As an educator in the real estate sector, I have seen the face of adult education change radically. Agency leaders should change their view of training, too, and should ensure that their trainers do likewise. That is, if they do not want their agencies and teams left behind.
Some things never change, however. Our industry still largely shows a disregard for training. In states such as NSW where Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is compulsory, many practitioners begrudgingly attend 3 to 5 hours training so they can tick the box with the state regulator and then attend no other training for the year.
They say that they don’t need to train because they are ‘experienced’, but length of tenure in real estate does not make you a winner. Happy clients and high results are the benchmarks, and people who have spent their careers shunning training aren’t winners.
So what has changed?
Learning Styles
Modern audiences want variety in their training. They do not like lecture-style seminars as much as do older leaders and salespeople. Most do not have CD and DVD players, and none have cassette players, so much of typical offices’ training libraries sit around gathering dust.
Younger generations, particularly Gen Y, expect their training to be more hands-on.
Education Delivery
Because of changes in learning styles, how trainers deliver their training needs to change too.
If CDs and DVDs are old fashioned, and if audiences largely prefer not to attend lecture-style seminars, I say we should be delivering training in ways that complement our audiences’ learning styles, assuming that we want our audiences to learn, of course!
Streaming
Pittard® saw these trends in 2014 and in that year we developed iTrain®, our streaming portal, through which we deliver current and relevant training in video, audio and written formats.
iTrain® delivers training directly to our audiences across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, to the device of our customers’ choice, smart phone, computer, tablet, PC or TV. Our people have no excuse for not training!
Online Forums
Many people do webinars, but an online forum takes webinars to new levels. Leaders in different agencies can talk to each other and share ideas, and nobody has to leave their office. Collective wisdom, delivered online.
Webcasting
Through our webcasting portal, Pittard TV, I interview some of the world’s leading business minds and transmit live across five time zones. These are live seminars that nobody need travel to attend. We call Pittard TV, “Training that comes to you”.
Interactive Events
Instead of lecture-style seminars, we bring groups of salespeople together and have them share their knowledge and expertise with each other. Again, we come back to the collective wisdom of groups. As individuals, we might know a lot about real estate, but none of us knows more than a group of one hundred. Sharing knowledge is 21st century.
Old Style Still Has A Place
Pittard® still conducts some lecture-style events, we host our Leadership Conference and our Real Estate Agents’ Convention yearly, and these are popular, but if you want your people to LEARN, you must offer options to how they receive their educational material.
Adult education has evovled and smart leaders and teams evolve too.