The CoachAccountable Blog

The standard approach for letting CA know when you’re open for clients to schedule with you works pretty well.  You define your “typical week” (for example, something like “Mondays from 9 to noon, Tuesdays and Thursdays 2 to 5pm”), sync with your calendar of choice (so CA knows to carve out those specific times when you’re otherwise busy), and you’re done!  That leaves you with a routine set of blocks in a typical week, minus whatever time you’ve got blocked off for vacations/the odd dental appointment/whatever else comes up.

It takes all of about 5 minutes to set up, and serves as a 90% solution year round.

But SOMETIMES temporary variations on this theme apply, wherein from week to week you might need to deviate from your typical availability.  Perhaps your schedule’s opened up a little, or you’re working remotely in a different timezone, or you just want to try out a new schedule to see how it works.

For this CoachAccountable now allows you to define alternate availability rules that temporarily override that of your typical week.

In Settings >> Appointment Config >> Typical Availability, where you set the times you’re generally available each week, you’ll see an additional button, + Alternate Availability. 

Set the time frame you’d like this to apply to – either one particular week, or over a specific date range.

Then, select your availability by day during this time frame. Note that you’ll start with an exact copy of your current Typical Availability; add or subtract from that as desired.

Note that from here you can add another Alternate Availability – so if you’re someone whose schedule changes week to week, you may want to set several of these for the next few weeks.

Overlapping and Overriding

A couple things to keep in mind as you use the newly expanded appointment scheduling specificity:

• Alternate Availabilities take precedence over Appointment Type-specific Availability, meaning if an Alternate Availability applies for a day in question, an Appointment Type-specific availability rule will be ignored.
• If two Alternate Availabilities happen to overlap in time and apply to the same day, well… the system won’t stop you but to avoid confusion you’ll probably want to avoid doing that!  If you do it anyway, CA will use whichever one starts closer to that day (i.e. the one with the later start date).
• If you define two or more Alternate Availabilities that start on the same day, you’re definitely asking for trouble and CA gets to choose. :)
• If no Alternate Availability applies for a day in question, CA will use the Availability set for the given Appointment Type, if any.
• If none of those apply, the Typical Weekly Availability will be applied.

And that’s it! We’ve heard that this addition was the one thing keeping some users of Acuity, Calendly, or ScheduleOnce from fully switching over to CoachAccountable for scheduling, so we’re delighted to now meet all those needs.

Engagements are CA’s way of allowing you to track a clients progression through an allocation of appointments (e.g. 10 hours or 12 sessions), with the option to add recurring invoicing and timely notifications along the way.

When we first launched Engagements, Engagement notifications only came in one flavor: coaches could schedule a notification based on progress through the Engagement allocation (e.g. “Hi Morgan, you have 3 appointments left. Here are the ones you’ve had so far…”).  Later on, and by request, we added the option for time-based notification (“Hi Morgan, you’re now 30 days into your Engagement…”).

Based on the feedback you’ve given us we’ve now added a third flavor of Engagement notification: Schedule Nudge.

A Schedule Nudge will notify you or your client when it’s been a certain number of days since the last appointment, specifically when there’s still nothing else scheduled on the calendar. Setting these serves to alert you (or your client) when things are ostensibly stalled out in your coaching relationship and prompt scheduling of the next session, and you can use this to keep the momentum in the coaching relationship going. The automated nature of these nudges means the system can now step in so you don’t have to.

Let’s take a look.

Set Up a Nudge

From Settings >> Engagements >> Engagement Templates, open up a template and head to its Notifications tab.

Notice the spiffy new + Schedule Nudge button.

Three flavors, mix and match as you like!

When you you add a Schedule Nudge, you’ll see the typical option to choose between notifying coach or client.  Then, simply enter after how many days since the most recent appointment you’d like the nudge to go out:

When you hover over the word “appointment” you’ll get a bit more detail on what this means: these notifications go out ONLY when there’s some allocation remaining in the Engagement, AND there are no future appointments scheduled.

