I spent some time yesterday sitting through a webinar that I wish I could get that time back.
As you all know, I am a commercial real estate broker, and I have been involved in the commercial world for many years. The webinar was scheduled a few weeks ago, and I was actually excited to hear the content of the message. However, I was shocked at the time it took to get to the meat of the subject.
The trainer was an experienced commercial broker and definitely knew the subject inside and out. The problem with that was the fact that he knew so much about the history of the topic. The topic was built around the IBC – International Building Codes, which are created by a national committee to represent the standards in building commercial properties. I know what you are thinking – “how is that exciting at all”? Well, my initial thoughts were that the trainer was going to mention ‘new’ codes and how to be creative and how to accomplish your goal utilizing different building codes for your building/store type. Boy was I wrong.
About a quarter of the way through this history lesson on how the IBC was developed, I was completely gone, thinking of what I had to do for the day and so on. What I derived from this presentation was the fact that our commercial division is training ‘new’ commercial agents. And when I say ‘new’, I mean brand new to commercial real estate in experience, completely!
Our commercial division is recruiting new commercial brokers from their existing base of residential agents
Knowing this, I now understand why the webinar was so boring!
So, my advice to the presenters (trainers) is such:
PLEASE make the attendees aware of the level of skillset that the webinar is focused on. I do not have anything against the content of the material or the fact that the webinar was scheduled, but what I do have a resentment for signing up to view it to begin with. I resent the fact that the title of the webinar was misleading and not directed at the experienced commercial agents at the end of the day…
Training the trainer is a big deal these days, and if you have the ‘cahones’ to speak up, please do so, it will make your life that much easier!
Ray, THANK YOU for speaking up and writing what many of us also think MUST be done!! Although I am not in the real estate business, I run a company that contracts trainers out to companiers to train their trainers or employees. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to make a call to the Training Supervisor of a company and specifically ask them, “To who, and what level of experience will I be giving this training to??” It is a very important question, to me, just as important as the lesson itself. There is no more waste of everyone’s time then when I am giving a training lesson to employee’s or trainers that know what I am teaching, and have known everything in the specific lesson for years. It is imperative that companies make sure the students fit what is being offered or taught. Especially in today’s economic conditions, you do not want to waste a minute of your time, or the time of people you are training. So to make the most out of any webinar, or in-person training program, whether it be a 4 hour class, or a 4 week class, Training Supervisors, HR Directors, and Quality Analyst MUST be on the same page, and also they must identify who their audience(Students) will be for each and every class, and what the experience and skill level is of the people that either sign up or are required to attend a class are, and make sure the training is going to be of benefit and something new to those in the class. If they need to split the class, with less experienced employee’s or trainers in one class, learning the basics of whatever is being taught, and then a 2nd class, for the more experienced worker, that the trainer can go over new protocol, laws, codes, etc…
Trainers hate training a class that knows everything they are teaching, just as much as the people who are taking the class hates it. It is a waste of time, money and resources. Companies must start making sure the heads of their training departments are giving proper disclosure of what will be taught in their class or webinar, so individuals or companies can make INFORMED decisions on WHO or IF they want to have their employee’s take part in the class being offered. FULL DISCLOSURE is the only way this will get corrected and then people won’t have to go through the experience you went through of thinking you were going to be trained in something new, and instead you sat through a history lesson that you NEVER would have logged onto if you would have known EXACTLY what the webinar was going to include in it’s lesson plan. TELL THE PEOPLE WHAT YOUR TRAINING!!!