The CoachAccountable Blog

If there’s one thing that’s been made crystal clear to me over 6 years of providing an online coaching platform, it’s that people generally seek (and indeed, crave) having a single system that does EVERYTHING.

“An all-in-one solution” is a bit of a cliche, often an unattainable ideal.  But I don’t fault folks for wanting it, especially in a piece of software they use to run their coaching business.

Introducing CoachAccountable Offerings, a big step towards CA being that all-in-one unicorn for coaches.

Offerings started as the answer to a question we commonly get:

CoachAccountable’s scheduling system is great for my existing clients, but how can prospective clients use it to book with me?

For a quick, 3-minute video on how to set up Offerings, check out this article. Or continue reading below for the step-by-step and story!

Sure enough, CA’s appointment scheduling was only accessible to clients already set up within CoachAccountable.  To let prospective clients book themselves into, say, a complimentary intro coaching session from your website, one needed to use a similar scheduling system, like Acuity, ScheduleOnce, or vCita.

That approach did the job okay: the more basic nuts and bolts of scheduling new clients could be handled by the other platform, setting those new clients up in CA took little time and, once they were established, their appointments too could benefit from being more tightly integrated with the coaching itself within CA.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the desire to avoid having to set up and run (and pay for!) two separate scheduling systems.

Enter CoachAccountable Offerings

Here’s Offerings in a nutshell:

You, as a coach, have things that you offer up to the world.  Offerings allows you to let people sign up and/or pay for those things from your own website.

Pretty simple!  And pretty powerful.  To the many coaches out there who have expressed interest in allowing prospective clients book themselves, CA Offerings have that handled.  It can be a complimentary session or one that you charge money for.

But CA Offerings aren’t just about letting people book with you!  A given Offering that you set up within CoachAccountable can have any (or all!) of these three components:

1. Appointment scheduling (as mentioned) — A new client can be given the opportunity to pick a time for it from your schedule, nicely synced up with your calendar to prevent double-booking.

2. Group Membership — A new client can be placed in to one or more of your Groups within CoachAccountable, meaning your Offering can also be the stuff of selling membership into a group coaching experience.

3. Course Participation — A new client can be placed into one or more of your Courses within CoachAccountable, meaning your Offering can also be the stuff of selling coaching courses that are delivered automatically.

The fact that you can choose to charge money up front for any or all of these services makes CA Offerings not just a scheduling system for attracting new customers, but also essentially a simple e-commerce system for selling your coaching programs.

That you can offer both Courses and Groups as part of an Offering means this system gives you a way to create alternate income streams based on your coaching programs in addition to just your one-on-one work with clients, and this provides a nice, automated funnel for new customers who may choose later to upgrade into your more premium, one-on-one services.

I confess, my marketer brain is getting a little excited about all this, leading me to use a liberal amount of bolding of key phrases, but this is cool stuff, because it opens up powerful ways for coaching businesses of all sizes to make their programs more accessible and easier to buy.

This is the stuff of making coaching more mainstream, and I LOVE IT.

I hope you do too.

Right then, let’s take a look at how this works!

You’ll find the place to set up your Offerings in the Settings menu:

When you click the +Offering button you’ll be presented with a form that’s broken into several sections (that may make this seem like a cumbersome affair, but don’t worry: each section is super simple!).

The first section covers the Basics: the name of the offering, the information that should be collected from new sign-ups, and who should be notified.

Tip: Unless you’ve got good reason to do otherwise, I recommend keeping the amount of info you have the system collect to a minimum.  No need to make the process daunting or cumbersome!

If you’re on Team Edition you’ll also be able to choose which coach new sign-ups should be assigned to, at least initially.  In larger organizations, it works nicely to set this to the administrative figure who is responsible for ultimately pairing a new client with the most fitting coach.  This pairing can be based on, for example, an intake form the new client might fill out.  (Incidentally, having a Course that contains that intake form as part of this Offering is a lovely way to automatically set that sort of data collection in motion!)

