I’ve been hearing from a lot of coaches lately who say they’ve been struggling to find their niche, narrow down their niche, or choose between niches –and are feeling overwhelmed in the process of it all. I’m here to tell you that niching down doesn’t have to be stressful, and it definitely should not be the reason you aren’t growing your business!
In today’s episode, I want to reduce this overwhelm you might be feeling around niching and help you find a niche that aligns with your interests and expertise so you can start serving clients and help them with their transformation.
Michelle Ellis is joining me today as we talk about how to choose a niche when you’re multi-passionate, action steps to help you narrow down your niche, why you should choose a niche that aligns with her personal story, and how to use social media to find your target market.
Rachel: Hey guys, it is Rachel Feldman. We are here for another episode of the Healthy Hustle podcast. I asked Michelle back. You know her already because you have probably listened to the podcast where we talked about email marketing. If you haven’t, definitely go back.
This is Michelle Ellis and she is going to break down with me on how do you find your niche without feeling so stressed and overwhelmed. I’ve been talking to coaches who have said that they’ve been struggling to find their niche. The niche is why they are not launching their business or they’ve been going between different niches.
So we thought that we would help to reduce this overwhelm and get you started so you can start serving clients and help them with their transformation. Michelle, I am so excited for you to be here. Tell me a little about how you arrived at your niche as a health and wellness coach.
How Michelle Niched Down As A Health Coach
Michelle: Yeah, so I had bounced around a little bit in the beginning, because I was unsure. Really what was interesting about it was I knew that I wanted to focus on gut health, because that was really important to me and in my past. So I pulled from my own health stuff that through the school like I learned how to heal my own body. Then was like, okay, that’s what I want to be focusing on with other people.
So for me, gut health was number one. But it did take breaking out of my comfort zone, and to step into a little bit more of adrenal fatigue, because I still had it. So I was scared to step into that as a coach because I was still dealing with it. So I hid in gut health, because it was comfortable to me, and because I really was able to help myself. But I also really suffered, like with a junior noise issues. And I was scared to talk about it and things like that. Eventually, I did talk about both, but those are my two niches, gut health was definitely the biggest one for me.
I had IBS since I was a kid, like 14 years old from PTSD. Since then, and then going to school, I just learned this whole new way of healing the gut and not living on prescriptions or over-the-counter stuff and knowing which foods triggered. So that was really where I took from my own experience and what I was the most passionate about and what I saw in my life and the people around me also suffering from.
Rachel: That brings up such a good question, which is what happens when you’re multi-passionate? Because I know for me, I was extremely passionate, similar to you, about gut health, pylori, Candida, asthma, food, allergies, angioedema, all these different things that were gut-related. IBS was the early one or complete constipation, which is more IBS. But I also had an interest in detox, I had an interest in emotional eating. I had an interest that stemmed from my own life personal experiences.
How would you suggest or what steps would you suggest for somebody who is multi passionate to narrow down on their niche?
How To Narrow Down Your Niche If Your Multi-Passionate
Michelle: I would say to first pick your core, right? So pick that niche that you want to be known for. I always relate it back to doctors. You want to see a specialist. So if I’m having gut issues, I’m going to go to a digestive doctor. I would go to a gastroenterologist, not my regular MD.
You go there first, but you get the referral because you want to go to someone who really specializes in helping fix this issue. So definitely pick that one main niche that you’re super passionate about and really want to help people with and you also know a lot about.
It should be something the most about and are really comfortable. Not only teaching about it but I think that there has to be some backstory, as you’re saying that relates to that niche.
Rachel: However, I know many coaches who have come to me where weight loss is what they want to be known for mindset and weight loss, and they never had a weight issue, but they’re so inspired to help women not have metabolism issues, hormone issues, weight issues, and so they really land on weight loss being their niche. Plus, they realize that a lot of people are coming to them for that reason.
So before we even get into what does your ideal client want from you, you were saying the steps to really narrow down what do you want to be known for? What would be the next one?
The Steps To Narrowing Down Your Niche
Michelle: What do you so the first one be? What do you want to be known for? What do you know the most about? Because that’s really important. You need to be comfortable and confident in what you’re teaching and coaching on. So whether it’s a shop or you’re offering freebies, people are going to ask questions, even in a live workshop, and then also just to know that you can really help your client on that deeper level because you do know so much about it.
Rachel: An example when you were saying niche down, you could be known as that gut coach, but you’re also talking about adrenal fatigue because that’s terribly connected to gut health. So if you want to niche down and get really specific that one of your core, what we call content pillars, this is an area that you’re going to keep talking about that helps your ideal clients see that correlation between adrenal fatigue and between gut health. Am I correct with that?
Michelle: Totally. I had talked about so much when I was health coaching, really, my heart was all about anxiety, because I even went to school for psychology. I had that since I was little. So for me, it was about that. But that’s where I learned about the gut and the brain connection. So that was like, Okay, it’s really the gut. And then there were these other things like, oh, I can also talk about adrenal fatigue, I could talk about how to detox. I did talk about weight loss, too. Because when your digestive system isn’t working, that’s a sign of adrenal fatigue as well. There are so many women that gain weight that they don’t even know why they’re gaining because of the cortisol levels.
So it doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about other things when you specialize in one thing, it just means that you then bring all those other topics that you’re talking about into that one core niche, right? If you’re doing a weight loss program, you’re focused on gut health as well once they’re inside. You’re hoping to explain to your ideal client when you improve your gut, you’re going to have weight loss as an outcome.
So that even brings us to the desired results. If we think, I want to be known for, I want to specialize in, how is it important for a person to do a little market research to figure out what is their ideal client coming to them for?
