Monthly Archives: July 2020

7 Tools To Build Your Training Materials

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I get emails every day from companies promising me that they can produce wonderful, beautiful training materials for me – for a fee, of course. I suppose there are trainers out there who don’t want to bother with making their own materials, and maybe you’re one of them. I am not. Perhaps it’s the control freak in me coming out, but I prefer to do it myself.

When you’re a department of one with little resources, you learn how to put things together on your own. I’ve been creating PowerPoint presentations and course manuals for years. As more course content went online, I learned to create and edit videos. I also learned to make my own promotional materials instead of waiting for the marketing department to do it for me. Does this all take time? Yes, it does. But as you become more proficient with the tools, you can create materials quickly, efficiently, and you can keep the look and tone of the content consistent, regardless of the type.

Here are the tools that I use most often:

  • Google Slides/Google Docs: Many people use Microsoft products such as PowerPoint and Word to create presentations and documents. I, too, used these programs almost exclusively until I learned the benefits of Google Slides and Docs. First, I don’t need to remember to hit save while I’m working on a project. (How many times have you inadvertently closed something before saving? Or perhaps your computer crashed unexpectedly?) The Google programs automatically save changes to your work to your Google Drive. The other aspect of Slides and Docs that I really like is the ability to share editing responsibility with other team members. You can also share presentations and documents with others for review. You have much of the same functionality as you do in PowerPoint or Word, and if you want to, you can download your presentations and documents in those formats.
  • Canva:  I’ve written about Canva previously (I’m a fan). Not only can I create eye-catching designs for a multitude of purposes, I have access to more templates than I can count for many different purposes: presentations, social media posts, documents, website, and more. Canva makes it easy to create visuals for presentations and documents. If you upgrade to the Pro version, you get access to many more photographs and templates, as well as the ability to save your brand colors and fonts. I create all of my images for this blog/website, social media, and presentations with Canva. It’s easy to use and convenient to have everything in one place.
  • Camtasia: It’s fairly easy to make screen capture videos on a Mac or PC, but if you want to use those videos as part of online training, you’re probably going to want to edit them. You may want to zoom in to specific places on the screen, add callouts or animations, or add music or voice-over tracks. I have found Camtasia easy to work with, and it produces good results. Some of its features can be achieved with iMovie, but Camtasia does give you the ability to produce your final video in a variety of formats including those needed for some online learning platforms. To me, it’s worth the cost of the license.
  • Laptop Stand: I acquired a laptop stand several years ago as a way to help myself sit up straight while typing and viewing the screen on my laptop. Not only do I no long hunch over my laptop, I also discovered that I look at the camera at eye level when presenting webinars without sacrificing my ability to use the keypad. The bonus feature of the stand I purchased is that is it convertible. I can create a “standing desk” with it and stand up to present also. Save your back and neck and give yourself an eye-level camera angle at the same time with a laptop stand.
  • Microphone: Most laptops have built-in microphones somewhere on the side or back of the computer. Most of us will get better sound if we plug in a microphone and use it to capture our voices when presenting during webinars or making videos. This is also true if we use our smart phones to create videos for training. There are a number of different microphones you can purchase. I have both a lapel mike and a standing microphone. I also have a headset with microphone that I use for webinars if I am not on camera.
  • Smart Phone Tripod: You can shoot good videos using your smart phone, but you’re probably going to want to use a tripod to keep the image stable and lined up correctly. You can find cell phone tripod adaptors that fit on a standard tripod or you can purchase a tripod specifically for use with a smart phone. I found one that has a removable smart phone adaptor and bendable legs. I can use the adaptor with a standard tripod or use the bendable legs to place my tripod on sign posts, benches, and railings. My camera stays in place once positioned.
  • Zoom: There are plenty of video conferencing and webinar platforms out there. I mention Zoom because of three main things: The video quality is better than most platforms, it’s easy to place participants into “breakout rooms” for small group discussions or work, and it can be integrated with Facebook Live for streaming to a broader audience. Zoom Meetings gives you the ability to look at all of your participants, too. You can record webinars or meetings and repurpose the video. Whatever platform you decide to use for live, online training, be sure to learn the options and determine how you can best utilize them for engaging online sessions.

