Guided Cohort Terms

1. Scope and relationship to other terms

These Guided Cohort Terms (“Cohort Terms”) apply to enrollment in and participation in a Message & Method Guided Cohort. They supplement the Terms of Enrollment & Use, Privacy Policy, applicable offer details, checkout information, and any other terms presented before purchase.

If these Cohort Terms conflict with the general Terms of Enrollment & Use, these more specific Cohort Terms control for the Guided Cohort. A separately signed organizational agreement, proposal, or other written agreement controls to the extent of a direct conflict.

“Participant” means the individual enrolled to participate in the Guided Cohort. “Purchaser” means the person or organization that pays for the enrollment. When the purchaser and participant are the same person, both terms refer to that person.

2. Guided Cohort structure

A Guided Cohort combines access to the complete Message & Method Self-Directed Program with scheduled live group sessions for instruction, practice, coaching, feedback, discussion, peer learning, and accountability.

Unless the applicable offer states otherwise, a Guided Cohort consists of eight live sessions. The applicable offer will identify the scheduled dates, times, session length, cohort format, included services, price, payment options, and any special conditions.

The core curriculum is the same curriculum provided through the Self-Directed Program. Message & Method may adjust examples, assignments, session emphasis, speaking order, or facilitation methods in response to the needs, progress, and composition of a particular cohort.

Guided Cohorts are participatory educational experiences rather than attendance-flexible subscriptions. Participants are expected to prepare, attend, speak when scheduled, observe other participants, contribute constructive feedback, and complete assigned work through the course platform.

3. Reservation deposit

Where offered, a reservation deposit provisionally holds a place in a Guided Cohort. Payment of a reservation deposit does not create confirmed enrollment, activate the Self-Directed Program, grant access to the cohort group or onboarding area, or authorize Message & Method to charge the remaining cohort price automatically.

The reservation deposit is refundable until the participant completes the separate cohort enrollment process, unless the applicable deposit offer expressly states otherwise.

After the cohort is confirmed, eligible depositors will receive access to a separate enrollment checkout or written enrollment process showing the confirmed schedule, total cohort price, deposit credit, remaining amount due, available payment arrangements, and applicable terms.

The reservation deposit will be applied as a prior-payment credit toward the cohort purchase price. It is not a promotional discount.

If the participant does not complete enrollment by the stated deadline, Message & Method may release the reserved place and refund the reservation deposit to the original payment method. Message & Method may extend the deadline in its discretion but is not required to do so.

4. Confirmed enrollment and payment obligation

Confirmed enrollment occurs only when the participant completes the required cohort checkout or written enrollment process, accepts the applicable schedule and terms, and pays the required remaining balance or first installment.

Once confirmed enrollment is completed, the Guided Cohort purchase is nonrefundable except where these Cohort Terms expressly provide otherwise or applicable law requires a remedy.

If an installment plan is selected, the installments divide a fixed purchase price and do not create a cancel-anytime subscription. The entire disclosed balance remains due even if the participant later withdraws, misses sessions, stops participating, or does not use the included services.

Payment failures, overdue balances, suspension, and collection of scheduled installments are governed by the Terms of Enrollment & Use and the payment terms presented at checkout.

5. Course and cohort access

Completion of the cohort enrollment checkout ordinarily activates access to the Self-Directed Program and the applicable cohort-specific group area.

Access will ordinarily be activated before the first live cohort session so that participants can review onboarding materials, become familiar with the platform, and complete preliminary work.

The participant’s 12-month Self-Directed Program access period begins on the date course access is activated, not on the date the reservation deposit is paid and not necessarily on the date of the first live session.

The cohort-specific group area may include onboarding materials, cohort instructions, preliminary assignments, schedules, announcements, meeting links, support information, and recordings where available.

A change in the live cohort schedule does not automatically restart or extend the 12-month Self-Directed Program access period. Message & Method may provide an extension or another reasonable adjustment where a material postponement creates a substantial mismatch between course access and the live cohort schedule.

6. Cohort size and group composition

The applicable offer may identify a maximum cohort size. Message & Method will not intentionally exceed a published maximum without the affected participants’ agreement.

A cohort may require sufficient enrollment to support the planned group experience. Message & Method may postpone, cancel, or combine compatible public cohorts if enrollment, instructor availability, scheduling, or operational circumstances make that reasonably necessary.

Combining compatible public cohorts is not by itself a material change, provided that the overall format remains substantially consistent, the published maximum group size is not exceeded, and participants retain substantially the same included speaking opportunities and support.

