Adult 'Learning' Videos with Grazina Fechner (Episode 94)

Grazina Fechner 0:01

On the Seven Network, there was a nine minute segment on smiling. Oh my god, nine minutes on smiling . Who in the world cares about it? And I was really a bit tearing myself up about it going. I could have used that much more effectively. This guy called Duncan from Hillsville rang the Seven Network after I did the segment. Can I have Griz's number? And they said, no way. You can't have Griz's number. We'll let her know you rang. So I rang him. I said, Hi, Duncan. It's Griz, how can I help you? And he had this really gruff smoker's voice. Griz! I need to tell you my story about your segment. And I was like, oh no. He said, my wife at the moment is about to die of breast cancer. She's in palliative care. And every day I go to her room, and I walk in and I'm sad. And she's sad, now sons who are 18 and 21, they walk in, and they're sad, our friends walking in and they're sad, and the room's sad, and we walk out and everyone's sad. He said, I listened to your smiling segment as I was doing it, my shoes at the end of the bed. I went down to the hospital, the palliative care place, and I walked in and she was just about to have her lunch. And she turned around, and I gave her this big smile. And she said to me, that was all I needed. That was how you smiled at me the minute you saw me walk down the aisle when I was gonna marry you. Now I can go to heaven. It's little sweat the small stuff, you know, it doesn't matter the big stuffs gonna happen anyway. But it's the smile it's the using someone's name. It's the making someone laugh and as I said to you, and I say to you guys a lot in my videos, but in the first seven seconds as a limiting judged about you. But if you walk in smiling and feeling confident and just making people feel welcome with your body language, it changes everything.

Chris Schwager 1:28

Hello, video marketing professionals. Welcome to the podcast that takes the mystery out of producing videos. I'm your host, Chris Schwager joined by Mr. Southall. Today, our guest is Grazina Fechner, the Director of Front and Centre Training Solutions, and an expert in leadership development, workplace training for all types of organizations across Australia and the Asia Pacific region. She's also got a wonderful team at Front and Centre that all bring a wealth of experience to each of the programs that they offer. Griz is also a regular on Channel Seven, the morning show, she is a podcast host and mom and brings a lot of fun and energy to everything that she does. So to bring a spark to workplace training and shaping the working environment for 2022. Here's our chat with Griz Fechner from Front and Centre and Training Solutions.

Chris Schwager 2:25

Let's go back in time, how did this all begin the Front and Centre and Training Solutions?

Grazina Fechner 2:30

Yeah, well, before that, I just wanna say thank you for my introduction. And if you could introduce me like that, at every Congress and Keynote and thing that I do, I reckon I'd be quite famous. So thanks for having me. It's an absolute delight to hang with you boys and also your listeners, because there's a lot of stuff that we're going to talk about today. Who am I? Grazina Marita Fechner. I sound like a penicillin. And I was in the healthcare industry for many years. So I figured it was like a perfect match. Mum had 38 hours of labor. And the best time she'd come up with was Grazina. So I'm known as Griz. And I was actually a PE teacher who would have thought and I had a really bad character and end up in a wheelchair. And they said, I'd never be able to walk again. And I'd never be able to have a baby. And, well, you know what, I got them wrong, because here I am. And I do stand on five foot tall. But having had the character and I couldn't be a PE teacher anymore, because it broke on my hip. And I was in a wheelchair, so I had to find a new career.

Grazina Fechner 3:19

So I started off as a filing clerk at BDO, Nelson Parkhill. Who would have thought that?And from then I got to be a receptionist. That was exciting. And then one day I was temping at a healthcare pharmacy run up John office. And one of the guys there said, You know what, guys, you'd be great as a rep in healthcare. And I was like, I don't even understand how to say the words. I don't know what all of those big pharmacology words and then I could never do that. Anyway, I did end up in healthcare for many, many years, became a trainer in oncology, hematology, metastatic breast and bowel cancer, lobbied for PBS stuff, working on government authorities to get you know, good oncology drugs to patients who are very, very sick, and they can't get the drugs until their tumor increases. And by then it's too late to get good drugs. So it was my absolute passion in oncology.