In most cases, there are online resources you can use to familiarize yourself with these tools. Learn how to use them effectively and efficiently so you can create training materials whenever you need them. What tools do you like? Leave your suggestions in the comments!

5 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Training

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During my years as a training director, I learned that everyone in the organization knows how training should happen. I listened to a myriad of opinions about what we should train, when, and where. Don’t get me wrong–there were good ideas, too. I happen to believe that the training department should partner with managers to learn about needs and direction of the program. I learned that along with that comes several misconceptions about what “training” is and how to do it effectively. Here are five things everyone gets wrong about training:

  • Anyone can train. Subject matter experts are just that: Experts in the subject matter they perform. Sometimes subject matter experts (lovingly referred to as “SMEs” in the training field) are good presenters, sometimes not. If confronted with the idea that Bob the mortgage loan originator can teach a class on mortgages, my duty was to confirm that Bob could, indeed, teach the content. Not everyone can teach or train. When I evaluate a prospective trainer, it’s to determine whether the person wants to present in front of people and if yes, how can I best help them to accomplish that without sacrificing the standards of the program. There are alternatives to getting the material into the hands of learners such as interviews, podcasts, videos, and articles.
  • Give them a handout. Somehow, having a handout legitimizes the training class. It should have as much information on it as possible so that when someone leaves the class with the handout, they will be able to remember the information presented. Such handouts, in my opinion, are wastes of time. If the participant can get just as much out of a handout after the class as they can participating in the class, why bother attending? The best handouts are those that require the participant to pay attention to what’s going on in the class to be able to follow along on the handout. The handout could have sentences that need to be completed, prompts to write down a number of points that were made, or illustrations that the participant could describe. The handout could be a simple piece of paper for the participant to take notes. The handout shouldn’t replace the content of the class.
  • Give them the slide deck. This is a kin of the handout and sometimes even a substitute for it. Giving participants a copy of the slide deck may seem a plausible way to help them remember content, but only if the trainer is reproducing a high volume of class content on the slides. I prefer to make my slides primarily visual aids for the presentation and limit the number of bullet points on them. A copy of the slide deck might not get the participant very far in their recollection of the session if they are relying on the deck having all the information. There are times, however, when providing the slide deck in handout form can be useful for participants. Give it to them when appropriate.
  • Training has to be in person. This admonition is fading away as more and more companies are looking for ways to train their staff remotely. It is very common, though, to hear managers declare that people need to go to training (read: to a specific place at a specific time to take part in a class with a live instructor). With people accustomed to watching videos online and taking tests and quizzes via social media, the need to be in a physical classroom has diminished. We are finding ways to train people virtually, either live, in person or through learning management platforms that provide on demand training. There is a benefit to having a community of learners for social learning. That community can be assembled in the online space, too.
  • You don’t need training if you’re experienced. It’s surprising that people believe we can stop learning once we’ve achieved a particular level of competence in our fields. With rapid changes in technology and how it’s applied to different professions, training to use these tools is essential. Even if you have “learned it all,” you forget or don’t use information or techniques as consistently as you think. Often we need to keep learning to advance our careers. Exempting experienced people from training does not benefit them. Training needs to adapt and be flexible enough to allow for participants at different stages of their careers and their changing needs.

Everyone has an opinion about training. When you’re the trainer, you need to listen to them and then separate the valid recommendations and ideas from those that are less helpful. You may be called upon to justify your decisions, and that becomes a training opportunity, too. If you’re a trusted partner, others will welcome the chance to understand why you do what you do.

