No Niche, No Problem: The New Coaching Model

You know how we’ve been taught that having a niche is the golden ticket to success in coaching? What if I told you that coaching without a niche might just be a liberating step for your coaching business? That’s right—no niche, no problem!

This is why I am thrilled to share insights from my good friend and colleague, Rob Goyette, who has a knack for thinking outside the box.

In this eye-opening conversation, Rob reveals a brilliant new way to coach clients that builds trust, increases confidence, creates momentum, and allows you to not only find your niche – but also move clients into a high-ticket coaching offer without resistance!

Check out this special call with Rob Goyette “No Niche? No Problem!”

 

Below, you’ll find the full transcript of our enlightening conversation. Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on this.

Milana Leshinsky: My name is Milana Leshinsky, and I’m the creator of Coaching Genie, the platform for coaches that makes it easy for you to get into group coaching.

And my guest today is one of my favorite people in the coaching space, maybe in the world. I’m not exaggerating Rob, but Rob Goyette has worked in the coaching space since 2007 from what I remember seeing.

Yes. Well, first of all, hi, Rob. Good to have you here.

Rob Goyette: Hey, Milana. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Milana Leshinsky: So I met Rob when he was a joint venture manager for Christian Mickelsen. Many of you watching this might be familiar with Christian’s business.

And so Rob is extremely knowledgeable about creating partnerships, running product launches.

He’s also amazing when it comes to creating irresistible offers very consistently. If you come up with something I take notice because “Oh, Rob is solving a really big problem for coaches.” So I love that.

So he is the creator of the fast revenue laser coaching model, which I have seen so many people use and tell me, have you tried Rob’s model?

It’s awesome. It works for a lot of people. And also I remember using your automated webinar formula. So I don’t know if you’re still doing that, but that’s something that has resonated with a lot of people. And as I mentioned, just simply the nicest, kindest person I’ve ever met. So I’m really excited to talk to you today, Rob.

Welcome again.

Rob Goyette: Wow, what an introduction, Milana. Thank you so much. Yes, yes. I do remember meeting you for the first time in Las Vegas.

Yes. Vegas, yeah, yeah. It was so great to meet you in person because I’d heard so many things and yeah, it’s just, just a thrill back then and a thrill right now.

Milana Leshinsky: I can’t forget the Las Vegas meeting because I remember being hit with the heat and the sand in my face as I came out of the airport and your car was a lifesaver because I could get away from all of that.

So it’s a visceral memory for me for sure. Well, let’s jump in the topic for today, because I saw you talking about this idea of no niche, no problem.

And that made me pay attention because for 23 years that I’ve been working with coaches, that’s the first thing I say is you need a niche. All roads lead to niche.

All problems are caused by a lack of niche. So I’m very curious. Share your philosophy on this. What do you mean no niche, no problem?

Rob Goyette: Sure. Yeah. So well, the first thing I’ll say is that the way that I define a niche or some people say niche, but I like saying get rich in your niche.

So my definition is basically defining who you serve and how you serve them.

If you can answer those two questions, then you’ve got your niche. And so, but for a lot of coaches, they’re either brand new and they don’t know who to help or their stuff works for everyone.

So it’s so tempting to like have all these different landing pages and all this stuff everywhere. And so having a defined niche allows us to really focus our marketing and bring that audience into our world.

But if you’re not there yet, or if you’re thinking of changing niches, then the solution really is to offer a version of coaching that works outside of your niche works for anyone.

And so that’s what I’d love to talk about today.

Milana Leshinsky: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I remember working with somebody. Many years ago and then meeting her and she was really struggling in her coaching business.

And I told her, you just need to niche. You just need to find a niche and really become an advocate for your audience or your target audience.

In my mind, I don’t see how you can build a business without having a niche. And so five years later, I met her again and she was still struggling and she still didn’t have a niche.

And so that’s kind of how I look at it. And I think, well, you you need a niche. So what are some of the ways to think about this or to get around the idea of having a niche or somebody who doesn’t have one?

Rob Goyette: Sure. And again I totally agree with you that every coach needs to ultimately have a niche.

It’s just that if you’re in that spot of indecision or too many options and you’re not sure what to do, you can go ahead and start making money quickly by helping anyone really.

And so the first thing that I like to share with coaches is that what causes anyone to say yes to our coaching is trust and an irresistible offer.

And I’ll explain that in just a little detail. So trust has two levels, and so does the irresistible offer. People need to trust, number one, that we’re honest.

