Should Coaches have a Niche? By Ann Cheung PCC (Guest)
In some circles this is a controversial question. Coaches do not need domain knowledge to coach effectively yet many successful coaches are known for their niche.
On a WBECs Q&A session in 2019, Marshall Goldsmith summed up a career in coaching in a nutshell,
“Coaching is a fabulous profession but a very hard business.”
This clearly highlights the polarities between the privilege of journeying with coachees through their breakthrough/transformation to achieve their goals with the realities of establishing a business with sufficient paid work to earn a living.
We know that the coaching business is tough, as recent events have highlighted and this is discussed in more detail in Exploring a future of coaching post-Covid: by David Lines and Yvonne Thackray’s blog. What I would add to that blog, is that I noticed during lockdown that ‘successful six figure coaches’ were heavily promoting (and discounting) their programmes. It made me wonder to what extent this was a genuine development of the profession, or alternatively, coaches finding it easier to ‘sell the dream’ than to actually maintain their six figure coaching business solely through delivering coaching.
Where’s the real ‘gold’ in coaching?
It would be really interesting to know, for example:
What is the global spend on coaching split across coaching delivery/ coaching training / coach accreditation / coach brokers?
Where is the lion share of the coaching expenditure?
Is the majority of coaching expenditure going on coaching services?
Or is it going on allied activities?
Has the coaching industry created more supply than there is demand?
We know that coaching can be incredibly impactful for lots of people, circumstances and organisations but that doesn’t directly translate into available business. In fact, during lockdown, I had a couple of Coach contacts who altruistically offered some pro-bono coaching and experienced surprisingly low uptake. It appeared that money was not the barrier to accessing the coaching.
Time was the significant barrier.
Or was it?
Is there an inherent reluctance to be beholden to someone afterwards if we accept pro bono services? There is much research about the reciprocation norm but in challenging times, maybe these principles don’t work in the same way? The reciprocation norm reveals that receiving a small gift leads to an increase in sales downstream. Providing a service free of charge instills a social obligation to reciprocate in some way. Maybe in these uncertain times when resources appear scarce, people are reluctant to engage with pro bono services because they are uncertain whether they will be able to fulfil the social obligation at a later date.
Setting out in the marketplace
There are a number of factors in the mix of how Coaches can establish and sustain their coaching business (see blog). Clearly it’s important to stand-out in the marketplace. Which returns us to the question, should Coaches have a niche?
Coach training encourages us to establish who we are and how we coach. This is around knowing ourselves and authenticity. We are all unique, both ourselves the coaches, and also our coachee customers.
Chemistry is an important aspect of establishing rapport and the coaching relationship. We do this by being ourselves and encouraging the prospective coachee to be comfortable and be themselves too.
As our work centres on the individual themselves, this should lead us to identify our preferences of who we like to work with and how and why, which represents our niche.
The counter argument is that as coaches we know that it’s not necessary to know anything about the topic or domain to be able to successfully coach the coachee. In fact, domain knowledge can make it more difficult to provide good quality coaching as the risk of slipping into a spot of mentoring or consultancy is far greater. Interestingly though, many clients do choose coaches based on whether the coach has a track record or understanding of their topic or industry.
Standing out in your market, collaboratively
So, should coaches have a niche?
As we show-up as our unique and authentic selves by its very definition, we are being niche. And we need a language to convey our unique and authentic selves. And so, we circle back round to defining who we are and who we best work with, our niche.
And what about diversity and inclusion? In a world where all coaches declare their niche there will be a great diversity of choice for coachees. This sounds truly great, but even this comes with a caveat. As coaches we know that quite often ‘the thing isn’t the thing’ and so it’s conceivable that a coachee could choose a coach based on their initial understanding of what they want to work on, to then discover that actually they want/need to work on something different. In this situation the coachee needs to be able to course correct and select a different coach if necessary. And as professional coaches we need to enable that to happen.
If we all coach within our niche, we need to be completely true to this, and step aside or refer-on when necessary which of course is a recognised competency of professional coaches.
There are many types of niche: transactional or skills based; transformational; personal/professional; holistic or body, mind and spirit. This speaks to the current agenda to encourage people to ‘bring their whole selves to work’ and how do coaches best serve this agenda?
I contend that it is by bringing our whole selves to work with the coachee’s whole self. But how can coachees engage with coach who is going to be best for them?
By us coaches articulating our niche.
Connect with Ann Cheung on Linkedin.
Ann is an Executive Coach and Systemic Team Coach who has come from a background of programme and project management consultancy and delivery. She has helped improve the performance of programme and project teams across the infrastructure sector for almost thirty years.
More recently Ann works with Christians in Corporate Life, Christians in Leadership and Christian teams whether that is in the corporate world, charities or churches. She works with all denominations and churchmanship. Her focus is to journey with clients as they get clear, get equipped and get going on living-out their calling and achieving their vision.
