15 Business Tools For Coaches & Course Creators
Well, hey there, Corporate Misfit!
So let's talk about business tools today. Having an online business may be quite exciting at times, especially when you're just so passionate about it, right?
But, let's face it, no matter how you love your work, sometimes it's just so overwhelming to do everything all at once! Believe us; we get your dilemma.
So having the tools to carry your burden would definitely be a welcome reprieve. Not to mention that everything will run smoothly for your business after.
Like every other coach and course creator though, you want to be meticulous about your investments. So we're going to share with you our favorite business tools to work with based on experience.
In fact, you might just discover some tools that you never really thought you needed until now!
Not to worry, even if you aren't much of a techie, these tools will be a breeze to learn.
Course Creation
Kajabi
The all-in-one tool when it comes to online course creation, you'll find Kajabi pretty efficient and flexible with your branding!
This is where we build, market, and sell online courses, memberships, and coaching programs.
The best part is that you don't need to code! There's no need for hiring, plugins, broken integrations, and a learning curve.
Kajabi enables you to be creative with your course and website design hassle-free.
If you're not sure of Kajabi just yet, why don't you read our comparative guides on Kajabi vs. Teachable or Kajabi vs. Podia to convince you!
Team & Client Management
Having an online business also entails that you're going to have to connect with an online team. This is why having the right managing tools will get your communication running smoothly.
Honestly, we're absolutely obsessed with Loom! This tool is a major time saver because you can create a quick video to send out to your team and clients rather than type a long email!
When it comes to your team and coaching clients, you can communicate task instructions, project feedback, or if something needs visual representation rather than words.
This is especially helpful because you can do away with long emails, phone calls, or multiple one-on-one live video messaging.
Pretty fantastic, right? What's more, you can get this for free!
Talk about a tool that will keep your business organized. ClickUp is a project management tool that places all of your tasks and your team's tasks in one place.
As a team, everyone can see what's pending, in progress, in review, or completed! You'll also be able to track hours, communicate with each other, and many more under different projects.
We've actually used other project management tools, but they were just too complicated or limited with their functions.
ClickUp is by far the answer to our business needs. And who knows, yours too!
Zoom is definitely every coach's dream! Online conferences are so much easier to do because you can do it in the comforts of your home, when you're traveling, or anywhere!
It's so easy to use and highly flexible for different uses.
This platform allows you to give virtual presentations, host lives coaching sessions, or even live course training. You can also use Zoom for team meetings and discovery calls.
Not only that, but it also integrates GSuite, Dropbox, Acuity, and many more tools to help you out. Pretty neat, right?
Compilation of Files
You probably know this by now, but as business coaches and course creators, we have A LOT of files. And frankly, these files are also extremely precious, so you'll always want to secure them.
We use Dropbox to store most of our files on a Cloud. This will be helpful for you because you can access your files on any device without clogging up your computer!
Not only that, but Dropbox makes recovery of files easier because of its backup features.
Alongside this, you can also create your files on Dropbox rather than switching from other apps for a seamless experience.
The best part about Dropbox is you can "disaster-proof" your files from unwanted edits, viruses, and hackers! You'll definitely feel relieved because of the safety Dropbox guarantees.
GSuite
Of course, let's not forget about the powerful tool by Google! The GSuite is a major lifesaver and also has more or less the same features as Dropbox.
Google Drive is quite a handy tool when it comes to storing your files.
In fact, we encourage that you use two places to back up your content. It's better to be safe than sorry, after all!
Alongside this, GSuite also helps you create business emails, do online meetings with Google Hangouts, writing content through Google Docs, and many more!
Payment & Financial Tracking
Oh yes, we love to talk about all things related to money. After all, it's beneficial to learn about financial tools early on so you can get your business up and running.
Our go-to platform with our amazing Corporate Misfit community! You can pay for templates, coaching, or courses through this platform easily and securely.
This payment gateway enables you to create invoices or send money through your clients or team internationally.
Paypal allows you to connect with accounting software as well that records your revenue and cash flow. Truly, we highly recommend this payment gateway for you.
Another great payment gateway is Stripe, which can be connected to your courses, coaching products, and digital products with ease.
Not only that, but Stripe also has a strict system that lets you modify the UI as well as monitor the payments you received from your platforms.
Likewise, it has integrated analytics for you to know your weekly, monthly, as well as yearly revenue.
Keeping up with your numbers is a must if you want to run a successful online business, of course! So having a separate accounting system can help you monitor your overall cash flow.
Wave Accounting helps you keep up with profits and losses, invoices, send estimates, run cash flow reports, and categorize spendings.
Organizing your accounting will make you feel secure because you'll know where your business stands and what steps to take to upscale.
Design
You'll definitely have to invest in design tools as well to make your website, digital products, and online courses attractive to the market!
After all, we humans are visual learners and having an aesthetically pleasing presentation of your services significantly impacts your business's trajectory.
You can create all things graphics with Canva, and what's more, it's super easy to use. You don't necessarily have to start from scratch because there are multiple templates you can choose from and even alter to fit your style.
You can create video thumbnails, worksheets, lead magnets, website graphics, sales page graphics, social media post graphics, and many more!
This platform is every designer's dream because its creative features are limitless, and you don't have to get all techy with it.
Learn more about how to use Canva as a Course Creator or Coach through this guide: 10 Drag-And-Drop Course Creator and Coach Design Templates
Ah yes, the design natives will definitely love Adobe Creative Cloud! In fact, our team also loves to use these tools.
From Photoshop, Adobe PDF, Premiere Pro, InDesign, and Illustrator, you can create various templates for your digital products and branding!
If you want a more advanced creative tool to assist in your creative needs, we highly recommend Adobe products.
As course creators or coaches, you'll often make a series of videos for your audience and online portals. After all, 95% of the viewers retain a message from a video compared to 10% when reading it.
This is why you'll have to invest more in the quality of your videos!
Epic Sound is a great tool to integrate with your videos because it gives you access to the perfect background music!
Honestly, your background music can make or break your videos, so having EpicSound will definitely be a huge help!
Others
If you're looking for discovery calls, coaching calls, or just need a client to schedule a call with so you can run an automated business, Acuity Scheduling is the right tool for you!
It also lets you organize your schedule, client information, and integrate other apps like Stripe, Paypal, Zapier, and Google Analytics, helping you run your business smoothly!
Do you love Pinterest? Because we definitely do and believe that it's quite an underrated but fantastic platform to generate traffic to your blogs, podcasts, lead magnets, products, and everything in between!
Honestly, Pinterest is such an SEO gem, and you should utilize it for your business.
In this case, Tailwind will be your savior as it helps you schedule and manage your pins on the get-go.
It also enables you to participate with tribes that are basically a community that supports you in your niche and analyzes your growth.
Last but definitely not the least is Google Analytics! We believe that it's essential to know where you stand at all times with your marketing efforts and website traffic.
This helps you to know where you should pour your energy and efforts! Google Analytics shows the behind-the-scenes in your metrics so you can keep track of your marketing campaigns and how to improve them.
So that's all of the essential business tools we believe can help you grow your online course business! You don't necessarily have to use them all, just the tools that fit with your current goals in mind.
Remember, these tools are only there to help you out and not substitute your tasks!
