The Best of 2025: Most Popular Articles, 10 Most Loved Free Resources, Top Products & More!

Every year, we take time to review our successes, products, articles, and blog posts from the year — which we share below.

We thoroughly recommend doing something similar for your business, have a look here for 9 questions to get you started.

Creating time to review the past year is not just interesting; it’s empowering and uplifting to realise that we often achieve much more than we remember.

2025: A Year for Coaching

2025 was a significant year for coaching — and for us!

Across the industry, we saw coaches working with increasing complexity, leaders navigating uncertainty, and a growing need for coaching that is practical, ethical, and grounded in real-world impact.

At The Coaching Tools Company, our focus throughout the year was clear: to support coaches not only with high-quality tools, but with learning, conversation, and community.

Last year, we launched The Mentor Program, followed by The Coaching Edge Podcast and  Your Coaching Community, alongside new products, highly attended webinars, and continued to share thoughtful, practical content to support coaches in building stronger, more sustainable practices.

What follows is a snapshot of what we created, shared, and learned together in 2025.

Here are a few more highlights:

Our Top Achievements and Insights

• We launched The Mentor Program, a year-long mentoring space designed to support coaches with deeper reflection, practical learning, and sustained development as they grow their practice.
  • Insight: Depth doesn’t come from better frameworks — it comes from time, continuity, and being held long enough to change. (True for Coaches and our Clients)
• We then launched The Coaching Edge Podcast and published 44 episodes featuring leading coaches, trainers, and thinkers from around the world. Hosted by Dr Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave, the podcast explored the craft, business, and future of coaching — and became one of our most consistent ways to support and inspire coaches throughout the year.
  • Insight: The most valuable conversations weren’t about techniques or trends, but about how experienced coaches think — especially where they disagree, hesitate, or changed their minds.
• We then introduced Your Coaching Community — a calm, pitch-free home for coaching, created to give coaches a place to stay connected, supported, and resourced long after training ends. With free and pro memberships, live community sessions, practical tools, and clear community guidelines, the community quickly became a central space for connection, learning, and continued professional growth.
  • Insight: Many coaches don’t need more content — they need fewer places where they feel they’re being sold to, compared, or rushed.
• We were also present at ICF Converge in San Diego, continuing our engagement with the global coaching community.
  • Insight: Global gatherings reminded us that coaching is maturing — and with that maturity comes a greater need for discernment, not just expansion.
• 

  Executive & Leadership Toolkit

  NEW PRODUCTS in 2025!

  • We created The Executive & Leadership Toolkit for coaches working with leaders and organisations, bringing together practical tools for leadership development and executive coaching.

Events and Live Learning in 2025

We hosted a focused series of live sessions led by Dr Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave, exploring the craft, structure, and business of coaching.
These conversations were designed to slow things down — creating space to examine how coaching actually works in practice, not just how it’s marketed.

The sessions included:

• • The Art of Coaching: Q&A with a Master Coach
  • Executive Coaching: Structure and Impact — with Emma-Louise Elsey
  • Executive Coaching Deep Dive
  • Master the Whole Client Journey
  • Live AMA Call

Alongside these events, we also curated and shared a selection of high-quality webinars from trusted partners and affiliates, making it easier for our community to access thinking we believe genuinely advances coaching practice and business.

These included sessions with:

• • Dr Irena O’Brien (Neuroscience for Coaches) on the predictive brain, neuroplasticity, and supporting clients through uncertainty
  • Cindy Schulson on adapting coaching business models to attract aligned clients
  • Melanie Benson on visibility and message-led growth
  • Joy Bufalini on simplifying and scaling through workshops and webinars

Live Learning Inside the Community

As Your Coaching Community took shape, live learning increasingly moved into a more connected, ongoing space.
Dr Steve Jeffs hosted and facilitated these community sessions, working in conversation with guest contributors to support both professional development and personal sustainability.

These included:

• • Gratitude Journaling with Lynda Monk
  • Strengths in Practice: A Fast, Friendly Introduction for Coaches with Ilyse Greenberg
  • Self-Care: The Oxygen Mask Rules for Coaches with Marie-Laure Sinimale
  • Celebration & Visioning — a community event with Dr Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave

Reach, Trust, and Ongoing Support in 2025

Throughout 2025, our focus remained consistent: providing high-quality coaching tools, thinking, and support accessible to coaches around the world — without adding noise or pressure.

Reach and Engagement

Our free tools were downloaded 43,684 times, reflecting the continued demand for practical, usable resources that support real coaching conversations.

Our newsletter now reaches 45,000 readers across 175 countries, reinforcing just how global the coaching profession has become. Engagement remained strong throughout the year, with open rates consistently between 30–40%, well above typical industry averages.

We were also recognised as one of the Top 10 Coaching Blogs in 50 Best Coaching Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2026, and published more than 50 new articles for coaches during the year.
You can also find independent feedback about our work on Trustpilot.