5 Tips To Get The Most Out Of An Online Community

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We are all spending a lot more time online these days. It’s easy to find an hour has gone by and all I’ve done is watch some videos and read a couple of articles. This may seem like a waste of time, but I schedule my online “research.” I want to continue to learn new approaches and discover best practices for my use. This means using the resources I have available to me through online networking and social learning platforms.

Long before the pandemic I discovered that there are online communities of professionals who gather to learn and exchange ideas regularly. At one time, LinkedIn Groups functioned as great resources for information and exchange of ideas. Unfortunately, most of the posts in these groups do not get seen unless the member purposely goes to the group page. Just as any other social media platform, engagement dictates whether group members will see any content posted.

Other types of online communities include member-only platforms. Some require that you pay a fee to join, others have no fee. I joined Training Magazine’s online community, Training Magazine Network, several years ago to get resources and tips when I was researching Learning Management Systems. I stayed involved because I found that the multitude of topics covered in live and recorded webinars, e-books, and information on the site made it a good compliment to other industry-specific resources. I also enjoyed the interaction with other attendees on live webinars. Training Magazine Network also offers a place on the platform where I can record my insights as I watch a webinar, share my insights, and read others’ comments. This is all part of a social learning platform.

You can become a member of an online community and never watch, read, or comment on the content. For the best return on the investment of your time and attention (and perhaps money), I offer these tips:

  • Watch webinars live: Not another webinar, right?! I have learned about many training topics on webinars, and I’ve learned best practices for presenting a webinar just by observing a live webinar. If you watch the webinar live, you can also participate in the conversation in the chat. There are other professionals watching who contribute to the conversation. The webinar presenter will often use the chat to gauge interest and engagement, or a least to field questions. For best results, watch webinars live and be engaged!
  • Connect with other members, on- and off-line: Sometimes you meet someone on one of those webinars you watch and end up having conversations with them, connecting with them on LinkedIn, and even collaborating on a project. This only happens if you pay attention, strike up a conversation, and respond when someone invites you to connect with them. You never know where that connection could lead.
  • Participate in interest groups: Some networking or social learning platforms create opportunities for you to participate in small groups. Depending on the group, this may be for a finite period of time or an ongoing discussion. I find myself enriched by the conversations in the groups I have joined. You might discover that you create connections with the others in your group that last beyond the group’s dissolution.
  • Learn something new: As a training professional, I understand well the need to learn new things, but when was the last time you challenged yourself to learn something new? An online platform may give you the opportunity to stretch yourself and move out of your comfort zone. Think outside the box when contemplating which webinar to watch or what group to join. Consider topics you’ve always wanted to know about, but didn’t think relevant enough.
  • Contribute: It’s easy to sit back and watch a few webinars or videos, read a couple articles, and then move on. Sometimes you read something that makes you mad or resonates with you. If the platform gives you the ability to leave comments or engage with the author through a chat function, consider continuing the conversation. If you’re watching a webinar, use the chat function to contribute. Ask questions. Help someone else understand something. Contribute to the discussion. You’ll find your experience enriched in the end.

You only get out of it what you put in.

Make the most of online resources to help you with your professional development and to learn about tools that could help your department (even a department of one). Join an online networking group to find connections with other professionals. You may just find your new favorite place to hang out online.

Repurpose Your Content

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Once upon a time, to teach meant that you stood or sat in a classroom in front of people and engaged in activities designed to help those people learn something. You might have lectured or presented concepts, theories, or formulas. You might have demonstrated how to perform an activity or experiment. You might have engaged the people in the classroom in a discussion about a topic or a reading. When the time for the class was up, you left the room and interacted with the people only if they had questions or needs, and they most likely came to you during specific times when you were available for consultation.

The content for these classes was in a notebook or file folder, prepared and maintained by you, the instructor. If you shared anything, it was in the form of paper handouts. Sometimes you prepared manuals for distribution to the participants in your classes. In some cases, you may have added audio cassettes or CDs for participants to use when reviewing the lessons. Each person had their own set of materials for their own use.

