The CoachAccountable Blog

It sounds like a lot when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

And I suppose it is!  Now well past the decade mark (a fine demarcation of the longevity of any software business), CoachAccountable is getting up there.

Of course this year’s biggest news was the release of CoachAccountable 5.1.

Reflections, Metric Templates, Key Insights, Default Landing Pages, pinned Stream items, and new worksheet rules all add to the mix of letting coaches give better and more meaningful experiences for their clients.

But a few other goodies were added to the mix.

Courses got a few enhancements, including new Course Availabilities (which allow you to grant access to Courses and leave it up to your clients to start whenever they choose) and the ability to have Course Content be completable (for greater control of pacing and progress).

Offerings got a few new magic tags and a new type of restriction.

Invoices can now be paid by clients and company personnel without logging in or registering their account, and the history of past sendoffs can now be seen.

Metrics now have the option to show only the most recent data (great for long running tracking).

All told, the release notes of this past year detail 64 releases and 43 bug fixes.

A fine year indeed!

Looking Ahead to CA’s Thirteenth Year

Last December I put out a feeler to all CA users, toying with the idea of offering a group course teaching ways to give better and more results-producing coaching experiences to clients.

The response I got back from this was most encouraging, but I realized quickly that such a live class would not scale, to say nothing of its synchronous nature putting a major damper on who could participate.

So in lieu of that, I’ve been working on something else to fulfill that aim, something that would be fair to call the CoachAccountable perspective on how coaches can be more powerful in their efforts.  (And spoiler: I’m proud to say it ain’t more certifications and it ain’t tacking on even more hours of logged experience.)

It’s nearly ready.  Can’t wait to show you when the time is right.

Onward and upward!
John

Metrics are where the rubber meets the road.

Build a habit, measure a KPI, track a rating, reach for a goal.  I’ve already said plenty on why Metrics, so let me now focus on why Metric Templates.

Metric Templates allow you to template out common Metrics that you’ll be guiding our clients with, meaning you save a few seconds and clicks for each setup.

This is a nice upgrade for coaches.

But the really exciting new possibility here?  Making one or more Metric Templates available to your clients, something they can use to set up a game of something worth tracking.

This, too, saves ’em a few seconds, which is cool.  But the real magic is how you can now effectively showcase a set of things they might want to track and play at.

When you create a collection that is client facing, you are saying in so many words “Here are things you might find worth moving the needle with.  Set in motion whichever you’d like, and I’ll be here to support you in making meaningful progress in those areas.”

That’s a great dimension to the service you offer, and a very distinguishing one at that.

Make some Metric Templates and share ’em with your client, then let ’em know what’s on offer and they’re free to help themselves.  Slick.

To get you started, I’ve put together a Resource Package full of Metric Templates that you can peruse and install.

When you add thumbnails to your Metric Templates, it all comes together as a very compelling collection for your clients:

Choose as many as you like to create however many desired.

Do this well, and your clients will be inspired by all the things you can support them in making progress on.

More importantly, they’ll be delighted to continue working with you for the coming weeks and months as they make that progress.

Let’s talk about your coachees today.

As your coaching relationships progress, insights, declarations, and results will naturally accrue.

Will these things be forgotten, merely flash-in-the-pan with no lasting impact? Or with they stick around, to be remembered, truly integrated, used for a reference of then-and-now progress and built upon?

Few.  Coaches.  Wrestle.  With.  This.

And yet…

Here’s a street-level report on things, from us coachees.

The default state in coaching is that whatever was created last session is pushed out of awareness by whatever is created in the current one.  Absent structure to record and re-presence past creations, this is a natural consequence of human awareness.

Enter Reflections.

Reflections are your way to have CoachAccountable automatically insert insights, answers to questions, and results that were recorded earlier into subsequent work and content, allowing both you and your clients to stay aware of (and build upon) whatever was created earlier. This steers coaching relationships towards continuity and progress that builds (as contrasted with always starting from a blank slate, dealing only with the moment thus losing sight of the bigger picture).

With Reflections, scenarios like these are possible with CoachAccountable automatically doing the heavy lifting of finding and filling in the blanks for you:

“Over the past 4 weeks, your weekly sales have been $____, $____, $____ and $____.  How are you feeling about your progress during that time?”

“Coming into this Session, [clientFirstName] said they most wanted help this week with _____________.”

“Coming into this session you said you were most excited to get guidance around ______________.  What is your outlook around that now, going forward?”

“Yesterday, you meditated for ___ minutes.
What’s your number for today?”

or, if they entered a zero or didn’t report:

“It looks like you didn’t meditate yesterday.  No worries, you can get right back into the habit today!”

“On Day 1 you said the breakthrough you were most interested in getting was this:
_____________________________________
Three weeks in, how is that going now?”

Forth button in from the right.

I don’t like to traffic in hype cliches.  Nevertheless I believe it fair to say that the ability to automatically re-presence the words and results of your clients in subsequent interactions is a game changer.  You get to create a profound sense of continuity in your relationship, really be in your client’s world by recreating what they’ve said and accomplished, and keep meaningful creations alive and present.

