The Tale of Two Niches
When picking your niche is harder than deciding how you’ll pronounce the word
I'm about to tell you two cautionary tales about niching that sound like they have opposite problems.
But here's the plot twist: they're actually the same story.
One coach built her entire business around what she loved most. The other built hers around what the market wanted most.
Both struggled. Both felt like failures. Both were missing the same crucial piece.
The piece that most niche advice completely ignores.
Sarah: The Passion-First Coach
Sarah discovered life coaching after her own transformational journey through divorce and career change. She knew her calling was to help women reconnect with their authentic selves.
Her Instagram was poetry. Her website talked about "sacred wisdom" and "stepping into your power and purpose." Her content was beautiful, deeply meaningful, and got dozens of heart-eyed emoji responses.
But Sarah's discovery calls?
Cricket sounds.
When she did talk to people about her offer, potential clients would say things like: "This sounds amazing, but... what exactly would we work on? Like, specifically?"
Sarah was selling transformation. But people were shopping for solutions.
She'd spent two years building a following of people who loved her content but couldn't figure out how to buy from her. Her niche was pure passion—and it was killing her business.
Michelle: The Market-First Coach
Michelle took a different approach. She completely prioritized what people were actually paying for, what problems had urgent demand, what niches were "proven profitable."
She landed on business coaching for female entrepreneurs. The market was huge. People were spending money. The positioning was clear.
Michelle created content about revenue goals, marketing funnels, and scaling strategies. Her website was clean, professional, full of testimonials about six-figure launches.
And it worked. Sort of.
Michelle booked calls. She signed clients.
But six months in, she was miserable.
She felt like she was playing dress-up in someone else's business. She'd wake up dreading her client calls. Creating content felt like pulling teeth. She was successful and completely burned out.
Michelle had built a profitable niche that focused on doing everything right from the outside but little to do with what she actually cared about.
The Problem with Both Approaches
Here's what I've realized: both Sarah and Michelle got it half right.
Sarah understood that it's an amazing opportunity to build a business based your way and that taking your work into your hands is exhilarating. But she missed that marketing isn't about what you love—it's about what your people need.
Michelle understood that viable niches solve urgent problems people will pay to fix. But she missed that if you don't connect with the work, you won't be able to show up consistently enough to succeed.
Most niche advice pushes you toward one extreme or the other:
"Follow your passion and the money will follow!" (Tell that to Sarah.)
"Just pick what's profitable and optimize later!" (Ask Michelle how that worked out.)
Both approaches miss the nuanced truth: your niche needs to live at the intersection of what you're uniquely suited to provide and what the market needs.
My Own Tale of Two Niches
I lived both of these stories myself.
When I started coaching, I was coming out of almost a decade of therapy training and five years in private practice. In my therapy practice, my niche was clear—maternal mental health, blending career focus with the transition to motherhood. It made sense because I'd lived it, trained for it, and there was obvious demand.
But when I moved into coaching? The world felt wide open.
I started talking about "career clarity" and "values alignment" and "responsive leadership." Beautiful concepts. Meaningful work. Challenging to market without years and years of developing an audience.
People would say: "So what do you actually do with clients?"
After checking in with my priorities, I pivoted more towards market demands. Seeing an opportunity in therapists leveraging tax benefits, diversifying income, and gaining financial freedom, I knew I could teach how to invest in short-term rentals because “hey, I did it myself, right?” (I actually did).
The niche was needed, people were interested for sure. But I wasn’t invested myself (ha, get it?). I really loved the vocational coaching of it all– it’s the heart of all my work. But, the short term rental world I feel like is best marketed by people with totally different lives than mine and honestly, I want to think about my rental as little as possible once it’s optimized. But, the real estate investing and hospitality world wasn’t somewhere I wanted to stay a while (ha, get it again?)
But here's what I learned from that detour into rental properties. It’s easy to get caught up in niching being a speciality idea. I mean as someone who trained in grad school at over a dozen different internships/fellowships/placements, from a therapy standpoint I am certainly a generalist. I should after all those years be able to treat depression trauma, and anxiety, clearly identify if substance use or disordered eating is an issue, and so on and so forth.
I have come to realize that niching isn't a clinical or transformational idea—it's a marketing idea. I mean, does it help my expertise in maternal mental health to be talking with mothers every week for years, absolutely. But, ultimately the concept of niching is a business and marketing tool.
It's not about what you do in the room with clients. It's about how you help people understand why they need you.