Supporting You

• Alongside our new products and content, we continued to invest in building spaces where coaches can connect, learn, and grow together in meaningful ways.
• Your Coaching Community offers practical tools, live community sessions, and a professional, pitch-free space for real connection and continued development. This is quickly becoming a central place for coaches seeking continuity rather than one-off learning.
• The "Coaches Helping Coaches" Facebook Group with over 21,000 coaches! We’ve stayed intentional about keeping the group supportive and conversation-led, ensuring promotions don’t overwhelm genuine peer support.
• The launch of The Mentor Program, provided  a space for coaches seeking deeper support, reflection, and guidance as they develop their practice.
  • "I’ve gone from struggling to understand how to provide a cohesive coaching journey, to signing a corporate client, to partnering on a multi 6 figure contract. This year has been quite the journey and I don’t think I’d have the confidence or the same approach to all of these endeavours if it hadn’t been for the guidance and support of this group." — Lori Kranenburg

Practical Support for Building a Coaching Business

• We know how challenging it can be to build a sustainable coaching practice. In 2025, we continued to offer regular opportunities for coaches to access tools at reduced cost, including our Fireworks, Spring, and Black Friday sales.
• We also introduced ongoing savings across selected products each month and shared a Business Planner as our 2025 holiday gift, designed to help coaches clarify priorities and “make it happen” in 2026.

Most Read, Most Used, Most Loved

Rather than listing everything, here’s a snapshot of what resonated most with coaches this year.

You met 10 more coaches in our Meet The Coach Features, where we helped you get to know your fellow coaches (see image at right)!

Here are the Top 7 Articles from 2025!

Choosing our top articles is not an exact science! We look at the number of social shares from the blog, but also the number of article comments, shares and comments when an article is posted on Facebook—and also the positive emails we receive about an article!

1. The Urgent Important Matrix: What it is & How to Use it!
2. How to Use The Wheel of Life in Your Coaching Practice: A Complete Guide
3. The 5 Stages of Tuckman's Team and Group Development Model Plus How to use it
4. The GROW Model Explained for Coaches (plus .PDF)
5. THINK Acronym for Kinder and More Effective Communications
6. Free SMART Goals Guide for Coaches
7. The Top 18 Coaching Books to Make You a Better Coach!

The 7 Most Loved Free Resource Downloads of 2025

This is more of an exact science! Our Free Resources were downloaded 43,684 times.

Here are the Top 7 Free Resources downloaded in 2025:

1. Wheel of Life Template with Instructions (downloaded 4.799 times)
2. 21 Questions to Extraordinary Goal-Setting (3,003 times)
3. Coaching Intake Session Checklist (2,843 times)
4. Action Brainstorming Worksheet (2,014 times)
5. 37 Coaching Questions to Liberate Your Clients (2,010 times)
6. Wrap-up Session Questions (2,010 times)
7. Blank Coaching Wheel (1,992 times)

And our Most Popular Products in 2025

Finally, here are our most popular sellers from last year:

1. Coaching Welcome Packet
2. Coaching Tools & Exercises MEGAPack!
3. Executive & Leadership Toolkit
4. Career Coaching Toolkit
5. Balance & Self Care Toolkit
6. Vision & Goal Setting Toolkit
7. The Ultimate Coaching Tools Pack

The Top 10 is rounded out by our Renew YOU, Love Your Life! Coach Program, followed by the Make Your Goals (SMART) and Small Business Coaching Toolkit.

I hope you enjoyed these highlights and summary! For our latest articles visit the Coaching Blog or go here to Sign-up for our newsletter!

We'd love to hear your 2025 highlights—share yours in the comments below!

The Coaching Tools Company Team in 2025:

• • Dr. Steve Jeffs MCC, our Director of Coaching, brings deep expertise in organisational coaching, business transformation, and leadership development. For over 20 years, Steve has been coaching, training, supervising and mentoring clients from around the world. He is an ICF Master Coach and loves helping coaches step to the next level in what they are doing, who they are being and helping them to build thriving, sustainable businesses.
  • Erwin de Grave, the CEO of The Coaching Tools Company, is an experienced Business Coach & Consultant who speaks 5 languages! Erwin has worked globally with companies, large and small, and most recently has focused on entrepreneurs and business owners, helping them to grow and scale their businesses. While helping leaders, he is also busy growing his own portfolio of companies.
  • Emma Alexander, our Office Manager, seamlessly looks after the administration, logistics, and key responsibilities for The Coaching Tools Company and The Coaching Edge Podcast. In addition to overseeing daily operations, she is also responsible for crafting and managing the weekly Coaching Tools Launchpad Newsletter and  serves as Program Manager for The Mentor Program and our Beyond Sessions Course.
  • Allen Glenn started his role as Operations & Social Media Coordinator. Allen also helps to manage our customer service & Your Coaching Community! Thank you, Allen.
  • Duncan Elsey continues to be our essential technical expert and advisor. Not only does he answer our "Help!!! My _______ has stopped working", but he also works hard to maintain and continuously improve the website. He continues to work on SEO & website optimisation to ensure the best experience for our website visitors.

Please note: The Coaching Edge Podcast is produced by The Guiding Matrix and is promoted to The Coaching Tools Company Audience as a partner initiative.