As the entire world feels the impact of COVID-19, social distancing becomes more important by the day. During this time many businesses are shutting down or scaling down operations, which makes some coaches wonder: what can I do with my coaching business during this time?

We’re keeping a finger on the pulse of the coaching industry, and here are CoachAccountable’s suggestions for the era of Coronavirus (as well as what we’re doing at this time).

Clean Out Your ‘Garage’

By this we mean ALL those areas where you might have some loose ends. Physical spaces, your computer, even interpersonal relationships.

Almost all of us have them: the half-baked ideas that would be good to pursue someday, the resources list we made last-second one day and never got around to refining, the antique grandfather clock that needs sanding (ok, maybe that’s just Morgan’s real garage).

But really, the slowing down of society affords us time to evaluate those ideas, tidy up the resources list, get rid of outdated files you no longer use, and all the rest. Just as it feels good to clean a room and throw out old items, cleaning up your CoachAccountable account and other records will probably feel good too.

Develop New Content

Especially if you have clients who slow down their frequency with you, it’s a great opportunity to create additional Offerings.

If you don’t have one (or if a new one would be a fit now), set up a self-paced Course for people to work through. How about an Onboarding Course, where you compile all those items you already send to new clients manually? A nice video walkthrough of the system with your voice and branding is also an easy start for many clients, and could be the perfect thing to produce right now.

Many coaches use CoachAccountable as a sort of lead funnel: a pre-set Course as the bottom, Group coaching at a middle price point, some one-on-one coaching at a higher price point, and perhaps an exclusive mastermind or workshop at the top. This allows clients to do more of a lifetime cycle with you, too. Any one of those steps could be a good entry point for new products – maybe a new free or paid Course to let people experience your expertise in a bite-sized lesson, for instance, or designing that exclusive high-priced product.

It could also be a good time to test the efficacy of the tools you already have as well as new ones, perhaps by offering a test of your new material for returning clients.

Discover What You Might’ve Missed

Chances are, you dove into CoachAccountable, started with the portions of the system that you needed right away, and maybe explored a few other features along the way, but never had time to check out that thing you were curious about. Now is a great time to experiment with features of CoachAccountable you’ve never used before. It might be a good idea, for instance, to finally drop Docusign in favor of Agreements. Or ScheduleOnce in favor of Appointments. Maybe you’re ready to automate the tracking of sessions with Engagements. Or any other places you can cut an additional system, removing complexity from your process, and likely saving some money at the same time.

Never made it through the Getting Started guide? Click on your name in the upper right >> Help >> Get Started to walk through it. Want to dig deeper into a feature or find what else you’re missing out on? Find a selection of recorded webinars to peruse. Click on your name in the upper right >> Resources >> Webinars to help you along. And if you’re curious about new tidbits that have come out since you joined, check out the rest of the CoachAccountable blog (the column on the left has Essentials and Tactical articles).

We’re happy to help as you expand your usage of the system to assist with remote working. Just drop us a line and we can meet with you (via Zoom of course) and make some recommendations for new avenues to explore. And if you’ve been a ‘lurker’ waiting for the right time to try out our free 30-day trial (or the right time to share some of your resources/referrals with other coaches), it might fit to try us out. We’re happy to meet with you, too!

Revamp Your Website

Perhaps you’ve got some new Offerings that you haven’t yet included on your site, or perhaps your “Book Now!” link leads people to a contact form, rather than an actual booking. This might be a good time to add those in using CoachAccountable Offerings.

Consider asking past clients for testimonials to beef up that portion of your website with real results you’ve helped achieve. That walkthrough video mentioned above could be a nice addition to your site, too, to show prospective clients your sophisticated system and help distinguish you from other coaches in your field.

Likewise, you can take a look at your website with fresh eyes: the copy, testimonials, images, and everything else, seeing if it’s still compelling and accurate. We actually did a webinar on enhancing your coaching website, with a little copywriting lesson in it.

Sharpen Your Tools

Since you’re a coach, you know more than most how much room we all have to grow. In fact, in our experience, the more you learn about yourself, the more responsible you are for all of it! This is a great time to self-evaluate. Resharpen the tools you use with your clients by applying them newly to your own life. Take your own Course. Measure something important to you with a Metric.

For many, the nature and structure of work may be changing. You can use this time to refine your business and work practices, streamlining by removing wasted effort. You’ll also have room to be creative with your approach: if you normally deliver group coaching in person, for example, what are some outside-the-box ways of recreating that co-creative experience virtually?

Find Your Own Coach

What’s an area of life where you could use a BIG breakthrough? Maybe, like those dusty corners of the garage, this area has felt like something to clean up later, when you have more time. Now is a perfect time to throw your hat over the wall and commit to a program or coach that will stretch you in uncomfortable ways. By being coached yourself, chances are you’ll get more present to what it’s like to start in on something tender, and the trust level it takes to work with a coach. You’ll represence the client’s experience for yourself. For Morgan’s part, she’s taking on an 8-week group financial coaching program with 5 other women.

And who knows – taking on being coached could spark some great ideas for other ways to run your programs or additional products.

Rest

This seems to contrast with much of the above, but hear us out. This slowdown in normal societal function gives us a wonderful opportunity to rest. To not hustle around all day from activity to activity. To be quiet. To reflect. To align. To snuggle with family.

You’ve likely been forced to remove many activities outside the home, so as things change later in the year, you’ll have the opportunity to add back in each one, or not. Like a strict diet cleanse, you might find that adding back in any non-healthy items will seem unappetizing.

And What’s Happening at CoachAccountable?

The team is healthy, and since we already work 100% remotely, we’re still working our normal hours from our separate cities and trying not to touch our faces. We’re available to help, meet you on Zoom for handholding, and answer any questions via support tickets. And, we’re taking our own advice and cleaning out our respective garages of any lingering to-dos in CoachAccountable land.

Let us know how we can help. Especially if you’d like to expand your use of CoachAccountable to work more remotely, and you’d like us to help determine what areas you can explore next!

May you and your loved ones and your communities be well.