The Components sections are simply your way of picking which ones apply:

• Which type of Appointment, if any, are they scheduling scheduling themselves into.
• Which Courses, if any, should be automatically started up for a new signup.
• Which Groups, if any, should the person signing up be automatically entered into.
• Which Worksheet, if any, should be filled out at signup.
• Which Agreement, if any, should be automatically presented to the client when getting into the system.
• Which Engagement, if any, should start tracking sessions and/or invoicing the client.

Here, for example, is what it looks like to choose Courses to be part of an Offering:

Enrollment into a Course is part of the deal? Great, pick which ones!

Even if you’re not in the business of offering “Coaching Courses” per se, this is still very useful to make part of an Offering: you can design a simple, perhaps even one day, Course that sets up key things that are generally suitable for all your new clients.  This can include things like:

• Intake forms
• Onboarding documents
• Welcoming materials (like a message or a video)
• Key “getting started” assignments and action items

Basically, this is the stuff of employing a Starter Kit Course to do basic setup of new clients automatically.

You might also find it useful to have a basic (and relatively informal!) course that spans a month or so, wherein again you can schedule out some of those basic bits of the “being coached by you experience” that are generally common to all your clients.  This is the stuff of leveraging a tasteful bit of automation; do so to free yourself up for giving more of the one-on-one love and attention that makes your coaching powerful.

After Components you can configure a price for your Offering:

“$200? But I thought we were working on the Complimentary Intro Session offering!”  True–just making these screenshots more interesting. :)

Super simple: make it complimentary or put a price to it.  If you set a price, you can opt to have the system automatically email an invoice (marked as paid!) to serve as a receipt of their purchase.  This can be in addition to, or in lieu of, a Confirmation Email.

Prices are in whichever currency your account is set for.  Be sure you’ve got that set up correctly before you configure any of this online selling stuff.

Speaking of configuring for online selling, you’ll need to link your CoachAccountable account with either your Stripe or Square account in order to charge for your CA Offerings.

Both are super simple to link, even if you don’t yet have an account with either.  I can’t speak to Square, but I can say from personal experience that you can get up and running with a new Stripe account within about 20 minutes and CA will take you right to where you need to go in order to do so (when you go to Settings >> System >> Client Invoicing Config).

The next two sections are the stuff of you setting up some nice welcoming content: a message to display directly to your new client upon completing signup, and (optionally) a confirmation email to be sent out immediately.

A few magic tags let you personalize this a bit.

This default content is nice but it’s almost certainly a worthwhile use of your time to customize this and make it really sing for your Offering: this is your chance to properly welcome them into the experience of being coached by you!

Including the [registerButton] magic tag is a nice touch here: this turns into a button that allows a newly signed-up client to register their account and access the system right away.  If you let them do that, it’s a good idea to have some form of Starter Kit Course be part of the Offering, so that the stage is properly set when they first get in.

Finally, you can set a particular Page Arrangement for clients who come in through this particular Offering. This is useful if you’re using CoachAccountable as part of your sales funnel, or if they’re purchasing a lower-priced bare-bones version of your coaching. This article has more on per-Offering Page Arrangement.

And that’s setting up an Offering!  Though I suspect having just one [that you make available on your website] will be a very common case, you can create as many as you like.

The Offering is Created, Now What?

When the Offering is created, close out the editor window and you’ll see it in the listing of your Offerings:

Oooh, embed code! Yeah, let’s get that.

The real magic of Offerings is, of course, being able to embed them into your website, so as to make them available to your prospective clients.

Find the Offering you wish to embed in your listing of Offerings and click “Embed code…” to get everything you need:

Widget hosted within your site, or perhaps you just want to link to the Offering’s dedicated page?

Note that when it comes to embedding your Offering, you’ve got a couple of options.  You can put a snippet of JavaScript in the HTML of one of your website’s page in order to put a widget there, and if you prefer (for whatever technical reason) you can get an iframe snippet to accomplish basically the same thing.

