Many people understand a clear niche to mean something like ‘IELTS’ or ‘business professionals’. Of course, focusing on the main reason your ideal clients want to learn English is a great place to start.

However, that’s really just the start. A truly stand-out, successful niche does more than that. It brings in different elements based on that clients’ specific needs, your own experience, background and passions, and what you believe about what will help that client get the results they want, as effectively and efficiently as possible (in other words your approach or methodology).

I previously wrote a post about 5 clients and their niches, and here are 5 more clients I have worked with, how their niches came about, and what the results have been.

Heather Johnston – Helping English language teachers get organized so they can live their ELT life with less stress and overwhelm Thrive in ELT podcast host | University ESL program academic coordinator and instructor

When Heather and I started working together in May 2022, she already had a website, www.eltresourceroom.com and a brilliant podcast, Thrive In ELT.

However, while she knew that she wanted to support other teachers, she wasn’t super clear about the best way to do that, or how exactly to make a business from it. As we worked together, it became clear that, while Heather had the knowledge, experience and ability to help in lots of different ways, she was particularly good at helping other people get more organised and focused.

Teachers are busy people, and their enthusiasm often leads to overwhelm, and even burnout, so help in these areas was not only a great fit for Heather’s skills, it was also something truly needed.

Heather’s podcast now focuses on strategies and food for thought around dealing with overwhelm and managing time and projects effectively, and she has a very loyal following. Here’s what one listener said recently:

Sometimes it takes a calm, soothing-voiced someone with a bit of perspective to help you see through the tangles of our daily lives. So often, it seems to be you, Heather! – Susanne Nally, Advanced Neurolanguage Coach®

Check out the podcast here.

She also offers powerful 1-2-1 coaching to help you identify the road-blocks and develop strategies and implement tools to reduce stress and overwhelm.

If that sounds like something you might benefit from, check out her coaching offer here.

Natalia Pozharitskaya- Helping IT and Gamedev professionals transform their B1/B2 technical English into natural conversation. .

Natalia already had clients through word of mouth, but she never knew where her next client was coming from, or she would feel she had to take on clients who weren’t really suitable… like many people, she wanted a more reliable flow of the RIGHT clients- and she knew that niching was the way to go.

As we worked together it became clear that Natalia already HAD a clear niche, she just hadn’t quite recognised it or talked about it in her marketing. Her favourite clients, and those for whom she consistently got the best results, were all working in IT and game development- but, she realised, they didn’t particularly need English for IT. Their technical English was actually pretty good.

It was using English in more day to day contexts, when out to dinner with clients for example, that presented the biggest challenge. Particularly because these clients were often quite deep thinkers, a little introverted, and not naturals at effortless and endless small talk. They read in English far more than they spoke, and they tended to want to avoid ever making a mistake.

Having worked with these kinds of clients for years, Natalia really ‘gets’ them, and what they need and are looking for in an English teacher. And now she is able to define and talk about this clearly in her messaging and marketing, her ideal clients can more easily find their ideal teacher.

Here’s a recent post she made on LinkedIn which will show you just how well she understands her clients.

Peter Fullagar- LGBTQIA+ equity champion helping the ELT industry to understand why and how to represent and implement intersectional LGBTQIA+ identities | experienced ELT writer & editor

When Peter and I started working together, he was working in the publishing field as a freelancer, and had already developed a specialism within DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). But he wanted to drill down further into his niche, to focus on helping the ELT industry as a whole feel more confident about supporting and representing LGBTQIA+ identities in teaching materials and classes.

People often think that a clear niche needs to be about working with a specific, defined group of people, but it doesn’t have to be. Peter’s niche is potentially just about everyone in the ELT field (and beyond), but it is still very defined in other ways.

We came up with three specific strands to his business, helping:

ELT writers or editors who want to include LGBTQIA+ identities but who don’t feel sure or confident enough to achieve this

ELT publishers who want to help their employees’ awareness and confidence in representing LGBTQIA+ identities

ELT teachers who don’t want to make mistakes or cause offence when including LGBTQIA+ identities in the classroom or independently produced materials

And the things he has gone on to do since then- continuing his DEI work for publishers, running training and workshops for publishers and teachers, creating and selling his own materials (including the book you see him signing for a customer at IATEFL above), and getting known as an activist in this field, have all contributed to those goals.

Check out his website here.

Watch a live interview with Peter on why representation matters here.

Sangeeta Sathe- Helping busy people pass Cambridge B2 and C1 with confidence | I can help you find time for English around life, work and family


Sangeeta is a multi-talented and multi-passionate person with a lot of strings to her bow. I work with quite a lot of clients like this, and there’s usually some resistance to the idea of niching because they love variety and don’t want to shut down any avenues.

And, honestly, I totally get this. However, having a clear niche doesn’t mean that you have to stop doing things that you enjoy. Of course you have to be realistic about just how thin you can spread yourself, but you can still teach or work with anyone you want.

In these cases it’s more about getting known for one thing, so that you become a go to person for that. And, in the time since we worked together, Sangeeta has been doing an amazing job at this.

At the beginning of the programme she told me that she hated social media. Maybe she still does, but I’d be surprised because her social media feels joyful and effortless, and it’s super clear exactly who she works with, and why they would choose her.

Check out her Instagram profile here.

Sandra Wood – Helping busy professionals in Zurich speak German with confidence, credibility and fluency so they unlock their full potential in a work and social environment


Sometimes people assume that I only work with people who are just starting out, or who are looking to develop a new niche. I do work with clients in those situations, but I also have lots of clients like Sandra, who already have a pretty clearly defined and established niche, but who know that niche isn’t working as well for them as it might.

A well defined niche that fits perfectly with your skills, experience and passion is, in my opinion, an essential element of a successful small business. However, it’s not just about having a clear niche, but about whether it is functioning smoothly as the engine of your business.

First we worked together to first refine her niche even more, identifying for example, that her clients often felt isolated and unsupported as a non-expert German speaker in a German-speaking context. Using this kind of information, Sandra was able to develop a systematic programme, focused around the precise needs of her clients, and incorporating a unique buddying system to meet that support need.

She realised that she didn’t really enjoy working with beginners, so focused her energies on helping those clients where she already knew she could get amazing results- taking them off the intermediate plateau into confident fluency.

And she got better and better at talking about her niche – her ideal clients, their needs, and how she meets these needs- in her marketing, so that the right people got to hear about her. Together we made sure that everything- her website copy, her branding, her posts were all aligned and working smoothly together to bring in her perfect clients, consistently.

Check out her website here.


I hope you’ve found these examples of different ways that having a clear niche can help you business useful, even inspiring?

If you’d like my help in developing or creating your niche, devising a business model and an offer or set of offers that will perfectly meet the needs and desires of your ideal clients, and learning how to market those offers, check out my programme, Designed to Flourish.