Grazina Fechner 4:01

And then, one day, 15 years down the track, I thought I'm sick of dealing with all this bureaucratic stuff in the world of training and I couldn't say anything to teach doctors and teach medical fraternity stuff without being clinical trialed and recognized. So I thought I'd go out and do this on my own. So that's how the Front and Centre company started with another colleague of mine. And then from there, I've been in media for many, many years, I used to host a show in Brisbane called out and about in Brizzy with Grizzy and another live show called Vision Today coming to you live on the Optus network we have got an amazing show lineup. So don't you go anywhere.

Grazina Fechner 4:02

So you know, I've done a lot of media stuff along the way. And then media in the training world sort of came together and I do spend a lot of time on the Seven Network and I spent time on The Today Show on nine and that's talking much more business and redundancy and females in the workplace. Whereas the morning show with Liz and Kylie is much more fly by the seat of your pants, a whole lot of gaslighting and everything from how to take back your Christmas presents with no receipt type of stuff. So you know the world's merged together and I'm genuinely the luckiest girl in the world because this is my life, you know, people say what's next? Oh, this is my next this is how I'm going to survive the next 50 years I'll be old and haggard and in a wheelchair, but try and stop me training and, you know, just trying to get people to be the best version of them. And that's what inspires me. That's why I'm passionate about

Chris Schwager 5:15

We didn't connect via me seeing you on TV. And I've definitely got to get that person on the show we connected by LinkedIn, our LinkedIn outreach and, and made a connection called connection back in the day, and here we are, I think year or years later now doing work together and doing these training videos. What are the videos I guess doing? In your business? Why video?

Grazina Fechner 5:38

Yeah, video because we talk about adult learning principles. Okay, so we talked about the VAT models, and people and adults learn differently. So we can spend our life being on stage talking to them, we can spend our lives making them do e-learning platforms. But video is bring all of that together. Because with the videos that we do with you guys, we support them with workbooks. So we cover off all the adult learning principles. So the visual learners can visually look at the video, the auditory can not even look at turn off and have their sound, the read and write learners get their workbooks and they can work through the videos together. And then the kinesthetic we make sure that during the videos, we get them to pause and go and do an activity. So you are covering us every single learning style by using this video medium technique.

Chris Schwager 6:17

How important is that those three different learning techniques?

Grazina Fechner 6:21

Like the four learning techniques, well, it used to be the VAK so the Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. And then they added the read and writing. And if you've got a learner in front of you that is visual, and you show no visual graph, no visual charts, no visuals ailments, they're not going to learn anything. So you need to be mindful that when you're delivering any session, be it video, be it face to face, be it on Zoom or on an e-learning platform, that you're encompassing all four learning styles so that anyone that is watching will learn from that.

Chris Schwager 6:48

Well, let's drill down into that because I think that's a really interesting topic. Because what I found in presenting our workshops, and what have you is just some NLP techniques that were taught about people, you know, making people physically pick up their pen and write something you know. It could be, it's actually not that important what what it is, it's just the physical action of them committing to doing something that triggers their brain to, I guess, need to listen more, is that the kind of idea behind the action of these of getting people to engage in this way? Yeah,

Grazina Fechner 7:23

absolutely. The read and write learner is, it's really interesting, they will sit there in a session or watching a video and they will write down copious amounts of notes and write and write. And they'll think they're gonna go home and put it by their bedside table and are going to read it every night. Instead of reading, you know, Grey's Anatomy, or 50 Shades of Grey. Bring on your learning manual from the day session, they never look at it again, Chris, they don't look at it. What they learned is why they're actually writing it. So they'll never look, they'll think that they're doing it. But all the learning happens while they're writing the same as the visual learners. The learning doesn't happen with the posters on the wall of the timetables on the back of the toilet. Or remember, back in the 70's. When I was born, which was a long time ago, you had the timetables on the back of the toilet door, so you'd learn your time, maybe not, some of your listeners will know what I'm talking about. It's not about that it's the time they're learning at the time, they first say that visual, the auditory learners like to discuss, so they'll want that discussion with somebody, they'll want you to be talking to them through the process. So getting them to do an action related to their learning style is what's going to give them the best bang for their buck in the learning outcome.

