The easiest niche to enter is the hardest to earn in

Life coaching requires no credential, no prior career and no regulatory clearance. It is also the most saturated niche in the profession and pays among the least, at $47,000 to $72,000 a year.

Executive coaching requires a credential, documented case studies and liability insurance, sits in a far less crowded market, and pays $96,000 to $98,000.

Barriers are the product

The gate is not an obstacle to the income. The gate is the reason for the income. Executive coaches are not paid twice as much because the work is twice as hard. They are paid twice as much because far fewer people can credibly claim to do it.

Every barrier you clear removes competitors. That is uncomfortable to say plainly, and it is the most useful single fact about niche selection.

Inside a crowded niche, specificity does the work

"Life coach" competes with everyone. "Coach for people leaving the military" competes with almost nobody, and is still life coaching.

The sub-niche is doing what the credential does in executive work: reducing the number of people the buyer is choosing between. It costs nothing except the nerve to turn away everyone else.

What actually predicts success

Background, more than passion. A former HR director sells career coaching in weeks; a career-changer with the same certificate sells it in months, or never. The difference is the time spent being believed, and a relevant background collapses it.

Start from what you already have. Passion decides which of your available seams you pick, not whether you can ignore the list.