CVC Success Group coach, Jerry Isenhour

Join Jerry on this edition of The Chimney & Fireplace Success Network podcast as he discusses how to put virtual live stream training to work for you and your team. How to set up on your end and how to get max ROI for the time invested into training via live streaming.

Video transcript

I want to welcome you to another episode of the Chimney and Fireplace Success Network. This is Jerry Isenhour your host, and every week our podcast is sponsored by and brought to you by the CVC Success Group. Keep in mind what’s our mission? To help you, our customers, turn their business dreams into their business realities.
Today I want to share some thought processes with you over something we’ve started to do here that seems to have phenomenal potential and it is a way to answer the needs of training to so many industry people. I have been doing training in the Chimney Venting and Hearth industry for over 35 years since I presented my first training class some years ago at an August west seminar that was held in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, this is what I do as a full-time occupation with our coaching and training company CVC Success Group. Over those years, I have traveled around the United States, and I have done presentations at countless places in my time, but earlier this year, we faced a significant challenge and what was that challenge? It was called the COVID-19 virus, and as I record this in mid-June, this virus seems to be staying with us and in fact, in some areas, it is going through a resurgence and it’s like the second wave is already coming in. But you know, even when this virus and the issues that it brings us today, training is still a very needed thing for industry members, both incoming new industry members and for continuing education of the existing workforce that you have. This has presented us a challenge. But you know, this is one of the things where we think we have come up with a solution that answers the needs and in fact, it offers a lot of benefits.
What am I going to be talking about today is virtual live stream training that we have started presenting from CVC Success Group. We started this when the COVID-19 virus reared its head and we presented 27 two-hour courses to the industry over a period of eight weeks, 54 hours of education presented in a digital live stream format. We found out that this worked. We needed to do was move it to a higher level. We were using simple virtual software broadcasting from a desk and maybe we would have two people on there broadcasting from different areas of the country. But what we saw was a need to come up with a higher level and from this, we made the decision to invest pretty heavily into an internet broadcast studio. It is our virtual classroom here in North Carolina, where we can teach virtually anywhere in the country and in fact anywhere in the world where someone has a digital device, and internet access.
Now as we go into this, I also want you to share that several years ago, CVC started an online training platform, but there are the issues with recorded online sessions. It is extremely difficult to get team members to use recorded learning. Some people adapt to very well, others they just simply cannot make it work. But what we found was when we started doing live stream training, where it was done at a certain time, and where you can actually participate in this with the instructor, all of a sudden it started to make a whole lot more sense and gained wider acceptance. So, this was the concept from which we moved to build our broadcast studio, our virtual classroom. We wanted a studio where we could broadcast with a good signal, which meant we had to have extremely strong internet service, which we brought in, but the next thing to provide was the ability to interact with the students, and to do that what we had to install a lot of television monitors so we could see each and every one of those students that was out there that had their camera turned on during the class. We’ve added more technology, we’ve switched our meeting software into a service that’s much more user friendly and now we have started our presentations, we unveiled our first one last week, which was our two day basic Chimney Sweep Technician Training. It was two eight-hour days of training with a phenomenal turnout. This week, we are going to be doing a sales training in the same presentation method. It’s going to be an interactive all day session.
Now, as before, we’ve invested pretty heavily into an online platform. But so many people have shared the challenges which is getting their people to participate in using online recorded training, and it seems that the live stream is much more widely accepted by the students. Why? Because the student had to be connected to the class at a certain time. Now let’s talk a little bit. What’s the benefit for you as the business owner of using live stream training like this. So let’s take a look at that. Number one, there’s a risk of exposure to COVID-19 anytime that we travel, or we gather in large groups. In fact, in some areas of the country it is you can’t even get together in a large group today to do training. When you are going to remote trainings, you have got travel expenses, you have also got downtime for travel which also gives you another expense that you must budget for. It can involve hotel rooms, plane flights, rental cars, many more expenses, but with virtual, all those expenses are eliminated.
