The CoachAccountable Blog

Sometimes a simple misunderstanding reveals a good idea I never thought of.

In this instance of Delightful Collaboration that good idea came from David Green of LeadershipMARC, who forwarded me a URL for a page on CoachAccountable and wondered how to have that page be without the name of one of his clients:

The name is a fake but the branding is real.

I explained the misunderstanding, that this link was meant only to be the special page for his client to register her account (and that since that registration was already done, that’s why a login shows instead).  He countered with a most sensible expressed desire:

But I am looking for a landing page like that off of my website.

It’s a very good look.

Please tell me it’s possible.

Prior to this moment that screen, in all its customized, white-labeled glory, was only meant to be a one-off experience for clients.  But indeed it is a snappy login page, and a useful alternative to embedding a small login widget on one’s own site.  Immediately I agreed that it should be available to serve as coach’s own login page for their system, and took about 15 minutes to cook up a client-neutral variation:

Fit for any client of a given coach to login, branded to match his or her white-label settings.

Then I sent this reply:

David, I gotta hand it to you:

That’s a REALLY good idea.  So I’ve cooked up just that for you.  If you go to My CA >> My System >> White-Label Branding you’ll find a new piece there, “Customized Login Page”.  There you’ll find a magic link that is suitable for linking to as a branded, general purpose login for your clients.

Thanks for making the request, I imagine many other coaches will enjoy it as well!

I hope that they will!

A few weeks ago I got a request from one of the coaches on CoachAccountable:

I set myself up as a client and am essentially coaching myself.  I setup metrics to daily enter things from productivity level to weight lost.  I wondered if there was a way to have ourselves in the system but have it not count against our total clients?  It has helped me better understand how to use the tool with clients but as I get closer to ten clients I hate to have to pay for the higher tier.  Is there already a way to use the tool for ourselves or is this a possibility in the future?

At first I didn’t give this request much heed: doing extra coding and adding complexity to the system to have it track which client is technically the coach him or herself didn’t seem appealing, just to accommodate the (overall) rare event that a coach coaching themselves would push them over the threshold of the next subscription level.

But then I meditated on it, quite literally.

» Continue reading “Delightful Collaboration III – Coach Yourself”

A few weeks ago I reached out to a coach who was new to the system to see how it was going for him.

Though “so far so good” was the overall message, part the feedback was this:

There are a few issues. Can I send Audio (.mp3) or videos thru the system? It would be terrific to integrate links to sugar sync or dropbox folders so as to not get heavy on the files I send.

At first glance my answer was clear, of course!  I proudly began to type out my reply:

You’ve got a few options for sending audio and video though the system.  You can upload those files into your library once (My CA >> My Library) and then share them with clients with a few clicks on the Files tab of their respective client pages.  Or in your case (and this might be better as you’ve already got your files already online) you can share links to those files with your clients via CA in, say, a journal entry or as part of a worksheet assignment, or in a Stream comment.

As I wrote this I got to thinking this was actually a lackluster answer, and I was surprised to realize it.

» Continue reading “Delightful Collaboration II – Externally Hosted File Sharing”

As a single coach, my experiences can run a reasonable size of the gamut of all possible coaching scenarios, techniques, and structural setups.  Still, there’s no question that my familiarity falls well short of the 100% mark: there are a ton of ways of doing things that I’ve just never considered.  Thus it is delightful with other coaches share with me what they’re doing in their practice, insomuch as CoachAccountable might be able to help.

The Delightful Collaboration Series is accounts of when users of CoachAccountable reach out to me and say things to the tune of “Hey, this is nice but can you make it do…”.  On these occasions I get a glimpse into the coaching practices of others, and get familiar with [potential] uses for the software that I hadn’t considered myself but would be a big win for someone else.  I take these as suggestions of how I might tweak or build upon the current CoachAccountable.

» Continue reading “Delightful Collaboration I – Long Term Goals & Progress”

What can this blog do for YOU? Firstly, the obvious news about CoachAccountable. However, we’ve got something even juicier for you: lessons on how to be a better coach.

Check out “The Essentials” to the left (or below on smaller screens!).  These are the best-of articles for coaches looking to up their game. Surf these and immediately start using CA like a pro.

Whether you’re just starting your free 30-day trial to see if CA is right for you, or months in and seeking mastery, The Essentials series gives you new ways to be a great coach.

If you read nothing else here, check out The Essentials.

Hungry for more?

Dive into our other series!