You can set several of these.  We recommend one for your clients, and then one for you as coach 1 to 3 days later, so that you’ll have a heads up with which to intervene if your client STILL hasn’t scheduled an appointment in response to the nudge.

How far out should you set these?  We recommend whatever would generally ensure the typical cadence of your sessions.  If you’re one to have your sessions every month, setting a nudge for your clients 21 days after the last one is apt to work well to keep that cadence (i.e. they’d have another week or so to get on your calendar).  Or you might, as a general rule, encourage them to keep generally on top of having their next session with you scheduled, meaning 1 or 2 days out could be more fitting.

Whichever way you do it, the system will always re-compute when the next nudge should go out per the ones you set.  When an upcoming appointment is scheduled, moved or cancelled, the send date for the nudges will recalculate accordingly.  Unlike the other two flavors of notifications, these nudges will reset themselves (and potentially be sent multiple times, as needed) over the life of the Engagement.  By bringing up the Engagement summary you can always review when these nudges are slated to send, based on what is (and isn’t!) scheduled on the calendar.

New Message Template

This sort of notification entails some verbiage that is distinct from the other Engagement notifications (which are more of a progress summary).  Accordingly, you’ll find a new message template ripe for customization. Go to Settings >> System >> Message Templates, and select “Engagement Schedule Nudge Notification.” It’s a simple one, to be sure, but includes a magic tag that is itself a schedule link that puts your clients one click away from scheduling with you. You can even change the text of the [scheduleLink] tag if desired (we’ve set it to “Click here to schedule.”, but feel free to get creative).

Alternate text for that schedule link you might consider is “Get crackin’ already, I’m dyin’ to talk and hear what’s new!” According to our research here at CA Labs, personality-laden copy seems to be received even better than more standard, “professional” variants. :)

And that’s it! Here’s to continually improving CoachAccountable with your help; we hope you’ll enjoy this additional way to keep your clients’ coaching momentum going.

Starting today is ICF Australasia’s 2020 Transform virtual summit, a 4-week long conference for coaches spanning 40 events, and we are proud to be a sponsor of it.

Spread out on the calendar as it is, it’s not too late to get tickets and there are plenty of great talks coming up (among others, Morgan and I are excited for tomorrow’s talk by Benjamin Harvey on effective ways to package your coaching services¹).

As part of being a sponsor, we were invited to make a presentation to share with the attendees.  I had fun making a little on-camera riff introducing who we are and what we’re about with our ultimate end game goal, making coaching mainstream.

To date, it’s the most poignant survey of what CoachAccountable has to offer members of the ICF, and it’s nice to have finally put something together that directly talks to that community.

Enjoy!

Leadership coach Laura Tucker is the host of the Free Your Inner Guru podcast.

What I love about Free Your Inner Guru is that the conversations are broad reaching and touch on so many areas of life: I always find the ideas talked about giving me fresh perspective or insight into whatever challenge I’m dealing with. Between refreshing nuggets of wisdom and the soothing ambiance of each episode (thanks to the music and voice of the host), it’s like a spa visit for your brain.

Laura herself has been a longtime user of CoachAccountable, and a savvy one at that.  (Indeed, how she weaves CA into her website with a client login and prospective client scheduling is a model specimen of doing it right!)

So I was deeply honored to be invited on to be a guest to talk about CoachAccountable, the entrepreneurial journey thereof, and the impact we’re looking to make on coaching through it.

Among other things, we riff on my initiation into the coaching world via programs with Landmark Education, the meandering path of getting CA from version 1 to something actually good, why Facebook is garbage (at least as a platform for coaching groups), and how staying oblivious to your “competitors” helps you do your best work.

Give it a listen!

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.

Within the Manage Client area for a given client, click on Settings and you’ll see a new tab: Appointments.

The first section, Self-Scheduling, looks familiar from Engagements, and allows you to make individualized exceptions to your general account settings for Engagements.  Learn more about those options here.

