5 Secrets to a Highly Profitable Niche You ll Love

Transcription

1 5 Secrets to a Highly Profitable Niche You ll Love 5 Secrets to a Highly Profitable Niche You ll Love Rhonda Hess Coaching Niche Success Strategist Prosperous Coach

2 About Rhonda Rhonda Hess is an internationally recognized business coach and the founder of Prosperous Coach. Her super power is helping coaches champion a highly profitable niche, so they can market less and become a go- to coach in high demand. Rhonda helps you finally solve that agonizing question What's my niche? in her step- by step- program, Your Highly Profitable Niche. Her smart system starts you off on the fast track to success, where clients pay you well and fill your business for you! Rhonda became a recognized leader in the coaching industry in 2001 when she co- authored curriculum for Coach Training Alliance, designed their Certified Coach Program, and personally trained over 500 coaches. She served on the board of the Denver Coach Federation and was the director of the Colorado Coaching Expo. Rhonda has helped hundreds of coaches to niche successfully with her easy to implement guides to help coaches ace the business side of coaching. Once you've chosen a viable niche she helps you develop a powerful online presence that automatically turns fans into clients. Her insightful Prosperous Coach Blog has twice won Best Coaching Blog from the Coaching School of Mastery. Rhonda works privately with a few motivated clients each year. She d love to meet you and learn about the unique transformation you offer. If you d like VIP hand holding to land your niche, develop compelling offers, and create a dynamic website that attracts high paying clients, connect with Rhonda now.

3 You re a brilliant coach with a deep toolbox full of savvy skills and your clients love you! But you never seem to have enough clients. Too many disappear after the initial session. There s little profit so far because you ve invested so much trying to find the sweet spot in your business. Where are the clients who GET the value of coaching enough to invest in it? That s the 6- figure question! You KNOW that you need a niche to succeed. Maybe you had one that once sparked your passion, but it didn t pay off. That can be disheartening and fill you with doubts. And that s where I come in. My clients say I have a super power for helping coaches choose a highly profitable niche they love. Having studied coaching niches for 18 years, I ve cracked the code on what works, what doesn t and why. I m about to show you: SECRET #1 Reveals why some niches fail, plus the 3 critical components of a profitable niche. SECRET #2 Reveals how to easily find all of your future clients without a lot of marketing. SECRET #3 Reveals how to attract clients who eagerly invest in themselves. SECRET #4 Reveals how to stand out in the crowd and become THE go- to coach. SECRET #5 Reveals how to discover exactly what your clients want and will buy from you. 1

4 How do I know these secrets? Because when I implemented them, I went from earning a few hundred dollars each month to quickly becoming a sought after coach with a juicy 6- figure income. I let go of my unprofitable niche, stopped being so salesy, and everything clicked into place! I ll help you avoid those popular but profitless niches and leap years ahead of the typical business learning curve. The Top 10 Advantages of a Profitable Niche 1. Experience more clarity about your value. 2. Share what you do more confidently. 3. Build your fan list easily. 4. Network more effectively. 5. Attract ideal clients consistently. 6. Become well known quickly. 7. Get more quality referrals. 8. Garner invitations to speak at prestigious events. 9. Create your own products, workshops and retreats. 10. Command higher fees. If you re not having this kind of easy positive flow in your coaching business yet It s NOT your coaching skills. It s NOT that you don t know enough. It s NOT that people don t value your services. It s your niche. 2

5 I surveyed over 1000 coaches and found: 93% of coaches believe that their niche, or lack of one, is the biggest obstacle to their success. AND IT IS! This is why I created a system for you. I ll give you all I can here and show you where to get more help to land your own profitable niche. I ll also share real life stories of coaches like you who were struggling to find clients. After implementing my system, they quickly became an "insider" to a unique tribe of people who line up to buy their high- ticket programs and refer more ideal clients. YOU VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE IF: You re new to coaching and want to niche right the first time. Or you re an experienced coach and you ve had it with poor results. You want a foolproof way to consistently find and enroll clients that are truly hungry for the transformation you provide. Read on to learn the 5 secrets no one ever told you about coaching niches! Rhonda Hess Niche Success Strategist & CEO of Prosperous Coach 3

