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User Spotlight: Valkyrie Athletics

Want to play the quality game, not the quantity game, when it comes to your coaching clients? Jennie Cwikla of Valkyrie Athletics graciously offered a peek into how CoachAccountable has helped create a professional, organized experience for her clients. We’ve edited Jennie’s words below for length and clarity.


What’s Valkyrie Athletics All About?

Valkyries are from Nordic mythology: angels that come down, pick up broken or fallen soldiers, and take them to Valhalla, to heaven. Valkyrie for me is myself and my coaches. We are the angels that pick up fallen athletes who have been through broken programs. We put them back together. We mend them and send them off to their Valhalla to be able to compete and to live without feeling like they’re missing massive pieces in their programs. We arm them with the tools and the information they need in order to be able to do it on their own.

[Valkyrie Athletics is] based off my own experience as an athlete and what I felt was massively lacking in the industry. 

When extreme athletes are trying to lose weight, you’ve got one end of the spectrum or the other: [dietitians or personal trainers,] neither of which really specialize in sports performance. I was in that mix of people trying to perform at my optimum capacity. 

Jennie’s Story
As an athlete, I had a lot of obstacles trying to find my sweet spot with my body, my nutrition, and my training.

I’ve been an athlete my entire life. I played soccer, softball, gymnastics. I surfed every day after high school, played water polo, was on the swim team. I was always interested in how to be stronger, how to be faster, how to be the best athlete that I could be.

I was competing in fitness – figure competitions, strongman competitions, and Arizona’s Strongest Woman (I won!). I worked my way all the way up to [the] World’s Strongest Woman [competition] in Scotland in 2013 and took fifth out of 15 countries in the world.

I had a bad experience making weight for [the World’s Strongest Woman] competition. I had used two different coaches along the way, hoping to get a different result with making weight. And every time I was like, “This shouldn’t be this difficult.”

When I came back (December 2013), I [started] Valkyrie Athletics to specialize in working with high-performance athletes who needed to optimize their body composition without sacrificing strength and performance. Since then, I’ve worked with NFL Combine training camps, Olympic athletes, aerial artists that traveled with Motley Crue. I’ve worked with top Crossfit Games teams, triathletes, ultramarathon runners – you name it, as long as it’s high-performance. 

And last year, I was actually inducted into the official Fitness Hall of Fame for contributions I’ve made to my community.

Life Before CoachAccountable

I had paper charts, folders that I stapled legal paper to, and I was writing a ledger. I would document my conversations, when I left a message, when someone didn’t turn their check-in form in, when somebody had a question and what information I gave them. I would document any changes made to their meal plans and why. 

Life With CoachAccountable

When I started Valkyrie, I was in search of a system that could be my EMR: electronic medical record. I use [CoachAccountable] like an EMR.

Daily Usage
Metrics: Normally, I start with uploading weights. I ask the clients to send me photos of their scale. I know they have access to enter their weight into their metric area, but I want to see the scale picture. I write any notes associated with that weigh-in: whether they were on their cycle, didn’t sleep well the night before, or adjustments to their meal plan.

I have my clients rate themselves on how well they follow their meal plan from a one to ten. Then, [if] people start asking why is it so difficult for them to see progress, I take all of their scores from their check-in form and create a new metric. I show them: “See all of these scores under eight? That’s why you’re not getting results.”

Messaging & Commenting: When they’ve filled one out, I get an email saying that they’ve completed their check-in [Worksheet], and I can review those answers. Then I respond to their check-in letting them know how I feel they’re doing. I answer any questions they have or make adjustments. 

I created a support inbox where all my messages from CoachAccountable go to, so I don’t use my personal email. My coaches have access so they can help respond, or my virtual assistant tech team can. [Clients] don’t have to wait more than 12 hours to get a response on their questions, because CoachAccountable forwards that message into an inbox- it’s easy for anybody on my team to respond.

Session Notes: I just found [CoachAccountable] Session Notes three weeks ago. Now I’ve cut out EverNote, and it’s so much easier to find my previous session notes. I have an itinerary on these calls, and I’ve created a [Session Note] template for that call. 

As soon as we go on our call, I open the session notes and start taking minutes of things I want them to start doing. As soon as a call ends, I click complete, write a happy little note, and that gets posted into their stream immediately. I love that! Now my clients get a copy of that note; they weren’t getting a copy before. Now, they really have no excuse for if they didn’t do their assignments.

Library: I create different files in their files area: meal plans, competition protocols, things like that. 

Courses: I use Courses to schedule their check-in form to be completed on their specific day. I schedule those reminders out for the entire length of their contract: 3-, 6-, or 12-month courses. Their worksheet (that they can just click on to fill out) automatically comes into their inbox.


Client Feedback

People are always really impressed. We charge a premium for our services- how you present yourself and your services is a big part in people buying in. So first things first, I believe that [clients] enjoy [CoachAccountable] because it’s professional. They know that they’re in good hands because of how organized everything is; they love the accountability.

Giving them assignments to do, making them check in, having different projects, showing them metrics. All of those things are different links that hold them accountable. 

We’re all about creating an amazing experience. That’s how we get so many referrals and why we don’t waste any money on advertising, Facebook, Instagram – because our clients do it for us. The results speak for themselves. CoachAccountable allows me not to have to play the quantity game; I can play the quality game. And that’s what I’ve always been about: quality. Those are the expectations that I have on my coaches, and I would never give a service to somebody else that I would not want myself.

Bottom Line

Every year I’m growing, automating, systematizing things. And it’s it’s been fun. When you look back at where things were when you started, it’s like, “There’s no way we’d be able to operate like that now.” 

The biggest thing that our clients need is accountability. [CoachAccountable] has so many different ways to hold them accountable. 

It’s been very powerful to be able to use [CoachAccountable] in so many different ways. It’s flexible, easy to switch directions if you need to. I’ve used other things that do bits and pieces of what CoachAccountable does, but not everything in one place.


Are you like Jenny and ready to get started with Metrics, Session Notes, Courses, and more? Sign up for 30 days free. 



3 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing Jennie!

    Keep rocking it and saving those fallen angels!

    Warm regards

    Glenn

    December 7, 2018 @ 11:58 am

  2. Hello Jennie, Thanks for sharing how CA helps to optimize your business. It helps to see how other users are using the system. Cheers…David

    December 10, 2018 @ 6:20 pm

  3. HI Jennie,

    Thanks for sharing your way of working with this amazing software. Keep rocking it girl!

    Looking forward to connecting

    Glenn

    December 12, 2018 @ 3:35 am