Audience – who you serve, in a way that's instantly identifiable.
- What goal or specific result you help them achieve.
A pretty good template for your Niche Statement might be:
I support [audience] to [result].
Here are some examples from my own Rich Coach Mastermind participants:
“I support overweight moms to get their pre-pregnancy body back.”
“I support dads to improve their parenting and connection with their kids.”
“I support business owners to increase profit and free up their time.”
You get the idea.
Write a draft niche statement as best you can, reply to this email with it, and I'll give it a look and let you know what I think.
When you've nailed it you'll get a sense of:
“Ah, that's it. Of course! I can totally do that and it will totally work!”
At that point, growing your email list and creating a Never Ending Stream Of Clients is a piece of cake.
As for your big “WHY” statement – that's outside of my wheelhouse for now I'm afraid. Maybe ask Simon Sinek or read his book to help you discover it. (For now, I'm just delighted to have uncovered mine!).