6 SECRET #1 Your niche is NOT what you do. A profitable niche has 3 parts that work in concert to attract high paying clients. Some coaching niches fail because they aren t robust enough. To start with, there s a COMMON MISCONCEPTION about what a niche is. What you do coaching, consulting, therapy is a field or area of focus. It s not a niche. You may have streamlined your focus to a particular TRACK, such as: Life purpose coaching Wellness coaching Midlife coaching Transition coaching Career coaching Relationship coaching Those focused skills will help you help people. But, they won t help you enroll enough clients and earn a good living as a coach. That s because you re trying to sell something that people don't KNOW they want coaching so they are hesitant to buy it. As coaches, we GET that coaching truly helps people. However, few people wake up knowing they want coaching so the idea of coaching, no matter how hard you try to sell it, rarely motivates people to hand you their credit card and enroll. People buy outcomes. They buy results, not coaching. If you ve been trying to sell your (fill- in- the- blank) coaching, you ve been taking a big gamble and working way too hard. 4

7 Some coaches take a wise step towards a more viable niche by naming a SPECIALTY. For example, a wellness coach might focus on weight loss, or a relationship coach might focus on dating. That s smart because it speaks to a specific PROBLEM people have. However, unless you ve got an iconic personality, you ve written a best selling book, or you love to speak on the big stage, you haven t niched tightly enough with a specialty alone. If you re not ready right now to drum up promotional partners and work your way up the speaking circuit, there s a much easier way to have a profitable niche. A healthy and viable niche is made up of 3 parts: 1. One Narrow Target Audience Your NICHE 3. Your Savvy Solution for that Audience 2. Target Audience s Acute Problem or Urgent Desire 5

8 You can see how if you ve focused solely on selling what you want to coach around, it may have prevented you from having a successful niche. There are a few more steps to take to land your profitable niche. If you re set on a certain TRACK of coaching, zone in on one viable target audience (also called a niche market) that fits that track. A TARGET AUDIENCE = a unique group of people defined by a set of specific interests, challenges and goals. For example: A relationship coach specializing in dating could target single parents. Wouldn t you agree that single parents have unique dating challenges? When they hear about services custom designed for them they ll jump at the chance to enroll! A wellness coach specializing in weight loss could target corporate executives. Those individuals are over- stressed and need to command the respect of their clients and boss. Wellness habits would enhance their performance, raise confidence and help them get noticed for a promotion. Do you see how, in both cases, targeting one audience rather than offering the specialty to everyone, makes it possible for the coach to stand out and attract attention fast? If you haven t yet settled on a specific TRACK of coaching, no worries! Stop struggling to figure that out and instead pick a viable audience to serve and find out exactly what they most want. Gear your messages and offers to help them achieve that very thing. Then it s easy to enroll clients who pay you well. 6

9 By now, you re beginning to shift your mindset. You see that targeting a unique audience allows you to: Stand out in the crowd of other coaches. Grab the attention of your ideal clients fast. Have them come looking for YOU, ready to enroll. When you know WHO you serve and what they want (more about this in Secret #5) all the doors of opportunity open up for you! It s as if your eyes were veiled before and now you can see everything clearly. Suddenly, you know exactly what to say to enroll clients. It s easy to create sold out events and hot products. Everything you do for your business has clarity and pinpointed focus. Take a moment now to TEST YOUR NICHE Are you trying to sell fill- in- the- blank coaching to a broad audience? If so, you re holding yourself back from success. Have you geared your services to solve a specific problem? If yes, you ve given yourself a huge advantage! 7

10 SECRET #2 Choose a target audience that s easy to find. You may have already realized this through experience not all audiences will pay off. Some niche markets are duds because the people are mysteriously hard to find, enroll, and serve well. It s important to choose a viable audience. In a vi- a- ble target audience, people are: 1. Easy to find and easy to connect with. 2. Eager to evolve and motivated to invest (SEEKERS). 3. Narrow and deep. Easy to Find Easy to Connect With A Viable Target Audience Narrow and Deep Eager to Evolve Motivated to Invest Be sure to choose a target audience with all 3 of these traits! 8

