Ep. 30 20 Profitable Niches for Health Coaches: Find your perfect niche in the health & wellness industry

What you should know before starting a health coaching business

Dec 12

In this episode of Becoming a Health Coach, Megan McCrory discusses the top 20 profitable niches for health coaches in the health and wellness industry. Discover the perfect niche for you and learn how to stand out in a crowded market. Whether you're interested in weight loss, nutrition, fitness, or mental health, there's a niche waiting for you. Tune in to find your passion and make a meaningful impact as a health coach.

Check out the transcript and the examples of coaches for each niche below.

20 Profitable Niches for Health Coaches
[00:00:00] Introduction to Niches
[00:00:03] Niche. What is the definition of niche? That is a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service. I will be pronouncing it niche because that's how it's listed in the dictionary. According to my Google search. However, I don't care if you call it niche, but I was raised calling it niche.
[00:00:23] This is Megan McCrory and this episode of Becoming a Health Coach we're talking about niches because that word is constantly in our vocabulary as a coach.
[00:00:35] So a niche is very helpful when it comes to finding clients, which is another big topic that coaches and any actually service-based industry struggle with is finding clients.
[00:00:48] So for this episode, I'm just going to pop through probably around 20 or so niches that are kind of popular in the health coaching area. And I'm really curious if you have a niche that's not on today's menu. I'd really love if you go to my website and pop it in my comments and let me know what your niche is. It is absolutely fantastic to hear and learn about very specific niches, because I think you can have a niche inside of a niche, even.
[00:01:16] Definitely.
[00:01:17] #1 Weight Loss and Weight Management
[00:01:17] So for example, starting off with our first most popular niche is the weight loss and management, which means just helping your clients achieve and maintain a healthy weight through, you know, your personalized coaching with them. But a niche inside of a niche would be doing that for a specific type of person for let's say new new mothers or middle-aged women or men who game. You know, gamers who sit behind PCs all the time or IT people or anybody who, works behind a computer a lot.
[00:01:51] So there's a lot of different ways that you can mash that up. You can take the weight loss and management part and then narrow it down. Even niche it down, as people say.
[00:02:00] #2 Nutrition through Specific Diets
[00:02:00] The second niche is nutrition through specific diets. I haven't talked a lot about specific diets because well, with IIN, the school that I went to in 2018. They taught us a lot about all these different specific diets, but it was not to use them necessarily, but to understand where your client has coming from. However, I think that there are some really popular niches in there.
[00:02:23] For example, if you are a adamant vegan or vegetarian, and maybe your service could be to coach people into that lifestyle of eating, for example. Ketogenic paleo, et cetera.
[00:02:38] There are some specific reasons why you might coach someone into like a paleo or ketogenic diet, for example, prediabetics or type two diabetics who have been told that they need to lose weight. Paleo and ketogenic diets have been proven to, to really rapidly have weight loss to help type two diabetics and prediabetics lower for example, there therapeutic drugs and so on.
[00:03:03] #3 Fitness and Exercise Coaching
[00:03:03] The third niche that we're going to talk about is fitness and exercise coaching. Now, this is more on the lines I would say if someone who has some specialized additional training in fitness and health coaching. That's where you really design a personalized exercise program or you're promoting an active lifestyle in some way.
[00:03:24] There are health coaches that also do that, but I feel like those are people who are already coming from a fitness industry, which is great. So if you started in the fitness industry somewhere else, and then you're adding health coaching on to that, That is great. Stay in that zone.
[00:03:39] I mean, that's a, that's a niche in itself and who might be interested in that? So I can think off the top of my head two, one would be someone who really wants to learn how to do fitness, but has never actually done fitness in the past. Like, you know, they were just never a sporty person growing up or or maybe they were injured and they now are scared to start off again. So that could be a really good place for you to start.
[00:04:05] The second are people who have been working out and kind of hit a plateau and they need another coach. And I feel like fitness and exercise coaching is like more in the traditional realm of again like sports coaching, where you tell them what to do. Most of the health coaching we talk about is the kind of coaching where you help a person uncover behavior traits, behavior modification, things, and why they do things the way they do things to help them change their behavior, to get to the goals that they want to.
