Niche Selection and Branding for Coaches
Niche Selection and Branding for Coaches
By Carlene Ashby
Becoming a life coach is not an occupation one comes to lightly. The decision to be a life coach has usually come out of a series of serendipitous events that led one down a path of spirituality and up a hill of accountability only to arrive at the summit of personal development and realize that there are no instructions for how to function up here!
By that, I mean that being a life coach is not just a career, it is a way of life. And a relatively new one at that. This young occupation is full of people who can coach anyone to excellence, but who are making less money than a Wal-Mart greeter. Why? Because there are very few people telling us how to run our businesses, craft our marketing and brand ourselves properly.
If you are an accountant or a doctor, not only do people understand what you do and what results to expect, they have a good idea of how much it should cost and how they’ll pay you.
The same is not true of coaching. Coaching is unique, because everyone in the industry markets differently, charges differently, and produces different results.
Marketing yourself as a coach requires educating your prospects and enticing them with results and benefits, rather than systems and procedures.
According to Forbes.com, the salary of a life coach is six figures for only 10 to 20 percent of coaches. The median annual income for life coaches in the United Sates is only $30,000 to $40,000 per year, which means that there are a LOT of coaches who are making much less than $30,000.
That is due to the fact that 85% of coaches have no idea how to market themselves in this unique forum. The areas they typically fail in are:
- Niche Selection- They choose a niche that is not profitable or too broad a niche that is impossible to market to. Remember: If you are marketing to everyone, you are marketing to no one.
- Branding- This includes your business name, your tagline, your logo and site design. Most are named weakly, they have an unclear or weak tagline, the logo is forgettable or ugly or meaningless and the site usually looks cheap, crowded and unfocused.
- Packaging- They only provide one or two types of services instead of having several streams of income and the packages are not compelling enough.
- Content- Their site and their conversations around what they do focus on coaching, coaching systems, procedures, etc. Remember: Nobody cares about coaching, how it is done, what systems you use, etc. They only care about results.
When coaches are in the stages of business planning it is important to consider the above factors and consult an expert to ensure they are not investing their time and energy into a sinking ship.
When planning your business you must consider having several streams of income. I like to explain this strategy this way: Imagine your business as a big concrete platform a la ancient Greece. On top of the platform is you and your family. Now, would you rather have one column holding up the platform, or several columns holding up the platform? I’m assuming you answered several, but I’ll explain why this is the best answer. If one of the columns gets wiped out, your platform will not come tumbling down if there are several others holding it up.
For instance, if you do only one-on-one tele-coaching and the proverbial well dries up, your platform, that is supporting you and your loved ones, falls down.
Now imagine that you also have group coaching, products for sale, writing gigs, speaking engagements, radio spots, etc. That platform will continue to support you because there are so many columns holding it up.
Starting out as a coach is overwhelming when you do not have help, and if you believe in coaching enough to become one, then invest in one. Not just a life coach either. Invest in a coach that is specialized in business and marketing. Trust me, you’ll save yourself years of stress and thousands of dollars by doing it right the first time!
© Copyright 2010 Carlene Ashby
Tagged with: Branding • Branding for coaches • Life Coach • Marketing for life coaches • Niches for Life Coaches • packaging coaching services
Filed under: Branding • Branding for coaches • Client Attraction • Life Coaching • Marketing Funnel • Niche Selection • Niches for Life Coaches • Sales and Pricing
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Great discussion. And I REALLY like that you practice what you preach. That’s when you can tell a post has come together.
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And I’m also fascinated by how fresh you made the routine [admit it: what you just shared has been regurgitated millions of time.
Ben Johnson said people don’t need taught as much as they need reminding.
Good work.
Agreed Ovel! People simply need reminding, and often I find I have to hear something 5 different ways before it really lands for me. Hopefully some of this lands for people!