And it’s usually pretty easy if we’re on a Zoom call or if we’re in person, but if you just have a webpage with words on the screen saying, I’ll help you get whatever results you want they may not trust that you’re being honest.

So they do need to trust that we’re honest. The second level is probably the more critical one, which is they need to trust that you are the expert who can get them the results that they want.

And I’ll give you an example. If I wanted to start helping women in their third trimester of pregnancy, like, get through their pregnancy easily, I might be really good at that.

And I might really believe that I can do that. And when I talk with women and say, I can help you, they might believe that I believe it, but they probably think, you know, hey, this guy doesn’t know what it’s like to be a woman. How could he possibly help me in my third trimester?

And so, the way to overcome that, by the way, is to have testimonials and explain how you work. But, what I’m saying is, and I wouldn’t choose that niche anyway, because I’m not a woman.

It’s not a perfect niche, right? But if I did yeah, I would need to make sure that my audience trusted that I really was the person who could help them get the results they want.

So that’s trust on two levels. The irresistible offer also has to have two levels. The first one is we need to provide incredible value based on the price or the cost.

A good rule of thumb is like 10 times the value. In business coaching, it’s pretty easy. You give me 10, 000, I’ll show you how to make 100, 000.

If you believe me, and you believe I really can help you, why wouldn’t you give me 10, 000 to make 100, 000? So in business coaching, it’s pretty easy.

But outside of business coaching and other scenarios, it’s a little tougher and we need to connect the dots to the real value that we provide.

So If I was a coach for, let’s say, men getting a divorce or men like trying to prevent a divorce, I might show the value of having my help can prevent you from losing your home, your kids, the lawyer fees.

Like I’d actually try to as much as possible tie real dollars to the amount of pain that I’m saving them. Maybe I’m a health coach and I show people how to live longer.

I might go the route of saying, some people on their deathbed would give any amount of money to live one more month.

Well, how about if I help you live 10 more years, something like that. So in other words, I love that. I already want to tie it to that. It’s gotta be really valuable.

And so, you know, sometimes we think, well, I know my stuff’s valuable, but the client doesn’t. So we need to really have huge value compared to relatively low costs.

That’s the first part of the irresistible offer. The second is one that eluded me for a long, long time, which is that clients need to understand the offer.

Sometimes we come up with these great ideas and we put them out there and we know that people trust us on those two levels and we know the value is huge, but they still don’t sign up.

Well, maybe it’s that they don’t understand the inputs and outputs. What’s the time, energy, and money they’re going to put into working with us.

And what’s the very likely huge value they’re going to get out of that.

What are the inputs and outputs, but when those two pieces are in place, then your offer is irresistible.

And when trust is in place. Think of it this way. If people don’t trust you, they’re not going to hire you. And if your offer is not irresistible, they’re going to resist.

And so that simple formula is how I troubleshoot all my marketing. It’s how I help all my clients. It’s how I come up with new coaching programs.

I just think. You know, what would maximize trust and what would make the offers irresistible as possible?

Milana Leshinsky: I love that. That’s how you come up with your coaching programs. I mean, it’s definitely, cause there is a magic behind what you do and how you do it.

Every time you put something out there, it does feel very on point, irresistible and specific, relevant, and very valuable, most importantly.

And so I’ve known you for many years, and I know you love the idea of leverage, leveraging time, leveraging your expertise. How exactly do you make the offer?

I’m assuming it’s not like a one on one discovery session, because you have to have the testimonials to show online.

For me, if it’s a niched offer, I’m putting it online and I’m sending traffic to it. I’m sending people to it. But when it’s not a niche offer, don’t you need to find out what the client wants first?

How does that work? How does the process go?

Rob Goyette: Yeah, you do need to find out what the client wants. And so I don’t know that there’s a good leveraged way to make an offer that helps tons of different people with tons of different things and for it to be succinctly said in one irresistible offer. So when, if you don’t have a niche yet and you want to bring in some income, it really is more of a one on one scenario.

Now it might be a Zoom call. It might be you going through the sent items folder in your email to say, Oh yeah, that person and I had some trust. We had a good relationship.

Maybe I can reach out to that person who doesn’t do what I normally do, but might want some help in this other area. So what I’m saying is that, yeah, I do believe that the one to one you’re standing in line at the checkout at the grocery store.