And the client experience?

When presented with our own words and ideas, we pay attention.  Yes, it’s not hard to fill out the usual blank pre-session form as preparation for our upcoming coaching call (“How’s it been going since last time?”, but it’s a vastly different experience to interact with an inquiry that contains our own words (“After last session, you said you were taking on ___________.  How’s that gone since then?”)

For client engagement.
For continuity.
For awareness.
For the experience of being known and heard.
For progress that builds upon itself.
This.  Is.  Cool.

And I can’t wait to see what you create with Reflections of your own.

To get you started, I’ve created a Resource Package that showcases off several ways to use Reflections.

The pair pre- and post-Appointment Worksheet Templates, for example show off a powerful back-and-forth rhythm of re-presencing what client said over a sequence of sessions.

Try it, and others, out in the Course Builder Page Preview mode to see the effect in action.

If you want a really easy way to start using Reflections in your practice today, start using those Reflection-powered pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets with your routine coaching calls.  It’s as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Install them from the Reflections Resource Package
2. Make whatever edits you like to them (to tailor them to your voice and style)
3. Edit your Appointment Type(s) to include those new pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets.

And that’s Reflections!

If you take 5 minutes to install that Reflections Resource Package, it is apt to get your creative juices flowing in a Very.  Good.  Way.  To learn more of the nuts and bolts, see the Knowledge Base article on Reflections.

It’s a serious treat to get session notes.

Speaking as a coachee, getting from my coach their version of “Hey, this is what I’d want you to take from this conversation” is a real gift.

Without fail, it brings back the warm fuzzies of what was great from that session, reminds me to take that coaching goodness out into my life, and is a souvenir that I can revisit later, when I’m stuck or could use a little inspiration.

It is a gift that keeps on giving.

Key Insights put this gift squarely on a silver platter.

What are Key Insights?

Key Insights are just that: short and sweet one-liners that are the most distilled essence of what you want your client to remember.

Key Insights represent the highlight reel of your sessions; the nuggets of wisdom and touch stones that allow recall of the important parts. If your client reviews nothing but those, they’ll be left present to the lion’s share of what mattered in their work with you.

What are Key Insights as a new CoachAccountable feature?

Key Insights are an alternative (or addition!) to the usual ways of composing Session Notes.

They can be positioned below the usual WYSIWYG as well, or even be an outright replacement for it.

When you compose your Session Notes consisting of Key Insights, they’ll be prominently displayed up top, ready for an at-a-glance review:

Clicking on any given card, of course, brings it up in full size.

Better yet, any Key Insights you add as part of your Session Notes are automatically collected in their own section, ripe for review and searching by you and your clients:

Click on any one to bring up the full Session Notes that the Insight originally came from.

Capture the essence of what your clients are getting as a growing collection of memorable one-liners, ready to carry forward and easy to review.  They’ll love you for it.You can even revisit any past Session Notes and add those retroactively, they’ll accordingly be added to their stash of Key Insights.

When your client clicks on a Key Insight, the full Session Notes from whence they came will pop right up, allowing them to jump right back into context.

You and your clients can also “star” any given Key Insight, making it easy to sort or filter down to only those that are starred, which is great for keeping present those that are most relevant week to week.

One click on, one click off. What’s the focus this week?

Clients will only see the Key Insights tab in their Session Notes area once there’s something there to see, so if you’re not into using those today, no worries!  They’ll be available for you to easily start with as a value-add whenever you’re ready.

In the lead up to launching Version 5.1 I got to experience having Key Insights as part of the mix:

Distilled bits of wisdom that helped focus my efforts of getting version 5.1 launched.

It was a treat, and it was effective. :)

If already you share Session Notes with your clients, add Key Insights to the mix to make them even better.

If you don’t, start.  Key Insights make writing good Session Notes dead simple, AND more valuable.

Your clients will love you for ‘em.

CoachAccountable 5.1 has now just launched!

This release is a collection of features designed to let you provide more delightful, difference-making experiences for your clients.

They are:

• Key Insights – Capture the essence of what they’re getting as a growing collection of memorable one-liners, ready to carry forward and easy to review.
• Reflections – Automatically insert your client’s earlier responses into later worksheets, Whiteboards, notes, and other content.
• Metric Templates – Make setup of Metrics super easy, and do so in a way that showcases and gets clients excited about what you can support them with.
• Default Client Landing Pages – Have clients upon login jump to a given Group or Course page when that’s the area of focus for their in-app experience.
• Pinning Stream Items – Pin key items to the top of any Client or Group Stream.
• New Worksheet Rules – Automatic deletion of old, incomplete assignments and new abilities for clients to modify already completed ones.

CoachAccountable Version 5.1 is all about the client experience, specifically giving you more power to deliver more delightful, on-point, and profound experiences for your clients.

Let me show you how!

» Continue reading “Version 5.1”