Chris Schwager 8:19

Well, just to make you feel comfortable, I was born in the 70s as well as as was Brendan. So...

Chris Schwager 8:29

I had a workshop once. And usually, I would wait, you know, a couple of minutes before our designated start time people get coffees and they'd have these worksheets in front of them that like three or four pages, literally, like half a dozen questions for people to to go through as we would go through the 90 minute workshop. And there was this one person once that was just head down, bum up for like 10 minutes ripping through these questions and just like busily writing through, and I was surprised because as I will actually work through these with you together like you don't have to feel like you got to complete all the questions right now. But obviously, yeah, like people, people, you have so many different personality types that learn in different ways. And I guess how do you as as a presenter and as a as a trainee? A coach? Understand, I guess what is somebody's preferred learning style?

Grazina Fechner 9:19

Yeah, as soon as I walk into a room, I'm already trying to work out number one, what behavior style they are, because that's really important. You know, some people just want information, bullet points straight to the point, just do what others want lots of information. But their learning style, if someone walks into the room, and they're starting to talk to other people as well, what's it going to be like and what's, straightaway I know that their auditory because they're trying to already have a discussion with somebody. People that doodle a lot - so in my sessions, the minute someone sits down, they'll grab that hotel pad and the pen and they'll start doodling

Grazina Fechner 9:48

That means that that kinesthetic do a learner so I know straightaway that I've got to get them up and doing so if there's an example I want to share with, I'll go to the doodle or on the pages that come up the front. Let's do this together because that's how they actively. The visual people start looking around the wall, and they'll start drawing, which is quite interesting. And the read and write will start writing down and ticking off the agenda. So if there's an agenda on the table at nine o'clock, the welcoming introduction, they'll literally tick it off as the read and write learner. So I look for all of these signs and start thinking about, and that's the really hard part of being a facilitator. And doing a live TV do like being live keynotes, you've got to know your audience in an instant, so walking in, and I'm always everywhere. And now before I need to be set up, and then when people come in, I can start to observe what's happening in the room. And I can start to work out how to make people feel good in that environment.

Chris Schwager 10:39

So you're getting feedback continuously. And over the years. And of course, over years of learning your craft, you know, you probably do it as a subtle, subtle, almost second nature. Is there anyone in the audience where you just get I can't? And I don't know what's going on? It's throwing me off. Did you ever have those moments where you go, I don't know whether they're in space, whether they're here with me if they're looking if they're engaging, if they're liking it, if they're not, yeah,

Grazina Fechner 11:05

I think the way I design the sessions is very first up, I met people from really comfortable, and we do something really engaging and fun. And often when I go and pitch programs to companies, they're like, Chris, that's not going to work. You know, we'll give people an item and we'll say go out and trade it up. Remember the red paperclip story about a guy that traded up a red paperclip and got a house at the end of it?

Chris Schwager 11:23

Oh!

Grazina Fechner 11:23

Okay, this is really good. So start with a red paperclip. And he's like, you know, I've got no money, I'm going to just trade up, trade up, trade up with no money and see what I can get. So I trade it up, and you've got all these things, you got kiss mugs, that was so valuable, they got all anyway, he got cars and, and he just kept trading up and then end up with this amazing house. And there's a big story on him. So I use that activity a lot. And I said to people, when I'm pitching, I'm going to get give them a straw hat. And they've got to go out into the community. And they've got to see what they can do and come back with. And customers say Griz, that is never going to work. Our team won't do it. But it's getting them to feel really engaged and welcome when they come in and don't see it, but also gives them that, oh my god, what if I achieve this and the things that people come back with would astound you, and there's no one that doesn't. And when they've done that they're just like, fine if I can do this, I can do anything in the whole wide world. So anything that we start with in training, we get them to believe in themselves. So it brings down all barriers and some of those tough nut cookies that you get early on. I'm really more focused on them. And I paid them a lot more attention. Yes. And I changed my questioning and I give them things to do. And I make them feel important. And all on around their neck that's on around their necks has made me feel important. And we're all wearing one. If you've read that sign before you open your mouth, it then becomes about that person. And the minute you make them feel important and special, their barriers come down and you're often racing.

