Choosing the right online coaching platform for your business is going to be one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a coach.
Considering there are hundreds of platforms out there, it has become even more difficult to choose the right one for your needs.
In this week’s video, I’ll share my own experience as a coach so you can make an informed decision about which platform is right for your business.
You’ll also learn:
- Where to start with your search
- The top five things your online coaching platform should do for you
- Why a lot of tools are missing the mark
- How to wow your clients with an amazing coaching experience
What to look for in an online coaching platform
Do you need just one software or do you need a bunch of different tools and hope they work seamlessly together ?
What features do you need to look for to make sure that it works for you and your business?
Do you need clients to submit homework? How about your group coaching calls? Do you need to track each client’s progress?
It’s a good idea to start asking yourself these questions and write down your goals for the ultimate client experience you want to deliver before you start searching for the best online coaching software.
My name is Milana Leshinsky. As someone who has been delivering group coaching programs, and working with clients for almost two decades, I knew that I needed a system.
But I wanted something simple, something that wouldn’t take a long time to set up and manage.
As a little bit of a control freak, I probably needed to know that I have control over my business.
Or at least I can go in and make changes to my content, contact my clients and run my program anytime I wanted to.
Five criteria for choosing an online coaching software for your business
Regardless of the type of coaching business that you have, working with your clients does require some tools in place to ensure you are providing the best client experience.
Through extensive research, however, I realized that I couldn’t find exactly what I needed out there.
There was just nothing like what I wanted, or I could piecemeal it together from multiple pieces of software.
Running my programs this way for years was really challenging and complicated. I knew there had to be a better way.
After decades of delivering my own coaching programs, I came up with five criteria to help me choose the best online coaching platforms.
To help you make an informed decision, I’m sharing my top five things that I believe your online coaching platform should do for you.
1. Simplify your business and life.
Your coaching platform should allow you to simplify your business and life. By that I mean, it should allow you to automate certain things, streamline anything that is time-consuming, increase your productivity, and reduce the amount of time that you spend on administrative or any kind of logistical tasks like scheduling, and sending reminders.
And you know, you want to be ready to go for a new client or a new group with a click of a button.
So that simplicity was extremely, extremely important to me.
It almost seems like it would reduce the amount of friction that I would experience every time that I would get a new client or decide to run a new coaching program.
Simplicity was my first and most important criteria. If it wasn’t simple, I would move on.
If it doesn’t allow me to really get into it without any kind of technical knowledge I would move on.
2. Building confidence.
The right online coaching platform should really give you confidence as you market your coaching programs and services.
What I mean by that is that when you talk about your coaching to potential clients, or when you speak from stage or introduce your programs to a group of people, or when you market yourself, you want to feel professional, organized, and prepared.
Because if you’re not prepared, you will feel chaotic, and that will affect your level of confidence and your level of sales as well.
The implication is that the coach who doesn’t have a system, doesn’t have a process, and perhaps cannot be trusted to deliver results.
So internally, I wanted to feel confident to go into a relationship with a client or launch a group coaching program, knowing that I am prepared, it will look great, it will feel professional, and that I will be proud of what I have created.
3. Creating value for clients.
I truly believe that one of the biggest purposes of any software, as a business owner, is to create value for clients, not just for you, but for clients.
So I wanted an online coaching software that would allow me to increase engagement, increase the level of motivation, and the rate of completion of my program. I also wanted to increase implementation and results.
So I was looking for a platform that would have those features that would add value to my coaching programs from the client’s perspective.
4. Capacity to grow.
This criteria should be important to you no matter what stage of business growth you’re in.
As a coach, the business is only limited by the system you’re using. And I wanted a system that would grow with me.
So maybe right now I’m only running a group with six people, but I actually plan to run coaching programs to groups of 100 people in the future.
Will that system allow me to do that? Or would I need to switch to a whole other online coaching software?
These are things that you definitely want to think about.
The question you need to ask yourself is whether this system will grow with you or not.
5. Ease of use.
Even if it seems like one of the best online coaching tools out there, if the software is so complex with a high learning curve, you’ll never use it.
You will never feel in control of your business, you will always rely on other people like your team, for example.
In a way that paralyzes you, or makes you feel like you’re bugging your team for every little thing.
This is why I wanted something super simple. And by the way, this is just a slightly different flavor of simplicity. This is tactical simplicity.
This is where you feel good and confident and prepared to make changes whenever you need to do some automation and streamlining to really increase your productivity.
Why a lot of online coaching software and tools are missing the mark
Now I’ve been offering coaching programs for over two decades and I learned a lot of what I need as a coach and what my clients need from coaching programs.
I also know what stops coaches from offering group coaching programs.
And so I looked out there at different online coaching platforms.
I looked at course builders, membership platforms, practice management software, but none of those platforms and tools had what I wanted to do for me and my business, as well as my clients.
Even with all the software options out there, I became so frustrated because they were simply not designed for coaches.
What makes Coaching Genie the best online coaching platform for your business?
I actually ended up creating my own online coaching platform and I call it Coaching Genie.
It simplifies the whole coaching experience for clients groups and content management, and it makes your programs a lot more valuable.
If you’re not yet using Coaching Genie, click here and see how it can supercharge your coaching programs.
A 20-minute learning curve is what we hear from our customers.
You can set up your first group program in just a few minutes and it will become your go-to platform for delivering your coaching content programs and courses.
So if you are ready to wow your clients with an amazing coaching experience and the delivery of your group programs, check out the free demo.
Milana Leshinsky is the author of “Coaching Millions” and “Simplicity Entrepreneurship” and the originator of telesummit. She is also the creator of Coaching Genie, a coaching platform that allows you to deliver coaching programs and scale your business with simplicity. She’s passionate about helping coaches, authors, and speakers leverage their expertise through creating programs and overcoming fear of technology. Milana came to the US as a music teacher from Ukraine almost 30 years ago. When she’s not working on her business, Milana writes music and enjoys Latin ballroom dancing. To learn more, visit Milana’s website at https://CoachingGenie.com