My touchstone for building a good certification program is this:
“Their success is your success”
Yes, part of this is about ensuring they know how to do good work and uphold the standards of your brand.
But there is another aspect to their success which is the part often missed.
Are the folks coming out of your certification program able to create the success they are expecting?
If your certification is promising increased revenue – a new service they can offer – then that becomes part of the measure of success.
What I will see often with certifications is that they are all about teaching the skills – the how-to of your IP – but light on the how to be successful with it.
I learned this lesson the very first time I ran my Certified OBM® training back in 2009. I checked in with our newly certified students about a month after graduation to see how they were doing.
“Tina, this is all great but I don’t know how to get clients”
Doh! We had spent all of our time teaching them how to be great OBMs but didn’t talk at all about how to get clients. How to prospect. How to lead a successful sales call.
They were stuck with all these amazing skills to offer but not sure how to connect with the clients who needed them.
It didn’t even occur to me to include that at the time, but many of them were newer to business or not used to selling a higher level service. Moving forward we changed our program to include training and support for this (including ongoing support via our Association.)
I had this come up on a call this week with someone who is looking to launch their certification next year.
“Do I need to teach people how to get clients too?”
My answer was “yes, because their success is your success. If people come out of your program not sure how to get clients then they may not be successful with everything they’ve learned.”
Learning the skills and “how to’s” is one part of the journey.
Learning how to be successful with applying those skills is the other, equally important, part.
I’ve had folks say to me “Tina, I don’t want to teach them how to get clients as part of my certification”
I get it. You may not be excited by this part of your curriculum. You may not even be sure how to teach it (yet).
But if I may be so bold as to say it:
If the promise of your certification is to make money with their newly acquired skills and you aren’t going to include how to get clients… then I would rather you didn’t offer a certification at all.
You are only doing half the job and are not setting your folks up for success.
The good news is there are a lots of ways to include this in your certification journey – even if you don’t like the idea of having to teach marketing and sales. It’s one of my favorite things to work on with my clients and may not be as ick as you think.
It’s also worth noting that I’m not talking about being 100% responsible for their success and whether or not they get clients.
We will often have folks who are considering the Certified OBM training ask us “are you going to guarantee me clients when I graduate?”
We are very clear with them in setting the expectation “No, we are not going to find clients for you. But we will teach you how to find your own clients and are available to support you along the way”.
This isn’t about guaranteeing their success. It’s about doing our part in giving them the tools, strategy and support to be successful. They still need to do their part too.
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