The second section, Appointment Types, allows a more granular breakdown of exactly which types of appointments this person can schedule. Select “only appointments of the following types”, and you’ll see a listing of all your available Appointment Types appear. Make your selections, then save.

For Team Edition accounts, you’ll notice that the list includes Appointment Types available for all of the coaches the client is paired with. This allows further granularity: even if Mikayla has four coaches, perhaps she’s only allowed to schedule with three of them, and you can make those selections accordingly.

That’s all there is to it – a small but mighty way to further dial in your appointment settings!

If you only ever work with/are hired by individuals, you can probably ignore this.

But if organizations hire you to work with one or more individuals, CoachAccountable Companies are for you.

With CoachAccountable Companies, you can:

• Organize your individual clients by company
• Invite Company Personnel to have their own accounts within the the system
• Invoice the organization, rather than the individuals you are coaching

Let’s see how this works!

Setting up Companies

As hinted at earlier, Companies aren’t relevant for all coaches.  So in the interest of not cluttering anyone’s coaching platform unnecessarily, these are by default turned off.  To get started visit the My Account page >> Add Ons and enable Companies:

Just flip the switch and you’re on your way.

Companies are available only in Version 4, so if you don’t see these you’ll need to switch over first!

Once enabled, you’ll have the new Companies tab, either on your home dashboard page (for single coach accounts) or on the team administration page (for team accounts):

Here is where you’ll eventually find the listing of your companies, and the individuals in each.

Creating a company is simple.  Just give it a name, and, on Team Edition, indicate which person on your team is the primary liaison (more on that below):

Once it’s created, you can enter an address for the company (for your records, and also to appear on invoices for that company) and upload the company logo.

Tying Clients to Companies

When you have one or more Companies, you’ll have the option to associate a new client with one as part of adding that person:

A simple relationship: a given client is either unaffiliated, company-wise, or belongs to one of the companies set up in your account.

This company affiliation can also be set from the Client Manager pop-up, under Basics.

From your Active Companies listing, clicking on a given company takes you to the respective Company Page:

Here you’ll find all things pertaining to a company.

Here’s where companies shine as a way to organize your clients: the client listing is pared down to those from that company, and appointments and reports are filtered along the same lines.

Other client lists, like for a given coach or for an entire Team Edition account, show company affiliations with the company’s logo.  Filter your client listing to only include a particular company by searching for the company’s name.

Inviting Company Personnel

To me the most exciting new possibility with Companies is your ability to create user accounts for personnel.  Personnel are members of a company you aren’t necessarily working with directly, yet who have a vested interest in the work you’re doing nonetheless.

Adding personnel is much like adding clients or other team members: only name and email address are required, and you can send an invite email immediately or later (you’ll find a new “Invite New Company Personnel” email template in Settings >> System >> Message Templates).

By carefully setting permissions, you can give each person the exact level of access they should have:

Just invoicing access? Select reports? Complete client records? Your choice!

The collection of permission settings allows for granular control of what a given individual is and isn’t allowed to see and do.  This makes it possible to grant only access to manage invoices for one, a window into reports for another, and total transparency into all work for yet another.

And in case you were wondering: personnel do not count toward your subscription plan, so you’re free to get everyone in the loop who should be!

Company Groups

Once you’ve got your Companies set up (including client affiliations with those companies), you can create Groups whose client membership is defined by company.

Just create a Group as usual, and then from the Membership area click the “Membership by Company…” button.

Choose which Company should define the membership of your group and you’re done.

Setting Group membership by Company means that when you add a new client to that Company, that client is automatically added into the Group.  (Likewise, removing a client’s affiliation from a Company automatically removes them from the Company Group.)

There’s still flexibility, of course: you’re still free to manually add group clients who are not from the company, and remove select company clients as desired.  Controls to deactivate and reactivate individual Group memberships remain in effect as well.