You can also simply directly link to a dedicated page at which your Offering is hosted.  Instead of stuffing a widget somewhere on your website, you can make, for example, a big button (or any other form of clickable link) that says “Book with me online now!”, that links to the provided URL.

Want to group several Offerings together and allow clients to choose the one that works best for them? Check out Offering Bundles.

Offerings in Action

What does it look like to someone going to sign up for (or purchase) your Offering?  Instead of just screenshots, how about we just show you directly by embedding one right here!  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a live demo might well be worth 10 thousand. :)

We at CoachAccountable have Offerings that we’re proud to make available to our customers (and even folks who are just trying out the system), and that is a personal session with a member of our support team.

CoachAccountable does an awful lot (ahem, more now with the introduction of Offerings!), and so it’s quite typically useful to have a one-on-one screen share to be shown around the system, especially because we can guide you to parts of the system that are specifically relevant to your style of coaching, and point out specifically those things you’re looking for in a coaching platform (this is dear to me personally, because it breaks my heart every time I get wind of someone saying “It’s too bad that CoachAccountable doesn’t do X” when IT TOTALLY DOES X.).

If you’d like to take us up on this offering, well, you can book that right here and now!

If you’d like to see this Offering on its dedicated, full-screen page, you’ll find it here. Note: this schedules a real-life appointment with our team! Accordingly, if you do sign up please use your true name/email, as it’s weird to show up for a meeting with ‘fsfeawe’!

URLs that directly link to your Offerings are super cool, because they are naturally far more portable (and easy to share) than an embedded widget.

Fun fact for current users of CoachAccountable: if the email address you provide in signing up for the above Offering lines up with the one you already have on file, you’ll be able to link your new Client account with your existing Coach account, i.e. be able to log into both with the same username and password.

This is kinda cool, what about Offerings for my existing clients?

You can embed (and link to) the Offerings you create wherever and from wherever you like, and thus while they’re not built to show up anywhere within the CoachAccountable app itself (yet… we’ll be listening for if that is wanted!) you can let your existing clients know that they can essentially “self serve” to sign up/pay for your other Offerings as essentially “add ons” to their coaching package with you.

If your client signs up with the same email they have on file with you, their doing so will have the effect of simply adding to that existing client account, whether it be scheduling an Appointment, taking a Course, or joining a Group.  Fun stuff!

A Big Piece of the Picture

All told I am delighted to finally have Offerings available for all CoachAccountable users, current and future.  Their presence means CoachAccountable is able to support the COMPLETE life cycle of a coaching client: from helping to attract a prospective one and getting them in the door, to supporting their work and progress during the engagement, and finally to leaving them with a great souvenir when it’s over.

May Offerings serve the business side of your coaching practice beautifully.

If you don’t already have a spiffy, all-encompassing coaching platform such as this helping YOUR coaching business, we highly recommend getting one. :)

In a coaching relationship, some things are appropriate for sharing with clients and some things are meant to be for internal reference only.  As such it’s vital for any online coaching portal to smartly manage who can see what, so as to both respect confidentiality AND accommodate collaboration.

CoachAccountable has long supported privacy settings on a per-item basis, allowing, for example, some Session Notes to be shared with/freely accessible by the client and others to be private, for the coach’s eyes only.  “Private” and “Shared with client” are handy options to have when making an entry in a client record.

Coaches in Team Edition accounts actually have 3 options for the privacy setting:

1. Private, for my eyes only.  Items that are just for the author’s reference, and not meant to be seen even by other coaches on the team.
2. Visible only to team coaches.  Items that are just meant to be internal to the coaching team.
3. Shared with client.  Items that are meant to be seen by the client in addition to members of the coaching team.

For quite some time these settings have been quite sufficient for the CoachAccountable community.  But a few weeks ago, CoachAccountable client Martin Hoyle shared some insightful perspective that I’d never considered before:

…if I share a session note with a client it can be seen by another team coach. Can I suggest you make that more explicit?