Chris Schwager 12:39

So we all respond so beautifully to storytelling, and you seem like a native storyteller yourself. Somebody that's just

Grazina Fechner 12:47

Do you love a story?

Chris Schwager 12:48

Yeah. And to my point, I guess, you know, it's like, just from personal experience as well, when I'm introducing stories, and I have at least a half a dozen in a 90 minute session that people respond differently. They're activated completely differently. They go into the world of their own imagination, and I guess relive it in their own in their own kind of existence. But do you think you know, what's the place for storytelling? Are you strategic about how you introduce and use stories within your presentation?

Grazina Fechner 13:17

Really good question. I think number one is when remember when we're first born, the minute we come out, someone's telling the story in our arm, a minute old, it's like, Oh, you were born yesterday, and mum and dad did this. And then we sit around the campfire. And we have stories and we play card nights. And we have stories. So stories are things that the very first thing in the world that we have. So we're a nightly involved with them. They evoke an emotion, they inspire curiosity. They really make us as you say, go into our imagination. So stories are key to your success in any presentation.

Grazina Fechner 13:45

Number one, in any video, tell a story because people can relate to it. Don't just deliver people facts, don't tell them bullet point this, this and this, make it a story. And then people evolve their own story and their imagination goes wild. I don't have at this point, I tell a story. So I might be talking about something. And I'll give you a really good example. I was on the Seven Network. I talk about smiling a lot in my programs. I say smile in the world smiles with you. And it's really hard for people to be angry if you're smiling and smile with your body language smile with open body language. A smile doesn't have to be me now with a big cruise, clown carnival.

Grazina Fechner 14:21

But when I talk about smiling, I'll often then refer to a story and it could come anywhere in the presentation or someone might say oh, Griz, I just struggle smiling or, you know, why does one want to see me smile? And I'll say well, interesting. You say that? Because on the Seven Network, there was a nine minute segment on smiling. And I left the studio and I thought oh my god, nine minutes on smiling. Who in the world cares about it and I was really a bit tearing myself up about it going I could have used that much more effectively.

Grazina Fechner 14:47

Anyway, this guy called Duncan from Hillsville rang the Seven Network after I did the segment and two days after and he said can I have Griz's number and they said no way you can't have Griz's number. We'll let him know your rank. Well, they didn't let me know and Duncan kept bringing the Seven Network work for seven days while the seven rang me. So this guy Duncan, I have a stalker what's going on? Oh, you know what he deserves my phone call. So I rang him. I said, Hi, Duncan. It's Griz. How can I help you? And he had this really gruff smoker's voice. Griz, I need to tell you my story about your segment. And I was like, Oh no. He said, My wife at the moment is about to die of breast cancer. She's in palliative care. And every day I go to her room, and I walk in, and I'm sad. And she's sad, now sons who are 18 and 21, they walk in, and they're sad. Our friends walk in, and they're sad. And the room's sad, and we walk out and everyone's sad, yeah, he said, I listened to your smiling segment. As I was doing my shoes at the end of the bed. I went down to the hospital or the palliative care place, and I walked in, and she was just about to have her lunch. And she turned around, and I gave her this big smile. And she said to me, that was all I needed. That was how you smiled at me, the minute you saw me walk down the aisle, when I was going to marry you. Now I can go to heaven.

