Here are eight stories in the words of coaches who are well on their way to owning a niche as a coach in a market segment.

Robert Gerrish: Not just small business owners, but more specifically, those flying solo....
When I started my coaching practice in Sydney in 1998 I was 100% clear on my niche: small business. If you owned a business, had a heartbeat and a credit card I was the coach for you. With a background in marketing, I was good at promoting my business and after enjoying some great media exposure I found myself with a queue of clients all from what I thought was my niche.

Then something happened. I suddenly felt at odds with a number of my clients. As their businesses grew and their staff numbers rose I found myself feeling increasingly grateful that their business was not my business. Long hours? Staff? More offices? Remuneration strategies? Yikes! Whatever happened to that free and easy Lone Ranger approach?

Now, when clients err towards becoming tolerations, you know you've got work to do. I shut my doors (and ears) for three days and sat on the floor with every single client folder (by then over eighty). In one pile I put the clients I really enjoyed working with and the other, well I put the others. Then I looked for similarities between the ideal clients and hey presto, Flying Solo was born. 

My niche are those going it alone in business. Period. Since this clarification I have focused all my actions towards this niche and it just keeps getting stronger and stronger. I launched my ezine twelve months ago (http://www.flyingsolo.com.au>) and now have over 2,700 subscribers; I write solopreneur/Free Agent articles for a couple of Australia's leading business magazines; present tips on a business radio show; contribute to an in-flight radio program and am an expert with Monster.com. Cool and they all came to me.

My tip with niches: They're constantly evolving, just keep checking in with your passion. My next niche? Solopreneur Dads. Is that a design on your tie or do you have a toddler?

Robert Gerrish


Sandra Schrift:  Coaching professional speakers.
In 1996, I enrolled in Coach U., started working with Coach Robert Alderman and began my full time coaching practice. I became a career telecoach to the emerging and veteran professional speaker- a natural niche for me because of my former career as an owner/founder of a national, professional speakers bureau for 13 years.

Robert said to me, "You have a silver mine here, now it is up to you to turn it into a gold mine." And so, I sent a flyer by broadcast fax to all the members of the National Speakers Association announcing my coaching practice and availability for individual coaching. Within a year, I turned to broadcast emails - the hook was to offer a complimentary 20 minute coaching call and eventually testimonials from satisfied clients.

In 1997, I followed the advice of Thomas Leonard, and published a free bi-weekly ezine called Monday Morning Mindfulness. This was an opportunity to build my database from opt- in subscriptions and keep my "face" in front of a growing audience. My ezine offers several short paragraphs on life occurrences, tips for better speaking, life humor ,recommended readings and useful websites. In February, I will begin to include guest columnists whose information will be helpful to speakers. I also include my promotional stuff; audio cassettes, special reports and TeleClasses.

In 1997, I launched my web site, www.schrift.com and keep it filled with coaching tips for speakers/authors, testimonials, products, my ezine. I believe that any coach who wants to niche must have an interactive web site to create the pull and the opportunity for you to be reviewed as the expert. I get many visitors to my site daily who ask for the 20 minute complimentary coaching call. I then have the opportunity to turn many of them into individual clients.

Thomas Leonard also suggested that we create a virtual university. And so I did. . . in 1998 I launched www.speakersuniversity.com . At first, I was a faculty of one conduction a series of TeleClasses for the emerging professional speaker. In 1999, I added three people to my faculty. So , now, we are four national experts who are also coaches and speakers who provide content driven, no nonsense information on a regular basis. This is a cost and time efficient way to cut the aspiring speaker's learning curve by about 60%. TeleClasses are an excellent opportunity to turn some clients into individual coaching clients.

Finally, the magic is in the mix - to niche and be perceived as the expert in your field, stay visible. Join coaching organizations both locally and nationally. Be a guest expert for other people's TeleClass. Have a large web site presence and be content rich. Link to other sites. Be a brand - I wear a coach's hat to all the meetings. It says "speakers' career coach." And my web photo is me and my hat!

Sandra Schrift  www.schrift.com



Jim Donovan:  Coaching authors to succeed
I've developed a strong presence as "The Book Coach." It began with my securing the Web address www.thebookcoach.com (doesn't hurt:-) I selected this niche since I have a lot of experience in it, going from a one book author to selling over 100,000 copies of my own books, successfully selling e-books, to building a small publishing business.

