Online Private Coaching Business: Trends, Business Model and Key Features

The digital transformation has come with a whole array of changes and has affected all the major industries of the global economy. One of which happens to be the private coaching industry. This industry has evolved significantly over the years transitioning from in-person to digital or remote coaching. One of its prominent benefits is that technology has expanded the ability to provide and receive coaching. This has resulted in a rapid increase in the emergence of online coaching platforms all across the globe.

Most Lucrative Private Coaching Niches

Once you've decided to start your own private coaching business, it is essential to choose a niche as it helps you filter and attract a specific group of people who are interested in your services. Below mentioned are some of the popular niches to set up an online coaching business.

• Business Coaching: A business coaching platform assists business owners in clarifying business goals. The coaches on this platform help formulate plans and strategies for business owners to achieve overall greater business growth and maximize earning potential.
• Academic Coaching: In academic coaching, coaches examine student's 3 -academic concerns and major barriers to success. They also assess students' strengths and help them in areas such as time management and test preparation.
• Career Coaching: On a career coaching website/platform, a career coach helps individuals on different career-related challenges such as orienting career transition, finding the ideal job, or even getting a raise/promotion, etc.
• Financial Coaching: On a financial coaching website people can get help from financial experts on using/investing their money, creating more avenues for income towards financial well-being.
• Fitness Coaching: A fitness coaching platform helps fitness enthusiasts reach their fitness goals by getting expert advice and coaching from professional fitness coaching.
• Life Coaching: A life coaching platform is dedicated to helping people struggling with everyday challenges in their lives by connecting them with professional life coaches who are adept at helping individuals tackle problems with a positive mindset.

Emerging Trends In Private Coaching

Staying informed about the prevailing trends in the private coaching sphere can help business owners anticipate the changes and adjust their strategies in due course. Below mentioned are some of the rising trends of this industry:

• Increased Accountability: As private coaching is becoming more mainstream every day, barriers to entry in this business are bound to rise. Quality assurance will become a priority for the clients who hire coaches and they will demand qualified coaches to assert their expert knowledge. Qualification and experience will become the popular measures to select the coaches.
• Preference to Niche-Specific Coaching: Niche-specific coaches will be preferred instead of those who know different subjects but in bits and pieces. Having a specified niche allows the coaches to focus on the specific client requirements, understand their pain points and connect with them easily.
• Coaching - A Necessity: The need for private coaching has truly gone mainstream in the past few years. People have started realizing that the hard challenges in their business, life, or any other sphere, can be easily dealt with if proper coaching and advice is sought from professional experts. From a luxury afforded by a few, it has become a life-altering means which is accessible to everyone.

Business Model of an Online Private Coaching Platform

There are several business models in practice in the online private coaching market. Knowing which one will suit your business and offer the best value to your target audience is important. In this post, we'll be talking about the popular marketplace model. It consists of three user types.

• Admin
• Coach
• Client

1. The coach creates a profile on the platform and a request is sent to the admin for the approval of the profile.
2. The client then browses the coaches on the platform as per the required criteria like specialization, total experience, price, language, and so on.
3. The client can then select a coach as per their requirement and check his/her availability for booking a session.
4. The client then makes the payment and books the session with the coach. The session can be a one-to-one or group session.
5. After the successful completion of the session, the client provides the feedback of the coach.
6. Once the session is marked completed by the client as well as the coach, the payment is released to the coach's account.

Revenue Channels of an Online Private Coaching Platform

While the main source of revenue is the commission from coaches' earnings, business owners should look to integrate several other revenue streams into their coaching platform.

• Subscription
• Premium listings
• Google AdSense
• Merchandise
• Cancellation fee

Must-Have Features In an Online Private Coaching Platform

Let's look at some of the essential features of an online private coaching platform that will drive user engagement and help you effortlessly manage your platform.

• Video Conferencing: Clients who require one-to-one interaction with the coach will prefer a coaching platform with a video conferencing feature. While emails and chats can cover most of the learning needs, collaborating visually can actually help in retaining information and learn at a higher level. A study confirms that 90% of people find it easier to get their point across when they are seen. Other interactive tools during video conferencing like a whiteboard, text chat, file/screen sharing add up to the interaction and engagement among the clients and coaches.
• Time-Zone Friendly: Online coaching platforms have users from across the globe, interacting with each other in different time zones. Allowing users to set and explore the platform in their local time zone has become quite crucial. Pushing reminders and alerts for upcoming sessions in the user's local time zone can help occurrences of no-shows.
• Multilingual: Online coaching platforms have users from all over the world which makes multi-language support a necessary tool to achieve their eLearning goals. Coaching platforms that support multiple languages for their users become highly engaging as they help optimize user experience by localizing the process and putting end to geographical barriers.
• Review/Rating: Review/rating on the coaching platform is a great way to build trust and transparency on the platform. Reviews, be they positive or negative, help people get a sense of what to expect before selecting a coach. That's why it's almost a prerequisite for coaching marketplaces now to provide some sort of review/feedback about the coaches listed on the platform.
• GDPR Compliant: In order to help business owners deliver private coaching seamlessly, online coaching platforms should comply with the GDPR regulations. Being mindful about how to collect and store personal and sensitive information about the coaches and clients helps to mitigate any legal and financial exposure.
• Multi-Device Usage: Clients these days use devices of all sizes ranging from mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, to smart TVs. They switch from laptops to computers as per their convenience, which makes it essential to offer online coaching accessible on multiple devices. Offering multi-device support enhances interactivity among users and a surge in your platform's engagement stats.
• Multiple Payment Methods: Facilitating the users with multiple payment methods makes it convenient for them to make and receive payments increasing the conversion and sales. Basic payment methods like credit/debit cards, net banking, online wallets, etc. should be integrated into the online coaching platforms.
• PWA Powered: As the mobile users are more than 60%, it becomes essential to provide an optimum learning experience on the mobile. PWA-powered web platforms are now available as web applications on mobile devices which are also responsive to adapt to the screen size of the devices.

Building an Online Private Coaching Platform

Moving on from the key features, one of the dilemmas for many business owners before building the platform is whether to choose between a ready-made solution or go for custom development. Undoubtedly, a custom-developed platform will have the features and functionality customized as per the business requirements, it will take a huge amount of time and manpower to build it from scratch.

In contrast, the ready-made solutions in the market available these days are integrated with the latest and popular features which can easily accommodate the requirements of the users. One such readymade solution is Yo!Coach that comes with lifetime ownership. This off-the-shelf solution meets the diverse requirements of the online coaching marketplaces and empowers entrepreneurs to run a successful coaching business. The solution is extensively customizable and can perfectly fit the constantly evolving needs of the users.

Final Thoughts

Building an online coaching marketplace can be a huge undertaking, however, a white-label solution like Yo!Coach can help you launch it in no time. The ability of this remarkable solution to support your unique values and differentiate your offering makes you stand out from the competition in the market. If you are interested in building a coaching platform, schedule a free demo of Yo!Coach and we will help you explore the role this solution can play in your business.