How To Use Social Media To Find Your Target Market
Rachel: Definitely posting online, if you don’t have a following, reach out to your friends and family first, for sure. If you do, and if you’ve started to have a following either locally or reach out to your local community as well. If you’re in PTA groups all of those different things. The people that you associate with most often on your social is your ideal client avatar.
Guys, don’t just reach out to anyone you want to. Think of the type of person you want to work with. What’s their age, demographics? Find a group of people that you can either interview, whether it’s friends or family, or going to different Facebook groups. Ask the admin, I’m doing some market research. Do you mind if I post this here? Utilize social media.
Michelle: Yeah, and your social networks, because your ideal client is typically found there as well. And typically, when you’re first starting health coaching, you already have people drawn to you, if you’re sharing about it, you let people know, in conversation or online.
Like that mom group, they’re reaching out to you asking you about weight loss or their hormones. You’re talking about whatever it is you’re doing. Then that just naturally organically starts that conversation.
So thinking about your ideal client avatar, and also your social networks where are they there. Then even questions like doing stories and polls. If you have your own Facebook group, and maybe you’re in that place where you’re like, I’m narrowing it down between gut hormone health and weight loss, and you’re trying to figure out what you want to be known for start asking people what are their desired outcome? What problems are you facing? What would you like to accomplish? Start to get a real sense of why people are coming to you for their solution for the solution that they seek.
Rachel: Yeah, and even the simplest thing on social if you’re on Facebook or Instagram, and you just ask that one question, what’s your number one biggest health struggle right now? Put it in the comments. People will give you answers. We talk about personal Facebook pages all the time. I’m not one to mark it on them in the sense I’m going to drop a link under but I do love using my personal Facebook page to ask questions like that because there are people within my friends and family zone.
Michelle: Exactly. Usually you’ve had conversations, you’ve liked each other stuff, there’s some type of relationship there that you’ve connected on already. So that works well for asking questions. Also just beating the algorithm. It’s your warm audience. So they know who you are. And they’re more inclined to let you know what problems they have.
How To Figure Out What You Want To Be Known For
Rachel: So for that person who’s sitting there saying, But wait, it is gut, it is hormone, it is weight loss? How can we help that person to really narrow down so that they’re not lost in this confusion? Would you say, really going back to those steps that you suggested, like, what do you want to be known for? What problems do you solve?
Michelle: If you could think almost like a graph –so typically, it’s one root cause issue that causes all of those other things that you can I help you. So if you go back to that, the one thing that you believe. If my client just fixed this one thing about their health, then they wouldn’t have these other symptoms. Then that’s how you would really know you could still talk about those other topics, right?
We could talk about hormone, we could talk about blood sugar, we could talk about weight, we could talk about detox, we’ve talked about mindset. It becomes all these content bubbles and content ideas, but you’re still driving them back to that one area that you want to be known for.
Rachel: Exactly, exactly.
Michelle: You’re also solving one problem, even though it’s attached to all these other symptoms. Because it’s hard to be talking about a ton of things all at once. So if you really laser in, and you focus on that one thing, even if you’re talking about the other symptoms, then people will see that they’ll start coming to you. They’ll see you as someone with authority, someone who’s visible has expertise in us, and they’ll start asking for advice about that one thing which is super important.
Actionable Steps To Help You Clarify Your Niche
Rachel: I love having action steps and homework. What would be a good exercise that somebody could do to help them clarify their niche? Journaling?
Michelle: For sure. I think journaling and asking yourself the questions, Who do you want to help? What do you want to be known for? What are you really passionate about? What do you know the most about? What is their biggest problem? What outcome are they looking for to achieve? Where do you feel most confident? Because that’s going to help you step into that expertise role, and really step into your health coaching shoes.
Also, the part about identifying it with your story. I think that’s the power. Whether you witnessed it or you wish it to happen for somebody. I know lots of coaches who were never sick, but they want people to have that endless energy, as you were talking about with adrenal fatigue. So really sitting there and saying, How can my personal story help? What personal stories do I have that can really help my niche or m ideal client identify with me?
Rachel: I think we packed a lot of information into a short episode, which it’s great for somebody to just listen to us while they’re cooking, or go for a little run. What thought would you want to leave everyone with?
Michelle: Trust yourself to make the right decision for your niche and don’t bounce from niche to niche. If it’s because you’re uncomfortable, if it’s because you’re not trusting yourself, if you start trusting yourself, that’ll grow. The confidence will grow and the comfort level will grow. You’ll grow as a coach and as a specialist.
But never feel like, Oh, I’m not good enough. So maybe I should do this instead. Or this instead, or that one that everyone says, or I hear weight loss is really profitable. Every niche is profitable.
Rachel: I want to make sure you’re nailing down the message to your ideal client. But I would say that I’ve seen so many coaches who specialize in perimenopause, post-menopause. You specialize in Candida, SIBO, food allergies. And to really do that market research, find five competitors that are specializing in that same area, follow them, see what you like, see how they’re showing up with their packages.
Most importantly, make sure that your content is not confusing that person who is your ideal client. As long as you’re taking those other content ideas, those content pillars and relating them to your niche. Your client will not feel overwhelmed. Do you agree?
Michelle: Absolutely. Yes.
Rachel: So guys, it’s been great to be with you Thank you so much for coming today. I really appreciate it.
Do not overcomplicate your niche it can feel extremely overwhelming to sit there and start your business but the faster that you declare it, you step into it, you own it, the faster that your business is going to be built.
Trust me because I hear too many people who just stress over this. Talk to your friends and say what is it that I constantly talk about it when it comes to health? You will find out so much information about yourself and your niche might be staring you right in the face and you don’t even know it.
