I watched a company die in the middle once.

Wireless retail. Not a startup anymore. Not a national player yet. Too big to move fast. Too small to win the big contracts. It had the overhead of a large business and the leverage of a small one. That seems ideal; however, it is the worst place to stand.

Carrying multiple carriers in a store, particularly the smaller boutique retail stores, actually hurt business more than it helped. First, you are just the middleman in the deal, so the carriers are pulling you in different directions. Inventory is split over multiple pieces of similar equipment, and your sales team is either slightly confused or biased. What should have been the ideal situation for the consumer was absolutely not.

Interestingly, the consulting and coaching world is doing the same thing right now. The middle is collapsing. Global firms are getting bigger. Niche specialists are getting sharper. The generalist in the middle is getting squeezed from both sides. Rates on commodity advice are soft (Introduce AI and everyone thinks AI is their new Business Coach). Rates on scarce expertise are holding. The mushy middle is where margin goes to die.

Here is the part most coaches miss. This is not just happening to your clients. It is happening to you.

✳️ The trap shows up in the Operator phase and gets deadly by the Optimizer phase.

At the Operator stage ($250K to $500K), you are still the product. You coach. You sell. You deliver. You are a generalist because being a generalist got you here. Every lead sounds like a fit because you say yes to everyone. That worked. Until it doesn't.

Then you try to scale toward Optimizer ($3M to $10M) and the model breaks. You cannot be everything to everyone at volume. You have added overhead. Coaches, tools, systems, payroll. But you never sharpened the point of the spear. Now you have big-firm cost and boutique revenue. That is the squeeze. I have watched it flatten smart operators who did everything right except pick a lane. Hell, at My Biz Coaches, we are adjusting to this right now!

Leadership and Vision is the first fix. Financial Acumen is the second. You need both.

➡️ Vision decides where you refuse to compete. Financial acumen tells you if the math actually works when you do.

Let me be direct about what pulls a coach into the middle and what pulls them out.

What keeps you stuck in the middle

❌ Selling "business coaching" to anyone with a pulse and a checkbook
❌ Competing on being cheaper than the big firms and broader than the specialists
❌ Adding headcount before you add a differentiated offer
❌ Measuring success by revenue while margin quietly bleeds out
❌ Confusing being busy with being positioned

What moves you to the edge where the money is

✅ Own a specific problem, industry, or phase of scale better than anyone
✅ Price on the value of the outcome, not the hours in the room
✅ Build a Coach Partner bench that delivers your method, not their improvisation
✅ Track gross margin per engagement, not just top-line revenue
✅ Say no to the wrong clients on purpose, so you have room for the right ones

The specialists winning right now are not smarter than you. They are narrower. They picked a fight they could win and stopped apologizing for what they don't do.

Think about the math for a second. Two coaches, both at $500K. One is a generalist running at 35% margin because he discounts to close and over-delivers to keep everyone happy. The other owns one niche, charges a premium, and runs at 60%. Same revenue. One of them takes home nearly twice as much and has half the stress. Scale that gap over five years. That is the whole game.

Here is your move this quarter.

1️⃣ Name your lane. What one problem or client type do you want to be known for? Write it in one sentence.

2️⃣ Fire the fit that isn't. Look at your client roster. Which engagements drain margin and energy? Plan your exit.

3️⃣ Reprice on outcome. Take one offer and rebuild the price around the result it creates, not the time it takes.

4️⃣ Read your margin, not just your revenue. Know your gross margin per engagement before you add one more coach.

The middle feels safe because it is familiar. It is not safe. It is slow-motion decline dressed up as stability.

So ask yourself the uncomfortable question. If a sharper, narrower competitor showed up in your market tomorrow, what would you lose to them, and why haven't you already fixed it?

Pick your edge. Defend it. Get paid for it.

To Your Success,

Eric T. Whitmoyer, Business Growth Strategist

Founder & CEO at MyBizCoaches.com

Host of The Biz Coach Show

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