Times have changed, haven’t they? We are less likely to be in a classroom these days, and the materials we provide may be documents, videos, or audio files stored on a website that participants in training access on their own, according to their needs. The ability to provide new materials and make changes to previous versions has also made updating course content faster (and easier, in my opinion). We are connected to students in a variety of ways: Email, text message, social media, and learning management systems, to name a few.

I believe that the nature of teaching and learning has also changed. We still conduct formal training sessions to present material and give students the opportunity to ask questions and practice; however, there are also informal, social learning opportunities as well. The content we prepare for formal learning can be repurposed and used for informal learning as well.

I have been creating short “Quick Tip” videos for some time. Each one explains to real estate agents how to do something for their business and in some cases, why it’s important. The content for these videos comes from the material I regularly train on in my classroom sessions. Because these are short “Quick Tips,” I use discrete lessons that can be presented in two to four minutes in a video. I typically use no visual aids, and it’s just me in the frame of the video.

These videos are distributed to my social channels (YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn). They also sit on a page on my website. I invite viewers to comment and subscribe, but most people will see the video through social channels as they view their newsfeeds. Recently I took one of the “tracks” we teach as part of the Floyd Wickman Program, the “Referral Lead Generator,” and created a short “how to” video:

I can use this video as a short reminder lesson for students in the program, to promote my business as a Floyd Wickman trainer, and to simply connect with past students who may have forgotten the technique and want to review it for their use. Eventually this video will be linked to my email signature where I invite people to view my latest “Quick Tip.” It gives a broad audience a taste of what I train on and how I present the content.

When I create videos, I order captions and a transcript from an online service. The transcript of the video can be stand-alone content for a blog post or website page. Many podcasts double as audio and video files, distributed to different channels for different purposes. Webinars can be recorded and offered for on-demand learning on a learning management platform or other website. Repurposing content is taking what you have already prepared and using it in a different way.

People learn in different places, at different times, and by different means than they did 20 or 30 years ago. By repurposing your training content and making it available via different channels, you are more likely to reach more students (and potential students) than you might by confining your teaching to the classroom.

Work Today

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Truthfully, I don’t really want to sit at my desk today and work. I would rather be anywhere else, but there’s really no where to go. I am not inclined to sit in a coffee shop even if it were open to customers. There’s no place I would go to shop. So here I am at home – still.

Oh yes, there’s work to be done. I feel ambivalent about doing it right now. I will slog through the tasks because I know I need to. There are deadlines to be met (external and internal). What would I rather be doing? Reading? Listening to music? Working on a non-work-related project? The choices overwhelm me and I end up doing nothing or very little.

So why do I feel so guilty? As an independent contractor, it is my choice what I do with my days. Still, I find it hard to relax into my days because it has been pounded into me that idleness or play is not for adults. We must always be working, doing something constructive, achieving. So I chain myself to my desk in hopes that I will be productive and can earn the ability to goof off.

My mind wanders and I end up going down a rabbit hole of internet fun or staring at my to-do list, trying to figure out what I can skip. I think about all the things I want to do and few of them are income-producing activities, and boom! I’m back on guilt island, worried that I will never earn money again and we’ll lose everything.

Notice how I automatically shift from following my desires and being destitute. It feels like a fine line, but really it’s not. I think it is because not doing all the right things, right now, feels like I’m being a slacker who depends on others and gives nothing in return. As someone who lived in a corporate world with responsibilities and expectations for years, it’s hard to adjust to creating my workday in a different way.

Instead of focussing on all the things I haven’t done, I have decided to celebrate what I do accomplish, like writing this article. I came close to deleting the entire contents of the post thinking it was too personal or not specific enough for an article about training. What does this all have to do with training, anyway? I know that in order to stand in front of a group of people, share knowledge, and help them learn, I need time to learn and grow professionally. I need time to contemplate how current events impact the topics that I teach. I need time to relax and renew my commitment to providing the best professional development courses I can.

