Executive coaching and leadership coaching are growing by leaps and bounds as people look for a winning edge in their careers or business. And if you’re running a coaching business, there’s more good news–the coaching industry grew 54% to $20 billion in 2022.
If you’re ready to create offers on your own executive coaching app, this post will introduce you to some of the principles of building an executive coaching business and give you some software options for running your practice.
((toc))
Does your executive coaching practice need an app?
Before going to all the work to create an app, it's important to evaluate whether you actually need one. Here are some questions you can ask to determine if an executive coaching app is right for your business.
- Will your clients benefit from the flexibility and accessibility an app can offer?
- Will your clients be more successful by having an app to keep them on track and notifications to prompt them?
- Will an app help you scale your offerings or streamline your work?
- Will an app create new revenue opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have?
- Will an app create a premium service you can charge more for?
- Will it help you connect more easily with your clients or connect them with each other?
These are not the only reasons to create an executive coaching app, but often these are the types of added value that make it worth the investment and time.
Benefits of leadership coaching apps
We sort of hinted at some of these above, but here are some of the common benefits of leadership coaching apps.
Benefits for your clients
- Your program is easier to access, and easier to build a habit around.
- Busy clients can access leadership coaching when they have time or on the go.
- Some clients don’t even have PCs anymore (an app might be their only option)
Benefits for the coach
- You can scale your offerings for more people, especially with things like group coaching or courses.
- You can confidently charge a premium for your service because having your own app is valuable.
- You can streamline your business. We find that a good coaching app often replaces a ton of software, things like Kajabi, Facebook groups, Stripe, and Calendly.
- Stop worrying about tech… do the work that matters.
- We find people who launch leadership coaching apps usually unlock new revenue they hadn't counted on. We'll give some examples of this below.
Examples of leadership coaching apps in action
We've seen a lot of great leadership coaching apps launch. Here are a few of the amazing inspiring success stories we've witnessed first-hand.
Community
- A non-profit onboarded 9,000 national members.
- A YouTuber launched a live challenge and 4,000+ members joined.
- A faith-based community expanded to 470 leaders in 67 countries.
Memberships
- An entrepreneurship org. launched to 5,000 members.
- A health-focused launch to 100 high-ticket members added $40,000 in ARR.
- An author & speaker launched a 4-week promotion and saw an additional $30,000 in revenue.
Courses
- A podcaster and author sold 5,000 seats to a $997 course in 10 days.
- One community launched a 13-week add-on course and generated an additional $100k in revenue in 2 months.
- One personal finance community generated $130K in five days with their latest course.
Depending what kind of executive coaching app you have in mind, these are the types of results you can unlock.
Secrets of a successful leadership coaching business
What does it take to make a leadership coaching business thrive? As we look at our clients and success stories, there are some common themes that emerge.
1. A clear ideal client
Look at any successful executive coaching business and you'll find that they have one thing in common: an ideal client. Even coaches with a really visible public brand will create content that helps a lot of people, but will focus on coaching one type of person. For example, Tony Robbins gives seminars for millions. But when he does coaching, he often focuses on people at the top of their game in extreme public-facing roles: think politicians, professional athletes, and pop stars.
Here are some examples of a clear ideal client that might be a good target for executive coaching:
- Marketing executives at Fortune 500s
- New SaaS CEOs
- Late-career executives looking for a career change
- Millennials at large companies who find themselves in their first managerial roles
Each of these has a slightly different bend. But each could be a great candidate for executive coaching.
2. High-ticket offerings
High-ticket offers are the key to many successful executive coaching businesses. Too many coaches are chasing low-paying clients and feeling the headache.
Creating high-ticket offers lets you focus on serving the highest caliber of clients you can find. Counterintuitively, it also makes your clients more likely to succeed with their transformation. People value what they pay for.
With an executive coaching app, you can pretty easily bundle things into a high-ticket offer–mixing coaching with group coaching, premium content, events, or courses. For example, we recently saw a health-focused launch to 100 high-ticket members–that’s $40,000 in ARR!
Focusing on a smaller number of clients with bigger offerings can do amazing things for your business.
3. Offer more
There’s something surprising we found about some of our most profitable Mighty Networks. Of the networks that charged a membership fee, 90% of those were successfully selling things in addition to memberships. Only 75% of freemium Mighty Networks were making additional sales of courses, events, etc.
The lesson is simple. Your customers who are willing to pay are often your best source of future revenue. These are the people who believe in you and your brand and often have experienced transformation first-hand. In many cases, creating a new offering for existing members or clients is one of the best strategies for growing your executive coaching business. For example, one Mighty Pro client recently launched a 13-week add-on course, and generated an additional $100k in revenue!
