We often forget that being a coach involves running a business and that running a business means that you have to dip into areas that you are perhaps not comfortable in.
This post has been written by Simon Hague – a coach and supervisor with a real passion in technology. He often finds tools that can benefit others – hence the share.
Over the past years, we have tried many tools, services and providers. Below are ones that we have settled on and are using currently in the business. We would only recommend something that we know works.
For transparency, these links are affiliate links. They pay us a small commission but this will not increase your purchase price of the tools, services and products.
If you come across anything that you think should be also on this list, please do get in touch. We are always looking out for ways that we can streamline our business further.
Over the past few years, we have used many of the big players in the hosting space. The one that offers great customer support as well as an easy to use interface to manage your account is Siteground. This site and several others that we run are hosted through Siteground and (touch wood), with no issues.
With the exception of some specialist sites (Eg. Digital Coach Academy) that we run, the majority of our websites are WordPress sites. To keep these secure we use iThemes Security. We also use iThemes Backupbuddy as a method of keeping a regular up to date backup of the site.
Every week, we send out COACHd. This is managed through our marketing platform hosted by Active Campaign. This not only sends out our emails but also allows the segmentation of records when someone attends our events etc. The annual schemes offer good discounts from monthly so certainly worth considering especially as there are several entry points.
We also use Canva for image manipulation. Canva offers a free 30-day trial giving you an opportunity to try their service. You can create a brand template, as well as designing social media, marketing and presentation material using templates and a huge stock of clipart and photos.
Running several entities is tricky when it comes to social media. Over the years we have tried all the usual suspects but have now settled on SocialBee. This service invites you to structure and schedule your social media posts across multiple channels (twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram). Also assists with something called a concierge service (not tried yet) which can do some of the leg work in creating social engagement.
Since Evernote started I have been using it. Evernote is an online and offline platform that lets you store notes. It has become my second brain and is an instant renewal each year. Running as an app on Windows, IOS, Android and Macs, this is truly a cross-platform system.
Keeping files available across devices is a pain. However, using Dropbox ensures that all my files are available when I want them. Like any online synchronising service, it does not replace back up to another hard drive but it certainly makes the process of sharing files very easy.
I have an abundance of passwords. Something that I want available on all my devices. I use LastPass to help manage this. It is definitely an upgrade from your conventional browser password manager as it allows you to store other information such as credit card details, tax detail etc securely. Offering Android and IOS apps controlled by fingerprint means that this is really quite a secure system.
