Does it feel like everywhere you look, there’s more people becoming a coach? Perhaps your social media feed is full of coaches and it feels like there’s no room for you? Maybe you wonder how on earth you can get clients when there’s so many coaches out there these days?

If this sounds like you, then read on because I’m going to be sharing lots of tips on how you can stand out in a saturated market of coaches and I’ll be answering the question ‘is the coaching market saturated’ because my answer might surprise you!

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Is the coaching market saturated?

Yes…and no. Yes, there are more coaches out there than ever before. More and more people are training to be coaches and are setting up coaching businesses, whether that’s life coaches, health coaches, business coaches etc.

However, I do believe that if you’re a coach yourself, the market probably feels extremely saturated because you’re naturally ‘filtering’ for other coaches. Think what happens if someone starts talking about yellow cars – you’ll start seeing them everywhere. The same goes for coaches.

So while there are more coaches than ever, and while it probably feels even more saturated to you because you’re filtering and noticing every single other coach – there are also more people investing in coaching than ever before.

Our work as a business owner, is to look at how we can attract in those people who want to invest in coaching (or position our coaching services as a unique solution to their problem or aspiration) – and part of that is around how we can ‘stand out’

No one is you

Before I share some specific tips on how you can stand out, I want to share one of my core beliefs connected to marketing, comparison and branding as a coach – and that is that no one is you.

No one else has your unique set of experiences, life history, skills and knowledge, temperament and so on. When we really lean into this, we start and see that there’s no such thing as ‘competition’ in the traditional sense in the coaching industry.

I rarely think that people sit and compare two coaches side by side when making a decision to work with someone. Most people make the decision to work with a coach in a much more connected, intuitive way.

This is what we want to double down on when it comes to standing out in a ‘saturated market’.

Spoiler alert – most of these tips are about you being you as hard as possible!

Visual branding

As someone with a design background, I believe that visual branding is an important way you can stand out from other coaches.

First and foremost, your brand should feel like you. That has to be the starting point, and it’s worth taking the time to explore what your own aesthetic is and then building your brand with that as a foundation. You do want your brand to appeal to clients, but not at the expense of watering down who you are.

Just take a quick look at how other coaches in your general niche are branding themselves – does that visual style resonate with you? If not, then that’s a huge invitation to go do something more interesting and disruptive with your own branding in order to stand out.

I’m currently working on a rebrand and one of the (many) driving factors is that the boho style feels a little over done these days in the coaching industry and I’m excited to create a brand that feels more like who I am now, than who I was 3 years ago.

Remember that you’re not for everyone and that’s ok. It’s ok that your branding might repel some people because the whole thing about standing out from everyone else is that not everyone is going to love you and that’s ok!

Values

Getting clear on the values that underpin and drive your business and sharing these can also help you stand out alongside other coaches – but that’s not why you should share them.

Some people are scared of being clear about their feelings and values on certain topics out of fear of getting it wrong. But when we wholeheartedly share our values, knowing that we are imperfect humans and are committed to doing the work, I think it can be a magical way to stand out.

It’s really important here not to talk about values in a kind of fake ‘flag waving’ manner. The values that underpin your business should be something that are put into practice and weaved into every element of what you do, not just used to ‘stand out’.

Messaging

Your messaging and the language you use is a great way to communicate more of who you are and how you’re different.

Again, just like visual branding, this is about starting with who you actually are, your tone of voice, your ‘why’ and your own story and journey and sharing that throughout your business.

From my experience working with coaches growing their businesses, the main thing that gets in the way here is their own mindset about what’s acceptable and which parts of themselves they’re ‘allowed’ to share. Most of us come into the coaching industry on the back of another career where we’ve had to compartmentalise elements of ourselves that are acceptable to our employers and that are ‘professional’.

When it comes to our coaching businesses, feeling like we have to be that corporate version of ‘professional’ can kill our businesses because it’s all so bland!

If you swear in real life (like I do!) then it’s ok to drop the odd f-bomb now and again. You can operate your business ‘professionally’ – serving your clients well, sticking to deadlines and doing excellent work, without having to talk like you’re at a board meeting.

Niche

Having a defined niche – i.e, a specific area of coaching you specialise in – can help differentiate you from other coaches depending on how you approach niching in general.

If you feel naturally pulled toward a specific and narrow niche then that’s great and it can certainly help you stand out from other coaches.

However, if you don’t feel pulled towards something super specific, that’s ok too. Many people take the approach that ‘you are the niche’ which I personally find is a more helpful approach to niching as a multi passionate. As long as the niche you choose is ultimately profitable, and that you choose other ways to stand out, I wouldn’t worry too much about it if you’re like me and struggle to get very narrow when it comes to niching.

Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership is a fairly new concept which relates to creating and sharing content based on your expertise ‘that offers unique guidance, inspires innovation and influences others’ – via Business News Daily

Although ‘Thought Leadership’ might sound a bit intimidating, it’s really about creating content that introduces original concepts, ideas and opinions that are helpful to others. It’s about cultivating an area of expertise and creating content connected to that which perhaps includes strong opinions or commentary on certain topics.

If you feel attracted to the idea of really mastering and becoming an ‘expert’ in a specific area of your general niche then this can be a great place to start when it comes to standing out from others.

Identity specific signature elements

As an extension of your visual branding and messaging – identifying some signature elements and using them on repeat can be an impactful way to stand out, as long as this approach resonates with you.

A specific signature element can be a visual look – maybe that’s something you wear or a symbol or graphic in your branding. It can also be a specific statement or words that you use.

For example, I feel like Dani Wallace is well known for her vintage clothing style, head wraps and bee graphic that links in with her signature statement I am the Queen Bee.

This is basically about identifying a couple of things about yourself that will especially resonate with the people you want to work with, dialling them way up and using them on repeat in various ways in your business so they become a recognisable signature associated with you.

I do believe that this approach can be a great strategy for standing out, but part of me also feels like it’s a bit reductive and very much a capitalist culture thing to box ourselves down into this one dimensional version of ourselves – however, much of whether this is a positive or negative thing is down to how you execute it, so if it resonates give it a go!

Doing business your way

There are lots of ways you can set up offers, market and do sales in your business and trends that occur in every coaching niche connected to these things.

A good way to stand out from other coaches is firstly, just by doing business your way and not feeling like you have to replicate what everyone else is doing in their businesses.

Just because other health coaches are all launching meal planning templates doesn’t mean you have to – and just by doing business your way can you stand out alongside others who are all doing the same thing.

Another aspect of this is standing out by being a trendsetter or early adopter. Rather than following business trends that are overdone, if something feels good to you but that no one else is doing, or that is perhaps popular in another industry but no one has done it in yours – this can be such a good way to be different!

If you’re looking for ways to do business your way and still get clients then check out my Free Aligned Client Attraction and Marketing Workshop below:

Ultimately, when it comes to almost all of these tips, they’re only going to work if you’re active in weaving them into how you do business and how you show up in business so that people actually get to interact with it. It’s something which should be woven into your Instagram posts, podcast episodes and email newsletters.

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