Now, let me share with you the best way to use virtual livestream training with your team members. The best method on the receiving end is have a classroom set up in this classroom, you are going to have a computer and you are going to have video monitors. We recommend microphones there, and we recommend cams. So why do we recommend all these things again? Because this is intended to be an interactive seminar where you can interface and interact with the instructor. To do this, you have got to have a computer to receive the signal. You need a widescreen television as the monitor. So it can be seen by all the people in the room. You need speakers that you can turn up for the right level of volume. When you do all this, you can also include in this some very comfortable seating, since you’re doing it in your own classroom, the students don’t have to just sit in the chairs all the time, which can tire them out. They can get up, stretch and move around. They can do all that. Like I said, we suggest that you have a mic. Why do you have a mic? Because there’s times at the instructor will turn your mic on so you can address your questions straight to the instructor. We also communicate with them through chats, but many times you really need to be able to talk to the instructor to get your questions answered and to obtain the clarification, where you may be missing it. So again, what do you need to do this is, you need a computer, you need a mic, you need a cam, and then you need comfortable seating.
When you do virtual training live like this is just like being in the room with the instructor. We take breaks, we take a break for lunch, and everything rolls on time, you also qualify for CEU credits by attending these so you can re-certify. That doesn’t mean that you have to use a classroom setting because virtual labs live streaming can certainly be utilized singularly by one person. They can use a computer, they can use a tablet, they can even use a smartphone to be able to do this and connect up with some of the greatest training going for the Chimney Venting and Hearth Industries. Right now, we’re making technical changes into our studio setup to bring this up to even a higher level. By being virtual, we’re unlimited in the number of seats that we can offer to students going into this and also there is no expense for us to travel as instructors, to rent spaces to do training and other things. So what we brought to you is a very cost effective way for you to train your people and it is the training of the future. As we look at it right now, you can get a college education and a college diploma through virtual training. Virtual is trending around the world in so many different ways, and that is the system that we’ve devised here at CVC Success Group.
So what I’d invite you to do is take a look at virtual live stream training, it might just be the answer that you’ve been looking for of how do I train my people at the lowest cost? How do I get the maximum ROI on that training budget? And how can I stretch my training budget to make it give me more return that is presently being received. Now there’s another advantage here to you as the business owner, and that’s what we call facilitation. What is facilitation? Facilitation means that you’re involved in this training with your team members because as this training goes on, there’s going to be times that you’re going to need to identify this for your specific business and your specific market areas. On the training that we did this previous week, we had several companies that had their entire workforces attend this training and from talking to all of these, it has been a very effective way for them to train their people and they all will be joining future trainings.
Coming up over the next month, we have several different classes that we’re going to be presenting. As we just talked, we’ve got one this Thursday, it’s going to be sales success for the service technician. That’s going to be taught by myself. Then we’ve got an in it by Gas Certification Training coming up and that’s going to be taught by Bob Wise. We’re also going to have another two day training and it’s going to be our diagnostics and analysis of the masonry chimney class, very popular class that I’ve taught for a number of years, we keep changing and keep improving it, but it’s really made a difference for a lot of companies. Another class that we have that we’re going to roll out in the next month is our Real World Chimney Inspections class, taught by myself and Tom Urban because with our system we can bring in remote instructors through our studio and present to you a phenomenal training system that can help you move your company to that level that you envision, Because you got to train your new people, you got to train your existing workforces via continuous ongoing training. We plan on repeating some of our classes such as our two day basic chimney sweep training class, we’ll be presenting this class probably every two to three months year round, because you’re going to be hiring people on an ongoing basis. Part of this also involves electronic testing and quizzing to assess their comprehension.
This is some of the things that virtual lab stream training offers us to be able to offer to you so you can move your training up to that higher level that you know you want to go to. And with that, I appreciate you joining me this week here on the Chimney and Fireplace Success Network, again brought to you every week by the CVC Success Group where our mission is to help our clients turn their business dreams into their business realities. That is your question. Isn’t it time we talked about your business dreams and how we can help you turn your business dreams into your business realities? I look forward to talking with you. I appreciate you joining me today. This is Jerry Isenhour. See you next week. Hope you have a great week.