94: Maybe You Don’t Need a Coaching Niche

When I help a new coach develop their audience, niche, brand, messaging, web copy and more … part of what I’m doing is helping them to become an entrepreneur – the CEO of their own business.My goal with helping them niche first is not to limit them but rather to help them leverage and have a powerful springboard to launch. I know that if they stand out in the crowd they have a greater chance of being a financially successful coach more quickly.There are coach mentors out there that say you don’t need a niche. I have a theory about that. I imagine that those people are what I call PURE COACHES. Hopefully, they have found their own success without a niche before they tell other coaches that they don’t need one.I’ve published a previous episode called Which Coach Archetype Fits You?  You can find that at prosperouscoach.com/12. It’s worth a listen.By observing successful coaches over 2 decades I cam up with 5 main archetypes for coaches … the Teacher (that’s my archetype), the Healer, the Icon, the CEO and the Pure Coach.The first 4 archetypes are born entrepreneurs: ·      They have something personal to say. ·      They have specific skills they want to apply.·      They want to have creative control.·      And it makes sense to focus in on a specific narrow target audience to do that with ease.The 5th archetype, The Pure Coach, wants to coach anyone about anything. Their goal is to coach and not necessarily to earn well of have a say of how they earn well.A side point here … I think a lot of coaches that are still in coaching training school or just out have this in mind at first. I know I did. I was enamored about the idea of coaching and I had little understanding of how I’d get clients or earn well as coach.Like a lot of coaches I tried to sell coaching by the session or by the month to everyone. I didn’t know that coaching is a hard sell in most circles. I had a few clients and my first year I made a total of $5000.That did not satisfy me and I wasn’t going to give up. So I sought another way.I realized that I had a lot to learn so I studied my way to success. Lo and behold I love running my own business. And I don’t even mind marketing because I get to do it in a non-salesy way such as with this podcast where I can teach and provide value while I let you know that I’m here to help you launch your coaching business. The Pure CoachThe Pure Coach is someone who is not driven by a desire to put their own ideas or messages out there. They don’t care about having creative control of their own business. In fact, for a Pure Coach being an entrepreneur might be torture.A Pure Coach tends to become a devotee of a certain coaching model or a certain set of principles taught by someone else. Think … John Marshall or Tony Robbins.·      They someone to funnel clients to them rather than attract their ideal type.·      They don’t want to market or publish content EVER!·      They would be happiest applying someone else’s approach to work with each client for however long.·      They would be fine with someone else setting their fees and setting the rules.To read more about coach archetypes click here.