Online coach: Do you NEED a niche? Or can you earn great money without one? Answers here!

Are you just over this whole discussion of niche in your coaching business? Like you wish that word would just go away and leave you alone? I'm over it too, Mary. Yep, just want the niche to go away and leave me alone. Good to know it's not just me then. Before I get into this topic of too niche or not too niche, I invite you to subscribe to this channel and please be sure to check out the description below for goodies for you. Do you need a niche as a coach? I don't know exactly where this whole discussion started, but I think it might have to do with the age-old question of who is your ideal client avatar. Oh my gosh, have you heard that phrase before? If you've been in the online business space at all, then that phrase ideal client avatar is probably ringing in your ears. Because it was everywhere for the longest time, and maybe it still is. I certainly hope it isn't, but I have a feeling that it is because a lot of the people that I work with to try to coach them to those $5K months are stuck on who their ideal client is. Now, when I first came across this back in 2011, 2012, I was trying to start a different type of business related to websites and videos and things. I had no idea who my ideal client avatar was. I was enrolled in this very popular online business training, and that was the first thing we were supposed to do, was go through this huge exercise and figuring out who this person was that I guess I was supposed to want to work with. I didn't know. All I knew for sure was I couldn't answer the questions. I felt like I would have had to spend months doing research before I even got my business started, and that was so so disheartening. Oh my gosh, I felt like an absolute failure before I had even taken the first steps. Here's the thing that I knew for sure: my ideal client was someone who would pay me. That's all I knew for sure, and yet that didn't seem like enough. I tried to start my business back then under those conditions, and it failed. And I really thought that it was because I didn't know who my ideal client was or that I was just bad at this online business thing and should just quit and never go back. In 2016, life had a way of saying, okay, Mary, it's time to go for this online business thing now. I knew that I wanted to coach people, so I just went for it. And you know what? I did not even look at that whole ideal client avatar thing. I didn't even think about a niche. You know what I did instead? I was talking to people about something that mattered to me, about something that had transformed my life that I thought might be able to do the same for them. That's what I did. You know what I discovered through doing that over and over and over again, literally every day, sharing with people what was important to me, telling them how this had transformed my life? A group of people started to show up. And what was funny was the only thing that they had in common with each other was me. They were all different ages, all different stages, all different walks of life, all different countries, but what they liked was me and what I was saying. So you know what my motto has been ever since? You are the niche. You are the niche. When you put yourself forward, When you show up on a consistent basis, when you're just sharing what is on your mind, what's important to you, and trying to offer some help and support along the way, you become your own niche. You don't need to set out and be in a niche because you are the niche. And by the way, do you say niche or niche? I think because I am an American living in France, je suis obliging-eridanus, prononcé comme niche, but whatever, it's the same thing. So before I digressed into that pronunciation question, did you hear what I was saying? That you are the niche. You don't need to fit yourself into some kind of niche box. That's not what this is about. Having your own coaching business is about you expressing yourself. It's about you using this business as a vehicle for expressing what is most important to you and how you want to show up and be and interact with people in this world. So if you are trying to fit yourself into some kind of box because someone tells you you have to be in a niche or else you're not going to succeed, don't listen to that anymore. I want you to remember this as you walk away from this video. I am the niche. I am the niche. Because that is the truth. Why do you think there are so many different flavors of coffee and brands of coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker, by the way. I can't stand the stuff. But anyway, coffee is coffee, right? No, apparently not. Apparently coffee as a niche has lots and lots and lots of little sub-niches that are all due to different people's tastes. The same is true for coaching. You could be in the same niche as someone else, quote unquote, but people are going to be drawn to you because of you. So why don't we just skip the whole niche conversation and actually look at what matters, which is you showing up in whatever way you want to, wherever you want to, doing that consistently, sharing your message, sharing your offers, letting people know what you're about. That is your niche. Now you may be saying, well, Mary, it's easy for you to say just show up and create yourself as the niche, share your message, tell people what's important. Well, what if you don't even know what that message is? What if you're not even sure what to say? Well, here's my advice to you today then. Start showing up and talking anyway. Start somewhere. Start with anything you want to say, because what I have noticed over the years is that people listen to the words a lot less than you think they do. What they are really listening to, what they're connecting to, is you, your presence. That is the thing that makes people want to be around you. You don't have to worry so much about every single word that you say. That's not what this is about. We can't live our lives under that kind of energy that's saying it's got to be perfect, it's got to be perfect. That's not what having a coaching business is about. It's about you showing up as you are, talking about what's important to you, and whatever wording feels appropriate at that moment, and just putting yourself forward as someone who cares. Being a consistent presence in people's lives. I was just a few minutes ago having a conversation with a client and saying one of the reasons why I try to show up consistently through email and my free Facebook group and other places is because I've realized that I might be the only consistent person in someone's life. And I can get very emotional about this because a lot of people don't have someone who shows up for them every day or every other day or whatever it is. And so you can be that. You don't need to be so concerned about how you look and how the words are coming out a little bit fuzzy sometimes. It doesn't matter. What matters is you being you. What matters is you listening to yourself and then saying whatever is coming forth in that moment. That's all that matters. The niche part will sort itself out. As you show up, as you talk to people, as you connect with people. So please set this whole question of niche off to the side forever. We don't need to worry about this anymore. And if anyone tells you that you do, don't listen to them. Cover your ears because they don't know what they're talking about, frankly. All right, thanks so much for watching today. Again, I invite you to subscribe to this channel for more, and I'll talk to you again very soon. Bye for now.