Alex and Chris sat with a laptop

5 benefits of training via Zoom

Alex and Chris sat with a laptop

When my business partner, Alex, and I first set up LockSmith we planned to combine our extensive marketing and innovation experience amassed in multinationals and start-ups with our passion for personal development. Our mantra was to grow brands and the people behind them. So, in addition to our consultancy work, we set about designing an in-person brand management foundations course in partnership with The Copy Club, called Brand Manager Boot Camp. 36 hours before we were due to go live, the first COVID lockdown in the UK was implemented so we pivoted quickly and delivered the course on Zoom. And we’ve never looked back! Don’t get me wrong, we’d love to be delivering our courses in person as well. But Zoom has revealed some unexpected benefits. 

Zoom is egalitarian 

Everyone has exactly the same experience of the training when it’s delivered via Zoom. There’s no longer a reticence to sit at the front of the class. No one is blocking your view of the screen. You don’t have to squint to make out the charts. It means that everyone gets exactly the same quality of experience, and the same level of value. 

Zoom is international 

We’ve delivered courses to teams based in different cities in the same country, and to teams based in different countries altogether. Everyone can attend the same training at the same time, for a shared experience. And it means that the courses are much more cost-effective as neither the team nor the trainers need to travel. That said, we’d love to deliver our courses live in some exotic locations too so we’re not ruling it out! 

Zoom is time-saving 

When you switch to a break-out during an in-person course, people invariably want to use the facilities, make a cuppa and so on. Time is lost, and it eats into the practical sessions and the time available for theory and discussion. Not so with Zoom. Break out rooms instantly transform plenary learning into practical teamwork with no time lost. The whole course can be delivered in less time. You just need to remember that you’re asking people to sit in front of a screen for the duration, so plan in regular breaks. 

Zoom is interactive 

Alex and I always deliver our courses in partnership. Whilst one of us is presenting, the other keeps an eye on Chat and Reactions and is able to immediately respond to questions without interrupting the flow of the lesson. It makes asking a question much less scary and much more rewarding, so delegates get more out of the course and can even indulge in some very specific lines of questioning that might normally be ‘car-parked’. In fact, using Chat and Reactions significantly increases the interactions between delegates and facilitators and makes the course more memorable and impactful. 

Zoom is efficient 

Traditional in-person courses involve a lot of note-taking. Video recordings and .txt files that record the chat are hugely useful benefits with Zoom, allowing delegates to go back over material in their own time. But it goes beyond that. Links to articles, websites and videos can be shared, copied and clicked quickly when delivered through Zoom. So, more time is spent on learning and understanding and less time on copying down details into notepads. 

We love using Zoom for our courses. As the world starts to open up again, we can’t wait to start delivering in-person training again. But we’ll also continue with training via Zoom for all the reasons we’ve just outlined. 

We offer courses in brand management, brand positioning, customer marketing, digital marketing, commercial marketing, innovation and career development. The courses can be delivered in person or via Zoom. Using off the shelf material or tailormade for your business. All of the courses feature a blend of theory, practical exercises, tools, templates, case studies, examples, homework (reading and video) and additional input from expert associates via voxpop. 

The benefits of the training include capability build, confidence build, shared understanding, shared experience, improved processes and improved efficiency. But don’t just take our word for it, check out some of the testimonials we’ve received.

If your team would benefit from being upskilled in marketing and innovation, or if you have a live business issue that would benefit from being solved by marketing and innovation experts who will simultaneously teach your team how to solve the issue for themselves in future, please get in touch.

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