Ep. 201 - How To Make Engaging Training Programs with Austin Welch and Richard Fleming, founders of SAGE Media

I’m sure when you started your job, you had to go through training videos that help you understand the importance of something. Before this was powerpoints but nowadays, the videos are much more engaging.

Whether about car safety, good manufacturing practices, or even food safety, to get people to understand and care about important topics, it helps for the video to be engaging.

This is where Austin Welch and Richard Fleming come in. Their company, SAGE Media, create engaging video stories by hacking into the behaviors of a culture and showcasing them in high quality training videoes

Bare with me at the beginning of the interview as we try to crack down some really complex stuff. As soon as we get through that, and understand the underlying concepts, that’s where you get the nuggets of wisdom.

If you want to know the insides and insights of making great, engaging stories, this episode will really get you interested. Since these guys do training videoes, you can find examples at sage.academy

About Austin and Richard

AUSTIN WELCH

His learning films have earned three Brandon Hall Award’s and he has spoken about the emerging role of media and learning at the International Association of Food Protection, the International Conference for the Association of Talent Development, and TEDx. As a Kirkpatrick Certified Professional, Austin is always looking for ways to create emotionally intelligent training films that lead to measurable behavior change.

RICHARD FLEMING

Applying film theory, behavioral economics, and myth structure to his work at Sage Media, Richard designs and produces stories that impact action and modify the behaviors of viewers. With an extensive background marketing for companies like Microsoft, GP Strategies, and Hershey, Richard is no stranger to using stories to drive predictable emotional responses. He now uses his superpowers for good, helping to transform the lives of employees.

Show Notes

What do you guys do?: We’ve been struggling with this, but I think we’ve figured it out. We study how the human brain understands information and uses media to help understand it. Essentially, they’re a videographer that makes video training programs. We’re really trying to teach people how to be emotionally intelligence Emotional Intelligence: To read and glean information that is non-verbal Why we’re different: We take a consultancy approach where we give advice on storytelling. It’s hard for non-storytellers to tell stories Flannery O’Conner Aesop Fable Poisoned: A book about E.coil How do you research complex things like Food Safety?: We do our research and ask the client if we’re on the right course. Where did Hershey find you? Trade Show: Association of Talent Development – Hershey found us there and liked what we were doing We made a crime scene video with Hershey talking about Food Safety culture Foursight/JR Puccio’s 4 stages of Creativity: Clarify, Ideate, Develop, Implementors: A question well stated is a problem half-solved Great Courses on Foursight What do you outsource?: We do soup to nuts. We do everything In fact, a lot of companies ask us to consult for them to improve their storytelling value How do we get an actor?: We usually have a  casting director but now we know the strength and weaknesses of the actors in the community. How did you first meet?: At a local film event. We were introduced by a mutual contact IAFP Food Safety Culture and Food Safety Communication How do you solve criticism?: Read Marshall-Rosenburg’s Nonviolent Communication. Non-violent is all about clarification and communication How do you get buy-in from staff?: Sometimes you have to talk about multiple topics and you have to see their reaction The Challenger Sale The Challenger Customer Find the internal champion and cater to them What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to do what you do?: Learn about cognitive science. We’re very soft-skill driven. Though we get asked a lot of technical questions, the soft skills are what we accel at. Where can we find you?: We have some videos at sage.academy Richard@sage.media Austin@sage.media

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