Guiding a Voice Coach's Digital Programme from Good to Great

Susan Room is an experienced business voice coach who helps senior leaders communicate at work with confidence, presence and authenticity. Her proven Make Your Mark with Susan Room® framework — based around the four pillars of mindset, body language, speech and voice — has reached thousands of people in 40+ countries via her in-person workshops and talks.

Despite this success, her impact was constrained — both by her own availability and the reality that not every team has the budget for on-site delivery.

A self-paced version was a natural next step, allowing teams to benefit from the framework without Susan being in the room. This led to Make Your Mark for Teams — a structured digital programme teaching the four pillars using 20 bite-sized video lessons.

This was piloted successfully using "blended" delivery, which included live virtual coaching sessions to provide extra support and maintain momentum.

Ultimately though, Susan wanted the programme to run without ongoing her participation. The problem was, she didn't know how to translate the blended approach to a self-service model while maintaining high levels of engagement and following instructional best practice.

That’s when she reached out to me for a strategic review.

Once training videos are filmed, many instructional decisions are locked in, and reshoots can be time-consuming and costly, which is why I began my review with some trepidation.

Fortunately, the content and production of Susan’s lessons were both excellent. (Meaning I didn’t have to suggest going back to the drawing board!)

However, with the virtual live coaching sessions removed, I felt the core training risked being too passive a learning experience for the average participant.

To evolve the self-guided learning experience into a more active, transformative one here’s the strategy I recommended (and implemented):

• Adding upfront assessments to gauge participants’ current skills, identify focus areas, and provide a benchmark for measuring progress.
• Expanding core modules to include guided reflections, multiple-choice quizzes, and assignments designed to build crucial “micro habits”.
• Creating 30+ new resources to reinforce the core materials and provide numerous opportunities for further study and practice.
• Implementing automated emails to build and maintain momentum across the recommended six-week duration of the programme.

I was able to implement all the changes relatively quickly, and in a way that required minimal additional work from Susan herself.

Shortly after completion, Make Your Mark for Teams gained its first customers. Two organisations, who saw the value of helping key employees build their confidence and presence, enrolled teams of 12 people into the programme.

Soon after that, Susan applied for CPD (Continuing Professional Development) certification, and the programme passed with flying colours, exactly as-is!

Overall, an excellent online training course with high CPD value. Content is very clearly and logically presented, with high quality and comprehensive support functions." – CPD Assessor

Even though certification wasn’t a goal at the outset, the high-quality videos Susan had already made combined with my work to “round out” the learning journey meant we achieved it anyway without any revisions.

As a result, Susan was able to launch Make Your Mark for Teams feeling confident about the quality of her programme – enough, in fact, to offer it at a higher price point than originally planned.