Grazina Fechner 15:53

And the minute she said that, he said, my whole world changed. He said, I rang those boys and I said, you bloody come in and you smile at your Mother, don't you dare make an awful face, just smile at her. And he said, I put a sign on the wall and said, Do not enter unless you're smiling with a big smile. And he said, the room changed dramatically. And I have you to thank for the last, you know, moments of her life, she saw that smile. Anyway, she passed on four days later. And they invited me to their funeral, because he said you've made such an impact. So what I say to people all the time is, it's the little sweat the small stuff, you know, it doesn't matter, the big stuffs gonna happen anyway. But it's the smile is the using someone's name. It's the making someone laugh. And as I say to you, and I say it to you guys a lot in some of my videos, but in the first seven seconds as a limiting judged about you. But if you walk in smiling and, and feeling confident, and just making people feel welcome with your body language, it changes everything. And laughter truly is the best medicine. And as I said, 437 kids laugh, times, 437 times a day, kids laugh. And I may about 15 times two adults laugh a day. So don't be afraid to be funny. And don't be afraid not to Denton, Andrew Denton, who's a media journalist always says that he says don't be afraid to be funny. It's okay to make people laugh. It's okay to smile. Because that expresses emotions. And in the world that we live in at the moment, all we need is sometimes someone to smile or a good belly laugh or some dopamine in your brain. Yes. Storytelling.

Chris Schwager 17:15

Yeah. And I like to explore this transfer of information and energy, if you like to, you know, for you now, starting your video training video marketing journey, you know, you're not new to the world of media and all of that, but with regards to how you're using your videos to engage your audience in a virtual sense, and what are some of the initial problems that video was solving for you? And, you know, just the first series that we did with you, for instance?

Grazina Fechner 17:49

Yeah, it's, well, we can't get to, so the first series we did was for international videos. Now we can't get over to India, to help them. A video can get to India in 30 seconds. So from a cost perspective, videos help us remarkably, from our audience not being at the moment with COVID, we can't travel so we can't give our messages. And we can't give that dopamine and all the stuff we were just talking about then to our audience, but video has allowed us to do that. And it's led to do us cost effectively, it's allowed us to do it in a shorter amount of time. And it's allowed us to be really diligent in what we are delivering so that people aren't wasting time online, because people see the buying online. So it's really short, it's sharp, it's quirky, it's still funny, it's activity based. So it's hitting every single notch we would normally do on a face to face space, with the addition of being able to captivate the world now, not just locally,

Chris Schwager 18:39

I remember when Cam was in the studio, you guys were talking about these constant FAQ's, and just, you know, almost getting barraged by the same question over and over. And one of the videos I think was dedicated to just, you know, covering off that in thorough detail, and making sure that that was really clarified. How's that now worked for you? It's been about a year since that's been produced. How has that worked for you? Is it sort of lightened up on on the one to one stuff? Yeah,

Grazina Fechner 19:08

well, it has lightened up on the one to one stuff. And obviously, that's due to COVID and everything else. But I think what's interesting is now people are knowing that we're doing videos, we're having requests from customers coming to us. So we're filming tomorrow at the studio, because we've now got customers saying, can Griz do some presentation skills videos until you can get to us? We can't have our team not being trained. So it's the perfect solution and then not getting you know, it doesn't replace the face to face which is what I was really worried about early on if I'm to be honest to your listeners, and to you I was thinking

Chris Schwager 19:37

please be honest

Grazina Fechner 19:38

if I just do all these video. I love being honest. If I just do all these videos, what's going to happen to me? I'll be my, I think I'll be redundant. And the bit I love is the face to face stuff. So I don't want to be made redundant. But what we're finding is it's that gap that I can't fill up the moment. It doesn't make it redundant because they get a piece of me and they're like oh my god, we can't wait to see you live.

Chris Schwager 19:58

Yeah great.

Grazina Fechner 19:59

You're just so good on video. So we've created a whole new market for ourselves. And we're selling all these videos that we never thought possible. And it's easy to do, like I come to you guys, we knock it over. And it's there for the client within the month. And we can add the animations and we can add all the cool stuff. So it's not just for all your listeners, it is not just me talking add a video, there's animations as activities as workbooks. And it's like the complete package. It's awesome.

Chris Schwager 20:23

And what about let's talk about delivery? Because you said you're charging for videos, which is fairly well, that's reasonably uncommon with our clients. I mean, usually the the types of videos that we're producing a marketing client style content, but how are you delivering this? Is it through some kind of, you know, like, how are you monetizing it?