I selected this niche because I was seeing so many aspiring authors either not getting their books into print or wasting a huge amount of money (like I once did) because they did not have a coach (like I did) and did not know the in's and out's of the publishing business which is a minefield at best.

I offer clients coaching along with my experience on the practical side of the book business. My vision is that they not only get their book written and into the marketplace but that they succeed in selling it as well.

Working with a coach enabled me to go from spinning my wheels and wasting a lot of money to selling a significant number of books. that sold me on the profession of coaching back in 1996.

I build my book coaching practice through free tele-classes for authors and publishers, my own newsletter, writing articles for magazines and ezines, the book coach Web site and participating in several publishing related egroups. Over time, I have developed a reputation as an authority (I avoid the word expert:-) in book selling and am known in the small press community as someone who will offer help when asked. I think that's a big part of my success. Not always looking for the payoff.

Jim Donovan
.
Karen Andrews:  Blazing Hormones
I fell into my niche by accident. My niche actually began as my soapbox (based on my personal experiences), then became my web site and now is my coaching niche. The site is www.blazinghormones.com 

It is a sad comment in America today that women fear aging and with that the transitions into mid-life and menopause. The denial is extremely high until one day the woman hits "the wall" of menopause. Her quality of life shifts sometimes in a big way and sometimes more subtly. Health concerns arise and without proper knowledge, women are at the mercy of their healthcare provider. I personally have lost three friends to female organ cancers...which were induced by pharmaceutical hormones (synthetic estrogens and progesterone's). There are close to 18 million women taking synthetic hormones in America today. I want women to know they have options and more natural choices. I'm not wanting to "take on" the pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. Women just need to have more information concerning potential health risks.

Working with women who find themselves in this mid-life transition is delightful. The more information I gather and can share the more everyone grows. It is so sad to see women basically crumble in many areas of their lives during these years.

karen@sopris.net  www.blazinghormones.com 
 

Deb Martin: Nature is a niche.
I do wilderness and outdoor group coaching. Most often with my buddy Drew Rozell, sometimes with other coaches, sometimes alone.

I built this up by giving it away at first. Actually, playing hard in the wilds is what I do most often when I'm not coaching and folks just started asking if they could join me. My first wilderness group coaching trip was with a group of women who had read an article about my solo canoe trips in a local outdoor magazine. They approached me about taking them on a trip. I noticed that they were more interested in what they called my "bravery" (being alone, handling the silence, scary animals, things that go bump in the night....) as they were about the techniques of camping, hiking, etc. So I turned it into a wilderness coaching trip. The theme was Simplifying. I've done a few trips since, some with groups, some with a single client.

Drew and I are about to do the 4th Annual Cool Coaching Campout this coming summer. The first two years we mostly coached each other, with friends showing up to join us for part of the weekend. Last year, we dropped the price and just asked for donations. That worked! We covered our costs. Pictures at my website.

Most recent trip is in April to Ghost Ranch in NM with coach Anna Grace Harding. The theme is Embracing the Unknown. Details at my website.

Trips always include 1 to 3 coaching sessions after folks get home. Costs range between $400 and $500 for a "long" weekend. Drew and I have been unsuccessful so far at selling trips longer than a weekend. But I don't do the trips for the money. I do them because:
* I love being in the wilds and will accept any opportunity
* I love coaching
* I think Mother Nature is the ultimate coach
* I get great material for my newsletter

And here's the irony. Many of my coaching clients hire me because I do these trips even though they have no intention of ever joining me. And it's not unusual for me to ask a client to get off the phone and go stand in a creek, lake, ocean (or something similar) when they're feeling stuck.

Themes (or topics) come naturally (pardon the pun).
* The Power of Silence  * Embracing the Unknown  * Frontiers * Time, Space and Choice * Solitude * Courage * Freedom  * Balance and Order  * Immortality

There you have it.

Deb  http://www.portagecoach.com Wilderness Adventure Coaching Trips


David Steele: Singles as a niche.
Five years ago I transitioned my practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist to Relationship Coaching. My goal was move from trying to save marriages on the brink of divorce to coaching functional couples who want to have a successful relationship, but how? The public typically seeks a service when they need it, not as a form of entertainment, so how could I get functional couples as clients?

