HOW TO IDENTIFY A FLY-BY-NIGHT ONLINE TRAINING WEBINAR

In this time of lockdown when some of us have a little extra time in hand, we are on a never quenching thirst of using this time fruitfully and learn a new technique/ hone a new skill/ learn a new language. And in order for us to fulfil this requirement, we turn our ever expecting eyes towards Social Media.

Social Media – the vast ocean of ‘Where expectations meet their happy endings!’

We are spoiled for choices on the social media platforms. The trainers who were far-sighted enough to start talking about their online/ e-learning courses well before the lockdown even started, have already gained a lot of faithful followers.

The aim of this blog is not to make one feel left out...

This blog has been created to help you identify the ‘GOOD, BAD & UGLY’ from the loads of e-learning free offers that have taken up residence into our social media newsfeeds via paid marketing posts. Through this post, you will understand how you can differentiate between a ‘Genuine Knowledgeable Trainer’ and a ‘Fly-By-Night Trainer’, who is banking heavily on your innocence to mint money from this unseasonal rainfall of great timing.

When you give yourself up for learning, you do the following things:

• Give-up your personal time
• Give yourself to the trainer to learn something new
• In some cases, pay some monies to register
• Unlearn some concepts
• Learn some new concepts

And the list goes on…

Now let’s take a scenario where there is a free webinar that has been offered to you on your social media newsfeed, what happens then:

• You register for it
• They collect your personal data
• You agree to get updates/newsletters from them even after the webinar is over
• You reschedule or cancel other commitments to make time for this webinar
• You go through the entire session, taking notes
• Then you end up seeing the offers that are given just before the stipulated time for webinar gets over
• After the webinar is over and you are going through the notes (very rarely do we see there being any kind of value-add), it is then you realize that this is NOT what you were looking for when you enrolled for the session
• Many times when the adrenaline is still pumping in your system, you end up buying one of their courses and later repent it

In other cases where you have purchased a webinar seat you are mentally prepared to extract value from the service, and generally a person who is taking the money ends up delivering value. But there are exceptions to this rule.

So what should be our plan of action when we see such advertisements/promotions/ event listings on any of our social media channels?

Well, now I’m giving out some gems of advice that have taken me 6 months to gain. I am sure these will help you identify genuine webinars and genuinely enhance your level of learning.

Here is how you typically end up registering for a webinar:

• If you receive a message from one of your known contacts in Social Media (which is not a forward), we generally know they are genuine
• If you have landed the advertisement, it sounds interesting, and you cannot exit the screen as the screen/post/offer (mostly free registration) might be lost probably forever - you end up registering
• The topic is of interest for you and you have found this webinar through your research and hence you registered

But, before you attend the webinar, I would advise you to spend 15-20 minutes to research about the speaker and also about his/her company. This 15-20 minutes can help you save a few precious hours later and will increase the odds of success.

• LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all great platforms to search for the speaker, their company and past feedback
• LinkedIn: since it is a professional network, you can expect mostly professional followers. Look at the speaker’s profile, few backdated posts and followers
• YouTube: this is a great channel to see past videos/sessions and get a sense for the topic, content and speaker. Once on YouTube, you can see their subscription levels and number of videos
• Generally, as a thumb rule, please also see comments for posts/videos in the comments' section that will surely make or break the deal for you
• Additionally, if you know of someone who has attended this webinar in the past, a quick two-minute phone call will add great value
• Lastly, if you feel you should attend the webinar, then, by all means, do so. You can’t be stopped from exiting the webinar before the stipulated time period, if you feel it is not adding any value to you
• I have personally felt that forcing yourself to attend a session (even when you are not inclined) creates negativity towards the subject and we end up learning wrong concepts, or worst still we end up unlearning good concepts

So here is my FINAL 10 cents for you: it is always advisable to explore a new concept, learn about it when there is less clarity, but again we don’t want to get lured into taking wrong decisions that will hamper our long term growth (just because it is free!).

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