PODCAST - Become the Expert on Their Problems
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[00:00:00] Learning Transformed is brought to you by E-Learning Partners, your guide to designing transformational learning experiences in the age of ai. For millennia human intelligence was the highest form of intelligence on earth. Until now. Hi, I'm ai. I can process more information in seconds than any human in a lifetime.
This shift raises not only practical questions about the future of learning, but existential ones about the meaning of human life, growth and evolution
on this podcast hosted by me. Johnny Ha. We navigate these questions with clarity, creativity, and confidence. As the most adaptable species on the planet, we cannot only survive the rise of [00:01:00] artificial intelligence, but create better human centered, AI powered learning experiences that elevate humanity to a new era of abundance, transformation and meaning
AI is rising. And so are we
Now, let's dive in.
There is a massive difference between what you think your learners need and what your learners know that they need and are willing to invest their time and money in to solve it. And that's why today on the show, I'm gonna kick it off by breaking down the three biggest mistakes that you and I make.
When serving our learners and our customers. And then I'm gonna share with you my three step process on how you and I can become experts at our [00:02:00] learners and our customers problems, so that we can not only serve them powerfully, but build trust in a long term relationship with our learners and our customers so we can grow our businesses and create global impact Mistake number one.
I used to do this all the time speaking in jargon, expertise, and frameworks. Now, once we have built a connection and a relationship, once we've warmed up our learners and our customers, and we've created rapport. And we've started to actually work together, then we can speak in these things. But until we've done that, you gotta avoid the jargon.
And if you don't know what jargon is, well, I guess I'm using the wrong word. It's basically language that insiders in your industry know. Same with expertise, you wanna keep that out because what you need to realize. Is that the time and energy and the work effort, everything that you've put in to learning your craft [00:03:00] has made what you know seem extremely easy for you.
This is the definition of being a master. When you are a master at your craft, things are easy. They're simple and they're fun. What you need to recognize though, is that your learner isn't here yet. Once they get here, or as you take them on the path from knowing nothing about what you do towards mastery, then.
We can do these things, we can start speaking in framework. Recently, a good friend of mine and I were taking a run, and he's in the process of creating his second business, and we were sharing back and forth about how we build relationships with customers, how we bring in new work, how we serve our customers deeply.
And I was telling him about how, you know, I've had this YouTube channel for about four years and how I [00:04:00] teach on YouTube, and he asked me. Do businesses know what e-learning is? Do businesses use, do your customers use when talking about your company? And I was like, great question. And the reality is, yes, some people will search about e-learning online.
Some people will search LMS. You may not be one of those people, and that's okay. 'cause E-learning, L-M-S-B-M-S-C-R-M-C-M-S, all these things, it's insider jargon. It doesn't actually matter. When you look at the big picture, I shared that really what my goal is, is to speak to the business owner. What is the business owner's challenge?
What is your challenge? What is the head of an e-learning de? Department's challenge a head of a training department's challenge or the head of a business unit that could benefit from integrating e-learning and online courses into their business unit. That's what I talk to. [00:05:00] Now early on in my career, I used to talk to jargon all the time, and you know why we do it?
'cause it makes us feel good. We talk in jargon and frameworks and expertise because it makes us feel good, makes us feel smart. I'm reading an amazing book right now called The 16 Word Sales Letter, and in this book there's so many amazing things. But one of my biggest takeaways so far is to, when you're communicating with your audience, you need to break it down to a fourth.
Fifth grade level, we can't talk at the master level. We need to be talking as if we are talking to fourth graders. Or fifth graders. And this isn't to make anyone feel bad, it's just when we are in fourth grade, fifth grade, we have to simplify our language to such a degree that anyone can understand, and that's what we really need to do.
So let's avoid mistake number [00:06:00] one. Stop speaking the jargon, expertise and frameworks. Realize that you are a master and even know. What you teach is easy, simple, and fun to you. Doesn't mean that it is simple, easy, and fun to your learner, to your customer. And that brings me to the second biggest mistake talking more than we listen.
What I've learned in recent years is that the less you talk and the more you listen. The better the relationship with your learner, with your customer is I am convinced that you need to listen 90 to 95% of the time, which means that you're only talking when you're actually interacting with your learner.
Not on YouTube, not on your podcast, not on email. You are serving your learner. That's why when you build YouTube content, podcast content, content in general, it needs to be to educate. To teach your customer, to teach your learner, to [00:07:00] help your learner, to address their biggest problems that they know they have, not the ones you think they have, but when you're actually engaging with your learners, with your customers, you need to be listening 90 to 95% of that conversation.