A private organizational cohort will not be combined with an unrelated public or organizational cohort unless the purchasing organization agrees.

7. Leadership and substitute facilitators

Unless an offer clearly states otherwise, Peter Cumbo will ordinarily lead the Guided Cohort.

A qualified guest coach, facilitator, or subject-matter contributor may occasionally participate. Message & Method may use a qualified substitute facilitator if illness, emergency, scheduling conflict, or another reasonable circumstance prevents the originally scheduled facilitator from leading a session.

If another person will serve as the primary cohort leader for the program as a whole, that will be disclosed before confirmed enrollment whenever reasonably practicable.

8. Attendance and participation

Participants are expected to attend all scheduled live sessions, arrive on time, remain present and engaged, complete reasonable preparation, and participate through working two-way audio and video unless Message & Method approves an alternative.

Participants should join from a quiet, appropriately lit, and reasonably private environment where they can speak, listen, observe, and participate without avoidable disruption.

Attendance is the participant’s responsibility. Individual absences do not require Message & Method or the rest of the cohort to reschedule a session.

Repeated absence, lack of preparation, disengagement, or practical withdrawal does not create a refund, credit, makeup-session, transfer, access-extension, or cancellation right.

9. Speaking opportunities

Unless the applicable offer states otherwise, the Guided Cohort is designed to provide each participant with a short baseline speaking turn, two substantial coached developmental speaking turns, and a final capstone speaking turn.

Substantial speaking turns may follow a published or announced rotation. Participants are responsible for knowing their scheduled turns, attending, and arriving prepared.

A participant who misses or is unprepared for a scheduled speaking turn ordinarily forfeits that opportunity.

Message & Method may make a good-faith effort to arrange a swap, reschedule a turn, or provide another opportunity when practical, but no replacement speaking turn is guaranteed.

A missed speaking turn does not create a right to an individual makeup session, refund, credit, additional asynchronous review, course extension, or other remedy.

Participants also learn by observing other speakers and contributing substantive, respectful peer feedback. Not every participant will deliver a substantial speaking turn during every session.

10. Between-session support and review

The applicable offer will identify any between-session support, asynchronous review, office hours, private support channel, or other assistance included with the cohort.

Where included, between-session support is limited to the channels, response windows, number of submissions, duration limits, and scope stated in the applicable offer or cohort instructions.

Between-session support is not unlimited, immediate, emergency, or continuously available. Unused review opportunities or support capacity do not convert into cash, credit, private coaching, or additional cohort services.

Message & Method may decline or defer submissions that exceed the stated length, arrive outside the applicable period, require work beyond the included scope, or contain material that cannot appropriately be reviewed.

11. Missed sessions

Individual makeup sessions are not included.

A participant who misses a session may continue with the assigned course work and may review a cohort recording if a recording is created and made available.

On rare occasions, Message & Method may reschedule a session if the group agrees and scheduling permits. An individual absence does not require the group to change its schedule.

Missing one or more sessions does not reduce the cohort price, cancel installment obligations, extend Self-Directed Program access, or create refund eligibility.

12. Session recordings

Message & Method may record live cohort sessions and may make recordings available to enrolled participants as a supplemental feature during the cohort recording-access period.

Recordings are not guaranteed. A session may not be recorded, and a recording may be missing, incomplete, corrupted, delayed, removed, edited, withheld, or become unavailable because of technical failure, data loss, privacy concerns, participant safety, service-provider failure, restoration from backup, or other circumstances.

The absence, loss, corruption, delay, removal, or unavailability of a recording does not by itself create a right to a refund, credit, makeup session, access extension, replacement service, or other remedy.

Unless the applicable offer states otherwise, recordings made available to participants will ordinarily remain accessible through the cohort group area until 30 calendar days after the final scheduled live session.

Message & Method may shorten or restrict access to a particular recording when reasonably necessary to protect privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or the integrity of the program.

Recordings are supplemental and are not a substitute for live attendance, preparation, speaking participation, or peer engagement.

Participants may not download, screen-record, audio-record, photograph, copy, transcribe, reproduce, distribute, share, publish, or otherwise preserve cohort recordings unless Message & Method expressly provides written permission or an authorized download function.

13. Participant recording prohibition

Participants may not create their own audio, video, photographic, screen, transcript, artificial-intelligence-generated, or other recording or reproduction of a live cohort session, another participant, shared presentation, chat, screen, or cohort material.