Grazina Fechner 20:41

Yeah, so with this particular client that we're working with Tomorrow, they came to me and said Griese, we need a solution, because we can't have you what can we do? And straightaway, I said, Well, we can do this video, showed them some of the previous things that we've done. And they're like, that's what we'd love. And normally, what I would do is make everyone pay a license. So if each person is viewing the video, they've got to pay a license. But I think because we're so new into this space, we're saying, Well, you know what, because it's a shorter version of what we'd normally do. Here's the one fee, use the video as much as you want, and make people feel good when they're watching it. So the other way we're doing it is when we're doing the Facebook ads, we do a lot of Facebook ads. So we're doing some Denecke videos, we're doing some ones to help other markets work in an Australian market. And that's literally through some Facebook ads and marketing and some of our Indian clients that are sending them to India. And so there's lots of different ways we're doing it. And we're quite shocked at what people I mean, people are really happy to pay for the videos because it gets them trained, a team that's trained, and they're not having to fly people everywhere and do everything so it's a really good gap stop.

Chris Schwager 21:44

How do you measure success?

Grazina Fechner 21:46

When they come back and ask for more videos. And I mean, even we get so many online similar to the podcast, we get people emailing all the time. I just watched a video and I I'm watching I'm sending it to my family because even though it's on selling skills or communication skills, my whole family to sit around and watch this video because it gives some really good tips on life. Yes, so every video we do is a life skill. And I said at the beginning, this is not just a nine to five, during your job video. This content is used 24/7 as a part of being the very best version of you communicating to anyone in the whole wide world and having the time of your life.

Chris Schwager 22:18

It's so powerful video on demand. And it really is underestimated what the full potential here and Brendan please step in any time.

Brendan Southall 22:27

Thank you. I've been waiting for my opportunity

Grazina Fechner 22:31

Brendan, over to you!

Chris Schwager 22:37

collaborative discussion. Honestly, Chris, you're asking all the questions that I had in my mind, That's the reason I've been quiet.

Chris Schwager 22:45

Okay, just then just keep quiet for a bit longer than and we'll get to you in a sec.

Chris Schwager 22:53

My point it's really just a point and that is around demand. On Demand video, I watched a little bit of TikTok as I sometimes do on the toilet, usually, and came across this video and the it was upon me I really was almost it's very difficult to to actually understand because he's such a fast talker. But I got the premise of what he was saying. And there was enough slang in there and NF bonds for me to get interested to go, Who is this guy? I'm gonna I think he's he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. And I scrolled through some more of his videos on tiktok channel. And then I went over to this guy has to have a podcast.

Chris Schwager 23:41

And sure enough, he's got a podcast, the first episode of that podcast that I that I started to listen to I was I was hooked into, and because it was right up my alley, it was talking on a topic around breathing that I absolutely loved. And I continue to watch and now I'm a fan, right? But it wouldn't have happened unless this guy was on Tik Tok, that that the seven degrees of separation, that guy would never have reached my my, you know, visual ball, had he not been there. Right. And so my point is around what you're doing is that visual presence while you know you're being substituted out there, right? So don't feel like you're, you've got nothing to do now. But how powerful is that in terms of growth in terms of stirring up action and activity within your business? That you're there for them on in so many different ways in so many different ways. You know, your you've got your podcasts, you've got your social media. It's just endless, right? We've got the power at our fingertips now to to have that type of exposure. And of course your channel seven

Grazina Fechner 24:30

Yeah, but it's not even. I mean, Tiktok is nuts for us with the podcast. We're getting a million views on something so ridiculous like it. It makes no sense to me that blows my mind that these 15 or 30-second whatever we're doing, it gets people from Kazakhstan. We're number one podcast in Kazakhstan. I mean, who even listens in anyway, but you know, I'm sure that's from tiktok and we get these amazing. One girl wrote to us the other day from because she'd seen us on Tik Tok instead of watching it or listening to a podcast and watching it because we have it on video as well. And she said, I'm learning my English from you girls and we're like more English from us because we're not great English speakers. But Tik Tok is that platform that gets you and similar to the videos with me with clients. If there's a new induction of a girl that's come to them, and then watch an induction video that I've done, then when I go and see them, they're so excited to come to training because I've seen a bit of being on video, they turn up ready for Griz, yes. Or they leave a company and then I go, they go somewhere else. And I say, oh my gosh, this was a video that Christy for induction, you guys should do this for your company. And I would never been passed around like that. If I wasn't on a video.

