One of the most popular questions I get as a mentor to new coaches for sustainable coaching practice growth is whether or not you should start to niche down right away or spend time getting as much experience as possible by coaching many people. Do you go narrow and deep or shallow but wide?
The Short Answer for Coaching Practice Growth
And, of course, the answer—just like any good coach will tell you—is yes.
Exploring and Refining Your Approach
This is not an either-or situation. In fact, new coaches have a tremendous opportunity to explore and refine their coaching practice growth through the journey of exploration. What do I mean by this? For anyone who’s following me, you know that the way I market isn’t entirely focused on inbound strategies. This means providing immense value in order to attract your ideal client. You want to do this in a way that yields abundance inevitably. Yes, you should niche. The process of niching requires you to coach and consult with a lot of different folks so that you can craft your area of expertise from an informed place.
The Importance of Relationship Building
The strategy works not just because your goal is to grow a large business or make lots of money. This strategy works because the goal is always to experience and enjoy fruitful relationships with your clientele by getting authentically curious about their challenges.
Market Research for Coaching Practice Growth
This is also why I teach market research as the primary strategy for new coaches and consultants in our Build It B2B program. You can find out more about this strategy by checking out a reel I made recently on our IG page.
How to Go Wide While Niching Down
For those who aren’t active in social media, here’s the article version of how to approach this balancing act.
Step 1: Identifying Your Ideal Clients
Curate a list of ideal clients that you’d love to work with. These could be individuals or corporations who excite you when you think about the potential of coaching or serving their team or their leaders.
Step 2: Initiating Conversations
Reach out to as many of these folks as possible to ask for a 30-minute conversation. Frame it so that people know this is an exploratory interview as you start your coaching or consulting business. This is an opportunity for you to learn more about their challenges in the leadership, communications, and business space.
Step 3: Active Listening
In these conversations, listen more than you speak. Ask folks about their current goals and the challenges that are preventing them from achieving them. Stay curious and, with their consent, record everything.
Step 4: Keep the Door Open
Weave in a door-opening question and ask for consent to follow up with them. This will be important for later.
Step 5: Analyzing Conversations
Analyze these conversations and look for themes. Note the types of problems you heard repeatedly and which ones excite you or drain your energy. Pay attention.
Step 6: Building Your Signature Offer
Build a signature offer that directly responds to the problems that lit you up during your market research interviews.
Step 7: Launching a Beta Offering
Invite everyone you interviewed to a beta offering of your new service. This is a beta.
Step 8: Commit to Excellence
Serve at the highest level imaginable. Show up for those beta clients with all you’ve got.
Step 9: Use the Feedback
Use the data collected from your beta to refine your product and service offerings.
Step 10: The Relaunch
Relaunch your service offering at a higher price point and with positioning based on testimonials and feedback.
Your Roadmap for Coaching Practice Growth
So you see, you do want to go wide, but you also want to be intentional about whom you’re speaking to. Dive into coaching and consulting ASAP, and the more you do, the more clarity you’ll bring to your service offerings and your ideal customer avatar.
Feel free to follow us on Instagram for more strategies on building your coaching practice, or dive wholeheartedly into our Build It B2B masterclass to explore how to grow and scale your coaching and consulting firm with ease and grace.
