Let your niche choose you [for coaches]

An unconventional approach to creating your ideal clients

In the vast, often vulturous landscape of coaching advice, there's a persistent, pressing message: "Pick a niche."

It's the mantra of the coaching world, the golden rule for carving out your space in the industry.

But, for me, it’s a rule that’s meant to be broken.

The notion of pigeonholing myself into a niche has never sat well with me.

Never.

It’s always felt like an unnecessary compromise that’s driven more by classic marketing strategy than by exceptional service.

And I believe the best marketing is an exceptional service.

I started out in the healthcare industry, so the idea of choosing my clients was laughable. I worked with whoever was put on my schedule.

16 people a day. Day after day after day.

I’m grateful for this period of my career. I could not imagine a better way to enter into this world of working with people in such deep, transformational ways.

As a result, my skillset is versatile, my experience broad, and my passion for guiding people to lives of inner freedom, authenticity, and well-being knows no bounds.

This variety in my clientele continued after I transitioned out of healthcare and opened a wellness center in upstate New York.

Who did we work with? Whoever signed up for a membership. That is, whoever resonated with what we were doing: providing a holistic approach to health and well-being through art and science of self-transformation.

Now I’m at a place in my career where I can choose any niche I want.

Yet, I don’t.

Why? Well, the short answer is because I don’t want to.

Why? Because it doesn’t sit well with me, and I don’t want to do things that don’t sit well with me.

The longer answer is because I don’t feel there is a need to.

After working with a wide variety of people over my career, I’ve realized something significant: peoples’ goals and challenges are really not that different.

Sure, they may look different on the surface, but deep down we are not that different.

And deep down is how I like to operate.

Sure, everyone is unique, but we experience similar underlying patterns—patterns that manifest in an abundance of unique ways.

Similarly, coaching skills are not niche specific.

They just aren’t.

If you master the fundamentals and competencies of coaching (powerful questions, active listening, reflections, presence, self-awareness, etc.), there is no one you can’t support in a coaching capacity.

Those skills don’t change from client to client. Even most advanced coaching strategies are not specific to serving any particular group of people.

So if that’s the case, picking a niche must be more for us, the coaches, than our clients.

It is to help us narrow down who we want to support, so we can market directly to that person and be more targeted in our messaging.

This implies that the goal of our messaging is to get clients… But what if it wasn’t?

What if the goal of our messaging was not to get anything, but to simply speak our truth?

What if the intention of our content was purely to share what we care about?

Let’s put a brief pin in this. We’ll come back to it, I promise. It’s actually the whole point, but I’m not ready for the conclusion.

A couple more things have just arisen for me…

Some go as far to say that picking a niche is about whose problems you can solve, and that your messaging should speak directly to those problems.

Again, classic marketing. Dig into the pain point, right? Again, not for me.

Here’s a truth pill. If you're focused on solving problems, you're missing the point of coaching entirely. Coaching isn't about dispensing advice or fixing issues; it's about guiding individuals to develop the skills and insights to navigate their own challenges and experience their desired outcomes. It's about fostering growth within the individual, not resolving surface-level issues for them.

Coaching transcends the mere act of problem-solving. It's about understanding the individual behind the problem and fostering their personal evolution. A true coach knows that the real focus of coaching is the client and who they want to become, not whatever problem they believe they’re having.

But that’s not the common advice. The common advice to work backwards, defining your niche based on market demand or lived experience or personal preference and reverse-engineer your brand, messaging, and offers to speak directly to that “persona,” the pain they’re in, and how your services are the ticket out of it. Identify what they want and then promise it to them, we’re told.

As a result, so many coaches fall into the trap of tailoring themselves to fit a predefined demographic, hoping to attract their “ideal clients,” before having worked with enough people to even know what that term means for them.

I digressed a bit here. It’s just that so much of the conversation around “niching down” is out of alignment with the profession.

That said, there is a way to define your niche with more integrity, and that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that you may not have to define a niche at all, and how it may not be a good use of your time, and why I’ve chosen not to.

Back to the point of this post.

Instead of obsessing over who my target audience should be, I've chosen to let those people reveal themselves.

Instead of choosing my niche, I’ve let my niche choose me.

What does that mean?

It means that I show up authentically as myself, sharing my beliefs, my work, and my voice with the world, and let everything else fall into place.

I share my message in various forms that appeal to me, and simply see who it resonates with, trusting that whoever it resonates with is who I’m intended to serve.

As a result, the “right” people naturally come into my sphere.

My client base has been a kaleidoscope of demographics—busy professionals, parents, entrepreneurs, executives, coaches, therapists, doctors, investors, visionaries, retirees, artists and plenty of other labels that don’t adequately describe those individuals.

They haven't chosen me because I’ve declared them to be my niche; they've chosen me because of who I am.

So, am I anti-niche? Not at all. But defining a niche isn't something I concern myself with.

When I’m asked who I work with, the answer is still “human beings.”

I’m sure someone could look at the people I work with and come up with some sort of concise description. I feel no need to entertain such things.

I trust that by being me and sharing my message, my niche will find its way to me without me having to define it.

And the real beauty of it all? The coaching relationships that blossom from this approach are effortless, natural, and enduring.

And let's be clear: this doesn't mean I work with just anyone who comes knocking on my door. But the majority of those who resonate with my message are precisely the kind of people I love working with—the ones I couldn't have “defined” better myself if I tried.

So, fellow coaches, I invite you to embrace the unconventional.

Let go of the pressure to choose a niche and instead, let your niche choose you.

Focus not on who your ideal client is, but on what you stand for.

Focus not on your target audience, but on what message you want to share with the world.

Here’s a simple approach to creating clients you love working with: Focus on becoming the fullest expression of who you are.

The best content, business approaches, and, yes, clients, will organically stem from that place.

After all, just like all relationships, the most fulfilling coaching relationships are the ones that stem from simply being yourself.

Be authentic in how you show up in this space, and watch how this is reflected in the people you end up serving.

As a result, maybe you’ll become clearer on your niche.

Or maybe, like me, you’ll find there’s no need to.

---

If you’re a coach and this resonated with you, message me below. I have an invitation for you.