[00:04:38] So fitness and exercise coaching are definitely like a little area pocket in its own. I would say in health coaching.
[00:04:46] #4 Stress Reduction and Wellness
[00:04:46] Niche number four is stress reduction and wellness. So this is really providing strategies to manage stress and improve overall wellbeing and promoting that balanced lifestyle.
[00:04:59] I know somebody who does this and her name is Andrea Christancho. I'll leave a link for her in the show notes and her niche is literally how to manage stress and improve wellbeing for entrepreneurs. It's very specific and she does a really good job of maintaining that specificity.
[00:05:19] And then now she's carved out that niche for herself.
[00:05:22] And her philosophy is the no hustle clubs. So that's a really a good niche to be in because it feels like, that a lot of people want to reduce the stress or at least manage stress. Because we can't get away from stress and there can be good stresses. So I could go on a lot about stress, but that would be the niche number for stress reduction and wellness.
[00:05:44] #5 Mindful Eating as a Niche
[00:05:44] Our niche number five is mindful eating as a niche. So coaching clients on developing a healthy relationship with food and helping them cultivate, mindful eating habits. Again, that's very specific, but on the other hand, there's a lot of people that have a bad relationship with food anddoing this specific type of coaching. You're not coaching them on a specific diet.
[00:06:09] You're not coaching them on what to eat you're, you're actually coaching them on how to eat. What they're eating doesn't necessarily matter as much. But how they're eating and creating that healthy relationship with food.
[00:06:23] #6 Chronic Disease Management
[00:06:23] Niche number six is chronic disease management.
[00:06:26] Now this one again is also a bit more specialized. So specializing in coaching for individuals with specific chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, or other autoimmune diseases. I feel like the health industry doesn't take care of chronic disease management patients as much as they could or much as they should. And so these patients might be looking for alternative ways on alternative means to help them cope with their chronic disease. I was in the diabetes industry for 17 years and type two diabetes and pre-diabetes is a bit of a passion of mine. And I still think about being a basically a pre-diabetic coach, somebody who has diabetes running in the family or has been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. And helping them very specifically and very consciously change their lifestyle to avoid developing type two diabetes. And the problem with these chronic diseases is depending on when the person starts to focus on it. Sometimes it can be too late for somethings.
[00:07:36] Right? So type two diabetes, for example, the longer you wait, the more damage the pancreas gets and the less likely it is that you'll be able to reverse those effects and stop using therapeutic drugs. Whereas if they started with the pre-diabetic diagnosis, then they would have the opportunity to avoid those things. So chronic disease management is really incredible. And if you have a background in any of those things, I feel like sometimes nurses who have left the nursing field or anybody who's a subject matter expert in these areas would be good for coaching and within the confines of our limitations as coaches. Really what you're doing is helping them manage every day and how to make every day, a little bit better.
[00:08:29] You're not their doctor and you're not their nurse or a healthcare provider. So you just want to make sure that you keep those in mind, unless you professional in that way.
[00:08:37] #7 Digestive Health
[00:08:37] Number seven is digestive health addressing issues related to gut health. We've talked about that before on the podcast. That could be things like irritable bowel syndrome, other digestive or disorders. There's a lot going down there in the gut. It could just be a healthier gut.
[00:08:55] Maybe you get bloated a lot. I know a few people who focused on digestive health specifically, and it is a complicated zone to play in. Because. is, I mean, it's complicated for physicians because there's so much going on down there. So I feel like if you want to go into a digestive health niche, you really, probably want to continue some education in that area to be a bit more understanding of all the different areas.
[00:09:28] Now I took the gut health course from IIN
[00:09:31] several other people I know did as well. It is very good. It is a really good starting program. I'm not sure if I would feel completely comfortable coaching on digestive issues just from that course. But I feel like that course helped me understand. What I would need to know. Like what I, what I still don't know, or if I wanted to do that.
[00:09:54] Right. And a lot of times these courses, you get into a course and you're like, oh no, I don't really like this niche. I don't like talking about gut flora every day. And that's probably not what I want to do. Or it could say like, oh yes, digestive health is my jam. And that's what I want to do. But regardless digestive health is tricky. And I would recommend if you go into that niche to do a bit more education.
