Is your coaching perceived as essential or as a luxury? Your market tells you how they see you every day by either buying what you sell, or passing.
If you’re a generalist selling life coaching, or you’re aiming at a broad market that’s hard to find and doesn’t have you top-of-mind, it’s time to sharpen your focus.
Focus your coaching services on one unique accessible group of people and solve the critical problem standing in their way. That’s how you “own” your market.
My post on Four Roads to Coaching Success covers the four proven approaches to building a coaching business. This post zooms in on the one that anyone can use to get reliable results.
Results That Speak for Themselves
When you’ve hit that “essential” spot with your market, you’ll know because:
- You’ll have little or no competition
- So you can spend much less time and energy marketing
- And yet you’ll keep your coaching business full
- And keep clients longer
- Which builds your confidence and expertise quickly
- So you can charge higher fees
- Your articles and ezines practically write themselves
- You can re-purpose that writing to products and programs that your market craves
- You get a lot more pre-qualified referrals
WHICH MEANS = Your income is higher and you have time left for other things in life!
Who First, Then What & How
Lots of coaches focus on the what – what they want to coach around – and try to sell that. It rarely works. But if you let go of that approach and instead focus on a who – a target market – you’ll enjoy the success you’re working so hard for, without so much hard work.
Here are real life results of coaches that finally locked onto one very narrow and viable market after floundering for years:
Coach #1 tried to attract enough clients in a variety of niches without much success:
- Women in Transition
- Women in Mid-Life Transition
- Divorced Women
None of these proved to be viable niches. There just wasn’t enough perceived value to get prospects to pull out their wallets. Then, she zoomed in on a very unique, narrow market. “All of that time I was ignoring my background and what would be a natural market for me – Association Executives. BINGO!”
You might think that’s too small a market, but it isn’t. This coach tripled her monthly income when she narrowed her focus to Association Execs.
Coach #2 is an ace networker. Most of his clients came from referrals. He was the top-of-mind coach for everyone in his network. But he wasn’t getting enough clients to feed his family. So he decided to take my advice and focus on one market. He chose Financial Planners – again notice how narrow a market that is.
These are early results after focusing on his target market:
| Before | After | |
| Avg monthly fee for 1:1 coaching: | $1500 | $4500+ |
| Avg length of time with clients: | 1-2 months | 1 year |
A dramatic turn-around after years of struggle. And here’s a key point: He knew nothing about Financial Planners before he chose that market. He didn’t need to. They taught him all he needed to know!
Notice these are both business markets. Business markets are the most viable. That doesn’t mean you have to learn to do business coaching. You’ll find you do life coaching with these folks, while you build savvy about their industry and how to provide compelling solutions for them.
Here are other bonuses reported by coaches who focus on one target market:
- They are doing their most soul-satisfying work with their clients over long terms.
- They know the movers and shakers in their market and are an integral part of the industry.
- They understand their clients’ challenges and know how to speak their lingo.
- They know what these folks care about, and have developed expertise to serve them.
Is your coaching market viable for this economy? If you can answer ‘yes’ to all of these questions, you’ve got a great market.
1. Is the group accessible – do you know exactly where to find them?
2. Do you know exactly what’s standing in the way of their success?
3. Do they have the disposable income to invest in your solutions?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of these, it’s time to choose a better market. Don’t worry if you don’t have expertise or knowledge about their field. Remember, you’re a coach – it’s all about drawing out your client’s wisdom. They will teach you what you want to know.
Want help with your niche?
Help is on the way. I offer a six week tele-workshop that’s designed to give coaches all the tools you need to go from being an unknown to being in high demand as a coach. For many coaches I know, choosing a viable market has been the turning point in their coaching career. If you’re interested, click here for more information or to sign up.
Or, just share your story as a comment below. If you’ve got a target market, share who it is. If you’re totally flummoxed, I want to know. I’m the niche market wizard. I’ve got something up my sleeve for you too!
