Discover Your Coaching Niche

Archive for November, 2006

The benefits of having a coaching niche are significant and act to leverage your marketing efforts across the board. Your positioning is clearer, your services are more targeted, PR is easier, referrals are more common, word of mouth marketing and testimonials are more likely – in a word, all of your marketing efforts have a more clearly defined focus.

And they all point in the direction of getting more business.

So, if you could have the benefits I list in this podcast, wouldn’t you want to have your own coaching niche?

Have a listen to this list and ask yourself – “Given these benefits, what would having a coaching niche do for me, personally?”.

Nicheing Workbook

And if you’re still struggling to find your niche, perhaps you’d benefit from my instantly downloadable workbook – The Branding You Workbook – which is available here:

Branding You Workbook

Niche Benefits Podcast

This is a podcast from my recent teleclass – Discover & Reach Your Coaching Niche, focusing on the benefits of having a coaching niche.

I’m currently sharing the four secrets of Discovering Your Coaching Niche with you.

The first two secrets come from within you; the second two come from the market.

In the last post we talked about the fourth secret to Discovering Your Coaching Niche. That was to discover where you can make money.

So are you ready to put it all together?

Putting it all together

In order for our coaching practices to succeed, we need to understand and overcome the most fundamental coaching marketing problems. We need a clearly defined coaching niche and target market.

To achieve this, we as coaches need to leverage all four secrets revealed in this blog. We need passion, knowledge, skills and experience, a market for our services and clients prepared to pay us. If we fail to exploit all four secrets, we will not be as successful as we could be. And we may not realise our true potential as coaches.

These blog articles have described the four secrets to discovering your coaching niche – which ones can you start to work on today?

Discover Your Coaching Niche Teleclass – Replay

To really get a helping hand to Discover Your Coaching Niche, why not listen to me, Alun Richards, in my recording of my recent teleclass.  Access to the replay is here: http://www.askalunrichards.com . 

Just leave me a question about Discovering Your Coaching Niche and you’ll be taken straight to the replay page.

I’m currently sharing the four secrets of Discovering Your Coaching Niche with you.

The first two secrets come from within you; the second two come from the market.  The second two represent the pull from the market, the first two are the push from your business.  These two forces need to be in balance.  We’ll talk about that more in the next post.

In the last post we talked about the third secret to Discovering Your Coaching Niche. That was to discover where there is a market. That way your coaching practice is viable.

So are you ready for the fourth secret?

Secret 4 – Discover where you can make money

In order for our coaching practices to succeed, we must be able to make money. Clients must be prepared to pay for our services. We coaches do the world no favours by under pricing our services for clients who do not really value them.

So, have you established whether your target market has the money, and is prepared to spend it? If not, could you take your services elsewhere – where they are valued?

If your target market has problems that are costing them significant amounts of time or money, then it’s likely that they will be happy to pay to resolve them.  So it’s your  job to discover those problems and provide solutions to them. 

Coaching Niche Teleclass

To really get a helping hand, why not check out the recordings of my teleclass - Discover and Reach Your Coaching Niche. You can access the recordings here: http://www.askalunrichards.com .

Last night I hosted a Discover Your Coaching Niche Teleclass. Coaches joined me to uncover the secrets of discovering your niche, and to have their questions about finding your niche answered.

I’m finding that a benefit of teleclasses are that they are an interactive medium that facilitates dialogue and the answering of questions. This allows a teleclass to be tailored to the needs of the specific participants – and this makes it a valuable training and education tool – given that attendees don’t even have to leave their homes.

I recorded the session, and the complete audio will be published on my webpage http://www.askalunrichards.com in the next few days. In the meantime, here is a taster of the session for my blog readers – the introduction to the session. I’ll be adding more extracts here in the near future.

I’m currently sharing the four secrets of Discovering Your Coaching Niche with you.

The first two secrets come from within you; the second two come from the market.

In the last post we talked about the second secret to Discovering Your Coaching Niche. That was to have a niche that is relevant to your knowledge, skills and experience. That way you get credibility.

