How to Find Your Niche & Connect with Your Ideal Clients [Ep 29]

Welcome to the thriving TherapyNewer podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeneur podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Welcome back friends to another episode of the Thriving Therapreneur podcast. I'm your host Carly Hill and today we're going to be talking about one of my favorite things to talk about which is niching. Niche, niche. Potato potato. I can't believe I haven't recorded an episode on this yet because this is one of my favorite things to teach on. When I posted a thread asking you guys what would you like me to talk about on the podcast and batch recording a bunch of episodes, niching was a common theme. So today's episode is going to be for you, whether you're a therapist, adding coaching and you need to figure out your niche. Maybe you're already coaching and you want to refine and optimize your niche and your messaging. Or maybe you're in private practice, you're trying to get more self pay clients and you need to hyper niche down a little bit more. So we're going to cover what a niche is, why it's essential, a step by step guide to finding your niche. We know that this can be difficult to do. We are taught as therapists to just kind of morph into whoever's in front of us or solve every problem under the sun. And also we're multi passionate so niching can definitely be difficult. We're also going to talk about some common fears that hold people back when it comes to niching because we don't want to alienate anyone and we're afraid like this is going to be our niche for forever. So we're going to talk about how to overcome these niche blocks if you will, and then some real world examples of some niche success stories. I think we all thrive on examples. I'm an example girl. So I'm going to give you guys some real world examples of niches that have really worked well that I have Seen worked well for my clients in the high ticket space. So I'm a high ticket coach. Your niche does not have to be something that's going to pass what I call the high ticket test. But I'm definitely going to talk about it in this episode because hyper niching is really important when you're creating a signature high ticket coaching program. So let's dive in. What is a niche? Why does it matter, Carly? So I think a niche is it's really the sweet spot between where your expertise, your passion, this market demand intersect. So it's about getting specific on who you help, the problem that you solve. This is the key here, the problem that you solve, and the unique transformation that you provide. So if I could solve your niche issues in like 10 seconds here, if you take anything from this episode, like, listen to me when I say I think niching has gotten so over complicated these days because there's so much that goes into it and there's so many nuances. But businesses make money because they solve problems. So think about, instead of thinking about like all the people that you want to help, and starting with your population, maybe just think about a condition that you can help somebody solve. So what is a condition that somebody has? Whether they have insomnia, whether they have ADHD and attention and focus issues, whether they have anxiety and constant worry, they have chronic pain. What is the condition that you're really good at helping them overcome? Start there, because that's why people are going to pay you. So for example, if you came to me and you're like, okay, my niche is I'm going to help women improve their lives. I'm going to help them live their dream life. I'm going to help them wake up to a reality that they love. I'm going to help them find peace, balance. I'm going to help them seek clarity in their life. It's too broad. These are all things that I call flowery language in the coaching space. It's actually called a platitude or a cliche. So what does that mean, Carly? Well, it means that anybody could say this. So a weight loss coach could say this, A business coach could say this. A parenting coach could say this. A divorce coach could say this. It's just too broad. When we get more specific and we say, well, I help women in midlife because now we have two identifying factors with our population. It's not just women, it's women in midlife. Or you could talk about maybe how they're moms and then you could even Take it a step further and you're like, well, what type of moms are they? Are they stay at home moms? Are they CEO moms? Are they new moms? All of these subsets of categories with your population is going to create different presenting daily problems for them. So really take it a step further. Okay, so who is your population? Like, we're going to go with women in midlife and you're going to help them maybe rebuild self confidence after a divorce, Very specific, so that they can thrive in relationships and life. Again, even more specific. So that's very easy for someone to be like, oh yeah, that's me, I need her help. So that's one of the common mistakes that I see often is too much flowery language, too many platitudes, too many cliches, such as, live your best life, manifest a reality you love, unlock your potential. So we know that we can't be flowery in our language. We need to try to be as measurable and tangible and specific as possible, especially as it relates to helping people overcome a condition or solving a problem. Another common mistake that I see so often is therapists getting caught up and talking about their process. And I get this because this is what we love. This is what we firmly believe in, and this is what we're trained in. This is what we know works for us, that we know works for other people. But people don't really care about our process, our credentials, our clinical jargon. They just need to know that we can solve their problem. They need to like us, they need to trust us, they need to know us. And they need to know, most importantly, that we can help them solve their problem. That's it. So it doesn't mean that we don't talk about our process, but it means we talk about our process less. And what we talk about more is the big outcome that we're going to provide to our