There are more than 7-billion people in the world – and nearly all of them are potential nutrition (or health coaching) clients!
Nutrition and healthy living are topics that are essential to everyone…
So, with so many potential clients in the world, how do you choose the people YOU’RE going to help?
It all starts with choosing your niche…
What’s a niche, and why do you need one?
A niche is regularly defined as a specific segment of the population who will be the focus of your goods and services. This will be the result of a specialisation that falls within the larger nutrition advising industry.
Your niche is related to your target audience, but they are not exactly the same thing. The niche is determined by what you can offer, and who you can offer it to. While the target audience is within the niche, and concentrates more on who you’ll be focusing on with your marketing.
The purpose of all businesses is to provide a solution to a problem in a way that’s both lucrative and beneficial for the market that has that problem.
If you try to solve too many problems, you can end up spread too thin, unable to market, and underdelivering in a big way – and that’s bad news for your business.
Having a well-defined niche also helps you to determine product market fit (PMF) – which is the likelihood that your services will be able to meet the demand of a particular market segment.
Imagine becoming a nutritional therapist and then trying to cast your consumer net way too wide! You could end up with groups of customers who you aren’t able to help (or none at all), resulting in bad reviews, and a loss of revenue.
Whereas, highly specialised nutritional advisors who choose a specific group of people to help based on their capabilities will see a higher success rate, and have an easier time reaching their intended market.
A narrow niche creates broad possibilities!
How to figure out who you should help…
Choosing a niche based on what you specialise in gives you a competitive advantage over other practitioners.
There are several steps you can take to determine who you should be focusing on:
- First, determine what you can offer – Take the time to ask yourself what your strengths are and what types of nutrition services, or health coaching services you’re able to offer competently. It’s essential that you know what problem you’ll be solving. Will you be specialising in something like fertility? Or maybe weight loss? Deciding this will allow you to devote more time and attention to areas where you KNOW you can truly help others. This will give you a broad idea of your actual niche, and help you define your target audience within this niche.
- Find commonalities in the group of consumers you WANT to work with – You have the power to choose the ages, sex, locations (which are nearly endless when offering online services) and needs of the people you’ll serve. Maybe you want to work with women dealing with menopause, or pro athletes in their prime? Deciding this enables you to further define your professional niche.
- Do additional research on the needs of the clients you’ve chosen so far – Now, revisit the information that you’ve gathered. Do some online research into the interests, needs, and services that your niche clients are currently consuming. Uncover the demand for the services you plan on offering – and make sure that you’ll be able to provide what people need. This can also help you to refine your packages and to create marketing materials that are more appealing to your ideal clients.
- Define your ideal client, and create a living persona – For this, you need to figure out what the perfect client for you would look like. Create a persona using commonalities that you’ve discovered among your target audience, and give this persona a name, face (optional), personality traits, needs, income, and socioeconomic status. This is a fictional persona, but it should embody everything you’re looking for in a nutrition or health coaching client. Then, you can create marketing materials to speak directly to this persona – creating a more personalised and targeted marketing experience.
- Take a step back and revisit your niche often – As your services grow and evolve (and as you learn more about who you’re working with) make sure that you update all of this information. Keeping your niche in line with your services is the key to sustainable success. And with proper research and follow-up, you’ll be able to serve the right clients at the right time!
Is changing your niche a good idea?
This is a question that many business owners will ask as they expand or pivot to meet new market needs.
And the answer is based entirely on an honest and objective look at the direction you’d like your business to take, and the application of any new or evolving skill sets.
If you earn another certification and it changes your target market – then don’t be afraid to re-examine and potentially change your niche to accommodate your growing capabilities!
A multi-service practice can create an environment where you have the ability to expand your niche and your earning potential with new knowledge.
Additional specialisations can mean additional income.
We can help you get started with your nutrition business!
The Health Sciences Academy has created many certifications with this level of specialisation in mind!
Ready to get started? Click here to check out a complete list of certifications and start planning your niche today! →