[00:10:17] #8 Holistic Health and Integrative Wellness
[00:10:17] So niche number eight is holistic health and integrative wellness. That is just basically taking a comprehensive approach to health, considering physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. And I feel like holistic health and integrative wellness.
[00:10:32] I'm not really sure if I would call that necessarily a niche. Maybe if you were like working with a holistic physician or in an office with wellness, maybe. But I've kind of feel like that's like the whole basis of health coaching. So I'm not sure if that's actually like a niche niche or maybe. How you could turn that into a niche, maybe holistic health for families.
[00:10:57] That would be a good niche. So I think you, for that one, you'd have to take it a little bit further in the target audience that you're doing, not just the niche. So those are two different things. You can have a niche and a target audience, and you need to have both of those to kind of create your customer avatar and who your target market is for that niche.
[00:11:19] #9 Women's Health
[00:11:19] Number nine is a big one.
[00:11:21] Number nine is women's health. As a niche women's health is big. I was just at an AI for Life event yesterday in Geneva. And I heard the amazing panel of women who are all talking about women's health and that's it's no surprise
[00:11:40] women's health has not been, let's say, taken as a priority in the medical world. So women who are suffering tend to turn around and have to be their own advocates. And I see that a lot as health coaches, women who have gone through health issues turn around, become a health coach and try to help other women who have gone through that issue. You know, whether it's because it's the lifestyle issue or because they just don't believe the medical industry or the medical establishment where they are is good enough to, to help them. So women's health really specifically focuses on the unique and health and wellness needs of women, including hormonal balance, fertility and prenatal and postnatal care.
[00:12:24] Women's health is always going to be a big thing. I think the hardest part about niching in women's health is differentiation between all the other health coaches. So again, for this niche, you're going to have to do like a niche niche.
[00:12:39] So women's health for women in their early twenties with PCOS, women in midlife going through perimenopause or pre-menopause any of the menopausal states, you know, you can pick a menopausal state and stick there. Women who have just given birth, women who are pregnant, women who have fertility issues other than PCOS or endometriosis and all these other things.
[00:13:05] Sometimes you might get scared that a little bit of this is too medical, but on the other hand, you're not going to go in there and surgically do anything. You're trying to help them live a better life while they have this potential women, reproductive issues, or hormonal issues.
[00:13:21] And there's not much you could do wrong there in terms of helping them as a health coach. You're not going to be prescribing anything it's more or less helping them experiment with their own body and experiment with different tactics, different foods, different exercises and things like that. Until they find for themselves something that, that works really well.
[00:13:43] #10 Corporate Wellness
[00:13:43] Okay number 10 is corporate wellness as a niche. Now corporate wellness as a niche is one that I'm kind of a double-edged sword for me, because I feel like corporate wellness is the one place where health coaches can actually make a good amount of money, because corporations have money to spend. And having a wellness program is great for them, for their employee retention and recruiting, et cetera. And. What does it mean to be in corporate wellness?
[00:14:15] Well, that's really providing coaching services to employees within that organization to enhance the workplace wellbeing and to also enhance productivity. And there's a lot of different ways that you can focus on corporate wellness. One is like little things like workshops, like lunch and learns or mindful sessions, you can do yoga
[00:14:37] if you're a yoga teacher. You can do challenges within a company. I know a lady does some challenges just using the WhatsApp app so there's a lot of opportunity for corporate wellness. The hurdle with corporate wellness is getting in the door.
[00:14:50] So it's really helpful if you have an in or you're very persistent about meeting and networking with people in the space. The good news is now that there are people with the title called wellbeing director. So you can go to LinkedIn and look for this.
[00:15:07] I have a let's say because I came from corporate. Again, the love, hate relationship. There is like, oh, I know I could walk in and easily do a program. But working in a corporate environment, again, kind of gives me little ugghhhh right now. So it's like, oh, you know, it's, it's a mindset thing for myself. Like, do I work with corporate and make some money and feel like I'm still selling my soul to the devil, but then no, but I'm actually helping people in the organization. But on the other hand, you know, kind of goes back and forth.
[00:15:41] And one big thing to note is that if you decide to do corporate wellness, how you structure your programs are very important because if a company just gives coaching to their employees you might find that people are not as invested in it because they have not had to invest their own money into the program.