clients, an outcome that they are starving for, that they are seeking. They are urgently and eagerly ready to pay you to solve this problem. So there's something I talk about in my book where there was this marketing professor and he asked his students, can you, if you were going to open a hot dog stand and you could have one advantage over your competitors, what would it be? Would it be location? Would it be quality? Would it be low prices? Would it be best taste? Like, the students kept naming all of these things off. And the answer is a starving crowd. Okay, so you could have the worst hot dogs, terrible prices, you could be in a terrible location. But if you're the only hot dog stand in town and the local college football game breaks out, you're going to sell out of hot dogs. That is the value of a starving crowd. Think about the stupid toilet paper shortage. When we had the pandemic, toilet paper was flying off the shelf without an offer. But the crowd was hungry. So your crowd, who you're targeting, AKA your population, your prospects, they need to be hungry for what you're offering. You can't just sell something that's going to be a nice to have or an addition to their life because they're not going to urgently and eagerly pay you. It needs to be something that they're hungry for. Let me give you another analogy. I love analogies. So if you've been hanging around me for a while, you've probably heard me talk about this analogy. All my paying clients know when I'm talking about the peanut butter. Hear me out. Your dog does not want the pill. It doesn't want the medicine. Right? So we have to wrap the medicine in peanut butter or cheese. So what is going to be the peanut butter for your clients? We need to sell them on what they want and we need to give them what they need, which is the medicine. Just like we still give our dog the medicine what it needs, the pill. But we're wrapping it up and tying a sweet bow on it by covering it in peanut butter. That's what we have to do when we're marketing. Okay, so for example, if you are an anxiety coach, the medicine often involves like deeper emotional regulation work, but the peanut butter for your clients, it's just the freedom from constant worry. So in marketing, we would talk a lot about how we are helping them reduce this anxiety and less about the process, less about the medicine. So we're going to talk less about breath work and trauma and inner child healing, et cetera. And we're going to talk more about the outcome and the presenting problem and the pain and the desire that they're having. I hope that makes sense. So think about who has a problem that you would like to solve. Get as specific as you can with the population. The problem needs to be tangible and measurable as possible. And again, not like a nice to have or an addition to their life. It needs to be a problem that they're going to buy their way out of because this problem is keeping them up at night. This is what's going to help you pass the high ticket test. This is what's going to make or break the difference between somebody just kind of trickling in versus somebody wanting to urgently and eagerly pay you because it's costing them time, it's costing them energy, it's costing them money, it's costing them their relationship, it's costing them confidence, it's impacting their life in some negative way where they are actively seeking a solution to this problem. See the difference there? So are they going to urgently and eagerly pay you? Do they need this to be solved? Need in all caps. N E E D. Do they need this to be solved? How bad we want to assess. Okay. And do they have the funds to pay you? High ticket. Now, a lot of people get tripped up on this and they're like, well, where can I target rich people, Carly? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is not how it works. We do not need to target rich people. We need to target people who have a problem. You would be so surprised how resourceful people will get when you have the answer to their problem, when you have the solution to their problem. So, yes, there is some truth to this. I always give the example, like, if you have a passion to help women who have come out of domestic violence relationships and they're in a shelter, like, they're not going to have the funds to pay you. They're just not. But this doesn't mean that we need to go to the extreme of targeting only rich people. No, it doesn't work like that. We do need to consider if they have the time to put in and there's ways to overcome this objection. Think about busy moms, or maybe you're working with executives or you're working with lawyers or doctors. Like, they will be short on time, right? So we want to think of ways that we can weave in flexibility to proactively overcome this objection. But they can't be too busy to never pay attention and put effort in to solve their problem. You also want to think about if you have a warm network already. So do you have a connection to moms? Let's say, if you're a mom, right, who is in your warm network? Because maybe friends, friends of friends, colleagues. These could very easily be some of your first paying clients where you're going to get these testimonials and it's going to really help you expand and grow your business when you're just starting off small and nobody really knows about you and nobody really knows what you have to offer. We have that ease of trust from people who come from referrals and who come from our warm network. So something to think about there. If you're in between niches. Okay, so we've covered a lot so far and I want to pause and help you with the niche formula so we can at least get your wheels spinning and get a piece of your niche out. So the first piece is the population. I help population. And if you don't know the specific population yet, because we can always take it a step further, let's just start with where you're at. So if it is women, that's fine. And then we can get more granular on like what type of women later. So I help population be as specific as you can achieve or solve. So this is where you're going to put the result or the problem. So that biggest outcome. A lot of