Chris Schwager 25:33

Visual equity passed around.

Grazina Fechner 25:35

Yeah, it's really good.

Chris Schwager 25:36

It's, yeah, it is amazing. Brendan.

Brendan Southall 25:39

visual equity. Jeez, Ilike that. That's almost the next business.

Chris Schwager 25:43

I think I came up with that last year. Yeah, I like it. It's not a module, but just something I invented.

Chris Schwager 25:55

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Chris Schwager 26:38

I had a couple of people on because we were trying people through on camera training and do our thing here in the studio, getting ordinary people to present and occasionally we would get say channel a channel nine presenter and we don't bother training them up, right? They've got plenty of training, but they read the script and they read it like they're on 60 minutes. And it's like, yeah, okay, that's not going to work. Can we just go another time, just a bit more relaxed and be like, Oh, okay, yeah, we can do it again. And again, like the very humble, but they've just been trained, drilled into them, you know? Hello, and welcome to the video marketing podcast. You know, it's very, like

Grazina Fechner 27:17

reading the news right? Now, when I speak, and when 10 People die in a car accident, because I couldn't be I couldn't be trained the news, right. So I moved on to weather. And actually, because 10 people died in the car because I smile when I articulate a smile naturally. And I had this smile in my voice, and I couldn't do it. But we hired Rob Canning at front and center, because he had been a non sports person for 10 years. And he was on channel 10, Sports Night forever, and blah, blah, blah. And then he couldn't do live training. Because he didn't have an acumen for any people talking back to him interesting. Most people on TV are great at one way talking and I have the, but I can't do anything else.

Chris Schwager 27:58

Yeah, I did you see, I've watched a whole lot of content over the Christmas break. And one of the things that I watched was the WeWork documentary on Amazon Prime. Have you have you? Did anybody see that? Okay. You watch it, watch it, you'll see how stuck this guy gets without a teleprompter. And he was, you know, they'll say, oh, you can't refer but tell you which is bullshit, right? Because we know that everybody reads from a teleprompter with the right training. But it was horrible. And you had this, you know, it's a very controlling guy, and he had this whole crew, this professional crew standing around fat seemed like an entire day. And he never got anything. He never got anything down on camera. It was just a complete train wreck because he was constantly trying to do stuff. The you know, off the coffin Bill, you know, Steve Jobs about it. And it was a complete train wreck. But But

Grazina Fechner 28:49

people like media people, as you say, Chris, they come in and they can't actually do all this other stuff that we can do. That's how they're trained. It's grind into them. I have that news presence about them. That articulation that doesn't really change what we're doing. It's great, but not for everything else.

Chris Schwager 29:04

Talk to me about this. Like, I had this discussion the other day with somebody around diversity actually was was someone that was looking to hire a Filipino VA virtual assistant. And she said, Well, what do you need the assistant for? And she said, like, oh, well, admin in this at the other. I said, yeah, that's, that's interesting. But be prepared for the fact that you will be able to scale like, when you think about how Brendan and I started Ridge Films, you know, we've spent 20 years diversifying ourselves through almost every facet of business and video production and marketing. It's unbelievable to the point where it's grossly distracting that you need to kind of rein in inserra I need to kind of hone my skills here and focus in on a couple of the more essential things here, but how, from your perspective being in front of a lot of these corporates. And businesses How is diversity in the like, in terms of skill set playing out in the corporate market? Is it is it a thing or is, you know, if you're an account manager or an account manager, and that's it, you'll never, you know, break away from that.