User Spotlight

Coaches just like you who have improved their businesses with the CoachAccountable coaching management system.

• User Spotlight: Icenhower Coaching
• User Spotlight: Valkyrie Athletics
• User Spotlight: I Am Virago, Executive Women’s Coach
• How CoachAccountable is giving me 100 extra days this year
• Hanging with the Comcast Spotlight Crew
• Hanging with Tambre Leighn of Well Beyond This, a program for cancer survivors
• Meeting CoachAccountable’s Customer #1
• Customer Raves: Twila Gates, RN and ADHD Coach
• Onsite Consultation with Wake Up Warrior
• Customer Raves: Michael Leahy, Sexual Addiction Coach

Delightful Collaboration

We love working with our community to make CA even better. When you provide input, we may run with it and incorporate it into the platform! These are changes brought about by YOU, our customers.

• Delightful Collaboration I – Long Term Goals & Progress
• Delightful Collaboration II – Externally Hosted File Sharing
• Delightful Collaboration III – Coach Yourself
• Delightful Collaboration IV – A Spiffy, White-Labeled Login Screen
• Delightful Collaboration V: Appointment Enhancements and Client Abilities
• Delightful Collaboration VI: Getting Right-Brain Friendly
• Delightful Collaboration VII – Course Whiteboards
• Delightful Collaboration VIII – Setting Location and Description for Appointments
• Delightful Collaboration IX – Smarter At-A-Glance Displays
• Delightful Collaboration X – Client Activity Stats
• Delightful Collaboration XI: Client Present Mode
• Delightful Collaboration XII: Smarter Links to Course Items
• Delightful Collaboration XIII: Client Links from Happenings Reports
• Delightful Collaboration XIV: Appointment Series Scheduling for Clients

Happy Birthday, CoachAccountable!

The year-in-review of CA: see how CoachAccountable has developed during the previous 365 days.

• Happy 13th Birthday, CoachAccountable!
• One. Dozen. Years.
• Happy 11th Birthday, CoachAccountable!
• CoachAccountable’s First Decade
• 9 Years: Happy Birthday, CoachAccountable
• CoachAccountable Turns 8 Today!
• CoachAccountable Turns 7
• Happy Birthday CA! Let’s Recap Year Six.
• Five Years
• Happy Birthday, CA–It’s been 4 Years Now!
• Happy Birthday, CA: CoachAccountable’s Now 3!
• CoachAccountable turns 2 today!
• Happy Birthday, CoachAccountable!

Major Milestones

Big announcements of major releases and more.

• August 2023: Version 5
• August 2020: Version 4
• November, 2017: Version 3
• September 2015: Introducing CA Mobile
• July 2014: Team Edition
• October 2013: Introducing CoachAccountable Groups
• November 2012: Introducing CoachAccountable Courses
• August 2012: Relaunched! Introducing CoachAccountable 2.0

Fun Riffs by (and About!) the Team

Who are we, anyway? Satisfy your curiosity – have a look at the team behind all of this and how we roll.

• For Three Hours Each Week, Morgan’s the Boss
• Hello, I’m John
• Introducing Morgan, Director of Customer Love and Hand Holding
• Why Version 3 Was Kept Secret
• Reaching out to People is Awesome
• Terms of Awesome

PhotoShopped cakes with a text layer for the candles 4eva.

The number 13 has a bit of a reputation.  But from a longevity standpoint of this enterprise, I’m feeling pretty lucky.  In these last 365 we here at CA got a whiff that, yes, even coaching platforms die.  Meanwhile, CoachAccountable keeps merrily humming along. » Continue reading “Happy 13th Birthday, CoachAccountable!”

Easiest switch up from last year’s cake ever: I just changed the 8 to a 9 in a Photoshop text layer.

Goodness me, has it been another year already?  I don’t know about y’all, but this is the longest I’ve ever stayed put at a single job. :)-

As has been the case now 8 times before, I’m again delighted at all that we’ve put out in service of the coaching community during the last 365.

CoachAccountable has progressed on a number of fronts.  Perhaps most popular has been the addition of Course Pages and other course enhancements, which collectively put CoachAccountable Courses very much on the level with popular LMS platforms.

The addition of CoachAccountable Companies enables coaches and coaching organizations to effectively interface with client companies, including company invoices, company-wide engagements, and even allowing company personnel their very own way to log in and keep up to date within CA itself.

