How to Succeed In a Difficult Coaching Niche
Plus The 3 Coaching Success Paths for creating your dream business
I meet many health and wellness coaches who have their heart set on helping people in a difficult niche.
What do I mean by a “difficult niche?”
Here are some examples:
Helping people get “unstuck,” e.g. helping women who are unhappy, even though they “have it all”
Prevention, e.g. helping people optimize their health so they can prevent diseases
Mindset, e.g. helping people get past mindset blocks that keep them from achieving what they want
The reason why these are difficult is because they’re abstract concepts. They aren’t focused on a concrete problem. That makes them difficult to market because it’s almost impossible to write messaging that’s clear.
The Truth About Building A Business In A Difficult Niche
If you want to help people in a difficult niche, you need to understand that it’s harder to get clients. In many cases the best source of new clients will be word-of-mouth or referrals.
But relying on word-of-mouth and referrals is a passive approach.
If you want more control over your client flow, you’ll need to actively market yourself.
And the best ways to market yourself in a difficult niche will be places where you have the opportunity to give more of an explanation.
Here are some examples:
In-person networking
Speaking engagements
Social media (once you have a strong following)
Creating a blog (or a Substack newsletter)
Leveraging other people’s audiences, e.g. podcasts
Those approaches give you a longer runway, which is what you need to warm people up in a difficult niche.
But keep in mind, it takes more time and patience. Because it could take a loooong time to get traction.
If your dream business is one where you have more control of your income and time, there is a faster way to help people in a difficult niche… provided you have an open mind.
Let me show you how this works using a sailing analogy.
Imagine you’re the captain of a beautiful yacht, and you want to sail to a dreamy tropical island.
The wind is coming from the direction of the island, like this:
Even though the shortest path would be to follow the straight vertical line up, the boat would actually stop moving if you did. (In sailing terms, this is called “being in irons.”)
What looks like the shortest distance will actually stall you out completely because the wind would go around the sails instead of filling them.
Now let’s say your dream health coaching business is that tropical island. And you want to focus on a difficult niche.
If you want to go straight to the tropical island, you’ll have to trade in your sailboat for something that can move into the wind. A powerboat would be great!
But none of the approaches I listed in the beginning are like a powerboat. They’re more like a rowboat. So you’ll need to row yourself there. (And rowing into the wind isn’t easy!)
That’s why it can take a loooong time!
A sailboat is still fastest, but you’ll need to tack the boat to get to the island, which means go back and forth, like this:
That’s the only way the sails can catch the wind and move the boat forward.
As the captain, you have to strategically choose which direction to sail in and when to tack (turn the boat) to make it to the island.
The truth is, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re building. The path to get there is never a straight line.
I knew exactly what my dream business would look like when I left the corporate world. But it definitely wasn’t a straight line getting there. I had to make a bunch of tacks to get where I am today.
The important thing is knowing your overall goal and understanding the best moves to help you achieve it.
And the fastest way to get more coaching clients is to start with an offer that people know they want as soon as they hear it.
That requires crystal clear messaging that addresses something they know they want ASAP.
And that’s why I help my clients create an IBO (Irresistible Breakthrough Offer), first.
Your IBO is your point of departure – the port you set sail from. Its purpose is to bring people who are highly motivated to get your help into your world.
This is the fastest way for you to get new clients if:
You’re still kind of new to coaching
You’ve been coaching for a while and are ready to scale
You’ve had a successful “generalist” practice seeing people in person and now want to create a business that gives you more freedom
And while I say an IBO is just your starting point, it’s possible that it becomes the only thing you ever do.
In other words, your IBO is your dream destination.
I’ve worked with many health coaches who create massively successful health coaching businesses with just their IBO.
And why not if the coach enjoys their IBO and it brings them plenty of clients? It definitely makes running their business easier, so they’re happy staying the course.
In some cases, a coach will start with an IBO, then decide they need to shift directions a bit to create their dream health coaching business. However, it’s important that this be a strategic decision.
Sometimes coaches will try an offer, then get frustrated that they aren’t getting a lot of traction. They think it’s the offer and they decide to pivot.
But if you’ve been guided on how to create a good offer, the problem probably isn’t the offer. (It could be the messaging or the strategy.) That said, I’ve seen instances where the coach realizes the offer isn’t right for them once they start working in it.
So yes, you can change your IBO, under the right circumstances. Just remember you’ll be starting from scratch if you do.
What’s important for you to understand is you have options. You aren’t tied to your IBO forever, unless you want to be. You can certainly branch out when the time’s right.
There are 3 paths you can take. I call them The 3 Health Coach Success Paths. Let’s walk through them…
The 3 Health Coach Success Paths
