How I Crafted My Niche

I've never been a fan of niching down. To this day, I don't consider myself a coach with a niche. I believe that saying things like "I only work with men in their fifties who are in the middle of a divorce" or "the only people I coach are dolphin trainers" is super limiting. However, Christian Mickelsen has played a big role in my perspective shift on this. By asking two questions, he made me realise that there is a big advantage to niching down. The first question is:

"Do you want food?"

Now, you might not be hungry. Maybe you just had lunch or maybe you are reading this while you are eating something. Or maybe you are hungry, it doesn't matter. The second question is:

"Do you want chocolate covered strawberries?"

Okey, who doesn't want that?! Even if you just had lunch or are currently eating something, there's always room for a lovely treat.

Because of the insight that niching down sparks to the imagination of your clients I decided to ponder upon my possible niche. I looked at all the previous clients and I worked with and there was one thing they all had in common: all of them were like me. This realisation changed my thinking. I started to ask myself, then who am I? What if I could describe myself so well that other people resonate with it too? And with the help of Rich Litvin I did. In one of his podcast episodes, he asks his client some powerful questions and invites the listeners to answer these questions for themselves too. I did.

With the answers to these questions, I could come up with my story:

"Here’s something that most people don’t know about me: I felt like I couldn’t be myself for most of my life. It was as if I would always be too young to pursue what I wanted, and always interested in the things that weren’t accepted to openly talk about. In fact, most of my life I felt like I had to hide my passion for discovering the world, diving into spirituality, and drawing the best out of people. I would even hide my dreams about traveling to 50 countries before I am 25 years old and changing the educational system through my coaching business in order for me to fit in.

It is clear that I have a constant need for freedom and to do things my way, a new way. This creative way to develop and do new things became my way of living a life of freedom at a very young age, but it also has a dark side.The dark side of this is that when people offer me help with a genuine intention, I often mistake it as them not believing in me. In fact, most of my life I have not felt supported in my decisions because I was mistaken people’s love for conditional control. When people checked in with me, I thought they were sticking their nose into my business, when in fact they just wanted to show me how much they cared."

Suddenly, I was able to describe myself in so much detail and I realised that who I was describing wasn't just me.. I was describing my own clients!

"My clients are secret freedom-seekers like me, secret rebels. People with a deep need for freedom, but best if their environment doesn’t know about it. Sometimes my clients are entrepreneurs who got caught in the trap of ‘a life working to live’. These are people that want to experience all that life has to offer, but feel like the journey they have to walk to reach their destination won’t be understood by the people around them. These are the people that catch themselves saying “I can’t do that because I don’t want others to see me fail”"

The moment I started to openly talk about this new realisation, the way people perceived me changed. Whenever I shared who I work with and how I help them, I didn't just get a "that's nice". Instead, I saw people's mouths drop open and saw "oh.. that's me!" Somebody even told me they teared up when reading the above on my website because they finally felt seen. Now that's powerful marketing! Although.. is it?

I never wrote the above with the intention to impress potential clients, neither did I write it to have any other potential effect. All I did, was trying to get to know myself better through some questions. This resulted in more meaningful conversations and that lead to beautiful coach-client relationships. However, for you it could have a different effect. These are the questions I answered, inspired by Rich Litvin 's podcast episode:

1. What are you proud of? What are some achievements that could be your headlines? (being a parent or buying a house is great and really something to be proud of, but try to think further. For example: "I changed the lives of more than 20.000 kids and adults by inviting them to step into the field of spirituality through my audiobooks."
2. What did you love to do when you were a kid? How was that different than any other typical kid your age?
3. How is the above a secret to your current success?
4. What is on the other side of your success? What is that dark side that nobody knows is there?
5. What did you struggle with most throughout your life?
6. What makes you (and your coaching) stand out?
7. What is your philosophy to life?

The above are the seven questions that helped me to create the story of which I shared a part earlier in this article. I'm inviting you to sit with these questions and write down the first thing that comes up. It will gift you more insight into who you are, and therefore it will help you to discover who your ideal client is. Spoiler alert: every client you work with is you. Knowing yourself on a deeper level results in knowing (and understanding) your clients on a deeper level.

PS: if you recognise yourself in me and my story, that's a sign we might benefit from spending some time together. I always love connecting with like minded people so I am inviting you to reach out for a conversation! No strings attached, I have got nothing to sell you :))