Do Coaches Really Need a Niche?

I've hated the word niche for nine years.

Throughout my coaching career, I've been told repeatedly that I absolutely MUST have one. That I should know exactly who my ideal client is, what industry they work in, what challenges they face, what interests they have and probably what they eat for breakfast. Apparently, the more specific, the better.

I've resisted it. Partly because I've never wanted to be shoved into a box, but also because I don't believe I need to be an expert in someone's industry to coach them well. I'm interested in the human being sitting in front of me, not simply their job title or sector.

Has that resistance made marketing my business harder? Almost certainly. In trying not to exclude anyone, I suspect I've sometimes ended up speaking directly to very few.

But there's something about the advice to choose a niche that has always bothered me, particularly when it's given to coaches who are just starting out. How on earth are you supposed to know where you do your best work before you've had the chance to discover it?

What's the rush?

Coaches are encouraged to identify their ideal clients remarkably early. Sometimes while they're still training, before they've had much experience of coaching people outside their practice groups.

Now, I understand the thinking. If you know who you're talking to, it's easier to explain what you offer. And if someone lands on your website and immediately recognises themselves in what you're saying, that's a good thing.

Some coaches also come into the profession knowing exactly who they want to work with. Perhaps they've spent twenty years in a particular industry, have extensive experience in a specialist area or have a genuine passion for supporting a particular group of people. Brilliant. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But what if you don't? What if you're interested in people, their thinking, their behaviour and the challenges they face, regardless of the industry they happen to work in?

Does that make you any less credible as a coach? I don't think so. And I certainly don't think you should feel pressured to invent an ideal client because someone has told you that's what successful coaches do.

And then there's the bandwagon...

This is the other thing that bothers me.

A particular subject starts getting attention. Neurodiversity, trauma, menopause, whatever happens to be dominating the conversation at the time. Suddenly, there are courses everywhere and coaches announcing a new specialism.

Now, I'm all for professional development. I've invested plenty of time and money in my own, and I fully intend to continue. But does attending a two-day course suddenly make someone a specialist in a complex area? I'd question that.

And to be clear, I'm not questioning the value of those courses or the coaches who've spent years developing genuine expertise in these areas. Quite the opposite. I think we should recognise the difference between that depth of knowledge and attending a short course because a subject is getting attention.

A couple of days of training might be a brilliant introduction. It might help you recognise something you previously wouldn't have noticed, ask better questions or understand when a client needs support beyond coaching. That's valuable, but it's not necessarily expertise.

There are situations where a coach really does need specialist knowledge and experience to work safely and effectively with what a client is bringing. Equally, coaching someone who happens to be neurodivergent, menopausal or who has experienced trauma doesn't automatically mean that becomes the focus of the coaching.

And in plenty of other situations, not knowing the client's industry inside out can be an advantage. You're not bringing all the assumptions that come with having worked in it. You're free to ask the questions that someone familiar with that world might never think to ask.

For me, it comes down to knowing what you know, being honest about what you don't, and not claiming expertise you haven't yet developed.

What the work teaches you

Something interesting happens as you gain experience. You start noticing patterns.

There are coaching conversations that leave you tickled pink. Certain challenges you particularly enjoy exploring. Clients who make significant changes, or who come back when something new crops up. And, if we're being honest, there are probably some conversations that leave you feeling rather less energised.

Looking back over my own coaching work, I've worked with people across a wide range of industries and organisations. On paper, they might not appear to have much in common, but when I really started looking, the similarities were staring me in the face.

Much of my organisational coaching has involved brilliant people stepping up. Different jobs, different sectors, but often remarkably similar challenges.

And what really floats my boat is finding those golden nuggets between how someone sees themselves and how others experience them. The strengths they're not making enough of, the things they haven't noticed and the behaviours that might be holding them back.

I hadn't sat down one day and decided this would be my specialism. I'd recognised it through years of coaching. It wasn't a new direction, just a better understanding of what I'd already been doing.

Perhaps it's positioning, not a niche

Here's where I had to eat a little humble pie.

For years, I'd resisted narrowing my coaching to a particular industry or type of person. And I still don't think I need to. But somewhere along the way, I'd confused not wanting a niche with not needing to be particularly specific about what I do.

Turns out, telling people you coach anyone about anything isn't terribly helpful. Who knew?

I could keep my coaching open to different people, but I still needed to give them a reason to recognise themselves in what I was saying. And once I started looking at the work I'd actually done, rather than trying to dream up an ideal client, it became a lot easier.

I didn't need to change who I coached. I needed to get better at explaining where my coaching was particularly useful.

That's a rather different exercise from deciding that, from now on, you're only going to coach female finance directors aged 35 to 45 who enjoy Pilates. Unless, of course, that's genuinely your thing.

What are your clients telling you?

If you're relatively new to coaching, I'd be inclined to spend less time worrying about your niche and more time noticing what happens in your sessions.

Which conversations do you really enjoy? Where do you find yourself doing your best work? And which ones leave you wondering whether you're quite the right person for that client?

Pay attention to what clients say about working with you, but also what they actually do afterwards. I've had clients return years later, often when they've taken on a new role or something else has changed. That's told me far more about where my coaching is useful than any ideal client exercise ever has.

A few questions I'd encourage you to think about:

• Which coaching conversations leave you feeling particularly engaged, and why?

• Are there situations or challenges where you seem to do your best work?

• What have your clients taught you about the value you bring?

• Are you describing your coaching based on what you've actually experienced, or what you think the market expects you to say?

• And are you drawn to a particular specialism because you genuinely have something to offer, or because everyone else seems to be talking about it?

You might not have answers to all of those yet. That's fine. And the answers you have today might be different in a couple of years.

You don't always know until you know

I'm not against coaches having a niche. Far from it. For some, it makes complete sense. They have the knowledge, experience and interest to work with a particular group or within a specialist area. And there are situations where that expertise is genuinely important.

What I question is the pressure to decide before you've had the chance to find out.

We spend so much time as coaches encouraging our clients to question assumptions, stay curious and notice what's emerging. Yet we're sometimes remarkably quick to tell new coaches that they need to have their professional identity neatly worked out from day one. Perhaps we could give ourselves a little more room to discover it.

Your positioning doesn't necessarily need to be invented from scratch. Sometimes the evidence is already sitting there in the work you've done, the clients who've returned, the feedback you've received and the conversations that have stayed with you.

It may take time to recognise it. It certainly took me long enough.

So, if you're a coach who hasn't quite worked out their niche, don't panic. Keep coaching, keep reflecting and pay attention to what the work is teaching you.

You don't always know until you know.

Mentor coaching and development for coaches.

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