Case Study 1:
Align Your Curriculum And
Teach SMEs How To Design Training

Situation:

AICPA, the American Institute of CPAs, is the national professional organization of over 300,000 accountants.  To maintain the CPA designation, each member attends 40 to 60 hours of continuing education a year.  This coursework is in several delivery formats – classroom, self-study, or conferences.  These courses are developed and taught by other accountants (subject matter experts or SMEs) who are guided by the AICPA educational group.

Several issues:

1. Over the years, there were many course offerings with few participants. AICPA needed to determine which courses were keepers.

2. AICPA had organized its departments into the type of training delivery. Three different departments were all writing course material on the same subject. There was duplication of effort in developing the content.

3. AICPA also had a new vision for the profession that expanded the skills and therefore, new courses needed to be developed.

Solution:

We worked with AICPA on the curriculum renewal project.  This process vetted the courses to determine which to keep and new ones to develop.

Now that AICPA knew which courses to revise or develop, we helped them reorganize.  The departments were restructured along content lines.  An SME in tax provided the course content and learning objectives. This material was used for various learning formats — workshops and self-study.

Then we created a series of learning activities that were designed for the AICPA audience.  These matched to their learning objectives and to the type of learners.  Then we taught SMEs how to develop their content into workshops and self-study.  We also provided the headquarters crew with an instructional systems design (ISD) process to ensure that they could track course development and provide coaching on the quality of the instructional design.

Results:

AICPA increased the quality of the courses while reducing their course development costs. Participants give higher ratings to the courses.

Case Study 2:
Sell to the Sales-resistant Professional

Situation:

AICPA’s state societies are responsible for selling AICPA courses to large buyers, such as corporations and accounting firms.  In the past, they had set up passive sales efforts such as booths, flyers, and emails.  They needed to engage their members in a more persuasive discussion.

But accountants are resistant to “hard sales” techniques (aren’t we all?). They wanted a more professional, relational approach.

Solution:

AICPA used our LEADER sales training as the foundation for their sales training. LEADER is based upon relationship sales, not transactional sales. We customized the LEADER workshop so that it reflected the product knowledge and sales cycle that the state society goes through to get from informant and gatekeeper to the multiple stakeholders in the decision and implementation.

Results:

State societies that implemented LEADER have had better results in getting larger buyers and thus reach more CPAs working in companies.