I Make 5 Figures a Month As a Coach. Here’s How I Picked a Area of interest.

• Kelli Thompson is a women’s leadership coach and speaker who went off on her own in 2019.
• She said she lost 80% of her consulting income in 2020 as a result of canceled contracts.
• Once she found her niche and got clear on her messaging, she started hitting five-figure months.

At the beginning of 2019, I left my role as a vice president at a leadership consulting firm to consult on my own. I quickly secured a strong handful of clients and speaking gigs through social-media marketing and personal outreach. Based on some existing contracts, my leadership-development business was projected to hit six figures in 2020.

But by June 2020, I’d lost more than 80% of my expected income due to canceled contracts as a result of the pandemic.

I had a pity party that lasted through the month. I was worried that I’d be forced to fold my business and rejoin the corporate ranks.

I had a decision to make about the future of my leadership coaching business, and ultimately chose to pivot toward exclusively serving women leaders.

In March 2021, I had my first five-figure month. By November, I’d tripled that monthly amount. Here’s how I made the decision to niche down and what I focused on to grow my business. 

I identified what was working already

When I’d first left my full-time job, I’d joined a local women’s business group that I’d found through social media. I later joined a national mastermind group for women coaches. For the first time as a woman leader, I felt fully seen and supported. This is the missing piece that I needed in corporate America, I thought.

That fall, I launched my first women’s leadership group program. I capped the program at 12 to 15 participants to keep it intimate.

When I lost all of my contracts in 2020, my group program was one of my only remaining sources of revenue. It also happened to be the most meaningful part of my business. 

This is what led to my decision to go all-in on women’s leadership coaching specifically. I started looking back at all the work I’d already done with women leaders and asked former clients a few key questions about my programs, like what topics they resonated with the most or had the greatest impact. From here, I started mapping out my key messaging.

To attract participants, I utilized social media and newsletter marketing. I also relied on direct outreach via email and LinkedIn to past corporate colleagues. I shared how excited I was about the program I’d created and explained how it may be helpful to them as a woman leader. I asked if they, or anyone on their team, would be interested in joining. I also hosted free webinars where I promoted the program at the end.

In 2019, I was charging $399 per person and only getting about 10 people to sign up at a time. Today, I charge $699 and recently had to cut off sales two weeks early due to demand. It’s also helped generate additional revenue over time, as many of the participants converted to one-on-one clients or brought me into their organizations for speaking engagements.

I got ultra clear on my message

When I decided to specialize, I embarked on a reverse-engineering process. Where would my business be one year from now? Who would I serve? And how did I want to feel? Once I’d written out these answers, I put together actionable steps to reach my goals.

For example, after I’d lost most of my income in 2020, I knew I wanted to be on track for a six-figure year by June 2021. To reach this, I needed to secure speaking opportunities, better communicate my offers, and host free webinars to introduce women leaders to my services.

A big focal point for me was getting very familiar with my why. What was I choosing to advocate? Why is it important for women to consider these topics? And how can my work make a tangible difference in women’s lives? Answering these questions helped me further refine how I marketed myself and my business.

I obsessively researched my niche

I knew that if I wanted to niche down as a women’s leadership coach, I needed to become an expert in women’s leadership development. 

The first thing I did was set up Google alerts for keywords related to my specialization. They included ”

gender pay gap

,” “women’s leadership conferences,” and “women in the workplace.” These alerts kept me up to date on the latest studies published by organizations such as McKinsey and Lean In. Not only did this information keep me in the loop and validate what I was teaching, it also highlighted things I hadn’t even picked up on, like the gender leadership development and training gap. 

Outside of online research, I regularly had in-depth discussions with women leaders about the current landscape in corporate America. While I had my own experience as a leader to fall back on, these conversations kept me up to date so that I could apply my research to the problems women leaders are facing right now.

I focused on consistency

It can be disheartening when you’ve done a great deal of market research and gotten really clear on your niche to find that your content marketing efforts aren’t yielding the immediate results that you hoped for.

While I saw some growth after niching down, it took a full eight months for me to hit a five-figure month. But from there, my income started increasing at a far more rapid rate.

To reach my revenue goals, I focused on consistently delivering value-based content to my online audience on Instagram and LinkedIn. A big part of my social-media marketing strategy is weekly livestreams that discuss the real challenges women face in the workplace today along with the research and actions they can take to lead with more clarity and confidence. Consistently showing up — and occasionally including promotional posts with strong calls-to-action — is what attracted clients to my business.

I also incrementally increased my rates, which allowed me to double my private-coaching and group-coaching rates within a year. When deciding on a rate, I’m always looking at a couple of things, including the market rate that my competitors are charging and the new skills, tools, or experiences I’ve added to my offers.

Not only did this pivot allow my business to survive the pandemic, but it taught me that by trying to speak to everyone, I was actually speaking to no one. Scaling a business isn’t about hustling extra hard. It’s about getting ultra clear on your message and goals and consistently showing up for your target audience.

Have you made a career switch and want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@insider.com