MUST-HAVE
Business tools
to grow your coaching business
Sifting your way through 457 comparison tables (or even worse, trialling all the tools to figure out which feature is included in a plan!) isn’t a fun task to do, especially when your relationship with tech is rather complicated.
To save you the headache, I compiled a list of my favourite business tools and apps that work for you, no matter if you’re starting out with your coaching business or if you’re an established coach who’s eager to tick off some big-ass goals.
I use the exact tools in my own business every day so you can be confident that they’re top of the line without the price tag. After having some dreadful experiences with some solutions myself, I said good-bye to all half-baked apps with bloated pricing and sketchy customer support.
That’s why the recommended resources below are hands-down worth every penny. I wouldn’t want to tackle the 2,143 tasks in my business without having them at my fingertips.
CHECK OUT MY TOP BUSINESS TOOLS & APPS BELOW, AND GIVE THEM A GO!
I don’t recommend a lot of things. But if I do, I must have fallen madly in love with that product, service or tool myself.
That’s why some of the links on this page may be affiliate links, which means that if you click such a link, you’ll be redirected to another business’s website. Should you purchase any of their offerings, I may get paid a commission at no cost to you.
Even though I highly recommend what they offer, I encourage you to do your own research before buying anything.
Let’s start with my top 10 tools to build a solid foundation:
Google Workspace
BUSINESS EMAIL, PRODUCTIVITY & COLLABORATION TOOLS
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) allows you to create a custom business email, and it sweetens the deal with a cloud-based storage package plus a myriad of handy apps such as docs, sheets, slides as well as a calendar, chat and video meeting functionality. It’s an all-in-one solution to run your business effectively and to collaborate with your clients without spending a bucket load of money. Oh, and did I mention how much you’ll love the user-friendly interface?
ActiveCampaign
EMAIL MARKETING, SALES CAMPAIGNS & AUTOMATION
After switching email autoresponder providers a couple of times, I’m happy to say that ActiveCampaign is the best choice. It offers all the functionality you’d expect (and more!) to stay in touch with your audience at a very reasonable rate that grows with your subscriber count. So, there’s no big monthly commitment when you’re still in the early stages of growing your coaching business. The best part is that it integrates with lots of other tools so you can give your clients a seamless experience. Double thumbs up from me!
Acuity Scheduling
APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING PLATFORM
Acuity Scheduling takes the administrative hassle out of booking coaching sessions. This app is a true nerve- and time-saver, and it’s super easy to set up. Once done, your clients can book a session or multiple ones online in a go without having a time zone converter next to them. By the way, it integrates with Zoom, so everyone has all the details to join the call at their fingertips. The more advanced package lets you even set up a payment request before completing a booking. Win-win!
HelloSign
WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR LEGAL DOCUMENTS
You know that you should put an agreement in place before starting to coach, don’t you? But how do you handle all that in a digital world and make it airtight? HelloSign is the tool for that. Upload your coaching agreement, create the fields your client needs to fill-in, mark the space where they have to sign and start the workflow. Your clients will receive the files, and they can sign them electronically. And should life come in-between, this nifty app will send out automatic reminders to your clients.
Zoom
VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM
This virtual event platform is easy to use for both you and your guests, and the price is more than fair for what you get. Want to share slides? No problem. Conduct a workshop with break-out rooms? No worries. Or did you promise a recording of the coaching session? Consider it done. I love how stable it is, even when my data bandwidth is at the lower spectrum and the minimal delay—if at all—when having conversations. This is genuinely another 5-star tool I wouldn’t want to be without.
ThriveCart
SHOPPING CART SOLUTION
After burning money on various shopping cart solutions, ThriveCart eventually ticked all the boxes for me without the pricey monthly fee. Its user-friendly interface allows you to set up one-on-one mentoring packages, group coaching programs, training courses and so on in under 15 minutes (no kidding!). Equipped with all the marketing bells and whistles, this business tool makes selling fun. I also love the simple yet slick-looking checkout pages.
Stripe
PAYMENT PROCESSING PLATFORM
I applied for a merchant account at my local bank, and they had me jump through 1,001 hoops. Not so with Stripe. They offer an easy sign-up process with a fair and transparent fee structure, and they integrate with most shopping cart solutions and learning management systems. Plus, you can send out invoices for one-off or recurring payments straight from their platform and receive your fee from clients in one click.
Google Analytics
WEB ANALYTICS SERVICE
Do you want to learn more about your audience and how they interact with your marketing resources? No probs. Google Analytics offers a ton of valuable data and insights for free. Yep, pack away your credit card. Just link your website to their software and give them a bit of time to collect relevant stats. It’ll answer questions such as: Does Pinterest send you more traffic than Instagram? How long do visitors hang around before they leave your page? Do they click on anything while they’re here? Where are they from? And the list goes on...
Ecamm
LIVESTREAMING APP FOR MAC
This terrific app lets you stand out in a flood of poorly created livestreams. It looks super professional (and it makes you look the same!), and it’s oh-so-versatile. Nowadays, I use it for live streaming, interviews, screen recording (bye-bye Camtasia and ScreenFlow!) and to create interactive tutorial-style videos. Hands-down, this is one of my most loved pieces of software.
