Should You Expand Your Niche?

This week’s episode answers the question, should you expand your niche? When a Ready Set Coach graduate has a topic request, Em and Lex start coaching. They ask the listeners the following questions: Should you expand your niche?  When do you expand your niche? And if you should, how do you expand your niche? Em and Lex break down what a niche can consist of and what that means for your coaching business. Most coaching niches have several layers. Em and Lex talk through different scenarios and offer tips on how to best operate through each one.  

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• What makes up a niche
• How to manage the nuances of a niche
• How to determine different niches within types of clients you’ve already coached
• How niches evolve through a business journey
• Tips on experimenting with niches for different clients
• Tips on how to niche down for your coaching business
• Tips on auditing past clients and analyzing data
• Tips on committing to expand your niche
• And more!

Listener Links:

Learn More about the Ready Set Coach Launch Pack: 

https://www.readysetcoachprogram.com/launch 

Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachcommunity

Join the Ready Set Coach Community: www.readysetcoachcommunity.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

Lexie Smith  

Hello Emily.

Emily Merrell  

Um, I did something very novel yesterday.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, do you tell?

Emily Merrell  

I used an air fryer?

Lexie Smith  

Oh, we had an air fryer conversation I started. How was it?

Emily Merrell  

No, I want to. Okay, so it was a white elephant gift for my mother. And she decided she didn't like the idea of the word fry. And so we kept the airfryer. And it was great. I had a friend over last night I cooked dinner. And so she kind of coached me through it. But I learned that if you boil sweet potatoes beforehand, just for a little bit, then throw them in the airfryer they cook that much more. It was great. I made like a harvest bowl. And it was really empowering. I felt like as someone who doesn't love cooking very much it got me excited.

Lexie Smith  

I used it over the holidays because it's significantly quicker than an oven. And Ashlyn. I mean, I'm admitting right now that my daughter's in a phase of life where I really just need to get any food down her it's not always the most nutritious and over Christmas the holidays that my parents it was, how can I disguise vegetables. So I found like a deep fried like veggie Patty, I don't know something of that, that she was loving. And instead of heating the oven for 25 and and putting them in for 22 minutes, I just opened this thing, press Start put it in for seven minutes and Bada bing, bada boom, crazy.

Emily Merrell  

It was it was cool. I mean, the one that I bought was like 50 bucks from Target. And it looks very sleek. It looks it looks nice. On our counter. It's huge. I tried to put it under every single cabinet and nothing fits. So I was like, Whoa, next. Anyone who wants to design a product like a collapsible airfryer, or

Lexie Smith  

some collapsible, that's why I haven't bought one is because the sheer size for Christmas from my inlaws, which we celebrated late. We just got the like a top of the line coffeemaker. Oh, which is really exciting, but it's massive. And now I'm like trying to figure out where everything goes. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, these points is man. firstworldproblems say,

Emily Merrell  

I know. Oh, and then the other fun thing I got. I think I told you this, but I'm sharing now with our audience guys. I know. This is so exciting. I got an electric kettle and it is so chic looking. We bought it we had like four white elephant parties throughout the holiday season. And we bought it as a white elephant gift to give to other people and people like fought over this gift. And so when we were at Target buying our next gift for our next white elephant, I was like Mom was buying this for herself. So it is a game changer. I feel like I'm making more tea. I'm having like more hot water with lemon versus I don't know if you're like this lacks, like all start the kettle and I'll forget about it all the time. And then Greg's like are you making tea on our

Lexie Smith  

go? Shoot, I just put water in a mug and put it in the microwave for one minute and 20 seconds. That's my kettle. Orange too.

Emily Merrell  

Okay, so So I feel like you'd be a good person to purchase you know a kettle for?

Lexie Smith  

No, because I wouldn't use it. Really?

Emily Merrell  

You don't think you

Lexie Smith  

would? Absolutely not. I'm way more into like, quick when it comes to beverage this you know? Yeah, but it's one more dish it's one more thing why what's the difference between doing that and like putting it in a mug? 120 done.