As a coach I’m not comfortable with this, as I believe that all conversations between me and my client (especially session notes) are confidential – even with regard to other coaches working with the same client. It doesn’t seem that there is an easy way to preserve this privacy within the system as it stands.

I’d always assumed that coaching teams within a given organization were more or less a fully united front, in that anything suitable for sharing with the client would as well be suitable to be seen by other coaches assigned to work with that client (not necessarily ALL coaches within the organization, of course, just those specifically paired with him or her).

Yet this bit of feedback made clear that that wasn’t always the case.  Thus I agreed that the system needed a 4th privacy setting: Just me and the client, for items that are suitable to share with the client but still to be kept confidential from any other team coaches, EVEN those coaches who are also working with the client and have access to their records.

So thus here we have sprinkled out through the system, wherever item privacy settings are relevant, a 4th option:

My thanks to Morgan for the grammar check: the first draft of this option was the less catchy and grammarically-inferior “Just client and I”.

It is my hope that this little addition will make easier and more clear the task of balancing confidentiality with collaboration.  My thanks to Martin, and as always to the whole community of CA users whose input continues to make the platform better than I ever could with my limited perspective alone!

Until now, you’ve been able to accept coaching client payments via Stripe. Today we’re pleased to announce that your clients can now also pay via Square!

As in the case with Stripe and Authorize.net, clients can pay your invoices directly inside the online coaching platform, rather than going to an external site.

Setup from within the CoachAccountable system is easy. Just navigate to Settings >> System >> Client Invoicing Config.

Here, select Square as your online payment processor.

Look at that big beautiful Square!

If you’re not logged in to Square, you’ll be directed to the Square login page.

This one should look pretty familiar!

If you are logged in, you’ll skip right over that one and see this next. Square will make sure you want CoachAccountable to have some permissions.

Please say yes – don’t make us get down on one knee!

And voila! The connection with CoachAccountable is complete.

CELEBRATE!! You WIN! Go get that money!

Now your money is going right into your Square account.

What Does This Payment Integration Cost?

It’s free on our end! CoachAccountable doesn’t take any cut of your payments. The only fees are what Square charges you.

Conveniently Save Card Information

As in the Stripe and Authorize.net payment process, your clients can have the system store their credit card information for future use. That makes those automatically recurring invoices a snap and takes them off your mind!

But is it secure? Yep – CA is just a pass-through. Just like coach subscription information, we never keep card details (other than what’s needed to identify the card for the client, such as the last 4 digits and expiration), but instead use a unique token. Square adds yet another PCI-compliant way of taking your customers’ payments through our online coaching tool.

Were you hoping for Square integration in order to sign up for your free 30-day trial of CoachAccountable’s coaching tool? Hop on board today!

At 5 and a half years, the old explainer video had a good run, and it did the job of explaining the gist of CoachAccountable well.  But it was a relic of my early days animation chops (not that they’ve come terribly far!), a shoestring budget, and indeed a much less sophisticated CoachAccountable (which HAS since come terribly far :).

So there was MUCH room for improvement.

I think we succeeded!  Thanks the artistic direction of Rob Fieldhouse of Playground Creative and the beautiful animations of Anastasiya Bulavkina I’m proud of this 2 minute and 45 second video that introduces this platform I’ve been building and evolving for so long.

Fun fact: it’s once again yours truly doing the narration.  We did an hour long studio recording with professional voice talent, and though her voice was great and the take essentially perfect, it just didn’t feel quite right.  Between polished professionalism and gritty authenticity I opted emphatically for the latter.  I just think that the enthusiasm spoken by a fellow coach who’s actually excited about the topic at hand resonated much more than someone who, ultimately, was just reading a script.

I think you’ll find it comes through.  Enjoy!

For some time now I’ve thought to myself it might be cool to be invited to speak at a conference, to share about what I’ve learned over the years in my quest to make coaching better by way of technology.