The addition of alternate appointment availabilities, schedule nudges, and a other ergonomic enhancements further closed the gap between CA’s Appointment Scheduling and other popular scheduling apps, making it possible for even more folks to drop yet another app.

We added a number of features that enable powerful new ways of interacting with clients, including Client Present Mode to make screensharing during sessions a great idea, and Worksheet Answer Comments to allow easy sharing of laser-focused feedback.

Perhaps most meaningful of all, we mapped out several dimensions of how to be a more powerful coach, including being accountable beyond baseline integrity, how to execute novel ways of wowing prospects into paying clients, and even elevating the pedestrian act of taking session notes to an art form.

These are novel dimensions that are not really taught in typical coach trainings, and we couldn’t be happier to be able to contribute to the delight that your clients’ experience of working with you, and do so in ways that go beyond the conversations themselves.

Speaking of going beyond conversations, one other big thing that got shipped during CoachAccountable’s 9th year is a completely new 8-email course that folks can sign up for when first getting an account.  It’s titled “Beyond Mere Conversations: The Magic of a Platform Supporting Your Coaching”.

It really kinda all falls under these umbrellas, doesn’t it?

This replaces the old course, “Coaching with Software: How to use Technology for Superior Results”, which I originally wrote over about 3 days in the Euro Cafe in Granada, Nicaragua back in October, 2012.  That one held up well, but in the intervening years it would be fair to say that CoachAccountable has gotten much more advanced.  So a new telling of the story of what CA brings and how to use it is very much in order.

All told, doing our thing in service of the coaching community remains very much a labor of love.  In spite of whatever chaos has been unfolding amid world events, Morgan, Jaclyn and I agree that there’s always a sort of calm respite in creating good in our little corner of the world; and we are honored to serve the vital, world-changing work that you all do.

Here’s to another year!

When it comes to tracking who’s doing what and when, CoachAccountable is by and large concerned with the doings of the clients, and making it as easy as possible for coach to support those doings.

So when action plans are made (more often, co-created by coach and client in the course of a session), those plans are generally meant for the client to execute.

And yet, it is not uncommon for coach to undertake certain tasks in service of her clients.  Effectively, these tasks are promises made to fulfill her end of the working relationship.

To support that, CoachAccountable now allows coaches to create Action items that are designated for coach to do, rather than client.  In other words, Coach Actions enter the mix along side the more conventional Client Actions.

Let’s see how they work!

» Continue reading “Coach Actions”

Whiteboards are a great place to keep a living document – perhaps an evolving business plan, a 5-year outlook, or a list of suggested reading materials. Until now, you’ve been able to keep your own Whiteboards, collaborate with an individual client on them, and share them via Courses.

Now the members of a Group can collaborate on a Whiteboard. Let’s take a look.

» Continue reading “Group Whiteboards”

You know I can probably fit like 2 or 3 more on there.  Re-gifting might be a sin, but re-caking?  Totally fine.

Oh jeez, someone ordered the wrong sash for Mr. CoachAccountable, it was supposed to say “Happy Birthday”. Oddly he doesn’t seem to mind.

CoachAccountable’s fourth year of existence since the 2.0 release got off to a groovy start with the release of CA Mobile, the appy experience of CoachAccountable for coaches and clients but without the hassle of having to find and download anything from an app store.

Then in January CoachAccountable got a named shout out in the Acknowledgements section at the end of the New York Times best seller book Always Hungry, for which CoachAccountable served as the platform for the pilot program upon which the book is based.

Tambre Leighn and company chose CoachAccountable as the delivery and community platform for their cancer survivors program, Well Beyond This. That CA Groups serve as a support group medium for participants makes this a project for which I am deeply honored to be a part of.

Along the way there has been the usual bevvy of enhancements and expansions to the system, including Course Whiteboards, Unit-Based Courses, Worksheet Image Prompts, and Form-Based Session Notes.

Beyond that it’s been busy times as the platform continues to grow and evolve to serve ever larger organizations and programs, so much so that my days as a one-man shop have come to an end.  The need for assistance to keep up has prompted me to create the new Director of Customer Support and Hand Holding position.  I’ll be introducing him in this space very soon.

Year 5 promises to be the biggest leap forward for CoachAccountable yet.  As usual I have much more up my sleeve to better the platform in order to better forward and serve the industry and the many talented coaches working to produce great results.

My many heartfelt thanks to coaches and organizations who continue to try out CA and find it a win for their work, here’s to another year of great coaching!