Emily Merrell  

I don't know. I think there's like the the experience of like pouring it in and you don't have a hot handle that you have to hold on to. Anyway, next time you come and visit I will just make you so many make

Lexie Smith  

it for me. I'm also like not the biggest tea girl I'm more coffee, coffee and then coffee. You know what's interesting about this, this random conversation these conversation guys are always off the cuff by the way, if you can't tell is that

Emily Merrell  

like series gets so excited about them. She's like, What? While

Lexie Smith  

she's like, okay, okay, I got something. I'm like, Alright, I'm gonna hit record and then she drops something like airfryer like, Okay, we're here we're doing this. But some of the themes I'm picking out of this conversation are like, quick fixes verse. Like, longer fixes verse of this isn't working guys. It's

Emily Merrell  

good. It's basically my brain just fumbling

Lexie Smith  

guys today. There's no turn just transition today. Today, the transition is me saying that there's gonna be a transition but a little bit of context to why we're talking about this today. We were on a co working session with a lady from our grad program, shout out if you are listening. And this is an episode topic she wanted us to talk about. So your wish is our command. And today we're going to be talking about there's a few different elements but should you expand your knee ish. When do you expand your niche? And if you should, how do you expand your niche?

So Emily eat a quiche with a niche and

Lexie Smith  

you can make a quiche in an oven and an airfryer there's a connection

Emily Merrell  

do you guys want us to turn this into a comedy show? Tell us like let us know if the coaching things not working we can just do funny things back and forth I truly am

Lexie Smith  

and Lex late night late night for me will be more like 838 32 later

Emily Merrell  

than that. You'll just be doing Miss Rachel voices the whole time. You know, although it's

Lexie Smith  

Coco now she's a cocoa fan. She wakes up she goes cocoa and then she also screams at me. Oh,

Emily Merrell  

this is wait. Okay, wait, quick, quick squirrel. And then I promise we're gonna dive in. Jackson does this thing where he'll be like marshmallow and it'll open his hands and be like freshmen though. And he'll cocked his head and be like marshmallow, Marshmallow. And I'll touch the side of my cheek and Vignesh mellow mummy, Marshmallow. And then and then I'm like no, no marshmallow and he's like,

Lexie Smith  

Where does he get the marshmallow from? She just like marshmallows.

Emily Merrell  

He loves the marshmallows we gave him like during Christmas we allowed a hot chocolate and marshmallows into this world. I also made the mistake of introducing him to flavored whipped cream. Worse. Chocolate. Yeah, I dropped the whole thing on his foot the other day, he now has like a black and blue foot from whipped cream kin dropping on his. Okay, but I'll put the whipped cream in his hand and it's a marshmallow flavored whipped cream too. And he'll just hold out his hand and be like, marshmallow.

Lexie Smith  

Marshmallow, that's adorable.

Emily Merrell  

It's really cute. I don't know where his skin is comes from anywho Okay, so Nishi and let's talk about Greg.

Lexie Smith  

It comes from. It comes from both of you. Okay. Nishi.

Emily Merrell  

Okay, husband's on the podcast, that's yours would be down

Lexie Smith  

mine. I don't see how he would be we'd have to like, like, be after you have to be after hours.

Emily Merrell  

Oh, my God would be so funny likes to it'd be like, tell us what a cohort has to be like, Oh,

Lexie Smith  

if you guys want this from us, if you want us, you're gonna have to DM us or email us or we're not going to the effort of arranging this, but you just planted. Okay, so here's what I would like to do. I would like to break down niching. And what that can look like for your coaching business. Because when we think niche, we have some quick, easy associations. Usually it can be like I'm going to niche down in service solopreneurs or I'm going to niche down and service ecommerce state based business or I'm going to help coach and I'm gonna niche down and serve moms. And that's not wrong. But there's other layers of niches Emily like

Emily Merrell  

what? Oh, my gosh, well, it's that specialization. So maybe you're serving families, but you're serving families in in their executive functioning, or you're serving? I don't know. Is that what you're looking for?

Lexie Smith  

No. Okay,

Emily Merrell  

let me tell you guys a quick guys. I feel like I'm in a class every time I'm on a podcast with blacks to feelings here. And I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm in the front of the class and I have to get the right answer or I'm going to fail, but she keeps it notes.

Lexie Smith  

We sometimes take notes before this to help to help us. Okay, here's what I mean. Quick little story, guys. When I first launched the PR Inc, coaching practice, I my niche, I played around with different niches I played around with Okay, I'm going to just serve female entrepreneurs. I then played around with Okay, female ecommerce entrepreneurs. After a while I sat down and I started to evaluate the types of people I had been serving. And I identified that they weren't necessarily Yes, they were entrepreneurs maybe. But they didn't fit into a clear category in terms of industry or job type. What they had in common was personality traits. What they had in common were their mindset. So my niche rather than becoming kind of more pigeon holed into something like a family became more based on some of the psychographics and that's that's what I was teeing up here. Emily's like is niching can be more than just a checklist. So today, I say I'm servicing, you know, entrepreneurs, who are they're generally type A, they're super motivated. They're people who really, really want to learn the damn thing before outsourcing. So that's become more of a type of human that I service and they can be an influencer. They can be a fashion company, a tech company, or really all of the above