Grazina Fechner 30:16

Now, I think nowadays, especially with the younger person, talking to younger generation, they are coming in wanting to be entrepreneurs, they want to be managing director six months after they've been in a company. So we've had to change the way we lead, we've had to change the way that we develop people. Because years ago, we did going as a receptionist, or we did go in and something and that was our job. But now you look at even pharma and healthcare, they come in as a rep initially, and then they want to go into training and managing them and go into marketing. And so what they're doing now in the healthcare sector is doing internships. So you start off as your rep. And I think in healthcare, you need to serve as a rep because you can't be a marketing person if you've never been out in field, right. So you need to be the rep and then they give you a six month stint at marketing. So you're gonna do a marketing campaign. And then I'll give you a six month stint in training. And then they'll give you a six month stint in remote managing or coaching out and field. And then you can really find out what you love and where you're best suited for your strengths. And then they'll move you around. So they're really good in the healthcare space.

Grazina Fechner 31:11

Certainly other industries are not as progressive moving forward. But I think they need to because when you look at the generations coming through now, they have grown up in a really different world, and they can become millionaires on TikTok, they can become millionaires on some ecommerce t-shirt that they make with some brand that they sell. So I think the times have gone where you walk into a job, and you're in that position for a long time, because they don't want a house nowadays, they don't want to they want to travel, they want to do whatever they want with their mobile phone. So they don't care about stability. And that's probably a really low comment that I make. But a lot of younger generation, they don't want the house, they don't want the bricks and mortar, they just want to go and be free and go and do so they're not committed to that role long term. If you can offer them development, if you can offer them the new job that they're looking for. They'll just move and find it somewhere else.

Brendan Southall 31:55

Just one question before we wrap up. Can you walk us through the different types of training that you do offer? It's very corporate question but

Grazina Fechner 32:04

Corporate question. And the crazy bit is nowadays, people don't come to you with saying I just want presentation skills, I just want it's a mix of anything. But the main areas that we do focus on is communication skills is number one, how to communicate effectively with anybody because that encompasses behavior styles and encompasses the way you talk to people and encompasses words, even things like the word "fine." You know, when someone says Fine, that's not really fine. Diminishing defaults, I'm sorry, but everything before the but is BS, frankly, you know, it's I'm sorry for stops. So we do all the communication stuff.

Grazina Fechner 32:59

We do a heap of selling stuff. And it's not traditional sales where you go in and you ask you five questions, and you throw 25 bits of information with them. It's an engaging sales process. It's a two way conversation. And that's because it says including relationship, we do presentation skills, negotiation skills and the negotiation skills, we use the police force, and we have people, you know, jumping off crazy things and getting the gun. So real life tactical negotiation stuff. So we do a lot of stuff in that space as well. We do everything from product training in healthcare related industries. I've just finished doing Terry White chemists on nicotinell on how to stop smoking, right through to oncology, hematology, everything in between gastroenteritis, you know, you name it, we do it. But most of all, the fundamental part of training is we walk in wanting to make someone better than what they are, what they're currently doing, and how that looks can be so variant

Chris Schwager 32:24

we've had, we've had so many little side discussions throughout our filming session, as well in the studio. And it's always interesting talking to like minded people, particularly around the communication side of it. And you know, this, this interview is certainly opened up whole opportunities for us to have discussions in the future on the show, if you'd be welcome, and love to do that. We would love to have you on the show.

Grazina Fechner 33:54

Oh I'm coming back. Obviously, I'm a regular. We have the three hosts now. Like the project at night, this version, you know, the project, they have lots of hosts, we can do the same,

Chris Schwager 34:06

I'll take your word for it. Because I seem to just watch Tiktok and LinkedIn these days, and the plethora of other on demand services. Look, thank you so much. I really do appreciate you spending some time with us to go over this, I know that you'll be great to get on again and talk more in detail around some of these other areas of your business. If you want more information, go to Front and Centre Training Solutions. To learn more, what's the URL I should notice, right? frontandcentre.com.au Aha, in years, something like that Jinx! as my kids would say. So by now, you should be able to ride the wave with the wonderful words of Griz through modern leadership training for 2022. Keep your staff motivated and growing using videos and keep your business thriving and strong. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you Griz love you!

Chris Schwager 35:13

See our location tomorrow. That's all for this episode of video made simple podcast and see you next week.