When looking for a platform to support your business, finding the right fit takes time and some trial and error. There’s hopeful testing and shiny things that aren’t the right fit FOR ME.

And as one of my coaches says, you don’t know what to google if you don’t know about it. 

That was true when my client, Shannon, wanted to improve her day-to-day and her clients’ journey by having more automated processes to make repetitive tasks as hands-off as possible.

At Matter of the Heart, Shannon King offers coaching for singles and couples by combining over 30 years of law enforcement experience, a thriving and fulfilling marriage, and her triumph over trauma to share her expertise in resilience-building and wellness and their role in a resilient relationship.

Her top objectives were to 

1. Create processes with minimal interaction.
2. Design a clear and simple customer journey.
3. Clients can easily find where to schedule appointments.

Her must-have pieces to the puzzle were

1. Payments or Invoicing
2. Scheduling with Zoom link automation
3. Contracts
4. Forms

Business needs

These are everyday business needs anymore, but not many services do all of these well enough. The trick is to weigh the needs and piece them together as smoothly as possible. 

So did I plan to use multiple services? Yes.

So what are my favorites?

Payments or Invoicing

We do not want Shannon to be tracking monthly coaching payments or waiting to begin coaching someone until they have paid. Payments upon registration are my preference. I’d prefer a service where we can embed the package into landing page!

Scheduling with a zoom link automation

Many services offer this now. Calendly or Squarespace Scheduling (aka Acuity) are both my top choices when needing an external option. Choosing between those is dependent on how you can best use the various functionalities. 

But, if a service can offer scheduling with it’s other client services, that’s even better. Usually, they’re not quite as simple to use, but it’s down to what your needs and priorities are. 

Contracts

It’s so convenient when a service includes contracts! But usually, they don’t offer two or more signers. With Shannon’s relationship coaching services, she needs two signers plus herself. 

17hats does do this! It is pretty nice to use and has flexible workflows. 

Forms

Shannon uses a lot of worksheets within her coaching model, and then there were standard forms, like intake forms. I worked over a decade at a web form company – I know how ‘smart’ forms can be, and they usually aren’t very smart unless you are working with a service like FormAssembly or JotForm. 

Wishlist 

Many other items can be added to the wishlist when picking a service to be the backbone of your business, and we had two that deserved to be on the must-haves list. 

• Self-service returning-client package purchasing
• Session tracking

Making the Move

After beginning setup on another service, we heard about CoachAccountable. We first tried it out under someone else’s group account, which didn’t allow us to use it to its full potential, so we quickly switched gears and created our own account to do some testing. 

We created packages for each type of coaching at different price points and payment structures. We then tied those in with the scheduler for the right appointment type and any initial forms to be filled out. 

The one gap we had was multiple signers on a contract. So we went with Docusign. We would love to move this too to CoachAccountable as soon as they create this functionality, but until then, we have a little manual step for each new client or couple. 

Overall our process is coming together well!

Here’s a sample process

With CoachAccountable, your prospective client experience can begin at your website where they book their discovery call with the embedded calendar.

After the discovery call, you’ll direct the new client to the correct booking page where they will

1. choose their payment schedule
2. Complete their intake form
3. Schedule the intake call
4. Sign the agreement (since we need multiple signatures we are using Docusign for this part)
5. We can then schedule sessions for several months out to be ahead of the game. 

Big Pros

Some of the pluses with CoachAccountable are really flexible notifications – and I love how you can set it up to notify you that a client has missed scheduling their next session or if the package is coming to an end. 

They easily integrate with Zoom, Stripe, and paypal. 

There are courses and homework that you can easily set up for your client as well as notes and other engagement tools.

The Cons

It is active client-based pricing, so if you are not actively coaching someone, deactivate!

It does look a little square and could use some modern UI updates. A lot is going on in there, so simplicity with modern design changes would be helpful.

Overall

I think it is a very helpful option for coaches who want to help keep their clients engaged and not spread themselves too thin with several different services to run their business.

We’d love to chat with you about getting your processes streamlined and efficient. Let’s hop on a quick call to discuss your next steps. Book a free 15-minute call right here.