Speaker Training Sessions…Without the Speakers.

The Challenge

Recently, an internationally recognized pharmaceutical company approached us with a challenge. They needed to train their speakers (including some brand-new ones) on a recently updated slide deck. Naturally, the information in the deck had to be presented accurately, professional and consistently across the entire team. A speaker training session was clearly needed. There was only one problem—budget. In short, there wasn’t one—at least not enough to fly everyone in for a live training event. Yet, for compliance purposes, the company still needed to show that each speaker was trained and could demonstrate their comprehension of the content before releasing the slide deck to them.

Our Approach

We began by identifying a leading key opinion leader (KOL) who was both an excellent presenter and well-versed in the subject matter. The CMW video crew travelled to his office and filmed him presenting the new slide deck (a cost-effective option that not only looked more credible than a sterile studio set, but also saved money without sacrificing quality).

After editing that session and synchronizing the KOL presentation with CMW’s newly formatted, product-branded slide template, we purchased a special web domain name, built a secure, user-friendly training website and invited speakers via a printed postcard and eBlast to access the site, register, supply us with their latest contact information…and complete the training on-demand. Once there, speaker/trainees found a simple-to-use training interface that allowed intuitive play/pause/rewind/fast forward control over the presentation, letting them digest the presentation at their own pace.

When they felt they comprehended the material, participants took an interactive post-test that provided instant feedback, including slide references to promote review and reinforce the presentation’s educational value. A passing score resulted in download access to the slide deck, a customized Certificate of Completion, W9 forms, speaker data sheet and speaker contract. Meanwhile, CMW also created a password-protected administrative section for the client, allowing them to oversee each speaker’s progress toward completion and certification.

The Client’s Results

In the end, every speaker completed the training course, and each one successfully passed the posttest and downloaded the latest slide deck in time for their upcoming speaking engagements. Better yet, we were able to build in capabilities and business rules that many off-the-shelf eLearning solutions would not allow (e.g., while new speakers had to watch the entire presentation, returning speakers only had to review the new modules, and could skip familiar sections). Perhaps the most telling result: not a single speaker called the CMW technical support line or e-mailed a question. The project was so successful, in fact, that we have since built in access for company sales reps allowing them to use the presentation to improve their product knowledge.

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