Effective training maps content to the competencies learners actually need, not the speaker's reputation. Using Lightspeed as an example, reusable digital assets can reach 1,000 or 10,000 people at low cost, replacing the "brain on a stick" model where value depends on personal presence.
But how do you map your content again to the competencies that they need to develop? How do you focus on the learner? So oftentimes when you're the speaker, you're focusing on an audience, but it's not about learning. There isn't an expectation of, as a result of somebody being here, they're going to actually be able to do or master or be fluent in something that I'm able to show them up here. It's usually a delta of, wow, whoever's up here is so amazing, so cool, so great at whatever they've done, and I'm less than that and aspire to maybe have some of that fall off on me. This needs to focus on the learner and their unique issues and challenges and struggles. And it has to scale. It has to scale. So the beauty of a Lightspeed is this is a scalable system, right? We can turn this on for 1,000 people. We can turn it on for 10,000 people. Oftentimes what happens with a speaker, a thought leader, a content person is their first interaction with the client, the client's looking at you and they're putting you into one of two buckets. They're not gonna tell you this, but they're gonna go, Wow, Shep's really smart. Ah, he's really, really smart. We have these type of problems, we got to bring him in. He's uniquely qualified. He's seen this, he's done this, or whatever. Um, then they're going to have to break that down and go, is he a brain on a stick? Meaning there's no scale. The only way to get more of his content out to more people cost-effectively is to bring him out. And I'm picking on Shep as an example, right? Or wait, Shep has this whole suite of digital content, so we can fall in love with him and I can teach that to 2,000 people in my company at a cost-effective dollar point per head without having to fly him all over the world to teach classes of 20, 30 people that become not cost-effective. They're evaluating you right off the bat. And most people get put into the sort of brain on a stick category, because that's how they're representing themselves to the market. And they wonder why. Why don't they want more of me? Well, you've got to be able— what does the buyer want? I have a problem. My boss told me people here need to learn how to be more persuasive, how to negotiate better. How to collaborate better. Great, so I'm looking for someone in the collaboration space and you come to me and you're the greatest thing and you got a Nobel Prize and 5 TED Talks, but all you got is you, great, onto the next one. You can in fact be creating demand for commodity-based training companies, the DDIs of the world, the CCLs of the world, et cetera, as opposed to bringing that demand home if you had the models there.
