Two train-the-trainer models carry hidden risks: external certification dilutes brand control, while internal programs often fail because they entertain rather than change behavior. Training requires rigorous design and validated exercises, not just stage speaking.
Any of you doing train-the-trainer stuff? 1, 2, okay, a couple. So train-the-trainer is great, but there are some risks. So there's really 2 flavors of train-the-trainer. There's probably a couple more, but broadly speaking, one is you certify others to deliver your content and they pay you something for that. There's a risk there if you're selling to folks where you are not that important to them. If you're one of many, many, many things that they do, It's just not as important to them as it is to you. You have risk to your brand. You don't know how your stuff's being delivered. You don't know the caliber on the quality. You can overcome those things, but the quality control components and the making sure that they're happy piece of that takes a lot more work than you typically think than someone just writing you a check and you take them through something and they're certified. It's a longer-term relationship than that. Train the trainer is also something that you can do inside of large companies. Large companies will eventually do the math and say, wait a minute, why am I paying you $10,000, $15,000 a day for training? Can we certify some of our folks that get paid much, much less than that to do it? And you've got to have it documented and coded. There is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. So the right way to do this is by using the right tools and the right people and instructional designers and tying things back to exercises and activities that have actually been validated to prove the learnings, not just because it gets a laugh on stage. What works on stage, you know, speaking by the way is about being entertaining, is about being engaging, and about introducing concepts to people that you hope resonate with them. Training is about changing the behaviors. It's a whole different piece and a whole different mindset. And if you don't have the expertise to do it, don't. You know, get some help here because there's nothing worse than seeing a fantastic speaker put out training that's just lame-o. Or just, you know, you can't train to the joke. So most training doesn't start with your airplane ride there and silly stories of that nature. It doesn't happen. And by the way, those people are not— there's lots of them out there that that's what they do. They convert content into a format that is valid for learning, which most of us don't know how to do.
