How To Automate Your Coaching Client Bookings with Thrive Architect

If you run an online coaching business, you know that scheduling new clients can quickly become a logistics nightmare.

First the client reaches out to work with you by email...

...then you have to reply to their inquiry with all your basic explainer info as well as possible times for them to schedule their initial consult call.

But then they respond saying that the times you suggested aren’t possible — and don't offer any alternatives​!

Pretty soon, you find yourself in a time consuming game of email ping-pong before the appointment time gets locked down. But of course the inevitable happens...

… said client totally forgets about the call and no shows on you: Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.

If you’re an online coach, this sort of scheduling nightmare needs to become a thing of the past, but how?

The solution is actually pretty simple and can help you eliminate such time intensive (and revenue crushing) email back-and-forths.

Ready to learn how combining the power of Thrive Architect with an online scheduling service can automate your new and current client booking and onboarding process — directly through your WordPress website?

Then read on…

What You’ll Need To Automate Your Client Scheduling

Let’s get right to it. Here’s what you’ll need to automate your new and current client scheduling:

1. A WordPress website (because we always encourage solopreneurs like you to build a business on your own platform)
   
   
2. Thrive Architect (to quickly build and launch your new client landing page)
   
   
3. An online booking tool (like Calendly or Acuity Scheduling)
   
   
4. And an online calendar tool (like Google Calendar).

Once you have these 4 key online assets ready to go, we recommend that you get started creating a new client landing page focused on converting your coaching site’s visitors into new discovery call clients.

Essentially, this website asset will become the first step in your new customer coaching funnel as it gives your online visitors a place to learn about your services and take that all important first coaching step with you — your initial consult call.

So assuming you already have your WordPress website up and running, let’s talk about how you can create your new client landing page lightning fast.

Give Your Coaching Business a Professional First Impression

If you want potential clients to take your coaching business seriously, a professional looking website that funnels visitors into a new client landing page is a fantastic way to offer them upfront value that builds trust.

With a professionally designed landing page, potential clients will be able to find you, understand what your coaching services entail and then self-book their initial coaching call with you if they do decide to take the plunge.

That’s where Thrive Architect comes in. With it, you can create that “Book Your Discovery Call with Me” landing page in minutes.

By using one of our pre-built landing page templates, you can quickly choose, customize and launch your landing page with just a few clicks and copy modifications.

To show you just how fast that process can be, I took the Thrive Biz “Guitar Lessons Homepage” template and converted it into an online physique & nutrition coaching landing page by simply changing the copy and replacing all the pictures in the template:

To get the first iteration of your landing page done and shipped, you don’t have to make it more complicated than that.

Now let’s take a look at how you can integrate one of two online scheduling services with your new client landing page to completely remove yourself from the entire booking process.

The Easy Way To Integrate an Online Scheduling Service with Your New Client Landing Page

The two freemium online services we recommend you look into for this purpose are Calendly and Acuity Scheduling.

Although both services work great to automate your new (and current) coaching client bookings, they definitely have their pros, cons and pricing differences.

Both services offer a free version of their tool — but of course limit the features you get.

And because Calendly’s most expensive plan is equivalent to Acuity Scheduling’s least expensive plan, I’ll only be comparing the two companies' free and price equivalent plans for you below.

Let’s now take a look at the feature line ups of the two free service and two price equivalent paid service plans — followed by a simple way you can integrate whichever plan you choose into your new client landing page.

Calendly vs Acuity Scheduling’s Free Pan Features

Perhaps the best way to study the differences between Calendly and Acuity Scheduling’s free features is with a comparison table... so here it is:

Calendly vs Acuity Scheduling’s Free Plan Comparison Table

The three biggest differences between Calendly and Acuity Scheduling’s free plans — especially if you’re bootstrapping your coaching business and trying to minimize costs — are:

1. Calendly allows you to integrate their scheduling service with your preferred online calendar where Acuity Scheduling does not,
   
   
2. Calendly will send you and your invitees automated appointment and cancellation email notifications where Acuity Scheduling will not, and
   
   
3. Calendly will automatically convert times to your client’s local time where Acuity Scheduling will not.

These are all critical features for your online coaching business. That's why we recommend selecting Calendly over Acuity Scheduling if you choose to use a free automated scheduling plan.

However, Acuity Scheduling does have a more advanced backend dashboard than Calendly does. It’s useful and allows for more convenient setup of things like your available times for coaching sessions:

By contrast, Calendly’s dashboard is more simplistic, makes setting up available appointment times more difficult and does not display your scheduled appointments in a convenient calendar view:

These dashboard creature comforts aren’t mission critical though so Calendly is still the preferred option if you’re getting started as a scrappy online coach bootstrapper.

Now let’s take a look at the price equivalent plans ($15 per month) to see how the paid service comparison stacks up for you.

Calendly Pro vs Acuity Scheduling’s “Emerging Entrepreneur" Paid Plan Features

For $15 per month, you’ll get every feature offered by Calendly (in their top-tier “Pro” account) while you’ll only receive Acuity Scheduling’s basic paid feature set in their “Emerging Entrepreneur” plan (the bottom-tier paid plan).

Again, let’s use a plan comparison table to see what $15 per month buys you between Calendly and Acuity Scheduling:

Calendly vs Acuity Scheduling’s $15 /mo Paid Plan Comparison Table

Upon comparing the two $15 per month paid plan options, you can see that the feature sets are more or less equivalent. Many of the mission critical features Acuity Scheduling did not provide in their free plan become available to you in their paid plans.

And once you start spending money for an online scheduling tool, the important differences become:

1. Acuity Scheduling’s superior backend dashboard​,
   
   
2. Acuity Scheduling's integrations with several popular email marketing integrations. If you use one of these email marketing platforms for your coaching business (like MailChimp), then Acuity Scheduling becomes a superior option for you.
   
   
3. Acuity Scheduling also has superior client payment options. This includes features like accepting payments and deposits through PayPal, Stripe and/or Square, vaulting credit cards for charging clients later, letting clients tip you, and allowing you to offer coupons or vouchers for discounts.

Because of all these differences, Acuity Scheduling will likely be the best option if you decide to select a paid plan for your online coaching business.

Integrating Your Online Scheduling Service with Your New Client Landing Page

So now that:

1. Your WordPress website is up and running,
2. You've selected the correct online scheduling plan for your business, and
3. Your Thrive Architect built new client landing page has been launched...

...it’s time to integrate your online scheduling service with your landing page.

And there’s a super simple way to do this.

First, go into either your Calendly or Acuity Scheduling account and find your shareable scheduling link:

With the link copied, next go back to your new client landing page (that you built with Thrive Architect on your WordPress website) and paste the self-booking page URL into your Call-To-Action button action setting:

Now when your potential clients land on your new coaching client page and click the CTA button to book their initial consult call with you, they’ll be sent to either your Calendly or Acuity Scheduling booking page:

Once that’s done, you can finally say goodbye to the game of email scheduling ping pong — once and for all!

It's Time To Get Your Coaching Clients to Self-Book Their Own Appointments...

By setting up an automated scheduling system like this for your online coaching business, you’ll have more time to focus on finding (and keeping) new clients instead of letting them slip through logistical cracks.

If you’re an online coach, let us know what you think of this booking automation strategy to help boost the bottom line of your business by leaving a comment for us below!