Coaching Guidelines: Profiles and Conduct

Our guidelines for coaches are pretty simple; they're rooted in a desire to create the best possible experience for coaches and clients alike. Clients need to be able to find coaches easily and feel like they can establish a real human connection with their coach. And we want coaches to have the best possible chance to grow their business. Having a clear, professional profile increases the chances of user signing up for coaching.

Profiles

P-1. Avatar

Your avatar should clearly show your face; it should be an image of one person only (not a group shot). It must be a photo, not a cartoon or other type of image. Here are some examples of good avatars:

P-2. Cover

Though it's not necessary to use a cover photo, if you do it's best to use a picture that shows you in action or ready to coach. This image should not contain text or direct to another website. Also make sure that your image is the minimum dimensions to avoid too much image scaling. Jeena and Ramon are a couple of good examples of coaches who have good background images:

Note that if your cover photo shows your face (like these), you should untoggle the "Show Avatar" option in your profile options:

P-3. Bio Summary

Your coach bio needs to give a summary of who you are. You can't have placeholders like "..." or other nonsense there. See Jeena and Ramon's examples above.

Tip: Use the bio to help clients know that they can relate to you and understand the personal qualities and experience you bring to your coaching. Are you a successful entrepreneur? Deeply compassionate? Single parent of two? Have a degree in biochemistry? Have other credentials in your specialty? Use this field wisely!

P-4. Your name

Your name should be a real name; it should not simply contain initials, nor should it include additional words or titles like "Coach."

P-5. Goal Description

You're also asked for a description that appears with each goal. This should convey two pieces of information at minimum: (a) why you are qualified to coach the goal and (b) HOW you will coach the goal.

You need to frame this in terms of the value that YOU bring to your potential client for this particular goal.

Tip: The first few lines of your goal description show up in the search results people see. That's why this is so important! You'll get more clients if your personal goal description engages and differentiates you from the others who are available to coach this goal.

Here's a good example of what a coach did for the goal "Set Priorities for Your Day":

Conduct

C-1. Daily contact with clients

You should be checking in with clients once a day, every day—or close to it. If you plan to take specific days off, you need to communicate that to the client at the beginning of your coaching engagement, and before taking any vacations or other time off.

C-2. Confidentiality

You should not disclose information about who you are coaching or the content of your coaching chats. These are private matters between you and your client.

C-3. Reliability

You should not go AWOL and drop contact with clients if you want to quit coaching. You need to communicate any intention to quit with clients. You can refer them to our documentation about how to switch coaches if you'd like for them to cancel their coaching subscription with you for any reason. That includes a promo code they can use to get their first week with the new coach for free.

C-4. Helpfulness (No Spamming!)

Participation on Coach.me through commenting, propping, and following others should be done in a spirit of helpfulness. You should not use commenting as a way to advertise your coaching service; this is considered to be spamming. We do everything we can to help promote coaches within the app.