The following is taken from David’s interview with Marcia Reynolds in 10 Super Coaches.
How would you suggest coaches find their niche?
Look at ALL your past experiences in industries, professions and fields, including volunteer work, to identify areas you know. Then look for topics that would interest clients in these areas that you are passionate about. To become an expert in an area, you have to be passionate about it. Do not go with something just because you think people need it. You have to have a strong desire to research, learn and develop yourself in order to create and maintain your expertise status.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Marcia Reynolds in 10 Super Coaches.
What are your coaching niche(s)? How did you discover this?
Technical corporations. It is important to build your practice on your past experiences, at least at first. Many of my clients are engineers, scientists and researchers since I speak their language (I spent 11 years working for technical organizations).
Emotional intelligence. It is also important to begin to define an area of expertise early on. I am passionate about researching and teaching the latest techniques in emotional intelligence. I also speak and write on the subject, which has helped me to become known as an expert in the field.
Government. I do a lot of work for local, state and national government agencies. This niche found me.
I also mentor coach new coaches, sharing my ups and downs to help them build their practices avoiding the mistakes I made.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Andrea Molloy in 10 Super Coaches.
What are your coaching niche(s)? How did you discover this?
Our practice specializes in personal (mainly socio’s 1&2, primarily 25-40 year olds) and corporate coaching (within organizations that respect coaching as a discipline, predominately market leading organizations and 3 month contracts for a team rather than individual executive coaching) – we identified these areas in our original business planning process.
Personally my niche is in personal coaching and media related fields (ie writing books, magazine articles).
How would you suggest coaches find their niche?
Look at your background and experience, the areas where you already have respect and a healthy reputation…that will easily lead you to your niche. In a way, you need to analyse your personal ‘brand’ – people do judge you on what you look and sound like, so make sure you reflect how you want to be perceived, and that will lead you to your niche too.
The following is taken from David’s interview in 10 Super Coaches.
How would you suggest coaches find their niche?
I think there are two ways that you can do it. Firstly I would say – relax. If you don’t find your niche straight away it doesn’t matter. You can coach everybody and anybody for a couple of years and just see how it goes.
Secondly, you can work with a mentor coach, which is a great thing to do. I’ve worked with somewhere between eighty and a hundred coaches and one of the main things we do first is look at who would they like to coach, and what they would like to coach that person on.
Now once you choose your niche, it doesn’t mean that’s the only group you have to work with, but you can focus your website and your business cards and your business name on that niche and still coach other people who might be attracted to you.
The following is taken from David’s interview with Philip Cohen in 10 Super Coaches.
How would you suggest coaches find their niche?
I usually suggest letting a niche find the coach, instead of looking for one. Open yourself up to coach anyone and then look for patterns. This has several advantages: you might find yourself in a niche you never anticipated; you can build your business more quickly; you have an opportunity to coach a more diverse group of clients, which will add to your skill base.
When I started my coaching practice, I got a call from a person with a network marketing business. Before long, I had 6 or 8 clients in the same business. If I had decided to pursue it, I could have created a niche from there.
However, if someone comes to coaching with strong conections to a niche, then I would suggest they pursue it. For example, I had a client who was a new coach. Her previous job was executive director of a professional organization. She was on first name basis with all the significant people in her industry. She didn’t have to go through a gatekeeper because she had everyone’s direct phone number. I firmly supported her intent to create a niche in the market immediately.