11 Have you been working too hard to find enough clients? Maybe you ve picked all the low hanging fruit by enrolling friends, colleagues and possibly even family members. You ve had some real successes. But where are your future clients? It may seem obvious, but if you can t easily find and talk to the people in your target audience, you ll expend a lot of energy and wind up frustrated with your niche. You re not alone in that. Here s one coach s story Coach Success Story #1 Kathy was a wellness coach and had tremendous expertise in health, but that didn t seem to help her find enough clients. She was marketing in disparate ways to general audiences hoping to attract clients, including teaching wellness classes at a gym for free. Every single client that hired her took months of marketing to attract. Can you relate? Kathy was a bit panicked when she found me. She d quit her corporate job to dedicate herself to her coaching business. She was running out of money quickly and afraid she d have to get a loan from her parents. I asked Kathy: Who are you targeting? She said: Well, it could be anyone who wants help improving their health. BINGO. I said: That s your biggest problem right there, Kathy you don t know WHO you re serving, so you don t know where to find them or exactly what would motivate them to invest in your services. See, Kathy thought that everyone wants to be healthy, so it should be easy to enroll health coaching clients. Sadly, no. Remember, people don t buy coaching. And, they ll reach out to other options to get healthy gyms, fitness trainers, weight loss programs. 9

12 Ironically, the broader your target audience, the harder it is to actually find and connect with enough serious prospects. So you end up marketing a lot more and earning a lot less. I asked Kathy about her favorite clients so far. She was surprised to realize that three of them were Financial Planners. One had referred the other two to her. Brilliant! That s exactly why targeting a narrow audience is an advantage (more about that in Secret 4). I suggested that she target Financial Planners. At first Kathy hesitated, saying: But Rhonda, I don t know anything about financial planning! And I said: Well, you didn t know anything about financial planning when you coached those three favorite clients, did you? Kathy s fear dissolved. She clicked on the certainty button, targeted Financial Planners and stopped trying to sell wellness coaching to everyone. With my help Kathy conducted fun market research to find out what they really want their biggest goals and she found an easy way to show how her services would help them get there. Within a few months, Kathy was invited to speak at conferences, write in the most prestigious journals, and attend insider meetings for Financial Planners. She quickly became THE go- to coach for that market, and receives referrals constantly. Kathy tells me that she s doing the most lucrative and meaningful work of her life! She knows where to find her next clients and they seek her out, gladly pay her high fees, and stay with her for years. 10

13 You see... you do NOT need to know what the people in your niche market know. Simply listen to them, ask powerful questions, and you ll know what you need to know to create irresistible offers they ll buy. Listening sounds like coaching doesn t it? One big advantage of targeting one unique and viable audience is that they are EASY TO FIND and EASY TO CONNECT WITH. That makes getting clients a simple, graceful process that you can leverage over and over. Remember, people are people no matter what they do for a living. Target a viable audience to give yourself leverage. TEST YOUR NICHE Can you easily locate 100 people in your target audience right now? If not, your target audience probably isn t viable. Can you easily connect with them directly? If not, you re working too hard to attract every client. 11

14 SECRET #3 Choose a target audience that s inspired to hire you. Remember the 3 critical parts of a viable target audience? We ve just discussed the first part Easy to Find and Easy to Connect With. Now let s cover the second critical part EAGER TO EVOLVE and MOTIVATED TO INVEST. Have you ever had a prospective client tell you I can t afford to work with you? Even though they seem to need your help and value your free session, they didn t enroll. Perhaps they actually could not afford you, but the more likely explanation is that they WOULD NOT afford you because they aren t what I call seekers. Not everyone is a seeker someone who invests money and time into their own personal and professional growth. Coaches are seekers. We want to evolve and help others reach their full potential. We avidly seek out and pay for our own coaches and mentors, growth experiences that are meaningful, and training programs to teach us new skills. Here is the seeker profile SEEKERS: Believe in investing time and money into their own development. Are driven by their desire to make a meaningful contribution to the world. Have social personalities and enjoy influencing other people. Are always actively working on themselves and their top goals. Want to become masters of everything they do. It might seem strange that not everyone is a seeker. It s about orientation and timing. 12

