Managing Coaching Calls and Webinars

In our online business community for WordPress consultants, we are responsible for managing coaching calls and webinars for hundreds of members from all over the world who look to us for ongoing training and support.

Managing these calls across multiple coaches and multiple time zones is challenging, to say the least. So here is the process, checklists, and Zapier integrations that make it all happen.

In case you haven't already read this, you might like to see my process for creating processes here.

Managing Coaching Calls and Webinars Flowchart

I designed this flowchart using LucidChart so our team could get a visual on how this all comes together.

Let's look at each section of this activity in more detail.

The Content Calendar

Our community manager is responsible for mapping out the coaching calls and webinars for the year. These calls are simply added to a calendar project in Asana so everyone can see what is happening when. Once the calls are set up, they need to be tagged in order to tell Zapier to trigger the next task, assign it to the correct team member and create any checklists required in Process Street.

The Process

Here is the checklist for this part of the process:

Appealing Title and Summary

Once the call has been created in Asana, the relevant coach needs to add an appealing title and summary that we will use in our email communications to encourage our members to get on the call. We know that the more engaged our members are in our coaching calls and webinars, the more likely they are to benefit from the training and the community and therefore stay in the program and refer their friends.

Zapier automatically creates a task in Asana, assigns it to the correct coach and sets the due date for 10 days before the actual call. This gives us enough time to prepare the call in Zoom (which we used to run our webinars and coaching calls) and prepare any images for the recording which will be uploaded to the members website afterwards.

NB: In the case of a coaching call, it makes sense for the coach to update the details after the call to summarise what actually happened on the call. Therefore, our admin staff will include some generic details when they add the call to the calendar to keep the process moving.

The Process

Here is the checklist that gets created to remind the coach to add their title and summary:

Setting up the Call in Zoom and Promoting to our Members

Once the coaches have tagged the task in Asana, Zapier will then create a new task in Asana and assign it to one of our admin staff. The multi-step feature in Zapier also allows us to create a new checklist in Process Street at the same time.

The Process

Here is the checklist that gets created for setting up the call and promoting it to our members:

Preparing Images for the Recording

Now that the call has been created and promoted to our members, it's time for our design team to select an appropriate image from our Bigstockphoto.com account to represent the recording of the coaching calls and webinars when they appear in our members' website.

Here is a screenshot of our members' website so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about:

The Process

Here is the process that our design team follows to prepare the images:

Presenting the Actual Call in Zoom

In order to keep our user experience as consistent as possible, we have developed keynote templates and a process for presenting coaching calls and webinars using Zoom.

The Process

Here is the process that our coaches follow to present a call:

Preparing Call and Converting For Members' Website

Once the call has been delivered to our members, it's important to get a recording of the call into the members website as quickly as possible for those who could not attend the call live.

We use a combination of Google Drive, Hazel for the Mac, Dropbox, Amazon S3 and Vimeo Pro to make this happen. Sometimes this happens when we are asleep so it was important to design a process that was as automated as possible.

The Process

First of all, here is the process the coaches need to follow once they have finished their call:

Once the folder has uploaded to Google Drive, Hazel for the Mac runs a series of automated actions to achieve the following:

• move the entire folder from Google Drive to a specified folder for each coach on my local machine (this keeps Google Drive clean for everybody and allows me to rename the files according to the specific coach in the next step)
• rename the files according to the date and the coach who ran the call
• upload the MP4 and MP3 files to Amazon S3 and set the correct permissions so I can use these links as downloads within the members' website (we have a member who built a $50,000 per year side business on the two hour train commute to and from work every day by watching content off-line on his iPad, so these downloadable recordings are essential)
• move the MP4 file into a shared Dropbox folder that can be uploaded to Vimeo later

Uploading the Call to the Members' Website

Now that all of the assets from the call are in the right place and the task has been tagged in Asana by the coach, Zapier will trigger a new task in Asana as well as a checklist in Process Street and assign it to our admin staff to create a new page in our members' website and post the recording. We use Advanced Custom Fields to control the layout of the recordings of our coaching calls and webinars.

The Process

Here is the process one of our admin staff needs to follow to upload the call to the members' website:

Promote The Recording to Our Members

The final piece of this incredible puzzle is to promote the recording to those members who missed the live call. If the Asana task has been tagged correctly, Zapier will create a new task in Asana and a new checklist in Process Street and assign it to one of our admin staff to promote the call via email (using Infusionsoft), our Facebook group and Intercom for those members who login to the members' website.

The Process

Here is the process our admin staff follows to promote the recording of the call to our members:

Final Thoughts

I firmly believe that the way to successfully grow a business is to continue to add value and over deliver to your customers and at the same time optimise your internal processes so that you can do so at a profit. We owe it to ourselves and our customers to run a profitable business so that we can continue to serve them into the future.

I hope that by documenting these processes it helps our team deliver that value to our customers and I hope it helps you improve your processes in some small way.

I'd love to hear any questions or suggestions in the comments.