This prohibition applies whether the recording is made through the meeting platform, a separate device, screen-capture software, transcription service, artificial-intelligence assistant, browser extension, or another method.

An accessibility-related recording or transcription request must be raised in advance so that Message & Method can consider an appropriate alternative.

14. Privacy and confidentiality

Participants may see or hear other participants’ names, images, voices, presentations, stories, feedback, chat messages, employer information, goals, experiences, and other non-public material.

Participants must not disclose, reproduce, summarize in an identifying way, or use another participant’s personal stories, presentation content, employer or client information, feedback, recordings, or other non-public cohort material outside the group without that participant’s express permission.

Participants may discuss general lessons, principles, and personal insights gained from the cohort so long as they do not identify another participant or reveal that participant’s confidential or private information.

Message & Method will use reasonable measures to support cohort privacy, but no group setting can guarantee that every participant will comply with confidentiality obligations.

Participants should not disclose trade secrets, protected health information, regulated data, government identifiers, privileged information, third-party confidential information, or material they are not authorized to share.

Confidentiality obligations continue after the cohort ends or a participant withdraws or is removed.

15. Public and promotional use

Participation in a recorded cohort does not by itself authorize Message & Method to use a participant’s name, image, voice, presentation, statement, recording, or substantive work publicly, promotionally, or as a testimonial.

Public, advertising, testimonial, or promotional use requires separate permission describing the intended use. Declining such permission does not affect ordinary cohort participation.

16. Participant contact, solicitation, and outside communications

Participants may communicate with one another voluntarily and respectfully and may exchange contact information by mutual choice.

A participant may not use cohort access, participant information, or group communications for unsolicited selling, recruiting, fundraising, repeated unwanted contact, mass messaging, prospecting, or adding another participant to a mailing, marketing, sales, recruiting, or promotional list without that participant’s express consent.

Message & Method is not responsible for private communications, transactions, professional relationships, or other arrangements between participants outside the program.

Conduct outside the formal sessions may still be addressed under these Cohort Terms when it creates a privacy, harassment, safety, security, solicitation, or disruption concern connected to the cohort.

17. Professional conduct

Participants must engage professionally, respectfully, and constructively. Harassment, discrimination, threats, intimidation, retaliation, impersonation, exploitation, intentional disruption, unauthorized recording, confidentiality violations, credential sharing, or unlawful conduct are prohibited.

Participants must follow reasonable session instructions, time limits, speaking rotations, technology requirements, and feedback guidelines.

Peer feedback must be delivered respectfully and in good faith. Peer comments reflect the individual participant’s perspective and do not necessarily represent the views or professional judgment of Message & Method.

18. Warnings, removal, suspension, and termination

Depending on the circumstances, Message & Method may issue a warning, restrict a feature, mute or remove a participant from a session, alter participation privileges, suspend cohort access, remove the participant from the live cohort, or terminate the enrollment.

Message & Method may act immediately where conduct presents a safety, privacy, confidentiality, legal, security, fraud, infringement, harassment, or substantial disruption risk. In other circumstances, Message & Method may provide notice and an opportunity to correct the issue where reasonable.

Removal from the live cohort for attendance, preparation, participation, or conduct concerns does not automatically terminate Self-Directed Program access unless Message & Method states otherwise.

Serious misconduct, intentional infringement, unauthorized recording or distribution, credential sharing, fraud, unlawful conduct, or another material breach may result in termination of both cohort participation and Self-Directed Program access.

Suspension, removal, or termination for participant breach does not create a refund, credit, transfer, or cancellation right except where applicable law requires otherwise. Remaining installment obligations continue unless Message & Method expressly agrees otherwise in writing.

19. Voluntary withdrawal and abandonment

A participant may stop attending or voluntarily withdraw from live participation, but withdrawal does not cancel the purchase, create refund eligibility, or eliminate unpaid installment obligations.

Unless access is separately terminated for breach, a withdrawing participant may continue to use the Self-Directed Program for the remainder of the applicable 12-month access period.

Live-session opportunities, speaking turns, feedback, and cohort support that occur after withdrawal are forfeited and are not converted into private coaching, credits, refunds, or future services.

Repeated absence, failure to respond, or failure to participate may be treated as practical withdrawal, but Message & Method is not required to formally close or cancel the participant’s enrollment.

20. Transfers

Enrollment is personal and may not be transferred to another person without prior written approval.

