How To Deliver A Train-The-Trainer Workshop For Your Corporate Clients

Companies spend more than $366.2 billion globally each year to develop their people — making the corporate training space one of the biggest (and easiest) opportunities for you to expand your revenue as a consultant, coach, speaker, author, expert or owner of a professional services firm.

Even large corporations, which typically employ a sizable team of in-house trainers, continue to outsource more than half (54 percent) of their instruction and facilitation needs to external experts, like you.

With that said, there are only so many hours in a day — and only so many flights you want to be on. So there comes a time when offering train-the-trainer workshops might make a lot of sense for your business.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of train-the-trainer, this is when you train other people on how on to deliver your training content. And while on one hand that does mean giving up some element of control over your materials, on the other hand, the business benefits often far outweigh the downside.

 Top 5 Benefits to Offering Train-the-Trainer Programs

1. It opens up additional and lucrative revenue streams for you.
2. It allows you to make money without requiring your presence — which is the true marker of owning a company versus merely being self-employed.
3. It makes you more attractive to large organizations when they know you have the ability to scale to meet their needs.
4. It allows you to reach more people with your expertise and thus have a bigger impact in the world.
5. It elevates your brand in the marketplace.

3 Train-The-Trainer Models You Can Leverage In Your Business

Depending on your business goals as well as what opportunity you’re seeing in the market, there are a few different ways you can go with train-the-trainer programs. Here are the three most common models.

Model #1: Train-the-Trainer for Your Clients

You can train employees inside of specific companies (i.e. your corporate clients) how to deliver your content. Typically this happens when either you’ve already delivered a handful of trainings for your client, and they want the ability to offer the training to more employees inside of their company without always having to book you to do it.

It also happens when they want to engage you only for the content development (or content sitting on your shelf) — and they want to handle all the facilitation of the training themselves.

Model #2: Train-the-Trainer for Your Bench

The word “bench” is a term we use here at The Corporate Agent to describe independent contractors who work for your firm if and when you need them. The term “bench” comes from a concept in the sports world, where a team, such as a basketball team, pulls players off the bench and puts them in the game when they are needed.

Bench members can be a smart way to expand your bandwidth without having full-time employees on your payroll. And training these folks how to deliver your proven training content is a great way to expand your reach and revenue potential — particularly if you have bench members located in different cities.

Of course, if you do have full-time employees, the train-the-trainer model would apply there as well.

Model #3: Train-the-Trainer for Certified Professionals  

Another train-the-trainer model comes into play when your training content is such a hit that other experts who don’t work for you would like to deliver your content to their clients.

This model requires some type of licensing agreement to be in place — so you’ll want to work with your attorney should you decide to go in this direction. Once the other professionals have completed your train-the-trainer program, and assuming they meet your standards in content mastery and delivery skills, you would then certify them to use your content with their own clients, and you receive compensation when they do.

What To Include In Your Train-The-Trainer Program

An important thing to understand is that delivering a train-the-trainer workshop to potential instructors is not the same thing as delivering your training content as you normally would to regular participants.

To walk you through exactly what you’ll need to include in your train-the-trainer workshops, here’s a video from Tara Powers, Senior Faculty of Corporate Training Programs here at The Corporate Agent. Tara is also CEO of Powers Resource Center — a nationally recognized firm delivering award-wining training programs to the Fortune 500 and mid-market space for 20+ years.

Plus, here's what else Tara covers for you:

• The secrets to ensuring your clients are retaining what you’re teaching them in the train-the-trainer workshop
• Exactly how to calculate how much time you need to allocate for your train-the-trainer workshop
• Savvy up-sells to offer your clients so they can get even better results — and you can make more income
• And a bunch of other can’t miss tips on putting together effecting train-the-trainer programs.

With the right playbook, you can create a repeatable and profitable train-the-trainer system that allows you to grow your revenue and scale to the next level. It’s a powerful tool that has helped many of our clients step away from being self-employed and fully into the role of CEO.

Speaking of playbooks... before you go, be sure to download one of our newest resources -- a map of 7 distinct $100K packages you can sell to corporate clients.

Angelique Rewers, CEO and founder of The Corporate Agent, has been called “The Undisputed Champion at Helping Small Businesses Land Big Clients” by Inc. Magazine.

Having successfully navigated all sides of the corporate buying table for more than two decades, Angelique and her team provide business training and advice to tens of thousands of small businesses across 72 countries worldwide on how to secure 5-, 6- and 7-figure corporate contracts. Her clients are landing deals with iconic brands like Facebook and McDonald’s, as well as organizations in the mid market, higher education, nonprofit and government sectors.

In addition to being named an Enterprising Woman of the Year by Enterprising Women Magazine, Angelique has been featured by Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc. Lucky, Washington Post, Entrepreneur, CBS and more. She’s also shared stages with superstars like Hollywood’s Steve Harvey, Shark Tank’s Daymond John, NFL Super Bowl Champion Jamal Lewis, and marketing legend Seth Godin.