How to niche as a coach - my who, what, how niching model
Most of the advice around niching is about just defining a target audience. My niching model goes way deeper than that. If you’re working online as a coach, health or wellbeing practitioner, therapist or spiritual guide you need a more specifically defined niche.
This is how you can do that.
You need to get clear on each of these 3 elements (circles). Then you can niche down more (imagine that circle smaller) or niche less (bigger circle) on each of these three elements.
The more you niche down on each of these elements, the more micro and unique your niche will be.
1) WHO – who exactly you help and get the best results with. You can niche on who your ideal clients are, but if you’re working online, this needs to be narrowed down quite a lot. Eg menopausal women. However, you could be a health coach, nutritionist, therapist, personal trainer, doctor, life coach etc. And would you be helping them with everything to do with menopause? Probably not.
2) WHAT – what specific problems you help them solve or what specific goals you help them achieve. Getting very clear on the pains and gains of your ideal clients, and communicating them brilliantly, is super important. This is something you can niche down on too. Eg your intimate relationship is on the verge of breaking up. You could be a relationship therapist, couples counsellor, psychotherapist, nervous system coach, trauma coach, life coach, divorce coach etc but on it’s own as a problem, it’s not very specific and the issues underneath will differ widely.
3) HOW – how you get results, how you work and what modalities you use. Everyone’s how is different so even if the above WHO & WHAT are seemingly the same, the ‘how’ will be different because it includes all your past experience (personal and professional), your qualifications, training, modalities, your unique process etc. Your HOW may be a blend of all of this. Eg breathwork is a niche, but with breathwork, you could doing allsorts for anyone such as helping women feel safer in relationship, corporate teams feel more vibrant and alive, helping young people following acute trauma, helping men embrace their healthy masculinity.
All 3 TOGETHER
Each one on its own, isn’t really enough of a niche.
Together they are magic.
As you work online and your potential audience is vast, creating a more unique niche requires you to niche down on all 3 of the circles.
EXAMPLE
Let’s work through an example of how you can niche down on each element in turn to create a really unique niche that will resonate strongly with the right people and in which someone can be seen as an expert and charge more.
WHO - Menopausal women.
Adding in the WHAT (a key goal or problem);
They’re getting triggered a lot and experiencing old childhood trauma and patterns resurfacing, they finally want to heal their past.
Adding in the HOW (your unique skills and modalities);
You get amazing results using a blend of hypnotherapy, time line therapy, and trauma-informed coaching.
This combination of niching down on all 3, produces a really unique niche and if someone recognised themselves in the description (and your marketing messaging conveyed this effectively) you would very likely be the person they choose to help them.
It also makes it easy for people to refer you.
Can you see how this niche would be more powerful than just being a general women’s health coach or hypnotherapist helping women with all their various symptoms and issues?
This is why the traditional way of niching which is only based on your ideal client, doesn’t feel right or work for you as a coach or similar, when you work online.
Niching down on all 3 is the pathway to creating a really unique niche and being recognised as an expert.
So try narrowing down your focus for each one and play with the size of each circle, so niche down or widen up on each and see what you come up with.
Listen, I know it can feel so hard to niche, so if you’re struggling to niche, check out my next blog here.
If this blog has been useful and you'd like to hear from me weekly with extra inspiration, encouragement, useful information and offers to help you on your business journey, sign up to my newsletter below.
