How to Set Up Your Coaching Voice So Drafts Sound Like You

Every email drafted in your name on Simma, whether you click Draft Email in the web app or ask your assistant to write one through the connector, reads three settings from your coach profile first: tone of voice, coaching instructions and sign-off. They are the difference between a draft that sounds like you and one that sounds like software.

This guide says what a draft already does without any settings, then how to write each field. It describes the drafting rules as they are today, not as we would like them to be.

What a draft does before you have written anything

A Simma draft is written from the athlete's own sessions and from how those sessions compare with that athlete's recent normal. The rules the draft follows, without any input from you:

• It opens with the story of the week in a sentence or two, then names two or three specific sessions by day with concrete numbers from them.
• When it says something changed, it quotes the reading against the athlete's own recent normal, so "1.11 metres per stroke against your usual 1.23" rather than a bare number.
• It never opens with load, fitness or form, and never quotes a form score to the athlete. Those are background for you, not the story for them.
• If something in the data warrants attention, it names it plainly and invites the athlete to reply with context.
• It connects the week to what is coming, including any goal or event on the athlete's record, and ends with one priority for next week rather than a list.
• It is plain prose, between roughly 200 and 400 words, with no bullet points, links or formatting.
• It does not invent sessions or details that are not in the data. A week with no activities is acknowledged as such.
• The subject line is specific to that athlete's week.

So the structure is handled. What is left for you is how it sounds and what it knows that the data does not.

Tone of voice

This field is inserted into the draft's instructions as "write in a ... tone", so write it as a description of your register. One to three sentences.

Some that give a draft enough to work with:

• "Warm and encouraging, but direct when something needs to change. I don't sugarcoat."
• "Casual and relaxed, with a bit of humour. Friendly text message, not corporate email."
• "Measured and precise. My athletes are experienced and want the signal, not a pep talk."
• "Supportive. Age-group triathletes training around jobs and families, who need to feel good about showing up."

What tends not to work:

• A single word. "Professional" on its own tells the draft almost nothing. Pair it with a second word.
• Restating the defaults. You do not need "reference specific sessions"; that already happens.
• An essay. If the field is running past three sentences, the extra material belongs in instructions.

Coaching instructions

This is the context the data cannot supply. Think of what you would tell someone drafting on your behalf: what is going on across the squad right now, what you care about, what you never say.

Things that belong here:

• Where the squad is. "Most of my athletes are in base phase through April." "A-races are eight weeks out for the majority." The draft sees one athlete's sessions; it does not know your season plan unless you say.
• How direct to be about concerns. "Be blunt about injury risk." Or the opposite: "Frame concerns gently, my athletes are recreational and one high heart-rate reading is not a crisis."
• Differences within the squad. "Competitive athletes get numbers; recreational athletes get consistency."
• Things to always mention. "Hydration and pacing whenever a session was in heat."
• Things never to say. "Never 'journey'. Never 'trust the process'. Never mention weight."
• Your philosophy, briefly. "Consistency beats intensity. Five easy sessions beat three hard ones and two missed."

Things that do not belong here, because they are already handled: email structure, which metrics to reference, subject lines, using the athlete's name.

Instructions are optional at signup. The most useful ones are usually written after you have read a few drafts and can name what you want changed.

Sign-off

Rendered verbatim at the end of every email. "Cheers, Dan" or "See you at the pool. Sarah" or just your name.

A worked example

Tone of voice: "Warm, encouraging and a bit informal. First names, the occasional joke. A message from a mate who happens to know a lot about training."

Coaching instructions: "Most of the squad is building toward Ironman 70.3 Geelong in June. Back end of base phase now, race-specific from mid-April. Be straightforward about concerns but not alarming; these are age-groupers with jobs and families. Tie the week back to June where it fits. Never use the phrase 'trust the process'."

Sign-off: "Cheers, Dan"

Changing them over time

Both fields are editable at any time under Settings in the web app, or by asking your assistant to update your coach profile through the connector. When the squad moves phase, change the instructions. When drafts keep doing something you dislike, add a line that says so. A change applies to every draft from then on, so it is worth a moment's thought rather than a reflex.

Simma does not learn from the edits you make to individual drafts. If you find yourself making the same edit repeatedly, that is the signal to change a setting.

Want the drafts to do something else?

If there is something you want a draft to know or do that these three fields cannot express, a different voice per athlete, a standing note about one person, a different shape for race week, email coaching@getsimma.com and tell us. We build tools from those.