Last updated:
July 14, 2024This article has been updated to showcase the new Advanced Client Enrollment workflow that powers coaching facilitations and now includes a video walk-through at the end.
As a business coach, you are undoubtedly faced with the unique challenge of delivering expert guidance within established workplace cultures.
As such, there is a natural resistance to change, which must first be overcome before your message can be heard and, more importantly, acted upon.
So, where can you turn to ensure that your guidance will be delivered with the highest levels of engagement, adoption, and retention?
Today, we will explore how Cassava perfectly complements the needs of business coaches who facilitate in-person and/or remote training.
Context Switching is the Enemy
Marshal McLuhan is credited with the statement that the medium is the message.
As someone with a mission to deliver long-lasting transformative change, what you say is intricately connected to where you say it.
Today’s remote and hybrid work environments place a premium on an employee’s attention. As a business coach, you compete with entrenched working methods each time you engage with an organization.
To ask employees to leave the places where they are most at home and productive to engage with your content will always be a challenging undertaking at best.
“But Michael, we have a 100% participation rate.”
Do you really?
Yes, everyone may check the box to satisfy compliance, but if you would be honest, how much of their time and attention did you garner?
Did the quality of the engagement rise to the caliber needed for the desired transformation?
The medium is the message. — Marshal McLuhan
I have spoken before of the perils of context switching as it relates to employee onboarding, see here. This constant change in attention is the number one reason business coaches struggle to meet their engagement goals.
Overloaded employees are subsequently asked to divide their remaining attention by venturing elsewhere to consume your training program.
This request faces an inertia that must first be overcome. You could spin your wheels devising ways to accomplish this goal, or better yet, take a step back and ask if this is a fight worth having.
Meet Your Audience Where They Are!!
A more straightforward proposition is to take your message to the watering hole where everyone naturally gathers.
Imagine if you could tailor your content structure and delivery to fit an organization’s preferred communication channel, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams for example.
A lower barrier to engagement and top-of-mind awareness would naturally stem from your selection of the most appropriate medium.
But Michael, crafting custom content for each channel would be a burden, not to mention a distribution nightmare.
Yes, indeed, unless someone did the heavy lifting for you.
By using Cassava, you can effortlessly solve the challenge of crafting custom content for each channel. Let us demonstrate how.
Advanced Client Enrollment Workflow
Cassava uses the concept of a Distribution Profile to define a schedule and an audience.
As the author of an Experience, you compose the audience from the members of your organization.
This model works great when you are part of the organization, such as with in-house training.
However, coaches who run facilitations on behalf of organizations face a different problem as the audience resides outside their jurisdiction.
Slack offers its Connect workflow to bridge the divide, but this solution entails the added recurring financial burden of guests accounts and having to keep them active for extended periods.
Today, we are excited to introduce the Client Enrollment workflow, which streamlines coaching facilitations, making the process more effective and less cumbersome.
The client enrollment link and passcode are the keys to unifying your training program with the members of your client’s organization.
When you share these details with the client, they have the option to enroll as a new or existing customer in Cassava.
To unlock this feature, you must declare your organization as a coaching provider in Settings.
New customers enroll in the free plan. Both new and existing customers face no charges for the facilitation.
An association is automatically created between the coach and client at the end of enrollment.
It’s important to note that the client has the freedom to select the distribution channel that aligns best with their workplace norms. This empowers them to make a choice that suits their unique needs.
As the coach, your membership plan must be able to honor the channel count and audience size imposed by the client options.
From here on out, all that remains is for the client to assemble the audience and inform the coach when they have the green light to publish the Experience. Voila!
The beautiful thing about this workflow is that no sensitive information (e.g, access tokens) is revealed to either party.
Cassava, a trusted intermediary, plays a pivotal role in this workflow. It acts as the middleman, ensuring a seamless experience for the client by publishing the content on behalf of the coach.
The coach maintains control over the content and schedule. Likewise, the client retains control over the audience.
One of the key benefits of this workflow is the shared access to data-driven insights. Both the coach and the client leverage these insights to build a picture of engagement. This mutual sharing of data fosters a sense of collaboration and shared success.
One can envision how this process can be repeated with each new organization that engages with the coach.
Cassava is here to aid you without getting in the way. We make it straightforward for you to design your training program upfront and leverage it across different organizations and channels with little to no changes on your part.
Rest assured, our guarantee extends not only to the channels we currently support but also to those we will integrate with in the future.
Lastly, for those who prefer video, here is an overview of the enrollment workflow.
Summary
As someone who has been coached in the past, I know the value that can be gained, and I hope that Cassava will help you achieve this same feat in your coaching business.
Getting started with Cassava is easy and absolutely free. Try it today and share your feedback.
Michael
You no doubt have an opinion bubbling to the surface.