One of my clients actually enrolled a laser coaching client sitting next to her on an airplane. The two were just sitting down, they got to talking, they built trust.

So really it’s just kind of looking for those opportunities when you run into somebody and this new model that I’ve created, really.

It helps. I mean, everybody needs it. Maybe not everybody will pay for it. But if there’s trust in an irresistible offer, they will but everybody needs it no matter what the niche is. And that’s what’s so cool about it.

Milana Leshinsky: The examples that you gave a few minutes ago, you know, divorce health coaching. Those are niches to me. How do you define a niche?

Rob Goyette: Yeah. So I mentioned earlier, it’s who do you serve and how do you serve them? Right. And so if you feel like well, who do I serve? I can serve anybody. Then I’d say you probably don’t have a niche yet.

Because the whole benefit of having a niche is you can strategically put leveraged marketing in front of the right people and bring them in and give them congruent messaging with when you can help anybody.

It’s tough to get congruent messaging stuff for me to say. Hey, whether you’re a woman in her 3rd trimester or a business owner who’s trying to double their sales, like, yeah, it’s not congruent. But if I was talking to that business owner, 1 on 1 who said, Hey, Rob, you know, I’m really trying to double my sales.

I’d have an offer for that person. Oh, and then if I’m talking to the third trimester woman who says, you know, I’m really trying to figure out how to get through all this.

I might even say, you know what? I’m not an expert to tell you exactly what to do, but I can make sure you do it. Yeah. So basically the model that I’ve come up with is a way to help clients do what they should be doing, what they know they need to do.

I call it proactive tasks. The proactive stuff is the stuff that we need to do, but nobody is expecting or counting on us to do it. So like building our business. That’s a proactive thing. Having a client call where the client’s waiting for you on Zoom. That’s a reactive thing. Someone’s counting on you.

And so I’ve got a whole time management philosophy about separating the proactive and the reactive and how your energy will skyrocket around it. But but the bottom line is this new model I’ve come up with helps people with their most important proactive tasks.

Milana Leshinsky: Proactive is what leads to building your business to getting more clients to become becoming more visible. I think it means taking initiative and driving the growth of your business not just responding to the opportunities that might or might not come.

Rob Goyette: Yes, and proactive can also mean doing the Lamaze classes or whatever a third trimester pregnancy woman might feel are optional. Nobody’s making her go to the classes.

What I’m saying is the proactive stuff is the stuff that no matter what niche, no matter what area we’re helping people with, it’s the stuff that they know they should be doing, but nobody’s making them do it.

Milana Leshinsky: Right, right. Well, I’ve seen your formulas and your methods work extremely well for many people, like really people are taking the method that you developed and, you know, creating new coaching models and release it out there and clients are signing up.

So I know that whatever you came up with this time is going to be amazing. I know you have a course where you detail the process. Can you talk about the course?

Rob Goyette: Yeah, so probably I’m not sure we have enough time to really go through all the course, but I do have I did a call. It was like an hour and 45 minutes with like the guy on my team that knows this stuff almost as well as I do.

And we actually talked through a lot of this detail about how to get clients, even if you don’t have a niche. And so that call goes into a lot of detail and talks all about the course. I’m happy to talk about it as much as you like. I just also want to respect our time.

Milana Leshinsky: Absolutely. Yes. Well, and we will have a link to the replay of that call under the video. What exactly can people expect to learn in that video?

Rob Goyette: Yeah. So we talk about some of the benefits of this model. Like you might just think, oh, well, okay, it’s helping people get their most proactive tasks done. I don’t know if people would find that valuable and, or I think I could do this on my own.

I don’t need to buy Rob’s course, which might be true, but what we’ve done is we’ve packaged in so much more than just the accountability of getting your most important proactive work done. We bundled in habit stacking, rewards, affirmations.

The way that I came up with this, Milana, is I was taking a walk with my wife and, and I thought, you know, I’d love to create a new coaching model.

And usually I create these things of like, what could a coach sell? But instead I thought, I’m going to look at it from the standpoint of a client. What would be so irresistible to me as a client that I would pay a certain amount of money every month for? And I thought, well, I need to get five programs created and five webinars done.

And if I had a coach help me, make sure that I was doing that work every single day or every business day.

Yeah. And if I got those done, it would totally pay for itself, right? The value is there. And so then I thought, well, what else, if I’m talking to someone anyway, what else, if we’re, cause basically the way I’ve packaged it is to talk with the coach every day for 20 days for these 15 minute calls.