15 3 Categories of Non- Seekers 1. People who were taught to be fiercely self- reliant. 2. People who invest most of their time and money on things they value more than their own personal growth. 3. People who don t value themselves highly right now. Here are POPULAR BUT PROFITLESS coaching niches that many coaches try and fail: Stay at home moms Category 2. They invest in their kids. Yes, they ll love your free reports and support groups, but they won t consistently invest in support to be a better mom, to live a more balanced life, or to thrive in motherhood. Empty nesters Category 2 & 3. Empty nesters can be found within other viable audiences, but you won t attract paying clients by trying to sell them empty nest coaching. Divorcees Category 2 & 3. Same as above. Even with referral partnerships with divorce lawyers, few coaches find enough paying clients with this audience. They aren t likely to invest in divorce coaching. They hire a therapist instead. Doctors and lawyers Category 1. They won t engage you unless YOU are in their club a doctor or a lawyer yourself or were one once would they be inclined to work with you. 13

16 Extremely savvy coaches with a lot of expertise have utterly failed to make a decent living out of serving non- seeker markets like these. They had to move on to a more viable audience. That old saying you can lead a horse to water but you can t make them drink applies here. No matter how much you think they need your support, or how passionate you are about helping them, it s a poor risk to put time into attracting non- seekers. If you ve targeted one of these audiences, it might have been heartbreaking to hear they aren t viable. And the truth of it may have been nagging at you for some time. You deserve to have a profitable niche! TEST YOUR NICHE Is the audience you re serving full of seekers? If not, you re working too hard to convince a few to hire you. Cut loose and choose a target audience full of seekers people who DO invest in their own development. 14

17 SECRET #4 Choose a NARROW target audience to stand out in the crowd and become a go- to coach in high demand. Many coaches start out as an everything for everyone coach or they target a broad audience such as women in transition or entrepreneurs. There s false comfort in the idea that if you fish from a big pool you ll enroll more clients. You may not have realized that in this big information marketplace You re not just competing with every other coach out there. You re competing for the attention of potential clients. Companies that sell something tangible, such as cars which people go looking to buy can target a broad audience. But when you re selling a service, it s smarter to set yourself up as the BIG FISH IN A SMALL POND and target a narrow audience. When you do, you ll find that: Referrals come naturally, even from Google. You become well known fast. People want to promote you. You attract international clientele. And most importantly, your messages grab the attention of people who want what you offer! Think about the constant barrage of marketing messages that come to you through , texts, websites, Facebook, billboards, magazines, and radio. You tune 99% out and only respond to the ones that speak to what s most important to you. It s about RELEVANCE. When you target a narrow audience, it s easy to speak directly to the heart of what your audience wants. And they respond with enthusiasm, pre- sold for what you offer! 15

18 Let me illustrate this for you Coach Success Story #2 Susan trained as a life purpose coach. Unable to attract enough paying clients, she spent a lot of money learning new skills and client attraction tactics. But without a target audience to focus her message and offers those tactics didn t work for her. She said: Rhonda, what am I doing wrong? I took one look at her website and my eyes glazed over. It was all about coaching. I asked Susan what she was doing to get clients. She said she was giving talks about Life Purpose Coaching anywhere she could get booked. Oh no! Susan was banking on the idea that people would readily invest their money to find their life purpose. A few did, but not enough to pay her mortgage. Taking into account Susan s strengths, experience and network, I helped her pick a narrow audience that would invest in support around life purpose, among other things. Now this may surprise you Susan chose to target CranioSacral Therapists because she knew where to find and connect with them. Within just 2 months of targeting that narrow and specific audience, Susan had: Complete confidence in her abilities. A WAIT LIST of ideal clients. And her largest monthly $$$ income ever! Susan went from trying to sell Life Purpose Coaching to anyone and barely getting by, to 16

19 being a coach in high demand, making six figures. Why? Because she had the courage to target a narrow audience. And the beauty is that Susan is doing what she wants to do. She s coaching Craniosacral Therapists to help them align their life purpose to their work, but she s no longer selling life purpose coaching. Get it? TEST YOUR NICHE Are you the BIG FISH in a small pond or a little fish in an ocean of marketers? Are you getting referrals, offers to be promoted, and Google search hits? If not, it s time to narrow your audience and become well known for the transformation you provide. 17