So are you ready for the third secret?

Secret 3 – Discover where there is a market

It’s no use fishing where there are no fish – you won’t catch anything. Likewise, it’s no use coaching where there is no ready market. Many coaches select a market that is too small to support their services, or a market that is not really interested in their services.

If you select a market that’s too small, your coaching practice will not be viable. Is there a really a market for your services? Are there enough potential clients in that market? How do you know?

Also, if you’re offering services that the market is not interested in, you will get no take-up. There’s another fishing analogy here – ask yourself what bait am I using? The bait I like, or the bait my market likes? What will your market go after – what services do they want and need?

Discover Your Coaching Niche Teleclass

To really get a helping hand to Discover Your Coaching Niche, why not join me, Alun Richards, on 21^st November, 2006 at 8pm GMT (12pm Pacific, 3pm Eastern) for a free teleclass. Sign-up details are here: http://www.askalunrichards.com .

I’m currently sharing the four secrets of Discovering Your Coaching Niche with you.

The first two secrets come from within you; the second two come from the market.

In the last post we talked about the first secret to Discovering Your Coaching Niche. That was to have a niche that you are passionate about. You can’t fake passion – not for long, anyway – it has to be real.

So are you ready for the second secret?

Secret 2 – Discover your key knowledge, skills and experience

You must have credibility in your chosen area of coaching. You’ll have credibility where you have relevant experience and are using your key skills and knowledge.

Few clients will take on a coach with no relevant skills, knowledge or experience. And we’re not talking about coaching skills and experience here. You need to demonstrate you have the relevant skills, knowledge and experience for your client.

Do you have a track record of success in the area in which the client is being coached – be it weight loss, relationship coaching or financial coaching? Do you have a system you follow?

Do you know what the major issues are, and have ways to help your client overcome them? If you do, you’ll have credibility, and will be able to attract coaching clients. You are also far more likely to get testimonials and referrals.

Discover Your Coaching Niche Teleclass

To really get a helping hand to Discover Your Coaching Niche, why not join me, Alun Richards, on 21^st November, 2006 at 8pm GMT (12pm Pacific, 3pm Eastern) for a free teleclass. Sign-up details are here: http://www.askalunrichards.com .

Find Your Coaching Niche And Find Coaching Success

Introduction

Do you know the one thing that stops most coaches from being dramatically successful? Do you know what prevents coaches from charging the rates they should command? Do you suffer from the key problem that affects 68% of all coaches?

Read on to discover the four secrets to discovering your coaching niche – and making your practice dramatically more successful!

What Determines Coaching Success?

There are more coaches in business right now than ever before. I’d love to say all of us are wildly successful in our chosen profession, but the reality is somewhat different. Many of us are finding that we are not getting the business we expected when we trained.

Recent research I’ve undertaken indicates this is not primarily related to our coaching skills. It relates to our marketing – and the fundamentals of marketing are what services we supply to what target market. In other words, what niche we have as a coach, and what target market we have chosen to supply.

You must, you must, specialise

But here lies the problem: over two thirds of us coaches do not have a niche – we are generalists. We will coach anyone to do anything. And many of us love being generalists.

But let me ask you a question – when you really need your car serviced, do you take it to any old garage or a garage that specialises in your make of car? When you need an eye examination, do you go to a GP or an Optician?

And which business makes more money – one with a general motor mechanic, or one with trained automotive engineers who specialise in your specific make of car? A General Practitioner or a medical consultant like an ophthalmic surgeon with a specialisation?

We seek out these specialists because of their specific knowledge of problems and how to resolve them. And we’re prepared to pay a premium because they get the right results faster. Yet we as coaches resist selecting and sticking to one coaching niche. And our practices suffer as a result.

But how do we do we discover our coaching niche? Well, it’s all down to the four secrets I reveal in this and subsequent posts.