After diving into learning about AI to build coursework and marketing for 4 different websites and two different coaching programs. I started building AI tools and my research brain completely lit up. And then, I started talking about helping therapists and coaches use AI to create sustainable marketing systems. I connected my love of vocational psychology to the practical problem of content & business overwhelm– and how our businesses are going to change quickly over the next several years with AI.
Suddenly, the conversations changed. People could see exactly what I offered and why they might need it.
I haven’t abandoned my passion for deep, reflective work. And I haven’t forgotten about how important it is to listen to what the market is telling you it needs.
The Third Option
The coaches who build businesses that last—businesses that feel good and work well—don't choose between passion and market demand.
They find the overlap.
Here's what that actually looks like:
Start with Market Reality
Before you fall in love with your niche idea, ask:
• What problem are people actively trying to solve?
• How are they currently searching for help?
• What language do they use when they're in pain?
• Are they willing and able to pay for a solution?
Find Your Unique Angle
Then ask:
• What combination of training, experience, and perspective do I bring?
• What do I see that others in this space miss?
• Where do my strengths create something distinctly valuable?
• What approach energizes me instead of draining me?
Bridge the Gap
Finally:
• How can I talk about my approach in terms of the outcomes people want?
• What's the specific transformation I create that people can visualize?
• How can I make the invisible visible in my marketing?
What This Looks Like in Practice
Let's say you're passionate about helping people trust their intuition (like Sarah), but you also understand market reality (unlike Sarah).
You might position yourself as: "The coach who helps overwhelmed entrepreneurs make confident decisions without second-guessing themselves."
Same passion. Same core work. But now you're speaking to:
• A specific type of person (entrepreneurs)
• With a specific problem (overwhelm + decision paralysis)
• Toward a specific outcome (confident decisions)
Or maybe you're drawn to the business coaching space (like Michelle) but want to bring your authentic perspective (unlike Michelle).
You might say: "I help intuitive coaches build sustainable businesses without burning out or losing themselves."
Profitable niche. Clear positioning. But infused with your actual values and approach.
The magic happens when your internal compass aligns with external demand.
Why Most People Can't See This for Themselves
Here's the thing Sarah and Michelle both discovered: it's almost impossible to do this analysis on yourself.
Sarah couldn't see that her beautiful passion wasn't connecting to urgent market needs.
Michelle couldn't see that her market-focused approach was completely disconnected from what actually energized her.
We're too close to our own expertise to recognize what makes it unique. Too worried about excluding people to claim what we're actually best at. Too invested in our ideas to critique them objectively.
This is exactly why I built The Niche Critique.
It's a strategic analysis tool that walks you through the same process I use with coaching clients—but available whenever inspiration (or doubt) strikes.
You answer four questions about your niche idea, and the GPT provides you with an in-depth SWOT analysis that looks at:
• Strengths — What you uniquely bring to this space
• Weaknesses — Where you might be vulnerable or need support
• Opportunities — Market gaps and unmet needs you could fill
• Threats — External factors that could challenge your success
Plus actionable next steps and a viability score.
It's like having the strategic conversation that neither Sarah nor Michelle had before they launched.
What Coaches Are Discovering
The response has been both humbling and encouraging:
"I just used your AI tool and I loved it!"
"I got so much from using the GPT. I've been to so many workshops and used so many worksheets and this got me so much further along the way."
What I'm hearing is relief. Relief that someone is finally asking both the heart questions AND the strategy questions. Relief that there's a way to test your instincts without committing to anything permanently.
Relief that you don't have to choose between authenticity and viability.
The Real Lesson from These Tales
Sarah eventually got strategic about her messaging. She started talking about helping women navigate their career experiences with confidence while going through or recovering from a divorce. Same transformational work, clearer positioning.
Michelle eventually found her way back to what energized her—coaching female entrepreneurs to not be afraid of sales. Same market understanding, more authentic approach.
Both had to learn that sustainable niches live at the intersection of passion and demand.
Your niche isn't just about you. It's about the specific people who need exactly what you offer, exactly the way you offer it.
But it also can't ignore who you are, what energizes you, and what you're uniquely positioned to provide.
The coaches who thrive long-term are the ones who refuse to choose between these two truths.
Ready to Find Your Intersection?
If you've been wrestling with a niche idea—wondering if it's too passionate or too market-focused—here's your chance to get strategic clarity.
The Niche Critique takes about 10 minutes and gives you the kind of objective analysis that's almost impossible to do yourself.
Because the world needs what you have to offer. It just needs to understand exactly who you're here to help.
And you need to build something that feels true to you AND works in the real world.