[00:16:00] That is a very common thing that we see if you give programs away or so cheap that they are basically given away. The engagement within the program might be a lot lower. So, for example, if you wanted to do corporate wellness, you could do like a 50, 50 split. Like the company pays for 50% of your services, but the employees still have to pay for 50%.
[00:16:21] And you can explain that to the company as a way to make sure that whoever's engaging in that specific program. Has, you know, put, put their own skin in the game, for example. Now that could be for one-on-one coaching, but you could do, you know, free programs. Like I said, lunch and learn some workshops and things like that.
[00:16:39] That's definitely a okay space to play in where potentially you don't need the, the employee to also pay. All thoughts, I've thought about. Let me know if you want a whole thing on corporate wellness, or if you want me to link some people who I've followed about corporate wellness, that's always a big topic.
[00:16:56] #11 Healthy Aging
[00:16:56] Okay. Healthy aging is our number 11 niche.
[00:17:00] So that is supporting people in optimal health while they age. I really see this as a target market of 40 plus where people start to feel age. And yeah, that's a, that's a niche. I'm not sure if I have much to say about healthy aging as a niche, I haven't seen many listed as healthy aging so maybe there's some opportunity there.
[00:17:24] #12 Sports Nutrition
[00:17:24] We're going to go right into number 12, which is sports nutrition. This kind of fits in with our number three fitness and exercise coaching.
[00:17:33] However, it really is focused on nutrition. And so I feel that when you're doing anything on nutrition, you need to have a nutritional background you should either be a dietician, or a nutritionist if you are going to be prescribing some kind of food program. So it doesn't mean you can't do it, but you might need to have a little bit more education.
[00:17:53] And specifically for sports nutrition, you're focusing on athletes and fitness. So that's a niche that you could, you could play in.
[00:18:01] #13 Emotional Eaching & Food Addiction
[00:18:01] Niche number 13 is emotional eating and food addiction. And this one is probably pretty, a pretty heavy, heavy niche to be in. However, if you are a subject matter expert I feel like that's a pretty impactful one. Not that the, all the niches we haven't talked about before are aren't impactful, but come on emotional eating and food addiction.
[00:18:24] Those are heavy heavy things. I would commend anybody who chooses to go into that niche. And I would be very happy to know some people who are in that zone, especially again, I haven't come across anybody in this area. Not that I'm looking for that, so I haven't Googled it, but I haven't come across anybody.
[00:18:44] So I think maybe that also might be a niche where you have a little bit more of the playing field to play with because it's maybe not not as saturated as general women's health, for example.
[00:18:58] #14 Family Health and Nutrition
[00:18:58] All right. Coming in at number 14 is family health and nutrition. This is supporting families and making healthy lifestyle choices and kind of creating that nourishing home environment. And I know several people that have chosen this niche and this is great, especially if you have your own family and you found out things that worked well for you guys. And then you can translate that into other families.
[00:19:22] I firmly believe if you have a niche, anything to doing anything to do with families. Somehow, these, these do really, really well. I personally don't have any kids. I personally don't believe that I would feel comfortable in that niche because I don't have a family because I don't know how kids are.
[00:19:39] I have a friend that did like a kid's cooking courses. I could do that, but I feel like why play in that playground when I'm not an expert there? So. So family health and nutrition. Definitely a great niche to be in wherever, wherever you are.
[00:19:56] #15 Plant-Based Nutrition
[00:19:56] So number 15 plant-based nutrition is similar to the one that we had,
[00:20:00] let's see, let's see, it was number two, where we talked about nutrition for specific diets. However, this one is then more specific to plant-based nutrition where you coach individuals on how to adopt a plant-based or vegan lifestyle. Very very specific, but there is need out there because people who have grown up in a meat-eating family. Maybe do not have the toolkit to transition to a vegan lifestyle and they want to, so I feel like that could be some options there. Obviously definitely heavily food-based area.
[00:20:36] So if you're interested in recipes and recipe creation, maybe you would start a YouTube channel about plant-based recipes and things like that. And that could be a good way to build an audience for being a plant-based nutrition coach. And in this sense, I wouldn't use the word nutrition in the same sense as a nutritionist, because you're effectively just teaching them how to cook in a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. So it's not necessarily like you're telling them what to eat. At a nutritional level, like you like your macros and your micros and things like that.
