The Find Your Niche Dilemma

Recently a beginning coach expressed some inner turmoil over choosing a niche. “Everyone says I need to narrow my focus – that I need a niche. But right now I have a variety of clients: different backgrounds and different issues – and I enjoy working with all of them.”

This individual wants to follow the advice to choose a coaching niche but is not feeling good about it.

How about you? Do you experience niche conflict? Do you feel caught in the middle regarding the advice to “find a niche”?

Should a coach develop a specialized niche? In my recent Coaching Cognition course, students brainstormed and came up with over 130 coaching niches! Divorce Recovery Coach, Debt Relief Coach, Prayer Coach… to name just a few. And even – an Attract Your Niche Coach.

I believe choosing a niche is good advice and especially for online businesses, but I can fully appreciate that it can create a lot of needless conflict and confusion.

The dilemma, as some see it, is that narrowing one’s focus (choosing a niche) could cause one to lose prospects, maybe even existing clients. It seems to be a classic approach-avoidance conflict.  ”I should…” but “I don’t want to.”

I think that we need to understand the purpose of a niche and when to apply it. That may help reduce the conflict over this challenge.

Let’s start with this idea: A niche is the basis of a marketing strategy.

Do you need a marketing strategy?

If you have widget X and people are flocking to buy it, you may be tempted to think – I don’t need a marketing strategy.  I have all the business I can handle.

I felt that way a few years ago. I offered a service that a specific Fortune 500 company loved and mandated for all of their vendors. That business kept me going for over ten years – until new faces at the company changed their priorities and my business dried up within 3 years. I thought I had a never-ending business, but I was wrong.

If you have a lot of business, a never-ending supply of customers buying from you, then you don’t need a marketing strategy. On the other hand, that is an unlikely situation. Why?

• Customers may get their problem solved.  (In fact, maybe you solved it.)
• Customers may buy elsewhere.  Never forget that competition is fierce.
• If you have a niche by default (like the service I gave to the specific Fortune 500 company), remember that a niche is not permanent.  You have to adjust as market conditions change.
• No one else knows you are in business (lack of marketing). So if the amount of profit earned from selling to your friends and family is insufficient for you (or they stop buying), then what?

A marketing strategy includes a niche, products or services needed by that niche, and a marketing plan (most usefully a marketing funnel plan). I refer you to my recent post and video about the six elements of internet marketing.

Where will you find your customers or clients?

A common response is “everywhere.” So, everyone is your potential coaching client? The challenge is that there are many coaches competing for the business. There are over 14,000 fully certified members of the International Coaching Federation alone, and probably 100,000 more who call themselves coaches. Many are doing business globally, over the internet.  How will you get noticed?  Maybe you need a marketing strategy.

Or maybe you have a line of health and wellness products (perhaps in conjunction with an MLM). Maybe you feel – everyone on this planet can use these products! So all 6,857,744,507 people are your market?  Why not start with the person next door then. Oh, they are not interested? Well then, who is interested? Maybe you need a marketing strategy.

A strategy implies methods.

A fisherman that heads out into the Atlantic had best have a strategy.  Will the boat have a net or lines? Will bait be needed and if so, what kind of bait? Where will the bait be obtained and how will it be kept fresh? How many fishermen will be needed on board? Where will the boat go to fish? All these questions come down to – What is the target fish?

In marketing terms, What is my target group?

You cannot head out into the ocean and hope that any type of fish will hop into your boat, all by themselves. Knowing your target group allows you to clarify marketing themes, branding, media, and “bait” (offers, headlines, photos and illustrations with which the target group can identify, etc).

To continue the analogy: Not only does the fisherman start with identifying his target species, he asks what problem does that species face. OK, this process is instinctive for seasoned fishermen. Because obviously, the problem facing tuna is getting food. The “unique” solution is to be first to bring the food directly in front of the tuna!

Having one strategy does not mean you must reject business!

If you are experiencing “niche conflict” then so far this post is probably making you feel uncomfortable again. Why?  Because I am once again stressing the value of having a niche and you … well, you don’t want to limit yourself by narrowing your business. Heck, you don’t want to turn away a perfectly good flounder if it jumps into your tuna boat!

Let me put your mind at rest. I don’t know what the tuna fisherman would do, but …

• If you are a coach that has branded herself as a “sales and selling coach” and you were approached by a businessperson troubled with business-family life conflicts, would you have to turn that client away?
• If you are an MLM distributor for a health and wellness line of products and you have focused on a “care of aging skin” niche, would you have to turn away a customer who wanted your company’s vitamin product for kids?

To both situations, the answer is- of course not!

Having a niche (or marketing strategy) is for the purpose of developing a customer base. It does not mean necessarily that you must limit yourself to doing business in that niche.  You do not necessarily have to reject other business. You can choose to:

• Reject the business because it would distract you from efforts needed to develop your current promising niche business.
• Take the business because it would be a refreshing break from what you are doing.
• Take the business because it has opened your eyes to a better (or at least another) promising niche. Working with this new customer will help you develop experience working in this promising niche.

Positioning yourself in a niche can mean different things to different types of businesses.

It is possible that niche conflict is the reasult of a limiting idea of how to approach the idea of “niche.”

Example: Many people promote themselves as “life coaches” with no seeming niche. But what about branding that…

• Emphasizes their availability as a Polish speaking coach?
• Emphasizes their availability during night-time hours – 7pm to 6 am?
• Emphasizes their own spiritual orientation?

Whether you call these a niche or not, can you see how it can help with a particular target group?

So ask yourself –  Why would someone prefer to do business with me as opposed to X, Y, and Z? (Those are others that you know in the same type of business.  Competitors.) The answer may help you think about your position in your niche (or, how to brand yourself).
(Recommended Affiliate Book)
 

How will you find your customers, clients, or partners?

Earlier I said, having a niche is especially important for online businesses. Why?  Because when someone looks for a solution to their problem online, they enter words in a search engine. So if you want to be their solution, you must pre-determine what keywords such potential contacts will use. And you are limited to just a few words.

Thinking about your niche will help you determine the right keywords to use in your social media promotion as well as in your advertising.

So if your target group is “everyone” and you use the words “life coach” to describe what you do, a search with those words will turn up 2.3 million results – your page may well be buried.  Compare that to these terms:

• family life coach – 156,000 search results
• anger management coach – 155,000 search results
• Christian life coach – 14,800 search results
• home business coach – 692,000 search results
• list building coach – 9,600 search results
• niche coach – 3,200 search results

I’m just using coaching as an example!

So how about it?  Are you counting on finding your customers online?  If so, you will need “keywords” to help people find you; you will need a niche to help you think about the keywords (and other matters).

If you are not looking to find your business online, a laser-focused niche may be less of an issue.

And then, what about business partners? A niche helps to facilitate collaboration conversation with potential partners, as I discuss in my free special report, “Preparation for Collaboration.”

What’s your take?

Do you have an approach-avoidance conflict over choosing a niche? Is finding a niche a big dilemma for you?

Do you have a different view of the “find your niche dilemma?”

Please share your comments below.

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You might also want to see these related posts:

1. My Big NICHE Mistake
2. Marketing Tactics Mastermind Open to a Few People
3. You Can’t Succeed Alone | Collaboration is Not Optional
4. In Life Coaching Business? Collaborative Marketing Works for You Too
5. 5 Mistakes While Finding Your Niche