20 SECRET #5 Find out exactly what your target audience wants and become their partner to help them get it. Once you ve targeted a viable audience there s one more step to unlock the door to your success. Find out what they want and create a pathway to help them reach it. You ll be surprised how easy this is once you shift to thinking like your clients think. (Remember you do NOT have to know what they know.) You may think that market research is highly technical and laborious. My method of market research is simple, fast, fun and designed for coaches. You come away with a gold mine of information about your target audience. You suddenly understand: What makes them tick. What they want and will buy from you. Where to find them and how to capture their interest. What motivates them to enroll. How to inspire them to refer others. With this profound understanding about your ideal clients, it s easy for you to write authentic and effective s and web content. Your website will quickly be top in search engines without a lot of expensive SEO maneuvers. You become an expert in them. And they deeply appreciate you for it! For that reason, prospective clients show up ready to hire you. You become THE top- of- mind resource for your target audience. And that s how you ll enroll more clients who pay well, refer others and come back for more! 18

21 TEST YOUR NICHE Do you know exactly what your target audience wants so much that they ll invest in your help to get it? Not yet? YOU CAN DO THIS! I ll show you how. I ve made it my mission to help coaches become financially successful through a business model that s easy and aligned with their values. You don t have to have special skills, a big network or be a big personality. Look at me I m an introvert with a highly successful 18 year strong business doing meaningful work with people who find me through Google searches and referrals. But, like most coaches, I did struggle at first. There s a well worn set of pitfalls and I fell into all of them once. Can you relate to these common problems that coaches face? You feel less- than- credible telling people what you do. You do a lot of stuff for free and people eat it up but few hire you. You re stuck on the money for time treadmill and earning little. You have great ideas but have trouble filling your groups. JV partners won t promote you because you re not differentiated from them. Problems like these go away when you target a viable audience and offer them a pathway to what they want most. LISTEN TO COACHES who transformed their coaching business. They let go of profitless niches and employed the 5 secrets 19

22 My income is already 5x greater than last year! Working privately with Rhonda was well worth the investment. In a short time my coaching practice has transformed into a more lucrative, fun and reliable business. I m working smarter without working more hours and enrolling more clients at higher fees. Rhonda helped me streamline my niche, branding, website, coaching programs and marketing strategies so they work in concert. It s raised my confidence about the value of my services. Kim Meninger "In less than 30 days I filled my coaching programs! Using Rhonda's system, I never need to hunt for new clients. Instead, they come calling for me. And they stay a lot longer. Some clients stay with me for 3 years or more. By tailoring my message for my target audience, my list quickly grew by thousands. When I launched my first recurring revenue product, I made more than $4,000 in 4 days! Sharon Desjarlais "One of my new clients just signed on for a year! Rhonda you re awesome! I completely trust you and feel I m in safe hands. I m growing and learning as we create things from your process. I feel juiced that we ve achieved all my goals! Iftikhar Nadeem My income increased 700%! Before, my income wasn't acceptable. Rhonda encouraged me to choose a specific target market and roll my expertise into a package of tangible benefits my clients would value highly. Now I'm a well- recognized expert among all the top leaders in my market. I'm doing heart work with people I love who see me as essential to their success. Kristin Keffeler I ve experienced THE SHIFT and am transported mentally and emotionally by Rhonda s niching system! Matt Rudman "My income nearly tripled. Rhonda saved me so much time and heartache by showing me how to focus my message, talents and attention. 6 new clients hired me in the last two weeks! I've crafted my own brand, developed programs that solve my clients' top problems. I've built a community of loyal followers with my radio show! I'm having a great time working 20 hours a week. Lara Galloway You ve guided me to my intuition helped me clarify a viable niche and new direction that resonated more deeply and actually feels fun! Robert Winn 20

23 Now that you know the 5 secrets of highly profitable coaching niches why not make the shift to a business that s more fun and rewarding? You can do it! If you ve already chosen a highly profitable niche, I d LOVE to hear your story. If you want to be in that place but feel the whole niche thing is too complex, take the pressure off. Let me walk you step by step through choosing your own profitable niche. Then it will be easy for me to help you create client winning messages, offers, web pages and more. If you re thinking Rhonda, I want your VIP support! Brilliant! I d love to talk to you. Tell me about yourself here, and I ll be in touch with my personal calendar to set up a free discovery session. We ll start by talking about your vision to impact the world with your unique talents and I ll share how I help you make that vision a reality. Stay inspired and make things happen! Rhonda Hess Niche Success Strategist & CEO of Prosperous Coach 21