This episode is the second ON AIR COACHING session where you can listen in while I work with a coach to narrow her target audience and uncover clues about her coaching niche.
Cynthia Brown recently graduated from Coach Training Alliance where she met one of my clients, Audra, who referred her to me. That and my podcast encouraged Cynthia to apply for On Air Coaching with me.
Let me introduce Cynthia Brown ...
Cynthia is the founder of New Lane Coaching. One of her main concerns is that women business owners often sell themselves short. She wants women to know that their small businesses can become more than they originally dreamed. All it takes is one small step each day.
Cynthia is currently involved in Toastmasters International to learn to speak at women business own associations. She's a certified coach and member of the International Coach Federation.
While Cynthia has initially targeted a broad audience — women small business owners, she wasn't certain about it, partially because she had another audience that was tugging on her heart strings:
high school students to help them transition to college or a career
When she thinks about that audience she feels sheer excitement!
But she had big doubts about this choice for a coaching niche.
We took some time to investigate whether that audience would be viable. In other words, would it pay off in income and clients.
We ultimately agreed that audience wouldn't sustain her financially.
Parents might invest in her help if her goal was to help those students get into a good college or university. But they might not be as excited about investing much to have Cynthia help their kids choose a vocation.
In our conversation, Cynthia became certain that it was best to only serve the audience of high school kids as a "side gig" where she'll offer support for lower fees as she has time and inclination.
Cynthia wants to have a thriving business and not be held up by struggling to convince parents.
We talked about the old "follow your passion" adage and how important it is to look for an audience and niche that both feels joyful and will pay off.
Sometimes that means going with your second choice unless earning a living isn't important to you.
Next, I prompted Cynthia to share a personal story about a previous employee she helped to formulate his career path. Years later he wrote her a thank you note for how her support influenced him.
It was a peak experience for Cynthia that touched her deeply. And I wanted to earmark that story as a potential clue for her niche.
Then, we shifted to talking about the broad audience that she'd set for herself in New Lane Coaching, working with women small business owners.
Cynthia felt it was too broad. And so did I.
First, we looked at whether it was important to her to limit to women.
Cynthia decided that, no, it's not..
Many coaches are inclined to specify women as a way to narrow their niche. That's a good idea if it really matters to you, the coach.
If you feel more of a solid affinity with one gender or another, go ahead and narrow that way. That alone won't help you stand out though.
But there are other ways to narrow an audience t