This is crazy, especially for me. I grow up in a family where everyone is big talk. I probably talk the least out of anyone in my family and I still talk way too much. I tend to go off on tangents, chase, rabbits, all these things. But what I've learned is when I am talking with my learner, my customer, my job is to listen.
And to ask questions, and we're gonna go deeper into this after we get into mistake number three. But Johnny, how do you do this? It gets awkward when no one's talking. I know. And what I've learned is you need to stay quiet. Let them talk you. If you are a big [00:08:00] talker, this is gonna feel weird, but I promise you when they finish a statement, instead of jumping in right away and talking about like, oh yeah, you know, we can do this, and you get this and this, and we're gonna solve this.
Just pause and when they're ready to talk. They're going to talk and one of two things is gonna happen. They're either going to continue giving you gold of how you can best serve them, or they're gonna ask you a powerful question that is gonna help you serve them. But when you jump in, you don't create the opportunity for this to happen.
And number three, caring more about selling the product than solving the problem. I know. That you need to make money. In your business, I know that you need your employees to be more efficient and effective at their job, but if you focus on what you need [00:09:00] instead of solving the problem that your learners and customers have, then you've completely broken trust.
Now you may get the sale, you may get your employees to take your training. You may get the initial engagement that you're looking for, but when you're looking at building a long-term relationship, or you continue to serve and they continue to trust you to serve them, then you need to always focus on solving the problem that they have, not the problem that you think they have.
And in the end, you're gonna sell even more of your solution. Have you ever been in that sales call where you're talking and it feels like a race to who can say the next thing? You are inundated with information about solutions to problems that you don't even have that you're not even expressing? Well, [00:10:00] last week I had the best sales call of my life and all I did.
Was, listen, all I did was the three steps that I'm about to share with you on how to become the expert on your learners and your customers problems. The first thing I did was I asked more and better questions.
When you're looking at serving your customers, serving your employees, serving your learners, it is extremely important to define who they are based on their biggest problems, their biggest challenges, and this is why I created my free masterclass so you can stop wasting your time and money creating the wrong e-learning programs.
In this masterclass, along with sharing with you the three biggest reasons why most e-learning programs fail. I go through how to step by step to find [00:11:00] who your PLPs are. That's jargon. Perfect learner profiles. What does that mean? Who your learners are, what do they care about? What are their biggest problems?
And then we build. An e-learning program together so that you can build an e-learning program based on the return on investment that you and your organization wanna get, and the return on investment, the results that your learners want to get. 'cause you have different needs, different desires, and once you figure out the needs, the desires of your learners, of your customers, like we're doing today, like we do even deeper in my free masterclass, you will be able to serve so many more people inside your company, outside your company.
Globally with the knowledge you and your organization have. Sign up for my free masterclass linked in the description below, or go to www.elearningpartners.com/masterclass. The sign up today, or go to the show notes if you're listening to this as a [00:12:00] podcast. The best person I know at asking more and better questions is my fiance.
And she's been doing this for years. I remember when we first started dating, our conversations were so deep and they are to this day and they're, because she asks more and better questions, and it is taught me how to do the same. This became very evident to me in the past year or two while we're playing our Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.
For those of you that don't know Dungeons and Dragons, it's a very nerdy game that nerds like myself and my fiance and my friends play. But it's really a role playing game where you embody a character, you roll dice, and you go through dungeons and you fight Dragon. Well, other than fighting dragons and other creatures, the other biggest part of the game is figuring out information to guide your quest.
And I'll tell you this, without Tatiana, we would be completely lost. [00:13:00] Because she just knows what questions to ask, and because of this, I've not only started modeling how she plays Dungeons and Dragons while we're playing d and d. I'm using this to ask more and better questions with my clients. Now, when you are on a sales call or talking to a prospect, talking to your learner, talking to an employee, talking to whoever you serve in and outside of your business, there's two ways.
To ask more and better questions. The first you need to have a bank of questions that you ask, so you need to prepare. Questions that you ask everyone. I've been playing a lot of tennis lately, and the only way to actually play tennis is to start by serving the ball. So if you wanna powerfully serve your learners, you need to start by serving them the ball.
And you do this by asking them questions that you've already prepared ahead of time to. And then the second thing you need to do is ask questions based on what they tell you. So these are [00:14:00] follow up questions, so really you're not even gonna need. To prep that many questions. If you have three to five questions prepped, that is enough to drive a 30 minute conversation.
