The full brief on Lifetick Coach.

When you sign up for a Lifetick Coach account you automatically get a separate Lifetick account. This is for your own personal use to record and track your goal achievement. Both your coach and personal accounts will use the same login credentials (user name and password), however, they have different login buttons on the Lifetick website to direct you to the different applications.

They are intentionally maintained separately because your personal and business affairs should be kept that way. By logging in to your own Lifetick account at the end of the day, you don't have to worry about being distracted by work matters. After all, it is your own time and you should be focusing on your own goals with a clear head.

We strongly recommend you first login to your own Lifetick account before setting up your Lifetick Coach account. This is important because it will not only help you with your own goals, but it will also give you a full understanding of how your clients will use Lifetick when they are set up in your Coach account. A full description of the Lifetick goal setting methodology can be read here. We encourage you to go through this to help your understanding of how we deal with Core Values and S.M.A.R.T. goal setting.

Once you are familiar with Lifetick and have successfully created and edited tasks and goals in the Navigate screen you will want to run through the other features which include the Life screen (for getting a better perspective on your goals), the Status screen (for viewing widgets on stats and inspiration) and finally the Journal screen. The Journal is very powerful because it automatically time and date stamps your activity in Lifetick from logging in through to goal achievement. It also allows you to make journal entries as notes or customisable categories.

Journal categories allow you to record and track anything from books read to weight lost, distance run, money saved or whatever you can define. Categories that are numeric or currency based can even be graphed. We have a lot of information on Journal Categories and you can read more about them here. As a coach, you will gain significant insight into your clients' performance by viewing their journal activities. Furthermore, you may be able to assist clients in setting up and completing category entries that relate to their goal achievement.

KEY POINT:
Ensure that you have familiarised yourself with Lifetick before setting up your Lifetick Coach account.

Now you are ready to login to Lifetick Coach for the first time. The first thing you will encounter is a simple wizard that explains the steps to go through.

We will reiterate them here. Creating client accounts is the first step. This only requires a first name, last name, email address and grouping. Groups are for your own categorisation. They are not visible to your clients and serve two purposes:

1. A way to filter clients when viewing them in your Snapshot screen and
2. A way to send out messages. Lifetick Coach lets you communicate with messages through the system.

These messages appear in the Journal for your client so they have a permanent record and furthermore, they will also be emailed the message for immediate communication in case they don't happen to be logged in to Lifetick when you send it. If you are uncertain as to what groups you might like to set up, don't be concerned. These can be created, edited and deleted at any time and in the interim you can always use the "ungrouped" grouping.

Each client you set up will get an email with an activation link in it. By clicking the activation link they will prompted to login to Lifetick for the first time and commence the goal setting. The welcome email explains to the client that they will be part of your Lifetick Coach account and therefore, you will have the ability to monitor their progress whilst facilitating any communication through Lifetick Coach if you so desire.

The welcome message also explains that your clients have the ability to create goals and journal entries privately if there are certain things they do not wish to share with you their Coach. This is important as it encourages users to be fully open with the system and therefore, honest with themselves. You as coach will NOT see any information through your portal that has been marked as "Private".

KEY POINT:
Setting up clients takes less than a minute and once this is done, the system is ready to go.

Snapshot, as the title suggests, is like a crisp overview of everything that is going on. Some might call it a dashboard or mission control, but the key thing to understand is that it will provide you with a view over ALL your clients.

You will easily know how many goals they have active, how many tasks, if either of these are overdue and the last time your client logged in. All this information is contained in one screen and can be filtered by client group, recent activity and last sent messages.

It will take you only several seconds to know exactly who's been proactive and who will need a gentle nudge to keep on top of their tasks.

1-on-1 is also self explanatory. This is the drill down view into an individual client. Within 1-on-1 you will notice you can view either the client's goals/dreams or their journal.

You will also recognise that these screens are exactly as your client sees them in Lifetick, complete with sortable and expandable goals lists through to daily, weekly and monthly journal views.

Everything you need to know about what your client has (or hasn't) been doing is contained in these screens. Whether you are coaching over the phone, face-to-face or online, the information contained in the Lifetick Coach software will enhance your interactions by allowing you to:

1. Prepare in advance via a quick view of their progress,
2. Focus in on some areas of improvement,
3. Easily recommend subtle wording improvements (more on this later) and
4. Set mini goals to achieve before next appointment.

Finally, the Messages screen captures all your incoming and outgoing Lifetick communications just like an email Inbox. However, the advantages of doing it through Lifetick Coach are that:

1. You can send to an individual, group or entire client list (ideal for daily inspiration and motivation messages) and
2. Everything is easily contained for future reference stored against the individual client or group.

Lifetick Coach offers perhaps its greatest strength via its ability to fade into the background to allow your coaching and your clients' activities to come to the fore. How is this done? Well, there are several ways:

1. Lifetick Coach has an intuitive and stylish interface

The easier software is to use, the less frustrated users become when using it. Therefore, they can focus more on what they are there to do which is set and achieve goals as clients or in your case - to coach. Using world best practice design, we have aimed to make Lifetick not just a system that is easy to use, but a pleasure to use. Locating buttons in the right place, allowing something to be done via one click and not two, presenting information in a space efficient yet readable fashion. Many hours of design go into this approach and the reward is the satisfaction of customers. This satisfaction increases the likelihood of them returning again and again to update their goals which in turn, will assist you as a Life Coach or Mentor in retaining their business. Furthermore, it is these same design elements which are presented to you as a Life Coach through the portal making your job of interpreting and assessing effort much easier.

2. Lifetick Coach offers tight, rich functionality

Similar to the style and design, functionality forms the other half of the yin-yang equation in the effort to make software enjoyable to use. Using established and proven concepts such as core values and S.M.A.R.T. goal setting whilst gliding through the set up process is what makes it easier for people to stay focused on the task at hand. Again, this will help you when managing your clients by being able to quickly navigate through their information.

3. Visibility is powerful

Visibility is like lunar light. A full moon in a clear sky is subtle yet very powerful. Visibility in Lifetick Coach is exactly the same. Having the information about your client at your disposal without having to ask them for it makes the coaching process far more efficient. Rather than starting a session with "What have been your achievements this week/month?", you can ask "You achieved these three things this month, which one was most important to you?" As you can see, you can cut straight to the questions that matter. And by not having to ask for information you both share it is a gentler way to broach topics that require sensitivity or consideration.

4. It's all in the language

Seeing what clients' write is important. Seeing how they write it is even more important. Why? Because language plays an enormous role in our day to day success. Whether it is wording a goal to fit the S.M.A.R.T. goal setting methodology or picking up on negative tones in journal entries, your role as coach can be leveraged even more with key tips to clients on the ways in which they can improve these aspects. Furthermore, you don't even have to wait till your appointment to raise it. A quick message to the client through Lifetick Coach will immediately put them on track raising your value to the client immensely.

KEY POINT:
Lifetick Coach is about getting out of the way and letting you help your client move forward in life.

There are other subtleties about Lifetick Coach you will discover. Perhaps the greatest of these is the increased sense of liberty you will find in your clients. In fact, the Lifetick Coach tag line sums it up best - "Motivate. Mentor. Empower." Empowerment is the thing that will make your role more efficient and effective. You will also find Lifetick Coach is adept at handling large numbers of clients. As your business grows, Lifetick Coach will grow with it. Be sure to send us some feedback as you get to know the system. It is very easy to get going and we are always interested in hearing about our users' experiences and in particular any suggestions that could improve those experiences. Good luck with your coaching and we hope Lifetick Coach enhances your coaching relationships as it was designed to do. Anything less would be an unacceptable compromise.