Emily Merrell  

Lexa is gorgeous. That was beautiful, beautifully said. And I think that is a really good thing to keep in mind too, as you experiment with no we're not coaching right now. But like as you experiment with different clients Thinking about the way that you feel with the different clients, you know, you might have a client to comes to you and says, I need to make all of my corporate salary back. In three, the three months we have working together. And so that's like a very scarcity, anxious style client. And you know, moving forward after that client, you are not going to be working with scarcity people, you're going to be working with abundant people who are realistic, who don't set million dollar goals in three months. See, there's certain types of personalities, I would say, like personalities or, or I, I'm sure you've worked with this lacks, like, I've worked with the lazy client before, who like you give them all the homework, and they're so excited on the calls, and they don't do any of the work. And then they show up on the call. And they're like, oh, I don't know what to do. I'm so overwhelmed. And I'm like, Did you do any of your homework? Oh, no, I didn't have time to do it. I'm so overwhelmed. You're like, okay, so I know, I want a really organized client, or I want a really self motivated client, who will be doing the work in between the sessions that we're, we're meeting with each other, so

Lexie Smith  

well. So I think knowledge level is one we've seen a lot with Ready, Set coach, if you're coaching anything on a business spectrum, from marketing, to business to sales, is it a beginner that you're looking for? Or are you going after a more advanced clientele, that's another type of niche you can start to think about. So step one here, right, is to expand your thinking of what niche can be. Now, let's say you've committed to one niche, you're rockin and rollin in your business, and then someone who doesn't necessarily fit. That archetype comes knocking at your door wanting to work with you. What do you do now? Emily,

Emily Merrell  

you bolt the door and you hide and you say no. And so no, that's not what you do, it really depends. And this is going to be something that is going to be very situational and situational dependent on the person, the tuition will dependent on your time where you are in your business. And this has happened to both of us and Lex and I will both share experiences and both pros and cons of it. So I service individuals that are in their age range, if we were doing age range from their early 20s, to mid 40s. Usually solopreneurs, usually building the business, either have had the business for a year or two or are like constructing it from scratch. And I had an individual come to me who had a very successful business was in her late 60s, and was looking to get into a different take her business but she started showing up more for women. The she wanted to speak more, she wanted to podcast more, she wanted to be more visible in a way that she hadn't been because she had this business. And while that's not typically the the initial path that I take, I take my clients through that path. It was I was really hesitant to take this individual on as a client, because it wasn't my normal process. It wasn't my normal experience of servicing someone. And I went back and forth on it. And I ended up taking her and she's been one of my longest clients. Since she's she's a lot more. She always does the work. She's highly motivated. She She has success metrics. And she is such a pleasure to work with. But it was definitely like listening to my gut. And there were there were moments that I thought I'm talking in real time here you'll I thought it was like should I be servicing this person she's so far ahead. But there was something that I could service and offer her that she couldn't figure it out on her own. So moral of the story is, each situation is very unique. And every and each situation is different. And the thing that made me say yes to this individual was, did it connect back to the work that I was doing with my clients? Did it? Was it connecting with women? Was it connecting with communities? Was it showing up in getting visible on platforms on Instagram lives on podcasts? Yes. And so I was able with confidence to say I can't help her. And also, it ties back to my initial motivation and vision. So

Lexie Smith  

what I think Emily's doing a good job. Explaining or giving an example of is one category where the answer to this can be situational. So let me kind of peel back for a second. Should you expand your niche. There's a few different ways to look at this one. You can look at case by case basis. That's what Emily's talking about. Right? She didn't if you go to her website, you look at how she's marketing. She didn't completely change her business. She didn't explain and open her roster to, you know, 10 other women who are above, you know the age there have, she's still marketing to her niche. But this was one of those one off situations where she decided she did a gut check that she wanted to work with them, but she didn't change her business model. Now, the other thing you can do is expand your business model. And I haven't, I have an example here, kind of showing the other category or route. So again, back to early days of the PR Bart started very much working with entrepreneurs, knock knock knock on my door, Once Upon a Time came a gal who wanted to she was a marketing agency owner, she wanted to add PR to service. So it was a very different type of coaching, it didn't necessarily fit in my existing curriculum. And at the time, I decided to take her on, I use that as an opportunity to, to see how I liked working with people who were more, maybe in the PR, PR, adjacent space, and it ended up evolving into an entirely new offering. And it ended up evolving my business and how I positioned myself. Now, before I went all in on this, though, I service that clients, she ended up being with me for many years, she's still a client. But after our initial term, I sat down, I evaluated how it went. And I made a decision. And I understood the ramifications of what that meant that meant, okay, if I'm going to do a new offering, and service a new demographic that I need to change my marketing, I need to evolve my marketing, I need to evolve my offerings. So kind of pulling it back, right, there's category one, where just because you work with someone that doesn't fit your archetype, like what Emily said, doesn't mean you have to change your whole business model. You can always take, you know, kind of the one off situations. However, if it feels right, when people who aren't in your niche come knocking at your door, it can you start to see a theme of that it could be an indicator or a sign that it's time for you to evolve and expand.

