One of the most important aspects as you become a professional life coach is to develop a niche. Defining a niche tells the world that you are a specialist, and not just trying to be all things to all people. Often when people decide they want to become a professional life coach, they are afraid to choose a niche because they think they might miss out on potential clients. A niche simply allows you to clearly define your target market so you can become the expert. Here are a few life coach tips to get you started:

The 3 ‘Niche Creation and Exploration’ Tips for Those Who Want to Become a Professional Life Coach:

Life Coach Tips #1

Establish your coaching vision by asking yourself these 3 questions:

What am I most passionate about?

What can I be the best at doing in the world?

What can I make money doing?

The answer lies where these 3 answers intersect. These questions are difficult, and may not be apparent when you first decide to become a professional life coach. You may need to get some general coaching experience before you truly can define your niche, and that’s OK in the beginning. But hold yourself accountable to the process and your vision will start becoming clear.

Life Coach Tips #2

Consider different life coaching niches based upon these 4 criteria:

1.  Become a professional life coach for a specific group. This can be a religious group, a profession, a demographic group, or a group that shares a common interest. For example, maybe you want to be a health coach for women over 55. This doesn’t mean you can’t coach a woman in her 20’s that needs your services; it’s just not the niche you’re initially targeting.

2.  Make sure you become a professional life coach in a target niche that is actively searching for solutions. To find out if people are searching for solutions in your niche, go to the Google key word search tool. It will show you the exact key word phrases people are searching for and how many times those key word phrases are used in searches.

3.  Your niche should serve an emotional or irrational need. One of my mentors once referred to this tendency as the “’Oholic factor”.

People have who love chocolate, cars, or wine have an emotional need/desire.

People about to loose their home to foreclosure have an irrational desire.

Techies that have to have the latest gadget before their friends do have an irrational desire.

Real estate agents who are passionate about being the best have an emotional drive and desire.

4.  Your target niche should have few perceived options. They may have options, but they may not be aware of them, or not see them as truly viable options.

Life Coach Tips #3

If you don’t already have one, hire a coach to help you through the process. If you are going to become a professional life coach, you should walk your talk and value professional life coaching enough to become a client yourself. If you don’t feel it is worthwhile to pay for coaching, how are you going to convince others that it is? .

These life coach tips will help you get started in your search. Some examples of niches include: Wellness Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Parent Coaching, Life Purpose Coaching, Career Coaching, Success Coaching, Wealth or Financial Coaching, Sales Training Coaching, Time Management Coaching, and Leadership Coaching. Just make you are passionate about your niche and that you have potential to be the best at in the world in that area. That way you will be able to serve your clients’ deepest outcomes and needs.

Colette Seymann

Accountability Coach, JTS Advisors