A short YouTube talk by Greg Faxon explaining a practical, three-step method to choose a profitable coaching niche: (1) list problems you’ve already solved for yourself, (2) select those that are 'bleeding neck' (urgent/painful) rather than preventive, and (3) prefer niches with clear financial ROI so clients can make money from coaching. The speaker gives specific examples of clients and emphasizes specificity, credibility from lived experience, and avoiding overly broad positioning.
Chapters
Everybody gets stuck on their niche, but it's actually really simple. You just want to choose a problem that you've already solved for yourself. So first thing, make a list of things that you're unquestionably, without a doubt, an expert in because you've already accomplished them and you can just share with others how you did it. The key here is to get very specific. So if I was making a list for myself, I'd say, you know, I got a hot wife even though I'm five, six and I'm not funny, I'm not smart and I wasn't successful when I got her. Okay, that's one. Number two, I build a six figure coaching business online. I'm not on social media at all. That's interesting to people. Number three, I have a beard. Number four, I built a meditation habit. Alright? Now out of all those, those are all things I've done. I could share them with others, but we're not done yet. So step two is we want to figure out which of these is a bleeding neck issue. Say by bleeding neck I mean it's easier to sell surgery than prevention. What are the problems you solve for yourself that are urgent for other people that are causing pain, frustration, fear, or there's an irrational desire to go and accomplish them? We don't want to sell prevention. So in my list, starting a meditation habit or growing a beard, that's not really a bleeding neck issue. It's not a big deal. I'm not going to be able to charge a high dollar amount for that coaching. Number three, which of these has some sort of financial roi? Okay, which has the clearest financial roi? Because ideally we don't want to sell coaching, we want to sell making people money. Okay? And so here's how I would do it. I have two left, right? One is the marriage that I built, the relationship I built and, and the second is building a coaching business out of those, which do you think people are going to be most willing to pay for? They want to figure out how to grow their coaching business because if they invest some money in working with me, they're going to get money out the other side. When at all possible, try to connect it to a financial roi. Alright, so I have some examples of clients that have done really well with this. They're all doing at least 30k per month or more. Grace Broder is a great example. She helps entrepreneurs who are procrastinating and have perfectionistic tendencies to get what they need to get done done that has a clear financial roi. It's a bleeding neck issue and it's something that she's already solved for herself before she went into the niche. Okay, number two, Andrew Kaplan. Andrew helps heads of growth, people who are in marketing roles and startups to succeed in that new role where they have to become leaders and they're not just marketers anymore. He was a two time head of growth for SaaS startups. He knows how to do it, he can teach other people, he's credible for it. Third example, Ryan, Roy Ryan. Ryan is a financial coach for tattoo artists. He used to be a tattoo artist. He'd make a bunch of money and then he wasn't saving it or investing it the right way so it would all just leave his bank account. So now he helps other tattoo artists to build a system to automate their savings and investing so they can actually have financial freedom. He had to figure that out himself before he became a coach. If you can't think of anything that's a bleeding neck issue with financial ROI that you've actually done yourself and can share with others, it's going to be really hard to build a coaching business around it and you're not going to be confident in your marketing. So don't generalize, don't generalize the things that you do and say. So for me, I'm good at marketing. I can help people get clients. Let me just be the guy who helps everyone get clients. No, I'm not good at that. I'm good at building a coaching business and getting coaching clients because that's what I've done. Unlike therapy where you can just go to school and then get perceived as an expert, we want to hire coaches who have already succeeded, who are already further in the domain that we want to progress in. It's just the bottom line. Nobody wants to hire a broke business coach. Nobody wants to hire an out of shape trainer or fitness coach. Okay? So get out there, write that list, figure out the bleeding neck issues, figure out the ones with financial ROI and then go get after it.