Emily Merrell  

I love that example accent I think that's a really great demonstration of you also listening to how you felt servicing that client. How did it feel versus your original offer versus this new offering that you were you were putting forth? And how are people perceiving you in the industry? So if this is something that the outside world saw you as were you not communicating clearly what your initial offer was? Do you want to force something that didn't feel organic? What what did it feel like internally for you to make that transition?

Lexie Smith  

It wasn't as much a transition as it was an expansion. I guess we can also say the transition could be category three where you pivot entirely. But this was more added a new arm for me. It went from I have at the time it was a program called Papa's clink for entrepreneurs. This now became what I called press public relations as a service. And this was agency owners looking to add on a new arm to their existing agency, they wanted to learn how to do and sell PR. So it involves new curriculum. It involved a lot of the mechanics, almost like a whole nother mini business of sorts. I had to think about being in different rooms. Now. I had to think about different networking opportunities. And to your point, I had to change how he was messaging. So it was a big undertaking. And that's one thing I also want to like highlight here and underline. If you guys are thinking of expanding your niche, make sure you're understanding what that really entails.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's a really great point that you weren't just putting lipstick on a pig, you were doing the work and we're recreating or you were creating new new curriculum and new offers and new programming that wasn't already in existence. So going back to the initial question now lakhs where if someone is hell bent that they want to be servicing this particular niche, and someone comes out of the left field, wanting something. Nisha Jason, what advice do you have for them?

Lexie Smith  

First, I think you need to assess if this really is like a rare occurrence, or if you're starting to see an influx of this happening, because this might be a market indicator that you should expand or pivot. So if it's a one off one time, one person comes to you who's not in your niche. I think that's the instance where handling it like you did em like really evaluating it on an individual basis is the perfect place to start. let yourself experience it, go through it then do like a post mortem of sorts and evaluate if that experience inspires you or leads you to wanting To make a more public expansion and who you're serving,

Emily Merrell  

hmm, I think that's great. Um, so if someone came to you lax, and they're like, I want marketing support, I want to learn, I want to learn how to start a podcast. How would you handle that? Because that's not so far off. You know how to start a podcast? Yeah, you've helped people. How would you handle that? Let's do some role playing. Yeah.

Lexie Smith  

So I mean that that has happened. When I the beauty of one on one coaching. And this is interesting, too, I think we can get into the types of coaching that can allow you to service these things more smoothly. In my one on one coaching, that's an easy thing to add to our our month to month or week to week conversation, and have done that, however, you aren't going to go see me making a public business transition to now promoting myself as a podcast coach, I'm not doing that. Right. And I think that's one of the beauties of one on one is it allows you to be a little bit more flexible. I know this is a you don't have let's talk about yours for a bit because I feel like that's your entire model, right you don't have where I my first offering was very like curriculum based. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe yours. Well, you have the tools and you have trainings, it's always been meeting them where they're at, and kind of taking it session by session. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

and I have to be honest, it's something that I struggle with, I'm currently updating my website with some new pictures that need even new newer pictures. And one of the things and it's funny, it's like you can, it's so much easier to tell people what to do as a coach. And if you're a coach listening, I'm so curious to hear like what your feelings are being coached. But I really struggle with figuring out what type of business coach I am. And I though the word that keeps coming up for me is a generalist, I'm kind of like going to see your like your family doctor, I can deliver your baby, and I can treat the broken arm kind of can do like a little bit of everything. And then if I can't do it, I will refer you to someone that can.