people miss this part. This is the last part of the niche that really ties it all together. So that what? So for example, if you're a parent coach and you help parents of young children, there's a lot of yelling in their house. Communication is just a little bit chaotic. It's not a very harmonious household. So you could say, I help parents of young children. Now notice with this population, it's not just parents. We took it a step further. Parents of young children, because their subset of problems is going to be different. Okay, I help parents of young children communicate more effectively with their children. And then we're going to take it a step further so that this is the. So that piece a lot of people miss so that they can have a harmonious, harmonious household and finally feel in control again without having to yell. Without having to yell. This is going to be a big presenting problem for them. And then we go back to thinking about, okay, well, the condition that I'm solving for them, what is the condition that is presenting in this household? It's yelling, screaming, tantrums. You're going to help overcome this condition. And this could be in a lot of different areas. So the population, yes, you could do parents of young children, but a lot of people have anger issues. You could take the route of a different population and helping married couples with their communication. And there's a lot of rage and anger in their marriage and you could help them avoid a divorce and save their marriage. A common question that I get a lot with niching is, well, what if my niche isn't profitable? Or hey, Carly, what is the most profitable niches? And this is the wrong way to think about it because profitability, it comes down to solving a big problem. And we talked about this a lot. Like businesses solve problems, people will pay to alleviate pain points. That's Just what keeps people up at night. So you're gonna fall into either health and wellness, money and business or relationships. These are the three biggest buckets. And a lot goes into health and wellness. I mean, this could be mental or physical. It could be fitness, weight loss, sleep, autoimmune, stress, burnout, loneliness, empowerment, healing. All of that can fall under health and wellness. And health and wellness keeps people up at night, money and business. So you could be a business coach, a wealth coach, you could do consulting, career coaching, entrepreneurship. Or maybe you'll fall under relationships. This could be marriage, divorce, dating. It could be spiritual relationships, it could be self relationship. It could be with parents, family, kids, friendships, all of these things. Whether it be health and wellness, money and business or relationships. This is how the human brain is wired. If somebody is lacking in one of these areas and tremendous pain exist, these are the three biggest markets. They will pay you to solve their problem. Okay, and we're all going to fall usually under one of these three big buckets. You can even combine the buckets sometimes. Like I've seen therapists combine their passion for music and arts with health and wellness. Or they combine their passion for money, coaching and wealth with mental health and helping people clear money blocks energetically. So you can kind of mix and match these things. But all sorts of different coaches exist. And when you think about what you have paid money for to solve a problem, like really think about it for a second. What is the latest things that you have spent money on and what problem did it solve for you? Like I was just going on a trip and I didn't have outfits, so I just last minute splurged on a shopping spree because I realized I didn't have the proper outfits. Or when I had a pimple on my face, I paid to get a facial. So I was paying to buy my way out of these problems. Now these are, you know, silly examples of problems. But think about the money that you have spent recently and how has it helped you buy your way out of a problem? Like, I'm sure the biggest investments in your life have probably come from wanting to see results in your bank account, see results with your body, see results with your relationships. And again, this goes back to the three biggest markets. So you could be a life coach and a parent coach, an embodiment coach, a resilience coach, a Christian coach, a perinatal coach, a dating coach, a fitness coach, weight loss coach, relationship coach, sleep coach, business coach, women empowerment coach. Like I could spit off so many different types of coaches that you could be. And to be honest, that your title of coaching, like, it really doesn't matter that much because going back to what I said at the beginning of this episode, what really matters is that people know that we can solve their problem, what you call yourself, that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. And if you're really stuck on your niche, I want you to think about your own journey. I always say this, but 90% of us are our own ideal client. I guide hundreds of therapists through the process of successfully adding coaching, and majority of the time, the niche that they choose is somehow some way personal. Not always. And it doesn't have to be. A lot of times maybe they just are noticing this common thread and this is what they work on in their private practice a lot. But I would say majority of the time they had to walk themselves through something and then they're passionate about guiding other people through that too. And you only have to be 10% ahead of your ideal client. So if you're totally lost and you just need help figuring out some sort of path or idea when it comes to your niche, like you have so many different ideas or you want to put feelers out there with the niche that you do have and you want to see, hmm, is this something that people are actually interested in, or is this a hungry crowd? You got to do market research. And market research never really ends. I constantly still do market research in my own business and it looks a little bit different for me now. But what this means is I'm constantly listening to my ideal clients and I'm creating content