Company Happenings Reports

Speaking of handy ways to segment your clients along company lines, you can also create Happenings Reports set to include the clients in one or more companies.  If you choose to report on clients from exactly 1 company, you’ll have the option to have the report sent to personnel from that company.

A delightful way to automate progress reports to interested parties.

For Team Edition accounts, note that proper visibility into clients is always maintained based on who a given team member is allowed to see.  If Acme Co. has clients A, B and C, and a team member is only allowed to see clients A and B, rest assured that a Happenings Reports created by that team member on the clients for Acme Co. will ONLY contain clients A and B.

Company Invoicing

You can issue invoices to Companies just as you would regular clients.  When you opt to send an invoice in the usual ways, personnel designated to receive company invoices will do so.  (And if there are no personnel set to receive invoices, the system will lovingly let you know as much when you try to send, and guide you to fix that!)

In the Client Invoicing >> Accounts listing you’ll see companies appear right alongside clients.  Those clients who are associated with companies will no longer appear in the Accounts listing – presumably, they will be billed via the company, rather than individually.

Company Primary Liaisons

The primary liaison for a company is the person who will appear as the contact for company personnel when those personnel log in. The primary liaison will also receive any notifications about company invoices. On single-coach accounts, this is of course you.

Layout-wise, company personnel will see the primary liaison at the top of the left sidebar. It’ll look much like how primary coaches appear for clients, at the top of the left sidebar. When personnel click on the avatar, they’ll see the primary liaison’s profile (if shared). They can also click to email the primary liaison.

In Summary

Generally speaking, CoachAccountable Companies are the solution for doing business with an entity that isn’t strictly the individual (or individuals) being coached.  Beyond conventional companies, this can include scenarios like being hired by parents to work with their children.

Beyond obvious wins of account organization and the ability to invoice third parties for your work (nice logistical conveniences, to be sure!), it is my hope that YOUR ability to offer a more direct window into the process will make your offering more attractive for those who’ve hired you.

Anyone who hires you, but especially in a more corporate environment, wants to demonstrate the value of working with you.  Giving them a regular accounting of the work being done and the results being gotten, either as self-service access or as a routine report that comes automatically, can go a long way towards building confidence that they made the right decision.

Enjoy!

Like Version 4, this year’s cake embodies more contemporary tastes by eschewing gradients and rounded corners.

What a lovely year it’s been in CoachAccountable land!

And not just because it marks another year of not having any sort of bug database.  (I’m proud to report that the policy of just fixing whatever’s amiss, within minutes of me learning about it, continues to work swimmingly.)

CA’s 8th year saw a number of strides forward in service of the coaching industry.

The biggest, most widely-affecting change is certainly the release of Version 4, a bright new look for the entire app AND unifying of Basic and Team Edition (i.e. Team Edition is now available to all at the same, lower price of single-coach accounts).  Both aspects have been very well received.

We’ve added a few new integrations with other systems: Zoom, Apple Calendar, and PayPal.  CoachAccountable is now published as a ready-to-go integration on Zapier, opening up integration possibilities even further.

We’ve added more features to really flesh out existing functionality, like Group Whiteboards, Group Action Plans, access for inactive clients, support for multiple currencies, and the usual smattering of other enhancements sprinkled about.

We’ve added a third to our team, Jaclyn, and thus further established our ability to serve an ever growing segment of the coaching industry.  And by adding her charismatic and caring expertise to that of Morgan’s, we’ve been reaching out and having one-on-one sessions with the community like never before.

But perhaps the thing I’m most proud of in year 8 is the Webinar Series, which has really started to take on a significance not originally imagined.

At first, I envisioned a sort of “how to” series: clicking around the app and narrating the ins and outs of how to set things up and get things done.  But over this last year in particular it’s taken on a rather different character.

I still delight in folks wondering after which program I use I do those drawings. Answer: by hand, and with my daughter’s colored pencils. :)

They’ve evolved into lessons where I illustrate and make arguments for ideas to genuinely run a better coaching business and give clients more.  These ideas are powered by what CoachAccountable makes possible, but I spend very little time in-app showing nuts-and-bolts.