[00:21:12] #16 Mental Health and Wellness
[00:21:12] Okay. Number 16 is mental health and wellness, and coaching for mental health and wellness is probably a pretty heavy niche to be in. But also something that has probably a little bit of stigma around it.
[00:21:27] So being in that space might be very rewarding. I think in this one, you'd probably need to niche again, you know, something like focusing on anxiety or focusing on depression some other specific mental health issues or mental health stamina or rigidity, you know, how to build better mental health, even if you don't have a specific illness or disease.
[00:21:51] #17 Auto-Immune Wellness
[00:21:51] Number 17 is auto-immune wellness. And we talked a little bit about auto-immune earlier on chronic diseases. So this one would be then again, kind of like a niche niche. Where you are niching down to support individuals with auto-immune conditions, through nutrition and lifestyle interventions.
[00:22:07] And that can be a lot of things for example, I think there was an Australian lady who did like no sugar diet because she had Hashimoto's and she found that no sugar helped her autoimmune disease.
[00:22:18] #18 Men's Health
[00:22:18] Number 18 is men's health because you know, men have specific health concerns and goals as well.
[00:22:27] And this was really cool. Not all gamers are men, but the majority of gamers are men. So these I'm talking about people who play games on their computer or on a gaming console. And there's actually a company based out of the US, a coaching company, that is specifically targeting gamers. So this coaching company has developed a complete health coaching package for gamers to help them eat better, to get exercise and things like that.
[00:22:55] So that's a really, really, really good example of niching down. So not even just men's health, but really gamers health. And that is just extraordinary to me. And they're doing quite well because they have clearly clearly defined their niche and their target audience.
[00:23:12] #19 Post-Rehabilitation
[00:23:12] Okay, two more. Number 19 is post rehabilitation coaching.
[00:23:16] So this is assisting people after they've recovered from injuries or surgeries in regaining their strength and mobility. And you know, we're not taking the place of occupational therapists or physical therapists. But it's more like, again, the kind of what, what the occupational and physical therapists wouldn't do, which is where you would step in maybe alternating I, you know, honestly, I'm not really sure, except for, I know a lady who does coaching in the breast cancer world.
[00:23:45] So she is a breast cancer survivor, and she does work with women who have survived breast cancer and that's her niche. And there you go.
[00:23:57] #20 Weightlifting & Strength Training
[00:23:57] And number 20 is weightlifting and strength training. Again, the kind of mentioned similar things in like fitness and sports nutrition and things like that. But this is really specifically weight lifting and strength training, so specializing in coaching individuals focused on their strength and muscle through weightlifting.
[00:24:17] Again, probably you would want to have a bit more of personal trainer, fitness trainer background or get that certification also have fitness training in order to do that.
[00:24:30] Conclusion and Listener Engagement
[00:24:30] All right. So that was the top 20 niches that I found for health coaches.
[00:24:35] And now I'd like to hear from you, what niches are you thinking about in your career? Or have you picked one? And again, I would absolutely love to hear if there is a niche that you have, that's not on the list because I find it's kind of like digging for gold. It's like, Ooh. Ah, look, there's a little nugget there that I never even would have thought about. And I feel like those are the, those are the winners, the ones you like.
[00:24:58] Oh yeah, of course that's niche, but I would never thought about it. And that's the beautiful part, people about being a health coach. And why it is not a competition between health coaches. If you have a niche that you're passionate about it doesn't matter if you know, three other people in that niche. You're all different and you all serve different things.
[00:25:21] And like I said, you can be in the same niche and have a different target audience. Three of us can all be in women's health and targeting completely different people within women's health. So keep that in mind. We will talk maybe in another episode about target audience or customer avatars. And I'm just going to leave it there.
[00:25:42] And as always, I really, really, really love to hear from you guys.
[00:25:45] And thank you everyone who's been using the IIN referral codes. I do really appreciate the support that does support me financially when you use an ambassador code or a referral code from my, my side. Yeah, I think that's all I have to say today. We'll see you in the next episode. Bye.