One of the central tensions I feel whilst growing my coaching practice is balancing heart with business. By this I mean making a living doing what I love whilst keeping my business head on. In last week’s interview I love how Lynn Grodzki addressed this topic by talking about the What and the Who of our coaching practice. She described how these need to sit together like hand and glove.
Finding our What is part business decision and part decision of the heart. As coaches, it’s essential that we are doing something that we love, connected to our passions and exercising our skills and expertise. And if we’re just embarking out on a journey as a new coach why would we do anything less than what we’d love to do?
But just focusing on the What is not enough. We also need to think about the Who, which is our niche, the people we want to coach. A niche is a segment of people that we focus our marketing efforts onto in order to increase our sign up rate. Lynn challenged us as coaches to get out into the world and conduct some thorough market research in order that we really get to know our niche inside and out. Sitting in your house thinking about them is not enough!
To uncover your What ask:
- What skills and previous life experience do you possess that could greatly impact your coaching performance?
- What skills and qualities do you have that you want to be exercising every day?
- From here then ask:Who wants what you have (and are so excited!) to offer?
Once you start to narrow down a potential niche then get out into the world and ask them what they want, need and would be willing to pay for. Get curious!
As coaches we need to continually dance with doing what we’re most passionate about and responding to the genuine needs of our customers. And when we embrace it what a beautiful dance it is!
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