The CoachAccountable Blog

“I close deals because I’ve got this thing.”

So said Greg to me when we’d met up for a beer some two years ago, referring to how having (and proudly touting) CoachAccountable as part of his deal really works as a selling point.

Hearing this gave me an idea: we should sit down and riff about it some time in the studio.  I finally got my act together and made that happen last month.

Some of the topics we covered:

• Keeping info straight & first impressions (02:30)
• Visibility & Accountability (06:53)
• Increasing perceived value (14:45)
• High touch interaction (17:08)
• Common struggles for coaches (20:56)
• Beyond the 2-day Workshop: value that lasts (26:16)
• Coaching at higher volume (31:20)

If you’re not sure you want to commit 42 minutes¹ to watching this, maybe the 2 minute teaser will help you decide.

Thanks Greg for taking time to chat and share your insight with others.  Greg’s a bit of a badass himself: he’s a Growth Coach franchisee and has set the organization record for fastest start, as measured by sales, in his first 2 years.

In other words he’s a pretty good source on how to build and run a thriving coaching business.  To apply his wisdom to running a better practice for yourself go get your 30 day trial.

Do you offer live workshops? Wonder how you could possibly use an online coaching software for in-person workshops? Wonder no more!

Dr. John Kenworthy of Leadership AdvantEdge, CoachAccountable’s customer #1, recently sent over some practical how-to (and WHY) advice on using CoachAccountable for live workshops. He also shared great perspectives on protecting intellectual property while using an online coaching platform.

We’ve edited this guest post for length and clarity – enjoy!

» Continue reading “How to Use CoachAccountable for a Live Workshop (Plus IP concerns!) – Guest Post”

Lynton’s been a power user of CoachAccountable since early 2016, using it to deliver courses to hundreds of his clients.

He’s out of the UK; we’d never talked on the phone, let alone met.  But we’ve had plenty of exchanges: on account of his geography (namely 7 hours ahead) and power user status (namely giving lots of CA Courses to clients in varied time zones) he stumbled upon a few niche bugs in how CA handled the timing of delivering course materials, allowing me to fix them and helping to build a more perfect CA.

Lynton reached out to me last month, letting me know he was going to be traveling for a while and asking me if he could export his files/setup so that he could pickup with it when ready to resume.

» Continue reading “Hanging with Lynton Dell”

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. 

» Continue reading “User Spotlight: Valkyrie Athletics”

Do you scratch your head wondering how other coaching businesses scale beyond just one coach, and whether CoachAccountable can help you get there? Anissa Fulbright of Icenhower Coaching and Consulting graciously offered an inside peek into their rapid development. We’ve edited Anissa’s words below for length and clarity.

Brian Icenhower

The Origins of Icenhower Coaching

Brian’s been coaching for 20+ years. We have this belief that people learn in their own way[s]: touch workbooks, watch videos, print the materials, listen to a podcast or an audiobook. They’re busy, [but they need] access to these materials in different ways.

[For example], we have audiobooks; [clients say] “I’ll do it while I’m on the treadmill.” We accept [those various learning styles and used them] to make training that was versatile and up-to-date.

» Continue reading “User Spotlight: Icenhower Coaching”

I had the opportunity to interview Janice Lichtenwaldt, founder of I Am Virago, about her business and her experience using our coaching software. We talked for an hour and certainly could have continued on, so naturally I’ve edited for length and clarity. Enjoy!

What is Virago?

Virago is a derogatory word for an aggressive, powerful woman, [but] it used to be a title of honor in Rome, and I want to take it back.

My mission is focused on helping women come into their fullness of being. Everybody has a different definition of what is satisfying for them, so the idea behind I am Virago is to explore all of the ways you want to show up in the world, find one that speaks to you, and be unafraid to go after it.

Success for I Am Virago will be [when] women aspire to be Viragos, and little girls are saying, “I want to grow up and be a Virago.”

» Continue reading “User Spotlight: I Am Virago”

The other day I got to do one of the most satisfying things of my job: go hang out and collaborate with a bunch of CoachAccountable users, specifically ones who are keen to use our online coaching platform to support a sizeable undertaking.

I first made the acquaintance of Patrick Howe in the fall of 2016, when he reached out to explore if CoachAccountable would be a good fit for his Spotlight Coaching Academy, a program to support and train the sales teams of one of Comcast’s internal divisions.  Five months later, after a bevy of calls and due diligence measures, they were all signed up and off to the races (them’s corporate sales, amiright? :).

» Continue reading “Hanging with the Comcast Spotlight Crew”

Most of the time, I interact with CoachAccountable customers through phone, email, or screen share. While I think those are all perfectly acceptable forms of communication, I relish the opportunity to meet with one of our coaching portal customers face to face. Getting to know coaches is one of the perks of my work, and the best way to do so is in person.

That opportunity — my first — came up the other week. David Frank Gomes, of Life Compass Coaching, emailed John to ask a couple of questions. David recently joined the volunteer board of Create Change, a charity working to empower girls and youth in Canada and Ghana, and he wanted to know how to best set up program participants in CoachAccountable.

» Continue reading “My First In-Person With A CoachAccountable Customer”

I first made the acquaintance of Tambre Leighn about a year ago.  She had a trial account and was poking around, and asked some of the big questions.  Language translations?  Content licensing?  Independent branding for sub-accounts?

It was clear that she had big intentions.  A month later I was on a conference call with Tambre and a few of her colleagues, featuring more hard hitting questions concerning security, infrastructure, reseller arrangements, and oh by the way how well could your system handle 10- or 20-thousand users all doing the same program¹?

I let her know afterwards it was a pleasure to be on that call, being hit by the big questions is the stuff of having my creation be under serious consideration for the sake of serious plans.  To this she replied:

When you lose the love of your life, the only thing left to do, if you’re me, is to play the biggest game ever inspired by his legacy. 14 million plus survivors, many struggling with the collateral damage of cancer, are out there in need. Yes, big is fun and awesome…more to come ;)

And that was my first real taste of the passion and flair driving the Well Beyond This program.

» Continue reading “Hanging with Tambre Leighn”

A few weeks ago a CA user, about a month in on his Team Edition account, sent me a support request note that simply read:

Can I hire you or someone on your team to build out our system?

To this I replied:

Depends on what you need.  In an ideal world I would be able to get you guys up and going with an hour or two of collaboration, and I’m happy to do that gratis.  If you’re looking for more than that I’d have to see what exactly you need.

Give me a call whenever convenient today and I’ll see what I can do to get you sorted!

We were talking shortly thereafter, and while I like to think that just a little direction over the phone is all anyone needs to set up even really sophisticated programs, it was after about 20 minutes I was asked if I could come out to work with the team directly, next week, if possible.  “That would be ideal.  We’re at a breaking point with scaling up our programs and we really need to nail our setup to have things go smoothly.”

I quick checked my schedule and confirmed that an overnight would be alright with the Mrs. (‘cuz you know, we’ve got a little one and I don’t want to ride roughshod over my wife being saddled with full-on Kira duty), and then sent back the thumbs up.  Within minutes my flight and hotel were booked, and my day rate was paid, half-day plus a half-day.

This was my first taste of doing business with Garrett White of Wake Up Warrior.  I immediately liked his style. » Continue reading “Onsite Consultation with Wake Up Warrior”