Doing that is itself fun, but the real joy is in the difference we’re hearing it make.  During the most recent one, Designing Your Coaching Business Model, one attendee said:

…That graphic?  Wow.  You’ve just made the roadmap clearer…  Thank you: you’ve just move the whole coaching profession forward…

You can find the Webinar Series here.

Looking Ahead

As I have said in this space most other years, we still have a lot up our sleeves to forward CA in service to the community.  And consistent with my penchant for secrecy around future app development, we ain’t sayin’ nothin’ about what that is. :)

BUT, just as you might gather from similar missives marking year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, you can rest assured it will continued to be powered by the insights and perspectives that we collectively get from all of you.

From me, Morgan and Jaclyn, we thank you all for sharing what would allow you to do your work better, and for letting us be of service to that work.

Onward!

(It’s Friday as I write this, and they say it’s a bad idea to release to stuff on a Friday, because it means the poor folks who wanted to enjoy a weekend are apt be be saddled with the fallout from whatever goes wrong with the release.  But… speaking as the guy who did it all and will handle whatever fallout… well, I gotta good feeling about this. :)

It’s done!  It’s here!  And it’s ready for everyone to check out.

Version 4 ISN’T a huge mix up of things.  Truth be told, unlike Version 3 I have NOT been laboring in silence over it for the last 21 months doing a comprehensive rebuild.  The switchover from 3 to 4 is utterly seamless, with virtually everything in it’s place exactly as it was.

But Version 4 DOES feature some substantial changes. Let’s take a look!

Bright New Design

First and foremost you’ll notice there’s a whole new design theme.  I think it’s gorgeous, and I hope you will agree.  Not to throw shade on Version 3’s design, but after working in the new for a little, the old looks kinda like a gloomy, rainy day with all those shades of gray; while the new just looks bright, clean and crisp.

Here’s a typical screen in Version 3…

…and here it is in Version 4:

After a day of working in the new I suspect you won’t want to go back to the old!

Team Edition at Basic Account Pricing

The second big change up in Version 4 is there is no longer an alternate pricing structure for Team Edition: those accounts get to have subscription plans that are priced just like the basic accounts.  For those of you on Team Edition, that means your monthly cost is apt to go down a fair amount.  And if you’re on a Basic Account, well, you can now enjoy the benefits of Team Edition, now or down the road—at no extra charge (for those of you who work with a VA of any kind this could be immediately useful!).

Frankly I love this: just like when we made White Label Branding free for everyone with Version 3, this is another instance of us being all good, revenue-wise, and thus really happy to extend the full power of CoachAccountable to ALL our users.  It gives me great joy to have this rising tide benefit the whole CA community!

New Tree View of Folderizations

There’s a new way to view your collections of items that are organized into folders (such as your courses, templates, and whiteboards).  Wherever there are folders, you’ll see a little toggle (just left of the +Folder button) that allows you to switch between the usual card view and the new folder tree view.

Please, nobody delete Levity. And not just because there’s still 3 items in there.

Folder tree view makes a better way to navigate and see all of your content at once, and is especially handy when you’ve got a lot of items and folders in a given collection.

Retiring the Side Tasks Widget

After careful consideration and to tidy things up, I’ve removed the little tasks widget that appears under the left menu on certain pages (see the no-longer-present “Notes / Tasks” tab controls in the screenshots above)  As a not-terribly-useful feature that’s a holdover from the version 1 days, it’s time to remove it as clutter in the UI that went ignored by over 99% of users.

For those of you who had tasks in there, I’ve moved them into the neighboring notes section.  This change up should generally be a win, design and clarity-wise, but if you truly miss it, no worries–drop me a line and I’ll turn it back on for you. :)

Switching to Version 4

The switch to Version 4 is the most seamless one yet.  You can check all this out right now by bringing up the top right user menu, and clicking “Version 4 switch…”

By a sheer matter of coincidence, you are exactly 4 clicks away from Version 4.

