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Creating Your Niche & Brand - Part 2By Simon Clarke
If you're a coach, student coach, business owner or someone with a desire to get into business, take careful note of the powerful tips and development strategies presented within this series and GET READY to make the leap to ultimate success. Aligning your product mix Most coaches starting out come from the mindset “I’m going to coach XYZ group.” But they give little thought to the specific challenges, needs, desires and nuisances of their target group (niche). And without this information they’re almost doomed to failure. They first develop how they’re going to coach, then try to impose that service onto their target client. This approach does not work!
You must be client driven rather than product driven. You should first identify the specific client group you want to work with and then develop services and products that satisfy and fulfil their unique and specific needs.
What’s the best way to determine the needs of your target client? Ask them! Interview them; survey them; take them to lunch and pick their brains; hold tele-sessions; talk to industry professionals already dealing with them; go to industry events; read their journals. Asking the hard questions up front is so important to the long term success of your coaching business and your market niche (more on developing that niche soon). Remember that it’s not enough for you to perceive that someone NEEDS what you have to offer… They have to WANT what you have to offer and be motivated to buy it. Focus your attention on client groups who are already looking for the solution that you are going to provide - and are willing to invest in that solution. The best way to develop products and services that are in high demand by your target clients is to: - First determine the top 3 most serious and annoying challenges that your proposed target group want to solve. - Determine how regularly they face these problems and the financial and emotional cost to them having these problems recur. - Develop solutions to solve these top 3 challenges/problems. - Package your solutions as service and product based offerings. - Price point your services based on the financial costs your clients incur by not having the problem solved. - Establish yourself as a specialist who can help them solve the challenges/problems they have. If you take this approach, not only will your services be aligned to your client, your clients will actively seek you out to have their costly recurring problems resolved! Filling a gap Often beginner coaches balk at establishing a niche as they: - Fear they’ll limit the size of their market; - They are scared that they may lose out on opportunities; - Don’t have enough knowledge in a specific area to create a niche; - Don’t have enough business experience to brand a niche business. However, operating in a niche affords you many benefits including: - It’s easier to find your clients as they congregate in a specific location or have a common problem/interest; Because clients in a niche have specific problems, you can develop specific solution based products; - Clients in a niche are generally willing to spend much more to have their unique problems resolved; - Your marketing can be specifically designed for high impact (language, location, etc); - Niche markets tend to communicate amongst themselves and hence your referral business will be much higher; - You can use more effective marketing strategies such as Education Based marketing to attract clients; - Once established, the niche will know how to find you and hence your marketing costs will be dramatically reduced; - You can ‘own’ a niche and quickly become renowned as an ‘expert’ or ‘specialist.’ - You can rely less on time based 1 to 1 coaching and move to 1 to many coaching models; - Over time your marketing and promotional costs will decrease because you are not ‘wasting money’ trying to attract the attention of clients outside your true niche; - You get more passionate, more excited and more energetic because you are working with clients that are truly aligned with who you are and what you have to offer. When choosing a niche you should consider the following: - Do you have the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively communicate with your prospects? For instance, if you establish a niche coaching high end businesses on growing their profitability and have no experience in this area, you will not be successful. - The niche has unique, specific challenges and/or desires, interests and needs. - You are passionate about helping the niche solve their problems. - You have in-depth knowledge of the most pressing challenges and needs associated with the niche. Only by having this information can you develop products that will be of interest and use to the niche. - The niche is large enough (and financial enough) for you to prosper. - The niche is defined enough to be a niche! Many coaches think they’re operating in a niche but are really operating in a larger market segment. For example, there are many career coaches (market segment) but few career specialists who focus on rekindling the careers of former executives who have been stay at home parents now wishing to re-enter the workforce (defined niche). - You are passionate and committed to working in the area of the niche. - The niche has demonstrated by some means that they’re willing to invest to have their problems solved. IE The problems confronting your prospects in the niche must be large enough that they’re willing to invest to have them solved. You can work in more than one niche; however each niche has separate characteristics so you’ll need to treat each one as a separate part of your overall coaching business. This article is an abstract from the Ultimate Coach Business Development Program, a comprehensive 24-month eCourse designed to walk coaches through the process of building flourishing businesses. If you'd like to learn how you can access the entire program email us at info@lcia.com.au © Life Coaching Institute (Aust). If you wish to republish or reproduce this article, please include this information in the end of the article. For more information about the Institute - please visit www.lcia.com.au/lz.
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