In late April Halli MacNab, incoming president of ACTO, the Association of Coach Training Organizations, reached out with a simple inquiry:

We had a presenter drop out – and are wondering if you are interested in a conversation about presenting at the conference – about the benefits of merging coaching with technology?

“Why yes, that sounds like fun!”  In our first conversation I was happy to report that that very subject was something I felt quite comfortable with and qualified to speak on.

I imagined I had to prep something like 20 or 40 minutes for my talk.  Turns out I had a 90 minute session to fill!  Right-o, then.  I got to work on crafting a suitable presentation (goodness knows at over 6 years into this endeavor I have sufficient things to talk about).

There’s something great about having to put together a work like this.  Like having guests over to your place (which prompts you to tidy up so as to make it suitable to receive those guests), crafting this talk forced me to organize a swirl of insights and ideas into a coherent narrative.  Just as those guests leave your home in a much nicer, more organized state, putting this talk together revealed some unexpected ideas that bring the whole of what CoachAccountable is all about into much clearer focus.

Two assertions that underpin pretty much the whole operation revealed themselves:

1. Technology has the power to make people better at being coached.
2. Technology has the power to make coaching more demonstrably results-based.

Assertion 1 is the stuff of having structures that help clients to actually apply the coaching to their lives, rather than leaving it to chance that the coaching will simply fade as just a bunch of really good ideas.  Assertion 2 is the stuff of making coaching more readily understood and its value more clearly evident, to win over the skeptics, prove the worthiness, and quell concerns that coaching is just a bunch of woo woo fluff.  Together they are the stuff of coaching being able to resonate with, and make a difference for, a much broader band of humanity.

I should mention at this point that Halli challenged me to make this talk essentially have nothing to do with CoachAccountable.  She wisely explained that nobody wants to attend a 90 minute commercial from a vendor, not even a well veiled one.  So this talk, rather than be a more straightforward exposé on CoachAccountable itself (“Hey, here’s the system I made, and here’s why it’s cool!”), was a deep dive into the underlying principles of HOW technology can be used to make coaching meaningfully better, and WHY it works to do so.  All of the abstract concepts, none of the concrete implementation.

If you’re curious, check out the slides.  They’re sparse on words but give a good sense of the ideas.

All told it was a delightful experience and a real treat to get acquainted with such a fine community of leaders in the coaching world.  My thanks once again to Halli and ACTO for inviting me to speak!

I’m hunched over the table to get more in frame, because super tall. Oh yeah, we had a table! That was fun.

Thanks to Brian Icenhower’s team for inspiring this new development for our online coaching tool!

You already had the ability to share a file with multiple people at once, but now you can share multiple files with multiple people at once, as well as share multiple files with a single person at once.

This can come in handy if, say, as part of onboarding a client you want to share all your files at the same time with her. Another use case might be if you have a Group that needs to be updated with your entire Library, and you want to skip the step of adding them to a Course that delivers all your documents (which would also require adding any new files to the Course).

Here’s how.

-Create a Group and add the appropriate members.

-From the Group Stream, click “+ File.”

-Select “Actually I want to share multiple files from my Library.”

-Use Shift and/or Ctrl keys to select as necessary.

To keep the Group up to date, you’ll just need to do the following:

1. When you add new clients, add them as members of the Group.
2. When you add new Library files, share them with all members of the Group.

And that’s it!

Sound like a good solution for managing your files and your people? Try CoachAccountable for free with a 30-day trial.

Here’s a feature you may not know already exists! Coaches (and clients) often ask whether CA’s online coaching platform has a downloadable app (from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and so on).

The answer is YES! But also no.

To clarify: CoachAccountable is a web-based app, meaning….

It’s Optimized to be a Mobile Coaching Tool

Version 3 is specifically designed to look great on any mobile device. CoachAccountable automatically resizes, consolidates menus, and just plain looks nice (and more importantly plays nice) on mobile devices.

No App Download Necessary

Your coachees don’t need to download anything. This also means no troubleshooting with things like “Do I have the most updated OS installed on my phone?” or “Did I install another app that’s breaking CoachAccountable, or vice-versa?” These simply aren’t issues.

BUT – Put it on Your Client’s Home Screen

You’ll want to have CoachAccountable installed on their home screens as soon as you invite them to the system, so that they can quickly log in.

Send clients HERE for simple instructions.

CoachAccountable will look like a regular app – clicking the app icon will magically go directly to the online coaching platform.

Fun fact: If you have White-Label Branding set up (and you should, because it’s now FREE), the app tile is YOUR logo and brand name, like this.

CouchReclinable teaches coachees how to really relax.

If you like the look of our coaching platform and think it’s cool, but you haven’t signed up for CoachAccountable yet, come on in and try it free for 30 days! We’re happy to help you get set up and answer any questions you have along the way.

CoachAccountable is a web-based app. That means you don’t need to download anything. However, it’s super helpful to have an app tile for it on your home screen, with one-touch access to your coach portal.

Here’s how to do it for Apple devices:

♦ Log into the system using Safari*. If it’s appropriate for your device, check the box next to “Keep me logged in.”
♦ Tap the Share button on the browser’s toolbar.
(This is the rectangle with an arrow pointing upward; it’s on the bar at the top of the screen on an iPad, and on the bar at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone or iPod Touch)
♦ Tap the “Add to Home Screen” icon in the Share menu (you may need to scroll down on the Share menu to find it).
♦ Enter a name for the shortcut and click Add.
♦ When you click the app tile, bam! You’re put right into your account.

*Note: This doesn’t work for Chrome, Firefox, or other browsers, so just make sure you’re in Safari when you Add to Home Screen. 

And for Android devices:

♦ Log in to the system, and if it’s appropriate for your device, check the box next to “Keep me logged in.”
♦ Tap the browser’s menu button and choose “Add to home screen“.
♦ Enter a name for the shortcut and your browser will add CoachAccountable to your home screen.
♦ When you click the app tile, bam! You’re put right into your account.

h/t GearBest’s steps for saving web-based apps to home screens

If you’re a coach in the European Union, you’ve probably already heard of the GDPR.

If you’re not, you’ve probably seen numerous relics of the GDPR over the last few weeks, namely in the form of emails from websites you use announcing a change in their Privacy Policies.

What’s it all about?  It’s the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

It’s a good bit of law, I think!  Oh sure, it’s caused it’s share of grousing and griping among businesses for how much work it’s entailed as everyone wades through legalese and policy in order to get compliant (myself included!).  But I view it as a step in the right direction for end users to have greater control over their data and privacy.

Basically, it demands of companies that they don’t do terrible things with individual’s data, and that all usage of such data must be documented and above board.  Companies must get explicit consent to use someone’s data for a given purpose, and that consent can’t be buried in a huge pile of indecipherable legalese.  End users must have some real control over their data, including the ability to delete it.

As individual, this sounds good to me.

As a company, CoachAccountable has never had any business trafficking in user data in unexpected or vaguely nefarious ways.  And our in-app “Delete” buttons really do delete data (much to the chagrin of the occasional coach who accidentally deleted an entire client record!).  So our compliance is largely a matter of paperwork: basically to document and agree to be legally bound to the very practices we’ve always adhered to.

What this means for CoachAccountable customers

First off, our privacy policy has been updated, much like the policies of everyone else.  I encourage you to check it out: like most privacy policies, it’s largely boring, BUT I’ve been happy to lay out clearly what data we collect and what exactly we use it for (and why).  Part of this updated policy is that CoachAccountable is registered and listed with Privacy Shield, which is basically a fancy way of saying “we actually mean everything we say in this policy, AND we’re in legal trouble if we don’t hold true to it”.

Yep, we attest that we really mean what we say in our privacy policy.

In other words, the privacy policy isn’t just flowery language. :)

Second, for our customers who work with anyone in the EU: by setting those clients up within your CoachAccountable account, the GDPR applies to you.  Part of that applying to you is that you need to verify that any partner involved in processing your data is ALSO above board when it comes to the GDPR regulations.