You can flip the switch back and forth to see the before and after anywhere in the system.  If you prefer the old solid color style of the top bar, you can get that by turning off the Bright top bar—this is a new setting for the Branding color scheme as well.

When you’re satisfied you can flip the switch to Version 4 for yourself and all your clients.  If you’re on a Team account and not the account owner, you’ll not be able to flip the switch BUT you can toggle into V4 for yourself freely (necessary only until your account owner does it for everyone!).

Once you’ve migrated over (and not a minute before!) your account will be subject to the new pricing scheme, i.e. Team Edition at Basic pricing plans.

Staying on Version 3?

If you love the current look and prefer it to the new, you can stay with it–there’s no particular rush.  If you want to wrap things up with current clients without risking what might be viewed as a jarring change up, you can.  And if you’re on Team Edition, you’ll remain subject to its separate pricing until migrated to Version 4.

That all said, I’m keen to unify the platform (and simplify the efforts to further evolve it!) sooner than later, so all accounts will be switched over to Version 4 sometime in the next few months.  To avoiding undertaking the design transition with any more clients than necessary, starting today all of your newly added clients will see only Version 4.

Looking Ahead

I’ve been staring at the V4 almost exclusively for the last month or so, and, to me now, it just looks right.  And happily I’m not the only one: better than a matter of me just being overly pleased with my creation BECAUSE it’s my creation, it turns out Morgan and Jaclyn feel the same way (Morgan confided in me that she’s been toggling over to the V4 style as often as possible–namely whenever she’s NOT sharing her screen with a CA user, because just like V3, we keep this sort of thing on the down low until launched!).

Again, everything is exactly where you’re used to it being so you (and your clients!) are virtually bound to feel right at home with the same-but-brighter interface to get things done.  You can toggle back and forth with a single click and see what I mean.

And there you have it, I give you version 4!  I hope you and your clients love it, and would love to hear what you think below.  Onward!

Hi y’all!  It was my honor to say a few words of introduction for our newly-minted #3, and now I welcome you to get better acquainted by the words of Jaclyn herself!

– John

Hi…I’m Jaclyn, the number 3 of the CoachAccountable team, and I am excited!

It’s remarkable the quality of photography you can get with a well-timed screen capture during a routine pandemic video conference.

I started working at 14, construction with my Dad; roofing to be exact. I also babysat and then I moved on to working for grocery stores, arts & crafts stores, and flipping burgers. At 19 I made my first big career move and decided to join the Marine Corps.

I begin my story with work because, looking back, that’s been over half my life.  Work. Making a living with the belief that if I worked long enough the actual living would eventually begin.  I became a wife and mother, then an ex-wife (still a mother) and watching my little boy grow up, something shifted.  Living has to happen now. I don’t want him to think all there is to life is working hard and playing little.  Play now, explore now, LIVE now.

So, I started (ironically) working towards that goal.  I thought if I get another degree, I’ll get another promotion, I’ll make more and I’ll finally get to start really going after some work/life balance.  Spoiler alert…the harder you work for corporate the harder they want you to work.  Life was severely out of balance.  Though I’d take time off for the short vacations, the school plays, the school music festivals I’d be rushing from or to work and a piece of my mind always stayed there, thinking of the tasks.

In 2018 both my parents began having health problems. I had to go back to Texas, and I would need to be there for three weeks. While I drove towards Southeast Texas, by myself listening to my favorite true crime podcast, I thought there has to be something more.  Someone somewhere lives life fully and while maybe not perfectly in work/life harmony, they are aligned and happy.  I also wanted to celebrate those that were coping and surviving trauma, anxiety, and depression. To find out their why and how of, not just surviving, but truly living life by their design.  The ANBRWY Podcast was born and through the last two years I have met people that transformed their lives and in turn began transforming mine.

