How Micro Niching and Authenticity Helped Me As A Parent Coach and How You Can Use It Too!

I have been a parent coach since 1995. In 2006 I started my own practice. I started my practice because I found an unmet need int the Metro Atlanta area. Thus, I created the nonprofit Parents, Teachers and Advocates or PT&A. My mentor Pedro Adao helped me to see what I did then and gave me the words I need to share it with you. PT&A created a microfiche that allowed us to be the only ones in our area that performed the service that we did. PT&A exclusively served other nonprofits and schools bringing our parent education program into their agency and served them. Before the pandemic we served more than 20 agencies and over 10,000 parents in the process.

As I have been thinking about this, I realized many parent coaches are striving to serve all parents in as many ways as possible. However, what I am learning is the tighter we narrow down our target audience the more effective we become. Here is how it works. The 100X Academy movement refers to what I am about to share with you a field of Favor.

Every person in business has a field of favor a place where their services are celebrated, and people look for them and ask for their services. When you find this place, you can market efficiently, and people start recognizing that you are speaking their language and ask you for help. This happened for the first time in 2009. One of the oldest and most honored childcare centers in Atlanta called Gate City Day Nursery asked if I could help them with their parent education program. We worked out a deal and I served parents in all three of their centers for over five years. For eight weeks in the Fall and Spring. This happened because our reputation had spread, but also because one of the things I did was to put myself in a place they could see me. I joined as a volunteer with the United Way as aa person who helped them review agencies that received funds from them. I went into a variety of agencies as tPT&A’s executive director so they knew me and found out about orr services as I served them as a person reviewing their application so they could receive aid from the United Way. It was after my second review of the agency they reached out to me. It was an honor to serve them as they as an agency had just celebrated their 110-year anniversary.

A businesses field of favor has four components:

1.     Overall Business Field

2.     General Business Field

3.     Niche

4.     Micro Niche

Using PT&A as an example here is how it looks in practice:

1.     Overall Business Field-Parent Education

2.     General Business Field Parent Education for Businesses

3.      Niche Parents served by Nonprofits, Child Care and Schools

4.     Micro Niche My Niche who needed someone else to do their Parent Ed for them

As I have stated earlier this allowed me to be very specific in my marketing. It also allowed me to think specifically about what those in my micro niche really wanted and needed. In the process of meeting the clients’ needs I created 8 courses covering topics like personality, accountability, child development, early childhood education and several others. Each course had 12 classes, I then had a total of 96 classes to pull from and was able to customize the program I offered each client. This made my offerings more attractive to my clients. Because they got to choose the exact program, they wanted.

I made this a highlight of my marketing to those who were looking for my help with their parent education programs.

You may be asking yourself this is great but, 'how do I now use it to help myself?' The answer is you need to be authentic and narrow down for yourself what about parent education/coaching are you most passionate about and how can you create a micro micro niche around it.

This is how I came to discover my own micro niche. I had spent most of my career in schools, childcare centers and nonprofits. I knew and understood these worlds. I already spoke their language and knew from experience what they most likely needed. Therefore, when I went in to speak to them, we started on the same wavelength and what I needed to do was listen to their concerns and make suggestions based on the offerings available. I was serving them from an authentic place.

This is what I suggest you do for yourself. Look over your career how have you served. Where do you fit? Who can you sit down with and talk to knowing where they are coming from and they know the same about you? This is how you begin to find your field of favor. Where are you celebrated? Where do you just naturally get it? Once you figure this out your next step is to determine your four areas in the field of favor until you get down to your micro niche. Here are your steps.

1.     Determine who you ate as a person.

2.     Micro niche

3.     Create a list of isues to solve

4.     Design your overall program

5.   Meet with potential clients and talk to them about their needs.

6.    Adjust program accordingly.

Here is where I want to recommend a book to you. Titled Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. I love the way he takes something we can all identify with ‘a movie’ and use it to help us think about marketing. I have found it very helpful.

And, I hope that you have found this article helpful to you.

Grace