Basically it’s a month of weekdays. And so I thought, if I’m talking to a coach 20 times for these 15 minute calls, what else could we do on those calls besides just keeping me accountable for doing my proactive stuff? And what I came up with was, well, affirmations seem to work after about 60 days or whatever.

Maybe we could say an affirmation at the beginning and end of each call. And I thought, you know, habits take about a couple months to really work as well. What if we built in a habit? And so I hired a school teacher named John to be my coach to see if this would work for somebody who doesn’t normally coach, like, could anybody do this?

And so John and I figured it out together for the first month. In the first month, my habit was just closing the rings on my Apple watch didn’t do a whole lot after, I think it was month three where I figured out, you know, I think if my eating behavior changed, that could change things. And I dropped 43 pounds several months later.

So like that, yeah, that worked. As far as the the proactive stuff done. I did get my five courses created. I did get my five webinars done and it brought in an extra hundred thousand dollars in revenue to my business that wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t had somebody coaching me on the proactive stuff.

As far as the affirmations, we also started doing affirmation stacking, but before we were doing that, I was taking another walk with my wife. And one of my affirmations was at the time it was “I am a course creation machine” because I was trying to create…

Milana Leshinsky: You are.

Rob Goyette: Well at the time though, I wasn’t and so but now I am yes. And so anyway, so I was telling you, you know I’m gonna be leading this call and that’ll wrap up creating this course and I just created this course sitting at my computer and she goes, “You know what? You really are a course creation machine.”

And I had not connected to those dots. But I actually, I think I was creating four or five courses at the same time. But I was doing it, like, almost unconsciously. Like, yeah, I knew I was doing it. But I didn’t connect the dots that those affirmations actually were working.

And so then I created one about being an AI artist. And I’ve got all these others that I created over time. But they really, really helped.

And so, anyway, yeah, with this model, we package all that stuff in so that maybe the client hires us initially to do whatever they feel like they’re supposed to be doing, but nobody’s watching them.

But they start getting all these ancillary benefits from the way we’ve packaged it, which makes them want to renew and possibly buy our other programs.

And I know we’re coming close to our time here, but one big piece of advice I have is that if you do use this, this new coaching model to work with just about anyone, start noticing where people are needing help and how you could help them to create that niche.

I, ultimately, I think everybody should have a niche. So here’s a way to get paid to discover your niche. People are paying you monthly to connect with you. You’re building great trust with them, and then you can decide, you know what? I could probably create a high level coaching program for most of these clients or some of these clients.

And what’s so cool is if you’re talking with them 20 days a month, you build such incredible trust that when you make an irresistible offer like a higher level program, they easily say yes.

Milana Leshinsky: Wow. Okay. I have a question for you, but you said something and I just want to come back to 20 days a month. Is that one of the things about the new coaching model that you are looking at is it’s a really like a daily coaching session.

Rob Goyette: Yeah, 15 minutes a day. Really, it’s usually more like five to seven, but like up to 15 minutes a day for 20 days and the first calls longer to bond with the client and figure out what they want.

But what’s cool is with, you know, with John, with that school teacher we worked, I don’t know, like nine months straight. But what was cool was, if one of us had to miss a day, we figured out a solution for that as well.

So if like, if there was a time where like, I just didn’t feel like meeting as a client, I could send him a quick text message and we’d actually do our coaching.

I’ll just reveal it using Marco Polo. So I’d pull out my phone. I’d say, Hey John you know, I got my work done. And with my habit, you know, I struggled a little bit or whatever, whatever it was. And then I’d stop and then sometime later that day, he would reply saying, Hey, good job. And we’ve got scripts for all this stuff.

But the point is, is that we actually were able to take our coaching offline, distort time and space so that we could meet even when neither of us was available at the same time.

As a school teacher, he could only meet me early in the morning or in the evenings. And so there were some times where that didn’t work for me.

And so, yeah. Or if it didn’t work for him, it was no problem. He’s just like, hey, can I send you a Marco Polo today? And it didn’t matter which one of us went first. That was so cool. Yeah.

Milana Leshinsky: So Marco Polo is great, but the daily coaching for a few minutes, I think that is awesome. And I think it will work for a lot of coaches who love that momentum and it will work for clients who need the momentum.

So, oh, wow. I’m so excited about that. And you talk more about that in that almost two hour call that you will put the link under the video.