around their words. What are they saying? So pretend your ideal client is talking to a friend on the phone or your fly on the wall in a coffee shop. What is the verbiage that they are using? It's almost like we know too much sometimes and we try to get clinical with it or get all proper with it, like dumb it down to their level. What are they actually saying? And through the lens of them, what's their biggest problem? So here's some market research questions. Come back to me with a pen and paper if you're driving or something, because this market research is key. You can't skip out on this. And there's many different ways that you can do market research too. So let me preface by saying you can do active or you can do passive market research. So you could just technically go in like Facebook groups, or you could go on Reddit threads and you could just read what your ideal client is saying, Saying and You could pull their words from that without actually ever asking a question. Or you could be a little bit more forward and active with it and you could post a survey monkey. You could post a survey, you could post polls, you could post, you know, a post in a Facebook group for market research purposes. Do me a favor and then you can ask a question. Think about your previous clients as well. Go back to maybe the intakes that you did with them and what was the verbiage for that first initial consult call that they were coming to you for? This is all market research. You could get people on 10, 15 minute phone calls and you could ask them these series of questions. Maybe if you want to give people something in exchange, like say, hey, I'll give you a 10, 15 minute hot seat coaching session if you can answer these ten questions for me. So questions that you want to ask them is what is the single biggest challenge you are having in regard to blank. We need to know their number one challenge and this is why it's important to ask them. Because what we may think is their number one challenge is maybe not. What actually is their number one challenge? What's the biggest result that they want to see in this area of their life? So what's their number one biggest challenge and what's the biggest result they want to see Then we also want to know this one's important. What have they already tried that's not working? What have they already tried to solve this problem and it's not working? We're going to use that a lot in our messaging. So have they spent time, money, what have they tried to do to solve this? What hasn't worked? And then what are they scared about? What are their fears? What are their objections and what would make them doubt that they could get XYZ result again? What are they kind of afraid of and why did they think that this is not possible for them? We're really, really trying to get inside their brain right now because we have to address all of this in our marketing. And all marketing really is is bomb.com messaging. Most people don't have marketing issues. They have messaging issues because they never got clear on their niche in the first place. They didn't do the market research. They didn't have measurable and tangible specific problems and outcomes. They weren't targeting a subset population. They weren't targeting a hungry market. You're not going to have that problem because you're listening to this episode. Okay, last one is what would be a dream come true for them. So this is kind of like, the magic wand question that we learned back in grad school. What would be a dream come true for them as it relates to X, Y, Z. All right, I'm going to pause there because we've covered a ton in this episode already, and I just need to drop some mindset bombs for you because I know niching can be difficult. I know you can get stuck on it. I know we can overcomplicate it. I know we can get scared thinking we're going to alienate people or we're going to alienate ourselves or we don't want this to be our niche for forever. And I just have to give you a permission slip now that you can change your niche a million times. I changed my niche a million times. I see my clients constantly having kind of these epiphanies where they are changing their niche. It is never too late to pivot. In fact, we are always pivoting and optimizing, which is why that market research never ends. So start with your small ideas. Start with your market research. We're always growing. We're always evolving. I know that these are big decisions, but they are not permanent. They're not permanent, okay? So you have to articulate the power of what you do, who you do it with. That's niching. And how specifically you help them. What condition are you helping them overcome? What problem are you helping them solve? If you don't do this, you're going to be the world's best kept secret. And that would be a shame because you are so good and so talented and have so much training. We can't keep you a secret. No, no, no. You have to understand your client's pain and desires deeply. Almost better than they know themselves where your messaging is creeping them out. They're like, did you bug my house? Like, how do you. How are you inside my brain? That's how good we want our messaging to be. Okay? Step into this new identity of your niche. Just own it. And if you need more niche resources, there's a lot more where this came from. I have a whole chapter in my book on niching. I have tons of niche trainings inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group. You do not have to know your niche prior to joining the Therapist to Coach accelerator program. If you're interested in mentorship, we guide our clients through this process not just by worksheets, but by brainstorming back and forth and having conversations with them and working through all of these blocks. Then the red carpet rolls out once you figure out your niche. I always joke that the red carpet rolls out because you can actually plug and play all of the strategy that I teach. So happy niching. I hope this was helpful for you. Don't get frustrated. You totally got it. Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapy podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around. Sam.