Secret 1 – Discover your passion

You must have passion for what you do. Long term you will not stick at anything you do not love. Passion is what drives your coaching business forward. Look at anyone who is truly successful and you will see a passion about how they conduct their business.

Ask yourself – do you love what you do in coaching? Is there a fire, a drive behind what you do? Discover what it is you’re passionate about. Are any of these things reflected in your coaching practice? If so, great – that’s the first step completed!

If not, perhaps you would benefit from exploring those things that do inspire you, and to incorporate this into your coaching niche.

So the first secret is passion. For the next three secrets, come back to this blog over the next few days.

Discover Your Coaching Niche Teleclass

And to join my free teleclass Discover & Reach Your Coaching Niche on Tuesday 21st November 2006 go here: http://www.askalunrichards.com

I’ve written a number of articles aimed at coaches, which are published on the net by ezinearticles.com .

Just click here to get to them.

http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Alun_Richards

There are three there at present:

• The Four Secrets To Discovering Your Coaching Niche
• Top 10 Ways For Coaches To Get Clients
• How to Research Your Target Market

These will be joined by others.

Those of you who would like to join my free teleseminar Discover & Reach Your Coaching Niche on 21st November (just go to http://www.askalunrichards.com) might like to read the first article prior to the teleclass.

There are differing definitions, but essentially a niche is a narrowly defined market that has specific needs and wants. It’s a group of people with similar aspirations, outlook, problems and challenges.

It’s a group of people for whom you can supply specialised products and services.

Because niche markets are so much smaller than mass markets it is possible for individuals such as coaches to compete effectively against larger organisations.

Steve Van Yoder, author of the book Get Slightly Famous (http://www.getslightlyfamous.com/) , points out the following benefits of discovering your niche and branding yourself.

• Differentiate yourself from your competition
• Position your focused message in the hearts and minds of your target customers
• Confer “top of mind” status to you and your services
• Increase your authority and the credence of your decisions
• Place yourself in a “leadership role”
• Enhance your prestige
• Attract the right clients and opportunities
• Earn recognition for yourself (and for your services)
• Increase your earning potential

There are other specific benefits for a coach

• You maximise word of mouth marketing
• You gain re-use of coaching material
• You are more likely to gain referrals from your target market
• PR opportunities are more likely
• If you’re active in a niche, you’ll get known quickly
• Through understanding the niche’s needs and wants you’ll spot trends and be able to respond quickly to them

These are commonly cited nicheing benefits

Now ask yourself these questions:

• Are you experiencing these benefits currently?
• Which ones would you like to benefit from, specifically?
• Do you know the first steps to take for you to experience these benefits?
  

I’m holding a teleclass to help you discover your coaching niche and experience these benefits. Why not check out this link for more details – http://www.askalunrichards.com ?

We recently undertook research on the coaching market. We conducted a survey of coaches who subscribed to two popular online coaching fora. The summary results are below.

Summary of findings

From our analysis of the problems submitted by the contributing coaches, it is clear that many have common problems in their coaching practices.

During the analysis, we identified number of themes, some of which are inter-related. We summarise these themes below.

Common Problems

The coaches questioned identified a large number of individual problems in their coaching practices.

However, two thirds (73%) of the problems could be categorised into five specific areas:

1. Marketing or Getting Clients (36%).

2. Self-Management (17%).

3. Balancing marketing & delivery (7%).

4. Managing Clients (7%).

5. Educating Clients (5%).

The remaining 27% of problems contained a large number of unique problems. Many of this 27% were different aspects of problems that solo entrepreneurs face when trying to build a business.

Problems relating to marketing (Marketing, Getting Clients or Balancing marketing & delivery) made up 43% of all problems.

Find out more on our Free Teleseminar MasterClass
I still have some places on my free Discover & Reach Your Coaching Niche teleseminar on 21st November at 8pm GMT.

I’ll be revealing the secrets of discovering your coaching niche.
And I’ll be answering the questions you most want answered about finding your coaching niche.

Just go here: http://www.askalunrichards.com to sign up.

Hope to see you there.

Alun.