In this article, I’m going to show you the best way to boost your own career by teaching other people. After reading this, you will know what to do, have five strong reasons to pull through, and you will be able to avoid the biggest mistake most people make, when they go down this path.
Hi, my name is Marc Jost, and I have nothing to sell you. I’m a certified international business trainer at Corporate Training Academy, and this channel is all about helping people become Business Trainers and earn more by becoming more.
Do you enjoy helping people, and wish, you could have more in your personal life and career?
This is possible if you become a business trainer.
A business trainer trains a group, mostly in a corporate setting, on specific skills. This could be sales, leadership, computer security, insurance, the possibilities are endless!
By now, I have more than 10,000 hours of experience in this industry, but many years ago, I didn’t know that this job even existed. When I was still working in public relations, I wanted to break free from the 9-5 routine. The more all those years went by, the more it bored me to death, and I didn’t really see how I could reach the next level in my career!
So, what do you have to do, to become a business trainer? It’s simple: Learn the craft part-time while you keep working in your job. Don’t just quit! You can learn it here, for free, and: you can access all the documents we are sharing – for each new video – in our free member’s area.
For this video, get our cheat sheet: “How to become a business trainer and let your company pay for it”, just by subscribing to our newsletter. This will give you free access to our member’s area.
However, you can take the fast track and go for a proper certification program, that lets you become a certified business trainer. These programs are part-time and spanning two to three months. And they will give you all the tools you need, to activate a group of people and, ideally, to market yourself successfully as a corporate trainer.
This way, you can make a living while you work in your job, and at the same time work on your future part-time! This is exactly what I’ve done, and after a few months, I discovered, that I was earning more part-time than what I was making in my job!
You might also discover that your employer appreciates your new skills. My boss quickly found out that I could teach, and he let me! He found out that this appealed to prospects: So we started offering online-webinars, and many prospects became clients.
However, your story might be slightly different: Your employer might need someone who passes on their experience internally or who offers seminars for your existing clients. Go for it: This channel is here to show you how to train groups and, if you wanna go pro, how to find, the perfect certification program that fits your needs.
So, as a corporate trainer, you have three options: One: To stay in your job and train people occasionally.
Two: To switch employers and become a full-time trainer, or, Three: To eventually leave the hamster wheel and become self-employed.
My path to boost my own career by teaching others led me from internal trainer to becoming a self-employed business trainer. And, after nine years in the industry, it led me further to being a well-rounded entrepreneur who has left his home country to live in Madeira, a wonderful island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
If you want to be successful, you will need a strong why. Why will you be doing all this? Why will you study group dynamics, “training design” and practicing “interventions in front of real groups? Why should you keep on beating on your craft, especially in the first few months, when it seems like progress is minimal?
Let me give you my top five strongest reasons, why I think business training is a wonderful profession and why you should care about this truly unique career.
Reason #5 of my top five: Self-fulfillment
Do you want to have a purpose in life? I say, there’s nothing quite like it when you share your knowledge and experience with others. Business training is a profession that allows you to touch many people’s lives.
The most fulfilling part for me is when an attendee will come to me after the session and say, “You know what, I thank you for letting me realize that I’m more than enough, but I can still give more.”
I had a participant who was very shy on the first day. He was never given a chance to lead. He was more of a follower, you know, the type of guy who would stay in the corner during a party. In one of the activities, I made him the leader of a group tasked with building tower using popsicle sticks.
Guess what? His group formed the highest tower.
Before he went home, he told me, “Marc, I almost forgot that I’m good at leading a team. I was a student council president in high school, but after I was diagnosed with a heart condition, my confidence went downhill. Today, you rekindled a skill that I thought I had already lost. I can’t thank you enough”.
See, as a trainer, you will have this amazing opportunity to make a difference. You will know how to value each person, and that’s more than enough to embrace your profession.
Before we go over the other reasons, remember I promised to reveal the number one mistake everybody makes, when they want to boost their career and at the same time help others? The first hint comes within the next points, but it will be crystal clear to you, if you really focus and listen until the end of the video.
Number four out of my top five reasons to become a business trainer is The Freedom to Do Things my Way
If you feel like you’re sometimes dragging yourself going to work, you are not alone! Every day, there are thousands of walking zombies heading to their office. They work, eat, chat, and go home. No freedom, no life.