I had an "A-HA" experience when I realized that singles become couples! I decided to offer services and programs for singles as a way to reach my future couples. In addition, I decided that being "David Steele, Relationship Coach" was not enough to draw the numbers that I wanted, so I formed "LifePartnerQuest Silicon Valley" and the rest is history. LPQ-SV draws 40-60 singles per week to our "Friday Night Social," offers "Relationship Success For Singles" classes, workshops, groups, and coaching for singles. When our singles find a partner, they often return for our "Partners In Life" program for couples, as well as refer their friends. With the success of LPQ-SV I decided to expand my mission to making a larger difference and founded Relationship Coaching Institute to provide relationship coaching training and practice development support to help other coaches do worldwide what I have done in my local area. 

Top Five Lessons I Learned:

1. PLAY LARGE; make it your goal to stretch to own your niche and be as visible as you can to your community of prospective clients and referral sources.
2. BUILD A BUSINESS; a "practice" exchanges time for dollars, typically 1:1, while a business has multiple revenue streams and provides a variety of related products and services for potential clients
3. COLLABORATE; don't go it alone, partner with like and complementary professionals and businesses
4. LISTEN TO YOUR CLIENTS; provide them what they want and need, not just what you like to do or think they need
5. DIFFERENTIATE; survey what else is out there and use your creativity and knowledge of what your clients want to be different and compelling

David Steele, MA, LMFT, CLC * Relationship and Mentor Coach
http://www.LifePartnerQuest.com


Peggy Dean: Corporate HR Execs.
I began 1 to 1 coaching in 1982. I chose business executives (in particular, head of organizations) as the niche market. I researched the market for what are the needs, influences, pressures, challenges, gifts, strengths, weaknesses of these heads of organizations.

Then I approached a large regional bank organization (their HR VP) and offered to coach their top executives (those who had areas of potential not fully developed). I offered to do an assessment of the executive they chose, then we would sit together and draw up measurements of success and time lines. My offer was that if I achieved the results, they would pay me 20% of the executive's annual salary. If I failed to provide the results, then they would owe me nothing. We signed an agreement, I did the work, and 13 weeks later, I received the fee as agreed. This became a springboard of referrals from the banking HR VP as well as those executives with whom I worked. At that time, coaching was not a known profession, and I called what I was doing Executive Coaching.

For several years I was busy doing coaching with heads of organizations. They requested for me to facilitate team building and communications training with their direct reports, so that became a second stream of income. Most of my clients had occasion to make presentations or to speak before the press or the board of directors, etc. I coached them to prepare their presentations and to express their natural charisma in speaking. So, in 1996, I developed a public speaking workshop, called Hit The Mark. This was developed along with my associate who is an actor and trainer. Thus another stream of revenue.

My background: My company is Peak Performance Corp. and we have offices in Atlanta and Dallas. I have an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a diverse work experience with numerous companies and individuals in various countries and cities in the US.

Peggy Dean
ppc@mindspring.com  972-881-1662


Len Lubinsky: School Leaders  


I am building a niche working with school leaders. As a former school superintendent, I have some advantages in reaching this group. My approach has been as follows:

Contact former principals -- Almost all of them are people who enjoyed working for me. A large number describe their time in my school district as the best job they ever had. They are potential clients or a source of referrals.

Contact former colleagues -- I was a well respected, though slightly off the beaten track, colleague who stayed in a single position for a near-record period of time. The main draw-back to seeking clients or referrals from this group is that the turnover of superintendents is so great that, even a few years away from my time as a superintendent, I am less familiar than I thought.

Contact people in areas where I had specialized connections -- In my case, I was active in support of causes for early childhood education. I return to the meetings of the statewide advisory council that I chaired and let them know about my current work.

Write -- I have written an article about coaching for the national superintendents organization magazine. I hope that when it is published this spring it will bring some clients.

Consult -- In order to develop an income while building a coaching practice, I have also been consulting; providing support for district administrative teams, for instance.
Learn -- I have enrolled in the CoachVille Full Practice program, CTI's training program, and have developed an active group of contacts who are trained or have been trained in coaching.

Len Lubinsky  lubinsky@mediaone.net



I hope that this was helpful.

Thomas