The CoachAccountable Blog

The other day we got the following question in an email to support:

…where would you recommend recording the main coaching goals and success measures for clients?  …  My current thoughts – top of session notes so they are always there as a reminder or maybe add them to a whiteboard? What do you think?

This is a common-ish question, the general wondering “Where do I store and track my client’s goals?”  Given how central goals are to a results-oriented coaching relationship, ostensibly it’s weird for CA to not just have a “Goals” area somewhere within the app.

The issue reminds of when my Philosophy of Science professor gave the following example in lecture one day when describing what a “category error” means:

Say you’re showing someone around campus to give them a tour.  You take them to the building where the chemistry department resides, you take them to the mathematics building, you show them the student union, the administrative buildings, and so on.  And they get impatient and say “Yes  yes, these are all well and good, but when can I see the university?”  That’s a category error.

So it goes with CA and goals for clients: one might expect a Goals area for recording such an important and central thing.  But that would basically be a glorified notepad for merely capturing words.

CA offers a twist on this: goals themselves can be recorded, yes, but they can also be set up as interactive things to work at.

Here’s how:

Actions

For goals that amount to things to get done and accomplish, those can be entered as Actions, each with their own due date and associated reminders to keep them top of mind of what there is to do.

Action Projects

For bigger goals with multiple steps to be taken, those Actions can be grouped together as an Action Project, complete with a spiffy progress bar that shows your clients getting closer and closer.

The goal here is clear: mark these items all done to fill up that progress meter!

Metrics

For goals and success measures that have a measurable, quantitative bend to them, setting up one or more Metrics for whichever measurable KPIs is the winning move. For a nice grounding on using Metrics effectively, read Why Metrics are Awesome.  To go deeper, check out the Coaching with Metrics Webinar.

You can measure all sorts of meaningful KPIs! The target trend line defines the goal.

Whiteboards

For capturing the long term, big picture stuffs of main coaching goals, Whiteboards are the perfect place.  Unlike Session Notes, Worksheets and Journal Entries, they’re not dated nor are ever marked “Complete”, so they’re evergreen and easy to access by you and your clients.  They admit ongoing edits by either party as things evolve.  They also keep the history of drafts, which can be nice to see the evolution of thinking and priorities over time.

Key Insights

And finally, yes, at the top of Session Notes in the form of Key Insights can be a good place too, as the sort of “Here are the things to focus on THIS week.”  You are able to sort these chronologically with the newest ones first, or star select ones as desired and having those float to the top.  Either is a great way to keep the more immediate goals top of mind.

Key Insights are often worth putting into regular practice, the doing of which is a worthy goal indeed!

So there you have it!  Where to put the goals?  The measures of success?  Like buildings that make up the university, the varied client functionality collectively house your clients’ goals AND success measures.  Beyond mere documentation, they pull for active participation: actual measurement and doing the work.

Over time these goals (as recorded/worked on) become a proud record of accomplishment, ready to share as a lovely souvenir of working with you.

While many coaches work with fully independent adults, and others with corporate entities as their customers, many CoachAccountable users work with students. Whether it’s tutoring in a particular subject, college study habits, or ADHD focus points, coaches often ask: how can I involve parents in the coaching process without breaking confidentiality?

» Continue reading “Working with Students”

One of the magical things of having CoachAccountable turn your coaching relationships into structured, documented experiences for your clients is that you (and they!) have a detailed window into how things are going: what’s been created, what’s been accomplished, and, to the point of driving accountability and execution, what’s getting done and what’s not.

A Client’s individual Client Page gives a detailed window into how progress is unfolding, and this can transparency lends power to your coaching calls.  You can skip the weather report and dive right in, thanks to heightened awareness of your client’s situation.

Thanks to the newly released Follow Through Reports, you can take this idea a step further and get an at-a-glance view of how ALL of your clients are doing, follow-through-wise, with their assignments. » Continue reading “Follow Through Reports”

If you’re coaching multiple people at a company, you’re likely already using CoachAccountable Companies. And if you productize your coaching into packages, you’re probably taking advantage of CoachAccountable Engagements. Now you can also put Companies into Engagements, in order to:

• Automatically invoice the Company on a regular basis
• Track how much of a package the Company has used
• Distribute the allocated appointments evenly over all coachees at a Company

Let’s take a look.

» Continue reading “Introducing Company Engagements”

We want clients to feel comfortable in their new coaching portal: clear about where things are, and tuned into why they matter.  A brief video tour that introduces clients to the portal is a powerful way to achieve that.

But making such a video can be a lot of work, and we’re sometimes asked if there was a sort of “template” starting point that folks can use as a leg up in the whole process.  Now there is!

» Continue reading “Making a Welcome Screencast for New Clients”

With CoachAccountable Engagements, you can allow only certain clients to book appointments within a package, and with Offerings you can let prospective clients book an Appointment Type that established clients can’t see (and vice-versa).

Emma, Chief Organizational Officer at Action Edge Business Coaching, asked about yet another level of appointment access customization:

Is it possible to restrict which clients are able to book a certain appointment type?

For example, we do 15-30 minute check in calls with employees of some of our clients. We don’t want all our clients to be able to access that. Is there a way to specify who can see this within the appointment types?

Introducing client-specific appointment access settings!

This is perfect if you, like Action Edge, have different types of coaching clients, where only some clients should have access to a particular type of appointment. Another great fit is coaches who have different levels of access (i.e. higher-paying clients get longer sessions), different areas of coaching, or even different locations (perhaps in-person meetings can happen, but only for certain individuals nearby).

