NICHE COACHING: What is Niche Life Coaching?

What is a Niche?

General life coaching can be compared to someone who works as a general surgeon. They can help a broad range of people and, yes, they can help and save lives. But, what happens when someone has a specific problem, such as a problem with their brain or their heart? They go to a brain surgeon or a cardiologist. This type of doctor is highly specialized, highly targeted, and they can make up to 2-4 times as much as a general surgeon. And because this person is so targeted, people come to them.

That’s the value of a niche skill set. You can make more and it’s easier to get clients.

General vs. Niche Coaching

Small Fish in a Big Pond: General coaching focuses on coaching a client on the goal of his or her choosing. As a coach, you help that client identify their goal, create action plans, and hold them accountable as they make progress toward their goal.

Big Fish in a Small Pond: In contrast, a niche coach focuses coaching a client to achieve a specific type of goal. The client comes to the niche coach because they want to achieve THAT goal because they have a specific need they want to fulfill.

The key here is that your niche would be based on a specialized type of knowledge or experience that YOU are uniquely able to address with clients.

For example: A general life coach may have one client who wants to make a career change, another who wants to improve their self-talk to increase their happiness, and a third that wants to establish a workout routine with accountability. A niche coach, instead, would be exclusively focusing on just ONE of these goal areas.

Within each niche or type of coaching there are sub-niches, that focus on an even more specific topic or goal. In another video, we go into greater detail and give more examples of niches and sub-niches. For now, the example to the right illustrates the relationship between niche and general coaching.

Differentiation vs. Niche

If you’re simply looking to differentiate yourself from your competition, then that’s not done by choosing a niche market. Differentiation and niche are two separate marketing steps. You can differentiate (brand) yourself based on: