How to Choose the Most Profitable Life Coaching Niche for You

What is a life coaching niche and why do you need one?

In a life coaching business, a niche is a specific segment of the market that represents a group of people with their own unique needs and specific problems.

While the entire life coaching market is full of potential clients for all of the many different types of life coaches there are, your specific coaching niche represents your most ideal clients.

Your ideal client is the person most suited for the work you do in the way that you do it. Their needs match up with the specific area of expertise, skills, and professional experience you offer.

A life coaching niche is not just the type of life coach a person chooses to become.

For example, “career coach” by itself is not a well-defined coaching niche, it is a type of coach.

On the other hand, a career coach might choose to work with professional women in their 30’s and 40’s who want to make a career change in order to find greater fulfillment in their lives. The specific audience of people that fall within those parameters and would benefit from the coaching services that could solve their specific problem is a well-defined coaching niche.

(PS- If you aren’t sure what type of life coach you want to become, click here to explore our list! We’ve included indicators to help you choose the type that might be the best fit for you!)

Think about it- Are you more likely to hire a life coach who has proven experience working with people just like you and with challenges that are really similar to your own, or a coach who works with anyone and everyone, depending on who shows up that week?

You’d probably choose to invest in the coach whose skills are a match for the particular problems you’re experiencing and who has already had success helping other people like you achieve their goals.

The same is true for most people!

The Benefits of Identifying a Specific Niche for Your Coaching Business:

Identifying a coaching niche allows you to position yourself as an expert on that group’s unique problems and needs, rather than trying to work with everyone for every problem
Choosing a niche helps you establish credibility as a reliable resource for a specific group of people or specific type of problem, encouraging more of your audience to turn to you for support
Focusing on a niche helps you get better results, as you hone your skills to work with specific challenges. More experience = better results = greater social proof backing up your business!
A clearly defined niche helps you focus your messaging, offers, and branding, making it easier for your most ideal clients to know that you’re the right coach for them
Working with a defined niche helps you stand out among other coaches taking a more general, less clear approach to their business
Knowing your niche- their needs, struggles, experiences, and desires- gives you a strategic edge to propel the success of your coaching business to the next level
Focusing on a niche has been linked to higher profits, faster growth, and greater success (source).

Defining a specific coaching niche helps your most ideal, potential clients know they’re in the right place when they come in contact with your message- from your website to your social media accounts and your offers to your coaching philosophy.

How Do I Choose a Niche for My Coaching Practice?

Choosing a niche for your coaching practice doesn’t have to be difficult, but it can be daunting! I want to make the process feel easier with 3 key questions, but first…

Before we talk about how to choose a niche for yourself, a few important reminders:

There are life coaching niches that are very specific, and there are coaching niches that are far more broad. Coaches have created success with both of these approaches!

If you choose a broader niche, be sure you are able to retain clarity about who your ideal clients are.
Some coaches work with more than one niche. For example, relationship coaches may choose to work both with women in their 40’s and 50’s who are recently divorced as well as women in their 30’s and 40’s struggling to find love on dating apps.

You do not have to choose just one, but you may choose to focus on one at a time as you build your business, understanding that multiple niches may require different messaging and offers.
Even after identifying your niche, you may find that not every individual that falls into that group is the best fit for your coaching practice.

In addition to ensuring that the people you work with are clients you feel aligned with, I recommend also making sure they meet the following criteria: They’re ready for transformation, they have a goal, dream, or longing for more, they’re coachable, and they’re willing to invest in themselves.

Your most profitable life coaching niche can be found at the intersection of:

Who you would most love to work with
The problems you are most qualified to solve (I don’t just mean certifications or degrees)
A problem people are willing to pay to have solved

1. Who would you most love to work with?

To answer this question, imagine your ideal coaching business- the coaching business that allows you to live a life you love living and do the work you feel most passionate about. If the life coaching business you’re imagining were both the fulfillment of your calling and allowed you to help people in a way you were most excited about… who would you be working with?

Get specific! Imagine the person you’re most passionate and excited to help:

Who are they?
What problems are they experiencing?
What needs do they have?
What goals would they love to accomplish?
What would be true about their background, belief system, or their life that would make them the client you would love to work with most?

2. What problems are you most qualified to solve?

As you begin or refine your life coaching career, an important thing to remember is this: People don’t buy services- they buy solutions. They will be willing to invest in the transformation you offer.

Consider your own experience:

What qualifications do you have to help the ideal client you dreamed up in the first question?
What tools, resources, and methods are you able to use to support that person through a transformation?
What is your own story, message, or transformation that sets you and your approach apart from other coaches in the industry?
What personal growth have you experienced that will help you help others?
What mix of your current skills will help you support your ideal clients in the best way possible?

You might not have all of the answers to this question yet! You may be in the process of or considering becoming a certified coach, pursuing training, or building your skillset. That’s okay!

Include your in-process training in this list and consider making a separate list of skills and qualifications you would love to add to your coaching toolkit as your business expands.

Hint: You don’t have to come up with something brand new that has never been seen before. You just have to draw on real experience and know that the clients meant for you will resonate with your message in a way that no one else does.

3. What problems does your ideal client have that you are qualified to address and that people are willing to pay to solve?

At Brave Thinking Institute, we believe that our coaches are called to help others in transformative, life-changing ways… and we believe that our coaches should be equipped with the practical knowledge and business skills to run a thriving coaching business. After all, life coaches are also small business owners!

In the same way, as you consider the best life coaching niche for you, you also need to consider the profitability of that potential niche.

Typically, people are willing to pay for one of four things: To be, to have, to feel, or to do. The problem(s) that you’re solving for your ideal clients should fall into one (or more) of those categories.

For example, people are likely to be willing to invest in results like:

Being promoted, being a confident person, or being better at managing conflict
Having a better career, having more time freedom, or having an organized home
Feeling happier, feeling more fulfilled, feeling loved, or feeling free
Doing something they never thought possible, doing the thing that’s truly best for them, or doing what they were meant to do in life

For example, at Brave Thinking Institute, we help people create lives they love, and by doing so, we empower them to be, have, feel, and do the things they desire. Our proven process connects them with the specifics of their dreams, their longing, and the life they may have never thought possible for themselves.

It’s the same reason we certify life coaches- we believe in their calling to do great things in the world and that they get to live abundant, fulfilling, dream-worthy lives in the process!

To ensure that the life coaching niche you’re considering is profitable, especially if you’re one of the many new coaches just starting out, be sure that:

Your ideal client (the answer to question #1) has problems or challenges you are qualified to help them solve (the answer to question #2) with solutions that allow them to be, have, feel, or do something they desire (the answer to question #3).

And last- refine, refine, refine!

You might be afraid that being too specific as you choose your life coaching niche will result in less success. The more specific you are, the less people there are to work with, and the less your life coaching business will succeed, right?

The opposite is actually true!

Refining a stand-out coaching niche for your coaching business helps you get very clear about who you help and how. That clarity helps you connect with more of the right clients, faster and easier!

Most Profitable Niches for 2023

Below, I’ve listed a number of popular, general coaching niches, and under each type, the criteria for the most profitable, specific coaching niches you may want to consider this year!

As you identify your own coaching niche, you may wish to refine those criteria even further or less, depending on the life coaching business you’d love to create!

1. Career Coaches:

Specializing in work-life balance
Career coaching for women and minority groups
Career coaching for young adults
Specializing in remote work and virtual leadership
Specializing in specific or non-traditional careers (ie: solopreneurs, other coaches, artists, etc.)
Specializing in career transition for specific populations seeking greater fulfillment, higher compensation, and better perks
Specializing in burnout recovery and prevention

2. Business Coaches:

Small business coaches
Specializing in the transition from a corporate job to entrepreneurship
Specializing in virtual business success (ie: growing an online coaching business, dropshipping businesses, etc.)
Business coaching for workplace diversity, inclusivity, and sensitivity
Specializing in online marketing, online branding, and social media for businesses
Marketing coach for specific types of businesses (ie: small businesses, solopreneurs, etc.)

4. Financial Coaches:

Financial coaching & retirement planning for non-traditional careers
Financial coaching for minority groups (ie: women, black business owners, etc.)
Specializing in building generational wealth
Specializing in tax-reduction for solopreneurs and entrepreneurs
Specializing in socially-conscious investing

5. Executive Coaches:

Executive coaching for women and minorities
Executive coaching for
Specializing in leadership skills
Specializing in productivity and high performance

5. Life Skills Coaches:

ADHD coach for adults navigating later-in-life diagnoses, especially women
Confidence building for social anxiety and low self esteem as obstacles to achieving goals and accomplishing tasks
Specializing in goal setting and achievement

7. Mindset Coaches

Mindset coach for highly specific groups of people (ie: single mothers, coaches, mid-life professionals, etc.)
Mindset coaching for abundance and wealth
Mindset coaching for entrepreneurs and business owners
Mindset coaching for parents who are also professionals (ie: mompreneurs, executives with children, etc.)

8. Relationship Coaches:

Specializing emotional intelligence and relational health
Relationship coaching for non-traditional relationships
Specializing in relationship transitions
Dating coaches for specific age groups or specific challenges (ie: dating apps, codependency, etc.)
Specializing in self-love and self-care

9. Health Coaches:

Specializing in body acceptance
Holistic health coaches
Inclusive fitness coach (body size, gender, etc,)
Specializing in chronic health challenges
Specializing in healthy weight loss without fad diets
Specializing in simple steps to a healthy life

10. Spiritual Coaches:

Specializing in life purpose
Spiritual coaching for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs
Spiritual coaching to support mental health
Spiritual coaching for manifesting and success

Next Steps

Once you’ve identified and refined your most profitable life coaching niche, the next step in creating your successful coaching business is to take action!

Start by downloading our Thriving Coaching Business Checklist — not only will this free ebook give you further support and clarity on choosing your niche and identifying your ideal clients, it will also help you save countless hours of trial and error by:

Following the same process we’ve used to grow 7 and 8-figure coaching businesses in multiple niches
Discovering what to do, step-by-step, to build a thriving, profitable business (that truly makes a difference)
Implementing the step-by-step strategies we’ve taught to thousands of coaches around the world

Click here to download the checklist now, and get started on your dreams!