I am not alone in my feelings of disruption these days. The pandemic continues to upend the expectations we have for ourselves and our businesses. I have decided to give myself permission to pace myself and not do the next task on my list right away. I am learning to be kind to myself, focus on the process, and not worry so much about the results. It’s o.k. to take time away from my business. I know I will come back to it better equipped to tackle the tasks at hand.

Time Off (And What To Do With It)

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I initially thought of calling this post “What to do when you’re not working.” The problem with that is for some of us, we’re spending a lot of time not working. Or at least not doing the work we want to do or we were trained to do. For those of us who are independent trainers, the pandemic has caused us to retool our businesses, pivot to different methods of delivery, and/or  spend time perfecting our online delivery of training classes. What happens when you don’t have classes scheduled though?

Sure, it’s summer. Time for picnics and vacations. (Or maybe not this year.) Here’s one thing I know about this time we’re in now: There’s a difference between the time you set aside for pleasurable activities and the time you have off because you don’t have the work you planned for or were able to book.

So what do you do? I can always find a book to read, a video to watch, a new online class to take, or a webinar to watch. Some of this qualifies as continuing education and I participate in it happily. I think we all need to keep learning and employing what we learn in our training. However, I am, like many of the people I talk to, getting tired of watching webinars. I find myself registering for what looks like an interesting presentation and then not attending because I just don’t want to click on another link.

I have books on my shelf that I’ve wanted to read for some time that are waiting for me to pick them up and start or continue reading. I find references to new titles as I read articles and I quickly reserve them at the library for pick up. As time goes on, I begin to feel bad about not reading these books despite having the time to do so.

Instead of feeling bad about not utilizing my time well, I’ve employed a few tactics to keep me engaged and working toward my goals. Here are my ideas for ways to stay working when you’re not:

  • Make a Schedule: I look at my week overall and determine when I will do what each day. I have my previously scheduled appointments, my “business development” time, and regular calls and video conferences. I also create a “top five” list of things to do most days. These keep me on task and working. I schedule my reading and exercise time to ensure that I do these important activities. I love to read, but I often feel guilty about taking the time to sit and read a book. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks while I exercise or do other tasks and then I feel very productive!
  • Say No: Sometimes you just can’t add anything else to your load. It might seem like you have a lot of time to take on another task, but really, can you? I ask myself this every time I see an announcement for an interesting meeting to attend, webinar to watch, or group to join. Sometimes the best response is to say no and focus on the things you really want to do.
  • Practice: For those of us who earn our living teaching and training others, if you’re not in a classroom teaching or presenting online, it may seem like you have nothing to do. Use the time to practice your delivery. If you update course content regularly, you’ll need to spend some time updating your presentation of the material. Find a room and practice. When I moved classes online, I updated the courses to reflect the difference between presenting online vs. in a classroom. Then I fired up Zoom and practiced a bit. Don’t forget to record yourself so you can review the results and continue to refine your presentation.
  • Commit to Learn: There are always new things to learn, but we might need to be choosy about what we commit to do. Where are the gaps in your knowledge? What would help you do your job better? There are likely online courses out there that can help you learn something new or deepen your understanding of a subject. I belong to the Training Magazine Network, and online, social learning community that sponsors webinars and courses for training professionals. I have found TMN to be a great source of information and assistance over the years.
  • Help Others: Sometimes you need to get out of your own head and help someone else. The shift in focus from your problems to someone else’s issues can bring about a clarity you wouldn’t otherwise have. Helping others can take many forms. I’m spending my summer leading a “squad” of women who are all members of the Ellevate Network. I act as a moderator for the group and coordinate our weekly online meetings. It’s not a lot of work, but it does feel good to help others.

These are just a few ideas that I have used to be more intentional about my time and my work this summer. It’s good to have time off to relax and play. It’s also good to use our time well so that we live well.