Ask for Help (and other exciting new features!)

It's been a while since our last update, but rest assured that our development team has been hard at work improving Coachtastic to make it a more useful and easily accessible tool both for Coaches and people seeking coaching alike.

Our most exciting new feature is our "Ask for Help" section, in which anyone can post an inquiry asking for help with issues they are dealing with in their lives. Once posted, these inquiries are made visible ONLY to coaches registered on Coachtastic. Coaches then have the ability to see which people they think they'd be best suited to help, and can contact the potential client directly (via information provided by the potential client). Once a client finds a coach and has their inquiry resolved, they can then remove their post and let us know which coach on the site helped them (we are working on implementing a system whereby we will rank coaches on our site/give preferred search result listings to coaches who have received positive feedback from clients via the Ask for Help section).

Do you know people in your life who could benefit from coaching, but perhaps are too afraid to ask for help? Our goal with the Ask for Help section of Coachtastic is to make users feel secure and confident knowing that they can reach out for help to a variety of different people and be able to choose the coach that is best suited to their own personal needs. We encourage you to let people in your life know about our new Ask for Help section so that they can try it out for themselves and receive the benefits of having a coach in their lives. You can check out who is posting inquiries on Coachtastic by clicking the “See who is asking for help…” link under your profile/account tabs in the top right of the page.

Other recent improvements/added features to Coachtastic are:

•Vanity URLs for Coach Profiles: You can now have your very own Coachtastic URL with your name in it (e.g. instead of coachtastic.com/profile.php?id=###, your profile link will be coachtastic.com/Your-Name). For coaches who already have profiles on Coachtastic, all you need to do to get your free vanity URL is log in to your profile, click on the Edit button, and click save. New coaches registering for the site will automatically be given a vanity URL for their profile.

•Profile Edit Page Autosave: When editing your Coach Profile page, information will now automatically autosave every two minutes.

•Simplified Search Page: The website Search feature has been simplified so that all inquiries can be searched for (names, categories, etc.) in one simple search field.

•Scrolling Pagination: There is no longer a need to click "next" or "show more" when scrolling through search results or category listings; scrolling down the page will automatically do this for you.

•New "Coaching?" Tab: Refers users to a variety of articles and resources to explain what the field of coaching is all about.

•New "Resources" Tab: Directs coaches to sites with information about professional coaching. 

*Note: We are still building and compiling links to resources for both of these new tabs. If you have suggestions, please let us know by emailing: info@coachtastic.com.

We thank you for your continued interest in Coachtastic and are excited to hear how our new features help you find potential clients and make a difference in the lives of those you help. Please feel free to send your questions, feedback, or report any errors/bugs or suggestions for site improvement using our "Contact/Feedback" form on the site.

Don't forget to "Like" our page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Coachtastic

And to follow us on Twitter: @Coach_tastic

Have you used Coachtastic to secure new clients or been helped by a coach on our site? We want to hear about it! Let us know at: info@coachtastic.com.

Regards,

Coachtastic Team

www.coachtastic.com

[Update] Translator Tool

Thanks to our friends at Google, we now have a built-in site translator so that people connect internationally with the coaches that can help them best. Scroll down to the bottom of the site to select the language you want and translate content. Let's break through those language barriers!

Choice

Life doesn’t always let us choose our circumstances.

We must all experience things

that we may not want to face at the time.

Every child’s life is made real

by knowledge of death.

Everyone feels lonely,

or angry,

or ashamed,

sometimes.

All girls must face

their first menstrual cycle;

boys must face

wet dreams.

We all must travel

through this incomprehensible

thing we call life,

but we need not travel alone.

Therein lies choice

in a seemingly unchangeable

mesh of lives.

-A poem by Coachtastic.com Co-Founder, Daniel Farb

[Update] Coachtastic Search Optimization

We are excited to announce our new Search Optimization Feature on Coachtastic. This new feature allows you to enter in your main area of focus/expertise as a Coach, which will show up when people search for help in your field on Google and other search engines. There is also the option to add additional keywords, which work similar to "labels" on blog posts so that your profile shows up more frequently in searches.