In March, exactly 2 days before the world went on a global pandemic lockdown, I left my corporate job and concentrated full time on consulting, coaching, and podcasting.  The pandemic didn’t slow this business. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I gained clients and made them a lot of money. I coached them through fears of startup, hesitation of growth, and through software and process gave them confidence to make the first step to start momentum.  I talk to them often, the momentum has grown.

As life would have it, I came across a job posting. It wasn’t asking for a resume, they didn’t want to hear about my degrees, or past projects completed successfully or within budgets.  Instead, they asked for a short video.  It took several takes. Not so much because I was nervous but looking back, I realize I was being entirely too corporate.  Giving data and experience instead of personality.

I got the call; I spoke with both John and Morgan individually and I was asked to come aboard.  Have you ever been in a place in life where all of your experiences, learnings, and life decisions seem to make sense because they were preparing you?  That work/life balance I was working towards, that need to be in a place where I can make an impact but I still get to learn everyday…it’s here. CoachAccountable, since day 1 has made sense and I have had the amazing experience of being able to relax while still working full days and spending time with family.  I’m able to meet extraordinary people every single day and support them while they do their life’s work.

Does it get any better than this? I think so, because I get to do it all again tomorrow!

Turns out the mic serves for more than just successfully applying to CoachAccountable.

“Wow, that’s a serious microphone!”

That was my under-2-seconds first impression of Jaclyn, as gauged from her video introduction (as I mentioned earlier, for this hiring we completely nixed the usual resume/cover letter dance as meaningless noise, mandating a video to apply instead).

But by the end of 10 minutes and 49 seconds my impression of her was so much more than curiosity around her boss audio equipment, for during that intro she detailed insight and experience that brilliantly fit the bill of what we were looking for in a candidate.

Her experience spans an impressive career of IT support, deployments, training and coaching in corporate environments, and preceded no less by 4 years of service in the Marine Corps (which hardly surprises, given the abundant sense of professionalism, rigor, and can-do spirit that Jaclyn exudes).

Her insight (into who we are and what we’re about) was deep, ranging from the genuine delight of that moment when someone sighs a breath of relief by recognizing their life is now better thanks to some software, to finding our utter disregard for conventional competitive SWOT analysis refreshing, to intuiting that our lack of outward marketing hustle might well be a better-serving strategy of authenticity in and of itself.

All that in a 10 minute riff!

Naturally she advanced to the interview round, and Jaclyn did not disappoint.  She was, has been, and continues to be everything as advertised in terms of the acumen, professionalism, personability, and thoroughness.

Over the last two months Morgan and I have been training Jaclyn of the deep kung fu that is CoachAccountable Customer Love and Hand Holding.  Along the way she expressed being surprised at how lengthy the onboarding process was; that, in other roles, she was more used to getting in and doing much sooner.

It would be fair to say there’s a certain preciousness that I (and Morgan as well) have about doing this role “right”: far beyond merely knocking out answers to questions and moving on (à la more conventional tech support), we endeavor to be coaches, guides, and teachers to those we serve as well, meaning we’ll often go beyond answering the question at hand by looking for (and addressing) the underlying intention as well.

Fun fact: what with the ability to do in-person photo shoots compromised as it is, this was taken as a screen capture of a Zoom call.

Jaclyn has rolled with all of this nuance and nit-pickery with grace and earnest desire to not only learn but master the game at hand.

She has a warmth and patience that I am proud to share with the CoachAccountable community in support of their work.  I’ve delighted in getting to know her over the last several months and suspect you will as well.  (Quite frankly, I can’t wait to actually meet her in person when this whole pandemic thing subsides!)

And that boss microphone?  Turns out Jaclyn does a weekly podcast, currently 59 episodes in, wherein she interviews authors, speakers and coaches on what it is to live fully, both personally and professionally.

In short, she is a delightful, fitting, and so very worthy addition to our merry band.

Please join me in welcoming Jaclyn!