Let’s take a look.

» Continue reading “Customize Client Access to Appointment Types”

Though not a hard rule it generally holds that, sooner or later, all coaching relationships come to an end.

When you’re done working with your client, you can deactivate them in CoachAccountable so that they no longer count towards your subscription plan.  This means they’ll no longer have any interactions with the system, BUT all of their data remains intact, ready for you to reference at any time AND ripe for picking up where you left off, should they ever come back to resume working with you.

It’s nice to give clients a souvenir of their time spent working with you.  The record of notes and accomplishments serves as a handy treasure trove of insights, and a compelling reminder of what they got out of working with you.

For years the Client Export file has been a nice, portable record that you could generate and send to your clients whenever you like, and moreover makes a fitting parting gift when the work is done.

But for those clients who are wrapping up this segment of work with you, you can do them one better in addition to that parting gift: you can keep your relationship with those parted clients a little more alive by enabling continued access to their CoachAccountable client portal with you, and do so WITHOUT having those no-longer-active clients count towards your subscription plan.

» Continue reading “Enabling Continued Access for Your Past Clients”

In a recent conversation with a coach, I heard the following request:

I want to nurture my clients through a very specific sales funnel.

1. They should come in through a basic, self-paced Course, which only includes a few items (Actions and Worksheets).
2. Then, if they want to (and have proven themselves as a good fit), at the end of the Course they can see what else is possible with the system and upgrade to Group Coaching.
3. After that, I want to upsell with my One-on-One Coaching.
4. (Optional) the big-ticket private mastermind.

How can I best use CoachAccountable to make this funnel happen?

Enter Offering-Specific Page Arrangement. Let’s take a look.

» Continue reading “Improve the Sales Funnel Journey With Offering-Specific Page Arrangements”

Common to many coaching relationships is the need to lay out specific terms, agreements, or contracts between coach and client.  Even though periphery to the real work that gets done in coaching, these agreements are often essential in laying down a foundation of trust, workability, and clear expectations.

Time to upgrade from this method, eh?

Such agreements typically include:

• Payment terms
• Cancellation & refund policies
• Confidentiality provisions
• What is expected of the client
• What can be expected of the coach
• Terms of engagement
• Disclaimers, dispute resolution, and other topics of legal significance

A clear understanding about all of these protects the interests of both parties, and a clear record of what exactly was agreed to (and when!) is handy in the event of a dispute.

To make managing the coach agreements that your clients enter into (as part of working with you) easy and effective, we are proud to present CoachAccountable Client Agreements.

Here are the broad strokes of what these provide:

Signatures, check boxes and more.  When a simple “I agree to the above” check box won’t cut it, you can add various inputs to your agreements for your clients to fill in.  Think places to type their initials or full name, check boxes to acknowledge agreement to essential terms one by one, and even signature pads that require clients to physically sign with their mouse, stylus or finger.

Multiple, customizable templates to suit your various client types and engagements.  Create one or more agreement templates with dynamic tags like [clientFirstName] and [dateOf], each one tailored to the various types of clients and programs you offer.  For instance, your group coaching clients might have different rates and terms than your one-on-one coaching clients, which are different still from your in-person weekend mastermind clients.

Issue with ease.  Issue agreements for new or established clients with a few clicks.  CoachAccountable handles the rest by presenting the agreement to your client to complete (at registration for new clients, and upon next interaction for those already established).

Clear and readily-accessible records for both parties.  Coach and client can both see the clear (and time-stamped) record of what was agreed to and when.

Integrity and immutability.  The existence of an agreed-to Client Agreement is strong evidence that a client ACTUALLY did agree to it.  Coach can’t stuff a client account with Agreements that weren’t agreed to, and coach can’t alter agreements that were agreed to earlier.  Only client logged in as himself can agree to a Client Agreement, and the IP address from which they made the agreement is recorded.

Effective replacement for document signing services. With a robust and flexible system for issuing and securing agreements for your contractual needs with clients, these allow you to retire services like HelloSign or Docusign; CoachAccountable is one step closer to being the only system you need to run your whole coaching business.

Let’s see them in action!

» Continue reading “Client Agreements”

One of the biggest reasons enterprise coaching organizations sign up with CoachAccountable is to have better oversight of team coaches. Are your coaches doing what you’ve asked them to? Are they delivering on what you’ve promised your clients?

CoachAccountable helps keep track of your coaching team:

• Share your content, files, Courses and more with them
• Set the types and lengths of Appointments each coach can offer
• Pair coaches with clients, limiting or enabling a coach’s visibility of your entire client roster
• Approve various permissions, for example to allow more autonomy for head coaches or admin users

And for reporting, you’ve already got several options:

• Client activity report, which can often be an early indicator of someone who’s struggling and could use a little intervention
• Appointment reports, which gives a window into appointment hours logged and basic stats
  
• Data Lab, where you can run a report on, say, a client satisfaction level question or see trends across clients over time
  
• Happenings Report, a regularly scheduled snapshot of interactions

And our newest addition to your team management tools: the Coach Touchpoints Report.

The Coach Touchpoints report allows you to see, at a glance, how often your coaches (or just you yourself!) make contact with every one of their clients. Here’s how to set it up.

» Continue reading “Are Your Team Coaches Delivering On Your Promises?”