4. Sell transformation
There’s a truism in creating coaching offers. People don’t pay for information, they pay for transformation. As you’re thinking about creating offers for executive coaching, avoid the filler and temptation to share everything you know.
Build a program that will actually give your clients what they need and nothing more.
Best executive coaching apps
1. Mighty Pro
Best for mixing coaching, community, and courses
If you want an executive coaching app that lets you bring together coaching, community, content, courses, and commerce, build on Mighty Pro! With flexible Spaces that can hold things like livestreaming, cohort and asynchronous courses, chat and messaging, discussion forums, member profiles, and all sorts of content options. It’s the perfect place to grow your executive coaching business with your own app, under your own brand.
You can sell 1:1 or group coaching, or bundle with events, courses, private groups, and more. Plus, sell in 135 different currencies or even monetize with token-gating. We’ve seen so many clients hit huge growth when they jump to their own branded apps, often quickly paying for the cost of building.
We’ve built apps for coaches and brands like TED, Fortune, Cambridge University, Mindbody One, and Octo Members. And when you build with Mighty, you’ll work with the Mighty Pro team of Account Executives and Community Strategists who have scaled 7-figure creator brands and 8+-figure subscription businesses.
Mighty Pro is also a leader in community AI with Mighty Co-Host, the GPT-4 powered community engine that gives you a set of tools to make managing your business RADICALLY easier. With auto-generated landing pages and sales pages, profile assist, the “make it better” text editor, and even the Infinite Question Generator to spark conversations, many coaches find they can run their coaching community on just a few hours a week.
2. Nudge
App for online courses and “nudges”
Nudge Coach gives you a coaching app that lets you mix content and training plans with content they call “nudges”--basically cards that can be filled with inspirational messages and images. With the course function you can training plans for clients to follow or else video courses–you can also add in feedback and monitor clients’ progress. And you can manage client relationships with in-app messaging in the coaching hub.
Nudge also has a white-labelling option so that you can create your own app under your own brand.
3. Profi
Calendar-first coaching app
Profi is a coaching app that’s best at scheduling–built on a calendar interface that lets you schedule and run your coaching sessions in the same place. An executive coach could schedule their meetings and message clients from the app itself. It also has a basic CRM built in, so you can see your clients profiles and your history of work with them.
And Profi has an option to create programs–bascially a course function–so that if you’re running an asynchronous course or coaching program your clients can access everything from the platform. Profi works like Calendly, you send a scheduling link that lets clients view your calendar and book a meeting. Once the time comes for your coaching, they can join it live in the “session room.”
Profi doesn’t have any community functions to speak of. It’s a good option for scheduling and programs, but wouldn’t work for building an engaged coaching community of leaders. And while Profi makes this list because of its focus on running a coaching business, it doesn’t actually have a mobile app–making it a web-only option, which makes it difficult for clients to access services.
4. Satori
Best for 1:1 coaches
Satori was designed for yoga instructors, but it’s branched into a more full-service coaching app for coaches running a 1:1 practice. Its most useful features are the administrative functions and process automations that make it easier to service your clients: things like automated onboarding, creating forms, scheduling group or 1:1 sessions, setting up programs, or managing invoices.
Satori is missing a few features that make it great for admin but weak on program delivery. It doesn’t let you create courses or community, which limit the type of businesses you can build on it. But if you’re looking for an executive coaching app, it’s also missing a native mobile app–the web app would have to be enough for your business.
5. Noomi
Best coaching marketplace
If you’re looking for an approach to executive coaching that’s built around a marketplace instead of private practice, Noomi would be one of the best options. With thousands of coaches and clients already on the platform, you can find pretty much any focus there and it would be an option for building an executive coaching business.
Getting approved to coach on Noomi means applying, going through a call with them if and when approved, and creating a profile video. If people are interested in working with you, they can schedule free consults and it goes from there.
Noomi’s strongest focus is the built-in leads and clients if you are okay with a marketplace function. It’s missing the features to do anything more than messaging, so it’s not the place to build your own complex coaching business. AND it doesn’t have a native mobile app, so if you want an executive coaching app Noomi only gives you the webapp option.
Ready to start?
If you’re ready to start building your executive coaching app, come build with Mighty! It’s the only platform that lets you start your coaching business and grow into a fully-branded mobile app when you’re ready. So whether you’re an established coach looking for your own white-label app, or a new coach just starting out, Mighty has something for everyone. If you’re just starting out, you can start with a free trial and have your coaching business up and running in minutes.
If you’re looking for a white-label executive coaching app under your brand, book a call with us and we’ll show you what you could build.