In this case, that’s CoachAccountable!  You need to verify that CA is handling your EU citizen personal data in accordance with the law, so that your handling of that data [by way of CoachAccountable] is in compliance with the law.

To allow you to do this, we’ve got a Data Processor Agreement (DPA) available.  The DPA essentially states that you (as controller of your client data) and CoachAccountable (as processor of that data) mutually agree to handle that data appropriately and in compliance with the GDPR; that we’ve each got our part to play for the lawful handling of data; and that we each take responsibility to do so.

Given the sweeping nature of the GDPR, we’ve updated our Privacy Policy (and Terms of Service) to include the DPA itself.

These terms apply only to the extent that your work is within the scope of the GDPR (i.e. work with any clients in the European Economic Zone).  You can find the CoachAccountable Data Processor Addendum here.

And that’s about it: an updated privacy policy and a DPA if you need it.

What if I’m not in the European Union?

If you coach anyone in the EU (or ever will) this still applies to you.  But if you don’t, then this very well might not mean anything to you.  One caveat to that, though: the GDPR mandates certain rights for citizens in the EU, as laid out in the privacy policy.  I’m happy to say that when it comes to CoachAccountable, these rights apply to everyone worldwide, and not just EU citizens.

GDPR looks to be a great way to better balance the rights of individuals against the companies they do business with.  There’s some work for those of us who handle the data of those individuals in order to reach compliance, but it’s reasonable and worthwhile.  We’ve done our best to make it easy as possible for coaches to be compliant in their handling of data with CoachAccountable!

Hey everyone–if you read my introduction just prior y’all know how I feel about Morgan, and how I’m excited for you to get to know her.  Now to get you guys more properly acquainted here she is to officially say hello. :)

–John

Hi, I’m Morgan! Nice to meet you, for those whom I haven’t already interacted with in the CoachAccountable coaching management system.

My story: Over a decade ago, one fateful swing dancing evening at Casa Loma Ballroom in St. Louis, Missouri, I met an incredible human on the dance floor.

In the first couple years of our friendship, he introduced me to transformational coaching programs. After giving myself a bunch of excuses, I signed up. As a coaching program participant I got back in touch with my parents (we hadn’t communicated in nearly two years) and created extremely close relationships with them, moved across the country to Los Angeles by myself, found the courage to leave a toxic relationship, and much more. Then, I moved into coaching the programs, where I cleaned up and expanded even more areas of my life. From that first night, this person has been there in the background through all these incredible changes, cheering me on.

Of course I’m talking about John, the founder of CoachAccountable. As he’s seen me grow and change, I’ve been fortunate enough to watch his coaching software do the same over the years, and I’m honored to now be a part of the team. I feel so fortunate to be part of a team that, underneath everything, is committed to changing humanity and being coachable, of course utilizing the great online coaching system we have! Oh, and getting to talk with one of my closest friends every day to keep each other moving forward – what else could I really ask for?

I suppose I should say a bit more about myself. I’m passionate about destigmatizing mental health, and to that end I write frequently about it – I currently have an ongoing column called Living a Blissful Life. Restoring antiques brings me lots of joy in my spare time, as do drawing, music festivals, and of course dancing. Oh, and if there’s any event with a costume involved, sign me up.

Professionally, I began as an art educator and artist before transitioning into non-profit management (first directing an educational program, then running operations for a trade association). I then pivoted into an entirely new way of helping people: tech support at an app startup. Interestingly enough, John coached me through some of these changes and decisions.

The career fit couldn’t be more perfect at CoachAccountable: I’ve been the only employee before, I’ve worked for several startups, I’ve worked remotely (and prefer it), I’ve specifically worked in tech support for a web-based app, and, most importantly for me, I’ve constantly sought positions where I can grow, learn, and make a difference. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this match sooner!

I’m looking forward to getting to know you all and supporting you in any way I can. Please reach out if you need anything, or just to say hi!