We live in an angry society. There’s anger in the home, on the streets, and in the workplace. So when veteran California therapist Tony Fiore began looking for a niche market to tap six years ago, he found that anger management was fertile territory.

Fiore, who has offices in Long Beach and Orange, CA, wanted to rebuild his practice to attract new clients, but he was also looking for more passive income streams. And he wanted to avoid the hassles of insurance claims. He achieved all three goals by marketing himself as "The Anger Coach," and offering a menu of services that includes individual counseling, psychoeduca-tion, plus CDs and books for sale online.

He tells us that 85% of his referrals are generated through his Web site: www.anger coach.com. However, Fiore makes a point to say that he’s doing therapy, not coaching. For him, the word "coach" is mostly about finding a non-stigmatizing way to approach his clients.

His marketing efforts are focused entirely on the Web. "I find that print advertising is worthless for this." One tool that brings in clients is his e-newsletter, The Anger Bee, which goes out quarterly to about 1,000 clients, former clients, and others who’ve signed up for it.

Another solid approach, he says, is writing articles for e-zines--Web-based publications on anger or other mental health issues. He makes no money on the articles themselves. It’s about the advertising benefit. His Web address is tagged to each piece.

He also has a series of anger management videos on YouTube. "That’s another good advertising technique." "I learned how to do this stuff myself, although I have a guy who helps me with some of the technical aspects." (See www.youtube.com/user/drtonyfiore.)

Fiore draws a few court-ordered anger cases, but says that’s not a prime referral source for him. "It’s usually what I call ‘wife-ordered,’ or ‘husband-ordered.’ That’s the biggest category. The second biggest is companies that order employees into a program. A manager loses his temper with an employee, for example.

"We have doctors who’ve lost their temper with people on staff...Every-one has their own individual reason. It might be that the Department of Family Services orders anger management before someone can see their kids."

But note that Fiore does not do domestic violence cases. (For info on that sub-niche, see the boxes, above.) Fiore doesn’t see many road rage cases, either. "The courts aren’t ordering people to do it as much anymore." (That’s something we’ve heard from several anger specialists recently.)

Beyond individual therapy, Fiore’s tackling this niche with psycho-educational classes. These draw 5-15 people for a 10-week program, one hour per week. Attendees pay $65 to enroll, $30 for a workbook, and $35 for each class. That’s $445 altogether. (Fiore’s hired a second therapist to help with the classes.) And recently, he added a "fast-track class," that runs for four hours on two consectuive Saturdays. The total cost for that is $375.

A final menu item for Fiore is a 10-hour online anger management program--for $195. Taking that course is a prerequisite for a second online program aimed exclusively at teachers and other educators--a $215 course that helps them deal with angry students.

"I’m trying to develop more passive income sources," he says. "When I started, I was also looking for non-insurance income, and this is all cash. That’s important now.

"And there’s a tremendous need for these service," Fiore concludes. "There aren’t enough people who do this kind of work."