TL;DR
- CoachNow is designed by coaches, for coaches to help you save time, increase your income, and give you freedom of location. But let’s be honest: transitioning your clients to new software can be daunting.
- To make the transition smooth and realize the potential of the platform, you should: 1. Get your athletes excited about using coachnow, 2. “Flip the Classroom” before your first session, and 3. Make CoachNow a mandatory part of your offer.
- Read on for more details on 1-3.
In many ways, the coaching industry is stuck in the past.
Coaches are still selling their time for money, athletes tend to improve only incrementally each week during their “quick-fix” lessons, and everyone is relying on fractured communications across disparate channels.
At CoachNow, we do everything we can to support you in becoming a #ConnectedCoach. Our software is tailor-made to help you break free from these archaic business models, innovate your coaching offer, and recapture your time and location freedom.
If you’ve been following our posts here, you know that the first step to becoming a ConnectedCoach is to use the CoachNow platform effectively.
But, while you may see the benefits of ConnectedCoaching, let's be honest: transitioning to a new software can be daunting.
The coach-athlete relationship is invaluable and you want to make sure that you don’t add complications that could jeopardize it. And, truth is, it might seem a whole lot easier to stick to the “tried and true” lessons model that has defined coaching for decades (if not centuries).
I hear you, and I’m here to help.
In this blog post, I’ll dive into my top 3 recommendations for coaches seeking to transition into ConnectedCoaching using CoachNow.
My hope is that this blog helps you see the forest for the trees with CoachNow – making the switch takes some thought and time upfront, but I promise once you do, your only regret will be not making the leap sooner!
Let’s get to it.
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1. Get Your Athletes Excited About Using CoachNow.
You want your athletes to know what to expect on day 1. It’s important that everyone is on board from the get go.
The smartest way to do this? Frame it in terms of what’s in it for them.
CoachNow WILL help them get better faster.
They’ll feel empowered to take their game/fitness into their own hands and achieve their goals on their own time.
They’ll have access to their full practice plans; see key takeaways from every past coaching session; see their progress over time; AND even have the ability to access their coach for advice and feedback between live sessions. It’s a lot easier for athletes to stay consistent with their training plan when they FEEL like they are progressing towards their goals.
In short, the features in CoachNow will do wonders for your client's performance (while saving you time). Emphasize this in your offer BEFORE you sign them on as a client.
Additionally, here’s a crucial piece of advice: the sooner you mention CoachNow when marketing your offer, the better.
Try framing it as you giving them a “heads up”. E.g. “If you’re going to be working with me now, these are the systems you use, this is what you can expect. It's awesome.”
If you are going to reclaim your time with CoachNow, you must explain its utility as early as possible and get them hyped on the benefits.
This frames everything in terms of a win-win – You enjoy the ConnectedCoaching lifestyle and solve the headache of disparate channels keeping you up at night. They feel stoked on the potential of working with a forward-thinking, impact-driven coach.
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2. Try “Flipping the Classroom”
Alright. So at this point, you have made CoachNow a clear component of your offer and you are on the same page as your athlete when it comes to how you communicate.
Now the question is: how do you prepare them for their first session?
In the ConnectedCoach Blueprint, I talk about a cool trick, which I call “Flipping the Classroom”.
Essentially, this just means giving them what they need BEFORE your first live session.
In CoachNow you can create templates that auto populate spaces with pre-loaded posts. Use these to your advantage. I’d recommend creating:
- A “Welcome Video” outlining how you intend to use CoachNow as part of your coaching (touching on some of the points we outline above).
- A post or two prompting them to outline their goals IN WRITING. This will help set the stage for their progress and will be easily referenceable if they want to see how much they’ve progressed months or years down the road.
- A post encouraging them to create their own short welcome video, introducing themselves and what they hope to achieve in their sport with your help.
Boom. You’ve just shaved a significant chunk of time off your first session by getting the preliminary “get to know you” stuff out of the way. Just re-use these templates for every new client to fasttrack the onboarding process.
By Flipping the Classroom, your athlete will show up having already known what to expect from you, and you'll have all the information to make a game plan for your first session. When you first meet in person, you’ll be ready to rock.
I’ve seen this technique work wonders and save hours of time. Plus, it builds valuable rapport and trust before the athlete even meets you in person.
Give it a try and lemme know how it goes!
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3. Make CoachNow Participation a Mandatory Component of Your Offer
Reminder: You’re in charge of your communication style.
In my experience, the happiest coaches are the ones that take the firmest stance on using ONLY CoachNow for communication.
That is, CoachNow shouldn’t just be a component of your offer – it should be mandatory for working with you.
And it’s crucial that you make this point clear and STICK TO IT.
I’ve found that, when making this transition, it's helpful to prepare a response in advance for when your athlete inevitably texts, emails and/or messages you in the wrong channel.
For me that involved creating a canned response to direct them to the proper platform. E.g. "Great question! Please post this in CoachNow and I will respond there".
And, this is crucial: never ever reply or give your feedback in the wrong place.
You need to train your athlete to work within your preferred channel. Setting this expectation and boundary from the get go will save you a huge headache AND set the stage for rapid improvement for your clients.
And, as an added bonus, keeping everything in CoachNow also helps your athlete keep track of everything they need to improve, while minimizing distractions and miscommunication.
Trust me, you'll thank me for it!
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The world's best coaches, academies, and national programs in 60+ sports across 140 countries rely on CoachNow each and every day.
We are confident in the value that the platform delivers, but it’s up to you to use the tools in ways that support your coaching business and lifestyle..
Hopefully these tips really help you optimize your communications, increase your retention, and stand out from the competition.
In the following weeks, we will be sending out tons more info on these topics and really ramping up our content production. Be sure you are subscribed to get the latest updates in your inbox.
I’m more passionate than ever about helping you save time, earn more money, and prevent the burn out I felt before I founded CoachNow.
Talk soon.
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