Lexie Smith  

And then here I am. And I would say I think of you as something different, which is I think the point you're proving you're pointing out right now, as like it's very sometimes it's challenging to hold a mirror. Oh. But to your point, when you're someone who can do a lot of things, I think, Okay, this is kind of back to what you're saying. It's easy to be like, Yeah, I can do that. Sure, I can do that. And this is transferable beyond coaching, right? I have a PR agency, I could easily fall into like, Look, I know how to build websites, I know how to do this, I know how to do this, I could easily fall into expanding my service roster just because I can. Yeah, that is not always a smart thing. When I think of you, Emily Merrill, I think of a renter co founder, I've been saying this to you for a year and a half co founder, not CMO, because truly that's what I think you are. And then you're specialized in events in partnership and networking. Right, like that's where you can be a business coach with a specialty in or you can be a health coach with a specialty in, you can be an executive functioning coach with a specialty in, right. So,

Emily Merrell  

guys, this is why I keep her around, you know. She's just she's just one of those humans where I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. She's like, this is what you're doing with your life. And I think vice versa, too. But But truly, it's you and

Lexie Smith  

CJ both chose to legally marry me in different capacities.

Emily Merrell  

Which one's harder to to divorce? Probably ours, probably

Lexie Smith  

ours? Yeah. It's crossed state lines, you know,

Emily Merrell  

we don't have custody, we'll have to share, you know, send send the business back and forth. visitation rights,

Lexie Smith  

right. So okay, okay. Okay. Okay. Let me kind of recap us so we can bring this, bring this home a little bit. So we started with this general question of, should you change your expand your niche we presented to you. First, we wanted to make sure you understood what that meant. Expanding your niche can mean a lot of different things. And what we've both highlighted in different capacities, is there's different ways to do this. You can do this in a one off situation, meaning you can serve people outside of your niche. But you don't have to change how you market or you can make a decision to expand your business. And if that's the category you're going into, then you're going to need to make significant changes to how you're presenting publicly. Are there any other thoughts or considerations or gut checks or two do's that someone should consider before they make this decision? Yes,

Emily Merrell  

I think energy and energy is such a big one in that if you See, go into your client or you see the meeting on your calendar and you read it, listen to that dread or listen, or if you're really excited about it, listen to how that client makes you feel. Because that client has attributes of what that particular niche can be. So you're like, Oh, God, I'm gonna go help them with social media management, why did I tell them I, I can do this, I can do it, but I hate it. Listen to that, and, and adjust accordingly. Because just to your point, Lex, I love what you said, where you're like, I can build websites, I can do all the things, that doesn't mean that you are now a website designer, except for me, and a Brander. Except for me, but you like that's not where you want to, just to start a new business on or create a new new arm for so just because you can do the thing doesn't mean you have to do the thing, if you are trying to get away from from teaching, or if you're trying to get away from trying to think of likes. Yeah, I don't know, what if you're trying to get away from whatever why

Lexie Smith  

I think is what you're getting to, like, why did you get into this thing in the first place? 1,000%.

Emily Merrell  

And also, like, what excites you? And just because it excites the other person, that's great. But that doesn't mean you have to be the solution for that person. And and that could be a whole different episode. But I think there's so much. And we talked about this the other day, there's that feeling of like, you want to help everyone, and you want to be the solution to everyone's problems. And you could be but do you have to be? And so saying no should you could should also listen to like, learning how to say no, say no is such an empowered thing. So if the person knocks on your door, says I want X, Y and Z help, you could say thank you so much. Here's some resources for you. Barb over there does such a great job focused on this energy and it's very satisfying, giving a meaningful referral.

Lexie Smith  

Sorry, I meant just because you can doesn't mean you should see she finishes my sentence.

Emily Merrell  

Which is I've been.

Lexie Smith  

Um, okay, so here's some homework for you guys. And actually, Emily and I've done this at various points for our business I just this again, over the New Year, I want y'all to sit down. And think about this is this is mostly for those of you coaches who are probably already in the game. If you're not in the game, you can think about this in context of just people you enjoy interacting with or not. And think through the last 510 pick a time time bucket that makes sense for you amount of people you've coached, and do an audit of the ones you liked. The ones you could do without and see if you can figure out if there are commonalities are niches within them that you weren't necessarily identifying to begin with? If so, now it's time to consider what bucket are you? Is this a one off situation? Or is it time to officially go all in and expand your niche? Hmm, beautifully said

Emily Merrell  

Coach lax. Love it. Love it. Love it? Well, so wait,

Lexie Smith  

Well, LAX thank you so much for as always raining us in in the most beautiful way possible. Coach lax at so with that being said, you guys have your homework. You know what to do? Let us know thoughts, comments, comment on Instagram. Send us DMS shoot us emails. This is a two way street. And we will see you the next time on The

Lexie Smith  

ready to go check out

podcast

Emily Merrell  

and I have to stop it. Bye bye.