Loom
VIDEO MESSAGING
Loom makes it a breeze to record video messages that can be sent to your clients via a link. And should you have a bad hair day, just turn the camera off while a gorgeous headshot of yours does the job. I use this video messaging app all the time to explain strategies in more detail or to walk them through a resource shown on my screen. No matter the use case, the quality is stellar, it’s easy to use, and it makes interactions a tad bit more special.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO CREATE A STELLAR WEBSITE THAT WOWS YOUR PROSPECTS:
SiteGround
After some false starts with the big guns, I gave a smaller business called SiteGround a shot to host my WordPress website. Their customer support is a+-mazing and their prices are reasonable. Looking back, I’d have saved so much money (and nerves!) if I had known about those folks from the get-go.
Thrive Suite
Even after four years, I’m still amazed by Thrive Themes customer-centric approach. Their all-in-one Thrive Suite offers more than just a pretty WordPress theme that loads fast; you’ll receive fully customisable design templates plus super-helpful conversion-focused plug-ins that let you generate leads, create quizzes, collect testimonials, manage your courses and much more.
Ubersuggest
Since one of my landing pages got ranked on page 1 on Google (hello, organic leads!), I’m head over heels into SEO. Ubersuggest is a keyword research and SEO optimisation tool. It’s a great addition to your toolkit as you can use it to plan a click-worthy topic for your next content piece and to optimise the ranking of your existing blog posts.
BUT WHAT ABOUT APPS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA, PROJECT MANAGEMENT &
YOUTUBE VIDEO OPTIMISATION?
I’ve got you covered. They’re right here!
SCHEDULER & ANALYTICS TOOL
If you want to grow your Pinterest or Instagram account, you need to consistently publish fresh quality content that your audience loves to engage with. But who has the time to do that manually every single day? Thanks to Tailwind, you can put your creative pieces out there on autopilot. Once set up and scheduled, your pins and posts will be pushed out while you work on other things that matter to you.
CUSTOM URL SHORTENER
Ever wonder how you could get a branded link that’s super short and doesn’t start with a spammy prefix? Rebrandly can help. No matter which plan you choose, you can create a branded domain, including a tailored slug that redirects your traffic to where you want it to go. I love to use short links in ads, in my social media bios and during lives as those links are quick to write down.
PROJECT ORGANISATION & COLLABORATION TOOL
Project management tools are great, but sometimes they’re overkill for what you want to do. Trello helps me collect and organise my thoughts and workflows into easy-to-access boards and tables. I also use this tool when I collaborate with my clients to keep them on track. No matter if you want to create a checklist, assign a deadline to tasks or see where a project is at, the clean interface offers a simple drag-and-drop solution that makes planning and tracking fun.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL
A newer kid on the block, ClickUp combines multiple project management tools and methodologies into one good-looking and easy-to-navigate app. What I love most about it are the templates that I can use for a multitude of projects. No matter if you want to track your SEO efforts or tick-off steps in your blog post creation workflow or whether you just want to progress according to plan, you can hack everything into one tool without the need to stick to one layout.
CHANNEL & VIDEO OPTIMISATION TOOLKIT
Creating videos is a lot of work. Luckily, TubeBuddy is your best mate when it comes to planning, creating, managing and optimising your videos for the best exposure possible. This tool provides you with valuable suggestions on content ideas and trends, gives you a peek behind the scenes of your competitors, and lets you schedule your videos as well as change tags or thumbnails. And should you just be starting out, they offer a discount until you hit 1,000 subscribers.
AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT & MANAGEMENT SUITE
Time to get serious about YouTube? Then you won’t get around vidIQ. The insights this well-thought-through tool provides are incredible. It helps you decide on a video topic that rakes in views (and subscribers!) in no time. You can check out trends, your competition, the best keywords, and so much more. And should you feel stuck when uploading your masterpiece, this tool walks you step-by-step through everything you need to do to set up your brand-new video for success.
READY TO LEVEL-UP YOUR BRAND? HERE ARE MY FAVOURITE CREATIVE RESOURCES...
Fiverr
MARKETPLACE FOR FREELANCE SERVICES
Whether the clock works against you or your skillset lies somewhere else, I bet there’s a freelancer on Fiverr who can lend you a hand and complete that task done in no time.
Creative market
FONTS, GRAPHICS, TEMPLATES & MORE
This one-stop shop has everything you need to give your brand a make-over. It’s full of affordable templates and beautiful designs that are easy to customise.
Affinity
PROFESSIONAL CREATIVE SUITE
Affinity’s pro-level product suite helps you edit photos, create stunning graphics and design beautiful workbooks (without the monthly subscription fee!).
And for everything else that needs to get done, I use these secret helpers:
LEAGUE OF BRILLIANT COACHES
(IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO YET!)
Learn smart marketing and sales strategies to move beyond the occasional coaching client (and increase your profits and playtime at the same time). Plus, connect with like-minded peers who are growing their coaching businesses, too.
LEAGUE OF BRILLIANT COACHES
(IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO YET!)
Learn smart marketing and sales strategies to move beyond the occasional coaching client (and increase your profits and playtime at the same time). Plus, connect with like-minded peers who are growing their coaching businesses, too.
GROUP MENTORING EXPERIENCES:
PRIVATE MENTORING IMMERSIONS:
Sabine’s head over heels into marketing and sales strategies that suit your personality and get you clients. She’s renowned for her hands-on support, which makes building a highly profitable yet lifestyle-friendly coaching business simple, doable and fun.
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