For Other Coaches: Business Building Tools
Here are a few of the tools that I use (and love!) for running my coaching business. You will notice that these links will likely change over time because as my experience with the tools changes, I update this!
Yes, some of them are affiliate links, which means I get paid a commission if you make a purchase using one of my links. I only refer you to products or services that I personally use and absolutely LOVE! You will never pay more for using an affiliate link, and occasionally I can get you a special discount. To see my full privacy and disclosure policy, click here.
I have tried soooo many different email programs but my all-time favorite is ConvertKit. I love their teaching and I love the software. It's easy-to-use AND super powerful and I'm confident it will grow with me. It makes creating content upgrades and delivering lead magnets a breeze and their reports are ridiculously simple for me to read and understand. Pricing starts at $29/mo and includes all the features.
Thrive Leads is a conversion-focused lead generation and opt-in form plugin for WordPress that comes with the Thrive Suite. The one thing I don't love about ConvertKit is the limited number and style of optin forms. Thrive Leads is the powerful solution to that problem. I only use about 1/3 of its power and I still love it so much.
Social Media
MeetEdgar is my new social sharing tool. I love that the company is woman-owned and it just works. You can use it to set up evergreen sharing schedules for your social media accounts so you never run out of content to share. And the training they provide their users is top-notch. I use it to promote my podcast to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Also, the interface is lovely and we all know it's harder to work when the tool is ugly.
If you are using the Pinterest search engine to grow your business (and if not, WHY NOT?!), you need to get Planoly. It works for scheduling both Pinterest and Instagram and it's amazing! They are both Pinterest- and Instagram-approved and have made a huge difference in my social media strategy. It's fast and easy and helped me triple my site traffic in less than 3 months. Check it out today, you won't be sorry..
This is my other favorite Pinterest tool. Tasty Pins allows you to set Pinterest images and the oh-so-important descriptions. You know you need vertical images and good descriptions, right? Well with Tasty Pins you can upload a correctly-sized image, tell browser extensions which images NOT to share to Pinterest and add keyword-rich pin descriptions and hashtags.
Hosting
I host my podcast at Captivate.fm! They have a gorgeous interface, the analytics are phenomenal, migration was super simple and it's powerful AND easy to use. If you try it out you can get your first 7-days totally free!
This was my first 'managed' WordPress host and they just keep getting better and better. I LOVE their speed, security and reliability. If you have greater performance needs than entry-level hosting provides, check out WPEngine! They just bought my favorite framework, StudioPress, and I can't wait to see what that acquisition does to their offerings.
I own and managed several different websites and my default site for beginners or new sites is SiteGround. Their hosting has been very reliable, their support is quick and responsive, and their pricing is awesome. For a reasonably-priced, secure and reliable host, you can't do any better!
Themes
I am now in the process of migrating my site to the Thrive Theme Builder and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Why did I switch? I wanted control over all the aspects of my site.
Thrive Theme Builder is an easy way to build a beautiful, high-converting website — without hiring expensive designers or developers.
For years I used only child themes for the Genesis Framework and I still recommend them for lots of friends and clients. Lauren from Restored 316 Designs is my favorite Genesis Child Theme designer. I love Lauren's work, she keeps her themes updated and is always helpful.
Content Marketing
Have you tried building WordPress pages with Thrive Architect? It’s a true drag-and-drop visual editor with loads of conversion-optimised features and hundreds of pre-built landing page templates. It’s like having a design team at your disposal, but you can style every single detail without ever touching a line of code!