Before the cohort begins, Message & Method may approve a replacement participant if the replacement is a suitable fit, accepts all applicable terms, completes required payment or enrollment steps, and the change does not disrupt the group.

A participant does not have an automatic right to transfer to a later cohort.

Message & Method may approve a future-cohort transfer in its discretion based on timing, availability, participant fit, prior attendance, administrative impact, the reason for the request, and other relevant circumstances.

A transfer may be subject to updated pricing, a transfer fee, revised schedules, different cohort terms, or additional payment if disclosed and accepted before the transfer is completed.

21. Schedule changes

Message & Method may make reasonable adjustments to individual session dates, start times, speaking rotations, facilitators, assignments, meeting platforms, or session formats.

A minor or limited scheduling adjustment does not create a refund or cancellation right.

A change may be considered material if it substantially alters the published cohort start date, recurring meeting day or time, overall program period, or a significant number of scheduled sessions.

If Message & Method makes a material schedule change after confirmed enrollment, the participant may accept the revised schedule, request transfer to an available cohort, or timely decline the revised schedule.

If the participant timely declines a material schedule change, Message & Method will provide an appropriate refund or credit and may terminate associated cohort and Self-Directed Program access. The applicable notice will explain the available options, response deadline, and treatment of any services already provided.

Combining compatible public cohorts is not itself a material schedule change unless it also materially changes the participant’s schedule, published group size, speaking opportunities, or included services.

22. Postponement and cancellation by Message & Method

Message & Method may postpone or cancel a cohort because of insufficient enrollment, serious illness, facilitator unavailability, emergency, platform failure, severe weather, government action, or another operational circumstance.

If a cohort is materially postponed before activation of course access, the participant may accept the revised schedule, request an available transfer or credit, or decline and receive a refund of cohort payments made.

If a cohort is cancelled, the participant may choose a refund of cohort payments made or a credit toward an available alternative, unless applicable law requires a different remedy.

Incidental expenses, travel costs, lost wages, lost business opportunities, and other consequential losses are not reimbursed to the extent permitted by law.

23. Nonrefundable nature of confirmed enrollment

After confirmed enrollment, Guided Cohort purchases are nonrefundable except where Message & Method cancels the offering, the participant timely rejects a material change as provided above, the applicable offer expressly provides another remedy, or applicable law requires a refund.

Change of mind, scheduling conflicts, workload, personal circumstances, dissatisfaction with another participant, missed sessions, missed speaking turns, lack of preparation, voluntary withdrawal, repeated absence, failure to use course access, or failure to complete the program do not create refund eligibility.

The 90-Day Completion-Based Refund Policy for eligible Self-Directed Program purchases does not apply to a Guided Cohort purchase or to the Self-Directed Program access included as part of that cohort purchase.

24. Technology and third-party platforms

Participants need a reliable internet connection, a current browser, a device supporting two-way audio and video, and a suitable environment for participation. A computer or tablet is strongly preferred to a phone.

Message & Method may use third-party platforms for video meetings, recordings, email, scheduling, file delivery, hosting, and communications. Availability and performance of those services may be outside Message & Method’s direct control.

A participant experiencing a technical problem should notify Message & Method promptly and make reasonable efforts to reconnect or use an available alternative.

An individual participant’s equipment, internet, audio, video, browser, account, or environmental problem does not require the session to be postponed or repeated.

25. Educational nature and results

Guided Cohorts provide education, practice, feedback, peer learning, coaching, and accountability. They do not provide medical, mental-health, legal, financial, employment, or other licensed professional advice.

No particular speaking improvement, confidence level, audience response, career result, promotion, income, sale, acceptance, funding decision, or other outcome is guaranteed.

Results depend on preparation, attendance, participation, practice, judgment, implementation, prior experience, personal circumstances, and factors outside Message & Method’s control.

Participants retain final authority and responsibility for deciding whether and how to apply any strategy, feedback, exercise, recommendation, peer input, or other guidance encountered through the cohort. Participants are responsible for evaluating its appropriateness to their own circumstances, audiences, professional environments, and objectives.

26. Survival

Provisions concerning payment, confidentiality, recordings, intellectual property, participant conduct, participant content, privacy, disclaimers, liability, dispute terms, and other provisions that by their nature should continue will survive the end of the cohort, withdrawal, removal, expiration, or termination.

27. Contact

Questions about cohort access, schedules, participation, or support may be sent to [email protected].

Legal notices may be sent to [email protected].