The CoachAccountable Blog

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?”

We often hear questions like:

• I coach two different types of clients. How can I quickly filter by type?
• Where can I see extra client information, like a birthday or spouse’s name?
• Can I add ‘tags’ to clients?

The great news is that CoachAccountable already has several spots to put extra client details (and filter by those criteria).

» Continue reading “3 Places to Put Extra Client Details”

For some time, coaches have been able to change the client page arrangement. This helped customize and streamline the system; you could, for instance, turn off the Journal tab if you don’t have your clients do journaling. That gives the coachee one less thing to look at, one less thing to click on or get distracted by.

However, that had its limitations. Many coaches work with distinct groups of people, some of which journal every day and some of which never journal. Before, you as coach had to determine the page arrangement for all of your clients with a master setting.

Now, you can set this arrangement on a per-client basis.

» Continue reading “Simplify a Client’s View with Individual Page Arrangement”

Sometimes coaches request to bulk onboard new clients into CoachAccountable. This can happen with a new account (when a company switches all its coachees over to CoachAccountable), or when a new program starts (suddenly 45 people in the cohort need to be added by Wednesday, help!).

Adding a client the usual way is pretty quick, but going one by one can get tedious when you’ve got more than a handful.  However, if you’re handy with a spreadsheet you can get all of their information in line and import it all with just a few clicks.

» Continue reading “Have a Bunch of New Clients? Bulk Import Them.”

I’m going to open this discussion with a quote:

With great power comes great responsibility.
– Voltaire (or maybe Spiderman, for some reason it’s not clear)

CoachAccountable gives you, as coach, great power to cause accountability, follow through, and ultimately results with the people you coach.  It can serve as a brilliant “auto nag” system that can gently guide your clients to act upon your coaching, doing so in a hands-off manner that takes the edge off any creepy feeling that you’re obsessing over what they’re doing (or not doing) in a given week.

» Continue reading “On Not Overwhelming Your Clients”