Sample Search Optimization

It's simple and will take you about a minute to do:

1. Go to www.coachtastic.com

2. Login to your profile (click "Coach Login" in the top right corner).

3. Open your Edit Profile page (click "Edit" in the top right corner).

4. Scroll to the bottom of your page and fill out your search keywords.

5. Click "Save Changes."

Please note it will take a few days for these changes to be registered in Google and other search engines, but once they occur traffic to your profile on Coachtastic will be increased!

Thanks for being a part of Coachtastic and please let us know if there's anything we can do to be of service and assistance.

-Coachtastic Team

www.coachtastic.com

[Update] Global Location Listing Complete!

We're excited to announce that our Global Location Listing service is now complete! You can now list your location as any country in the world, with major cities in each country listed. If your location is not listed in our directory, just email us at info@coachtastic.com and we'll be glad to add it for you.

Yours in continually improved service,

-Coachtastic Team
www.coachtastic.com

The World Needs More Coaching

Anyone who's had the benefit of receiving good personal coaching in any area of their life knows the immense value of having a coach. Whether being given some tips on how to improve your jump-shot or getting help in deciphering what's going on in what seems to be a complicated intimate relationship, utilizing a coaching relationship is a powerful and effective way to deal with life's challenges.

Those who haven't had the privilege of having a coach in their lives, however, often don't know what they're missing. Many people in the world are attached to the idea that, for the most part, they need to go through life on their own. People are quick to celebrate their victories and successes publicly and share their joy, but tend to be much more reserved, secretive, and even ashamed at times when they struggle or are going through hardships.

The fact of the matter is this: facing one's problems alone in life is a choice. Not everyone has an understanding lover, a close friend who can listen and give great advice, or a confidant to whom they feel safe telling their secrets. The option of seeking out and hiring a coach, however, is now a viable reality in the world. We have the technology available to us to connect with people all over the globe who have expertise in the areas of life that we are dealing with. Nobody needs to go through life alone.

The question then is this: if this help is so abundant and readily available, why are so few people using the services of professional coaches? How many people even know what coaching is, let alone the benefits they could receive from it?

We think the main reason for this that there does not yet exist a sufficient social conversation about coaching to make the idea of hiring a coach normal enough for most people to consider it. The predominant context surrounding the idea of coaching is that it's weird. It's weird to talk openly about your problems with a stranger, it's weird to seek professional help for things in your life, and it's certainly weird to hire someone to listen to you and tell you how to live your life. It's so weird, in fact, so out of the left-field, that most people don't even have hiring a coach as an option on their radar. Up against that kind of backdrop, the possibility of a breakthrough explosion in the scope and effectiveness of the coaching industry's effect on the world remains limited.

One of our goals at Coachtastic is to transform the conversation around coaching. We want people to be open and receptive to the help that is readily available from various types of coaches, and to be willing to take the risk of actually hiring a coach to help them in their own lives. How do we plan on doing this? One answer: keep it simple. From our overall design and ease of navigation of the website, to the language and terminology used on the site, to the organization of categories/areas of life listed, Coachtastic keeps the business of finding a coach simple for everyone. In doing so, we're creating the space for a new conversation about coaching to emerge. What exactly the content of this new conversation is will depend mostly on what the actual wants and needs of people in the world are, and how coaches around the globe can best be of service to those they help.

www.coachtastic.com - What are you dealing with?

[Update] Global Location Listings

We have a commitment at Coachtastic that absolutely everyone in the world, regardless of their geographical location, has access to help with what they are dealing with. As such, we are in the process of expanding our location list to include every country in the world, and major cities within each country. This will take some time, as there are quite a few countries out there and even more cities! Once that's done, if you don't see you're city/region/location on the list, just email us and we'll be glad to add it for you. 

That's all for now. Smiley face.