Being a business trainer increases your leeway, your autonomy: It starts when you’re employed: You will have the freedom to design your training your way. When you conduct the training, the timing, teaching methods and how you interact with your participants, it’s all your decision. When I started out, I also enjoyed less and less interference from my boss and colleagues, because to them, I was a specialist for teaching groups. The time it would take to understand a seminar plan or to even take part in a day-long seminar was, at the end of the day, too much of an investment for them.
And as a self-employed, you’ll have the liberty to decide where you want to go, what time you get up in the morning, or who you want to work with. You can choose the topic you want to focus on, design the type of training you will provide and the type of audience you want to work with.
It’s also very liberating doing trainings, especially if you are a creative person. No one will restrict you or prescribe how to design your seminar activities, your proposals or public speaking. You can experiment with new techniques and tools until you will have become a master of your craft.
Before I get to number three, remember to hit subcribe, because our channel is new and you will help others to discover what has helped you.
Number 3: Earn More!
Most of the people I know who have become trainers have doubled their income, including myself. I have quit my job, which made me over 65 thousand a year, and that’s 9 years ago.
But it’s not an overnight “make-me-rich” scheme. You still need to do the work, but with lesser stress than in many professions – and more fun!
The best part is, you can already start earning more while still working in your job. Many companies will even pay for a part or all of your business trainer certification.
Your key to financial sustainability in business training is to specialize in a niche. As an example, you would not be a trainer for leadership, but “leadership for women in the life sciences industry”. Or: Instead of online marketing, a specialized trainer would just focus on online marketing for family-owned businesses in the food industry. If you know how to set yourself apart from other trainers, you will cut through all that noise out there, and more companies will book you for their employees’ training.
The realistic goal is a six-figure income: When you have consistent bookings, and as long as you manage your finances well, you will have significantly more money than what you’re making now.
Before we move to #2, if you like what you’re watching, hit the like button, it doesn’t cost you a cent and mean s a lot to me.
Moving on to #2, The profession has a great future
You will find knowledge around every corner. But who will practice new skills with teams and groups? Who is going to pass on the practical tips that come directly from experience? And: Who can tell inspiring stories about their own mistakes, to make it infinitely easier for others to succeed? This is something a machine will never be able to do. But, it is exactly what business trainers have to do.
It doesn’t matter, whether you are an online or conventional trainer: training is vital for teams, organizations and entire economies, and it will always remain highly valuable in our modern world.
Finally, at # 1, being a trainer also means personal development.
On the one hand, working as a trainer makes you more confident because you learn how to lead groups towards a common goal. Since you’ll get feedback on almost every training, you will also become more reflective and, you will get to know yourself much better.
What do I mean by growth? Well, for example, you will find out how you can compensate some of your current weaknesses with certain strengths that you have. Trainers have endless opportunities for personal development:
Through experience over time, by just learning what works when you work with a group, but also through incredibly inspiring role models from the training industry.
You will also get to know participants who will let you grow. The so-called difficult participants somewhat become “particularly remarkable” participants over the course of your career. And:
You will meet impressive people among your customers who have mastered situations, problems, and obstacles that might still seem impassable, insurmountable or completely unacceptable to you today.
So, what is the number one mistake that most make when they want to boost their career by teaching other people? Many confuse business coaching and training!
Here is the difference: Business coaches typically work with individuals, but corporate trainers (or business trainers) work with groups.
To cite the International Coach Federation, “Coaches exist to maximize personal and professional potential.” The Association for Talent Development states, that “Coaching is probably one of the most individually tailored practices in talent development, as it involves a close and confidential relationship between the coach and the person being coached.”
I am not really concerned about people using coaching and training interchangeably sometimes. What I am concerned about is, that the business model of meeting with individuals and working with groups is fundamentally different. I am sure you can imagine what will happen, if you are an executive coach, and your client is just not showing up.
I am also a certified, trained business coach, and guess why, long ago, I said goodbye to the profession: It is far from financially sustainable. Clients who change appointments an hour before you reach their office, and the fact that you only have one person in front of you, trying to pay for your time, is highly problematic.
Most clients don’t receive a lot of backing for their coaching lessons from their company, which in turn leads them to terminate their coaching contract early, often after just 3 or 4 sessions. It is just too expensive for them in the long run. Ask any professional coach: for most, coaching .. is just .. a sideline.
However, fake coaches and impostors don’t seem to get tired advertising their overpriced “high ticket” video courses, frequently with zero interaction and typically with zero experience. If you want to spot fake coaches and impostor-online-experts in minutes, make sure you watch this video here: How to spot fake coaches.
See you there!
