Discover Your Coaching Niche

This is the continuation of an interview where Peter Johnson grills Alun about how to be perceived as an expert by your target market, and hence bring in more clients.

Peter: So, you’ve been working with coaches specifically on this for quite some while by the sounds of things.

Alun: For quite a while. It also helps if you are member of a particular niche that you are serving. And for example, I’ve been a coach now probably for about 10 or 12 years, since coaching at least in the UK was in its infancy.

So, being a coach, I know what the typical problems and challenges that coaches come across. And that makes me much more able to deliver things of value to my target market, who are coaches.

Now, I am not saying that you have to be a member of a particular niche to deliver to them. Well, not necessarily, but goodness me, it helps because you have been there.

Then you have had practical experience in the problems and you can, for members of the target market, you can quickly sift the wheat from the chaff. You can give them stuff that is really relevant and valuable to them.

Peter: Yeah, so this being an expert in a field, that is the ‘why’ issue from the sound of things.

Alun: Absolutely. That’s the critical thing. You being an expert is absolutely critical because it gives you authority, because it gives you credibility. And when you put those two things together, that is like an attractive force, attracting clients into you, because they want to benefit from your knowledge and experience.

And let’s distinguish one thing here. When you are seeking out an expert, what you want is somebody who’s got practical experience of the field that you’re looking for. There are many people out there who are in academia who write books on things and the people within that who’ve done research can have some credibility.

But what you really want is people who have actually done what you are looking for. So, you actually want to follow practitioners who made the mistakes. They have seen what the problems are. They can share those and they can help you avoid those mistakes.

Peter: Right. So, they are really being bruised and battered a little bit on this journey of life.

Alun: Absolutely. They usually are. Yes.

Peter: Yes, and in some ways it is where we find that real value of people who actually have made mistakes that we can avoid by listening to them.

Alun: Indeed.

Peter: How do you know what your niche should be as an expert?

Alun: Well, in fact – I help people do this. I think there are two parts of it. One you need to look inside yourself as to what resources you bring to the party and you also need to look at what the market out there is demanding.

So, if we look at the “within yourself” part first, have at look at what your skills, knowledge, and expertise are.  And then, you go right back to your teenage years and find out, you know, what are you good at? What are you good at in your first job? What were your responsibilities in your first job, in your second job? What skills did you gain? What skills have you gained in work? What skills have you gained outside work?

A good test is to look at what people ask you about all the time. Other people who come to you because you have developed a particular skill in a particular area or particular knowledge or you are particularly experienced. They say, “How do you do this?”  If there is a pattern of people coming to you to ask you those particular things – that’s what you should specialise in.

Peter: Even though it might not be what you’re doing as a job?

Alun: Exactly. It may be parallel to that. What you might find is that you might have some transferable skills from your job to take to another domain. Now, maybe your job as well, but it might not be. But the key things are the skills, knowledge, and experience.

And look broadly with that. Don’t just write the obvious things down and you know, when in doubt, ask your friends. Ask your friends. Ask your colleagues. Ask your partner. They will know what you’re good at and what you are not good at.

Peter: I get a feeling that because you’ve been doing this for quite some while, you may well have some hidden material on this which you may wish to share with the listeners.

Alun: Indeed, I have. I’ve got a resource on the internet. If people go to http://www.nichecourse.co.uk, n-i-c-h-e-c-o-u-r-s-e-.c-o.u-k, and that’s an auto-responder-delivered course that is completely free that will allow you to discover what niche is right for you.

And it takes you through, in a bit more detail, what I have just covered in terms of your skills, knowledge, and experience. It also looks of what you are motivated by, what your passions are about, because you’ve got to have that to drive forward and stick to a particular area.

So, you need that and then it also looks at a part we haven’t covered yet and that is looking at where the demand in the marketplace is. So, that is where there is activity in the marketplace. You know, are there magazines covering the topic you are thinking of specializing in? Are there books published on it? Is there a lot of internet activity on it? It is that kind of thing. If you are going into a bookshop, is there a lot of book space in a large bookshop dedicated to your area? If there is, there is a demand. So, it’s looking at all of those things.

Peter: And yeah! That resource is free, you say?

Alun: That resource is free. Indeed.

And here’s that link again, a free course allowing you to discover your coaching niche: http://www.nichecourse.co.uk

The full 25 minute version of this interview on CD can be obtained here:
http://Kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00ZSDMIP

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