I work with lawyers and their clients. I coach lawyers, I run workshops giving them basic coaching skills to bring to their work and also facilitate leadership development within law firms using the amazing tools from The Leadership Circle.

Lawyers will refer their clients to me for life coaching work, normally as part of divorce proceedings.

My niche grew very organically. I quit my corporate job with very little planning and had a “if it will ring me I’ll coach it approach”. I found it difficult to talk at networking events about what I did because it felt very intangible and lacked a vision that was accessible to other people (although my vision for the life I wanted for myself was crystal clear!).

My husband works for a law firm in Greater Manchester and whilst doing my certification I approached one of his colleagues to use for practice. She grew through the coaching and began to tell her colleagues, who told their colleagues and I soon realised that I’d found a gap in the market. I also identified that there was an opportunity to integrate my corporate training skills and combine it with my coaching practice.

After my first year of trading I sat down and looked at my client list and realised that most of them were lawyers and decided to finally own the niche and begin marketing to it.

The thing that ‘sealed the deal’ for me about my niche was that I love coaching these types of people, and that they can afford my rates. I think having a niche that can afford you is often overlooked. It’s all well and good that you love coaching them – and you still need to eat.

Having a niche market makes it easier for clients to decide whether you’re the right coach for them and is very useful in enabling other people to market for you. 70% of my new clients come from referrals and when people think of lawyers and coaching – more and more people are thinking of me! It’s a huge buzz for me when I meet someone and they tell me they’ve heard of my business and what we do, and I think having a niche has made it much easier and quicker to accomplish that.

As to how I attract and reach my clients, referrals is number one, and that’s a snowball that takes time to grow. 

Whilst building my referral machine I did a ton of networking events (a very mixed bag in terms of success), wrote articles aimed at my target market and offered my services pro bono on several occasions to get the ball rolling and start establishing a track record in the market.

Our workshops have also been a useful opportunity to enrol new clients. Normally at least one person per workshop will convert into a coaching client.

I also joined their regulatory body so that they can see I’m within their industry.

E-mail has been useful when promoting our workshops for lawyers. Yell.com was a horrific waste of money that has not yielded a single call in a year (my personal belief is that people don’t choose their coach from the yellow pages). Local interest groups where my potential clients will be have also been useful in getting word around.

Free sample sessions are my primary marketing technique. It’s useful for people to experience it, especially if they’re new to coaching.

The most successful marketing is done by other people for you. Word of mouth referrals are worth their weight in gold.

                              ID Coaching Limited

                              www.id-coaching.co.uk

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