Really, you'll probably only ask one or two out of the three to five that you've prepped, and then the rest are gonna be follow up. Questions. Now, this is a circular three step process. Number two, listen, when you listen, you are able to ask better questions. You are able to figure out the problem that your learners actually have.
Last week, I was talking to this amazing individual, which they're not a client yet. Once they are a client, I will share their name and all that jazz. But I was talking to this amazing individual who has been working on their internal training program for 2000 learners. For the past two years, him and his partner have been doing all of the work, and they've created a beautiful program.
Now, in the past, maybe a couple years ago, in a [00:15:00] conversation like this, I probably would've tried to interrupt, say that we have a better solution, all these different things, but instead I just sat back. And I listened, and what I heard was a very, very proud man who was very excited about what he had created, and he showed me what he had created, and I was impressed too.
I didn't have anything to say about how we could help do what he has done better. So I honestly thought, Hey, this is a great conversation. I'm glad I'm talking to this guy. I don't think he's gonna become a client though, and that's okay because I am not here for everybody. Not everyone needs to work with us.
So I listened, I asked questions, and after about 30, 35 minutes, we had 30 minutes scheduled for our call. I told him like, Hey man, I love what you've done. And the fact that you and your partner are the only two people that [00:16:00] created this by yourself. To train 2000 plus highly technical professionals is amazing.
I'm impressed that you should be very proud. That's all I said. And he was like, well, you're right. We did this in two years. That's amazing. And I'm like, yeah, it is. And 2000 professionals like what you show. This is amazing. That's all I said. I I. And he's like, yeah, well this is great. And then I paused. And then he is like, yeah, wow, this is awesome.
And then he, and then he started throwing the ball. He hit the ball back into my court and he said, well, Johnny, like I'm really excited. I was really excited when we got connected and I'm really excited to hear about e-learning partners and specifically what my biggest challenges. I'm not even kidding this.
Said, my biggest challenge is we've put all this work in, we're getting results. I really wanted to focus on the culture, but I really don't know how to track RO. I return on investment. I'm not really sure [00:17:00] what the return on investment is. I just know I believe in it, and I know that somebody at some point is gonna ask me why we're doing this and what ROI we're getting.
Can you help me with that? So I didn't even have to say anything about what we do. All I did was listen and commend him for what he had been doing. And without listening, I would not have been able to do this in one ear right out the other. Have you ever had that happen when you're talking to someone and you're really excited, but the other person seems extremely disinterested, and then when it's their turn to speak, they say nothing related to what you said, or they start poking holes in it and all these different things.
Well, this is how it usually goes because we have an agenda of like, these are the problems that we solve. Well, they have an agenda too, and they have problems. Everyone has problems that they need help with. We just have to provide the space for them to share with us because they trust us and they understand that we can create value for them.
We have to create the space for them to do [00:18:00] that. That's why number two is listen, and that brings me to number three. Which really, once you've completed step one and step two, number three becomes really easy. We are gonna research, research, research. We need. To become an expert at our learners, at our customer's problems.
Well, we can't become an expert until we ask questions. We can't become an expert until we listen to the answers, and we can't become an expert until we research the heck out of the answers we get when we listen. So this is what I typically do now. I have a call and it's the first call I have with someone.
I ask one or two questions that I've prepared ahead of time, a bunch of follow up questions. I listen like crazy, and then I research even crazier so that when I have another call, I show that I understand the problems that they're having. [00:19:00] As much or better than them. And this really is a circular process.
We ask questions, we listen and we research. And depending on where you are in communicating with your learners, you're gonna come into this at a different part of the process because. Like I said, once you research, you're gonna be asking better questions. The next time you talk to your learner, you're gonna be listening better, and then you're gonna be able to research better.
This is how you and I become masters at not only our craft, but solving our learners' problem. I highly recommend that you check out my free masterclass if you wanna take this even further, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to Learning Transformed Now, if you're designing a transformational learning experience and wanna skip the overwhelm of trial and error. Check out our e-learning [00:20:00] platform finder. Just answer a few simple questions and we'll match you with the right platform plus an extended free trial.
And as a bonus, you'll get free access to a course that walks you through building your learning experience on your matched platform. Click on the link in the show notes or go to www.elearningpartners.com/elearning-platform-finder. I'd also love to hear from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or drop a comment on our YouTube channel.
Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next episode.
AI is rising and so are.