So definitely excited that, well, I can’t let you go without asking you a question that hopefully will be eye opening to a lot of people. So imagine that you have a coach who started her business a year ago.

You know, she’s been doing a lot of things and you know, trying to be visible on social media. She has been networking to get clients and she still has only one client. She’s struggling. How would you coach her? Well, what advice or what questions would you ask her? So we have about four minutes to wrap this up.

Give me a four minute Rob coaching to somebody who is struggling.

Rob Goyette: Sure. And I wasn’t prepared for this question, but an answer popped into my head. We’ll see how this ends. I do want to highlight something you said right before asking the question, though, and you mentioned the word momentum.

And that’s really where my answer is going to be headed is maybe you’ve got your messaging figured out and you know who you want to serve and you know how you want to serve them and you’ve only got one client.

Well, momentum by starting to serve other clients, even outside your niche, that momentum does so much and that perhaps inappropriate example I was going to share is back when I was less mature and in college, my friends and I used to joke about dating less than maybe our perfect match just to get things moving, just to get that momentum.

Because once you start dating more people, you start to have confidence and to approach. So, you know, maybe I shouldn’t be.

Milana Leshinsky: It is very relevant. Absolutely.

Rob Goyette: Yeah. Yeah. So kind of get out there and start meeting people. Well, get out there and start coaching people. Even if they’re not your ideal clients, that momentum is gonna give you confidence.

There’s a lot to say about confidence, but yeah, that momentum will give you confidence, which will then be projected so that when you do talk with your ideal person, boom, you’ll more likely enroll that client.

And when you’re working with all these people outside of your niche, they probably know some people in your niche.

So when you build that trust with them over these 15 minute daily calls and you’ll build tremendous trust. Like right now, if John asked me for anything, I’d give it to him like I love that guy so much. But I didn’t at first, but when we talk every day for month after month, really got to know him.

So if John said, Hey Rob, do you know any school teachers who might like my help at, you know, something outside my niche, but maybe that’s what he wants to do.

I would bend over backwards and I used to work in a school, so I do know a lot of school teachers. Like I would bend over backwards to help him. So, yeah.

So I would say that momentum of getting out there and just getting some clients, this works for getting clients in any niche.

Milana Leshinsky: And of course, you know, how do you package it? How do you price it? How do you sell it and market it? How do you talk about it? So people understand the value because it is a unique offer.

I have personally maybe met one coach in my lifetime that offered a daily coaching for a certain period of time. So this is definitely very unique. Yeah.

And by the way, I have a new offer idea for you, Rob, it’s called A Walk with Rob, you walk for an hour and you come up with like 10 brilliant ideas for your business.

I hope you have something like that, especially because you now live in this beautiful you’re still in Puerto Rico, right? Yeah, see, how is your Spanish, Rob?

Rob Goyette: No, no, no bueno. Yeah, not very good.

Milana Leshinsky: Well, thank you so much. Yes, is there anything else you were going to say? And I interrupted you.

Rob Goyette: No, I love the idea of walk with Rob. Years ago gave a client an idea who didn’t have time to coach because he was driving all the time. And I said,

Oh, well, just charge clients less. If you can talk to him while you’re driving that, you know, you’ll have to pay attention and stop. So it’s a great idea. If I’m out walking anyway, why not get paid for it?

Milana Leshinsky: There you go. I walk all the time and I’m thinking, wow, you know, I’m listening to podcasts, I’m doing all these different things. I might as well be coaching a client while I’m walking. So I think that that’s a great idea. That’s your next model. I think that should be definitely,

Rob Goyette: I’ve got three or four already, but I love this one. So you’re right.

Milana Leshinsky: Well, because you can make money and lose weight at the same time and gain muscle.

Rob Goyette: That’s right. That’s right. Yes. Yes.

Milana Leshinsky: Thank you so much. So I know there’s so much more, we only scratch the surface, not only of this model, the new niche coaching model, but also just having a conversation with you.

And there’s so much more guys, if you’re listening to this, if you’re watching this, Rob is just a treasure trove of coaching, business, marketing, sales innovation ideas.

And I just love talking to you. So thank you so much for being here, Rob. And we’ll see you next time.

Rob Goyette: Milana, thanks so much. I really appreciate your valuable time.

I appreciate everybody watching this or reading about it. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for checking it out. And again, Milana, thanks so much for sharing me with your audience.

Milana Leshinsky: Thank you, Rob.