Video Overview
#16 episode of “Helping B2B High Ticket Service Providers Grow – One Lesson at a Time”, with Renate Wittmann.
Being in the educational and learning department for more than 20 years, Renate decided to create her own educational platform.
Scio.zone is a mixture of ebooks, videos, etc., it’s a multi-source training that covers eleven topics.
“Networking is the future”, says Renate.
Check out their website scio.zone.
P.s. Did you know that the word “scio” means “knowledge” in Latin?
STAY TUNED for more incredible lessons, stories and growth tips, straight from the most successful entrepreneurs!
Speakers
Interview Transcript
[00:00:07.990] – Dancho – Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode. We are on the show Helping B2B High Ticket Service Providers – One Lesson at a Time. For today, I have Renate Wittmann and she is the CEO from scio.zone. Renate, welcome to the show.
[00:00:23.490] – Renate – Thank you.
[00:00:24.830] – Dancho – I had the opportunity to meet Renate, was it one month ago? When we were discussing around trainings and everything, and I find it so fascinating. So I said, you know what? I wanted to invite to talk about the collaboration and the networking aspect of the businesses. But don’t let me get myself ahead of it. So perhaps you can give some background about who you are and what you do for the people that don’t know you.
[00:00:51.990] – Renate – Thank you. As I introduced Renate Wittmann, I am living in Germany, and I am a German. I’m in the learning area, since more than 20 years, I worked for different things, like personality testing development, or for academies. And this year, in July, I overtook a new opportunity to create a platform. It’s an educational platform which has a basic of an ecosystem of collaboration, networking, and community. And this is what I think it’s future that we don’t, each one has a business and not collaborate, so that it’s more important that people start to collaborate with each other and creating good networks so that each of us can win and each of us can gain more money.
[00:01:55.470] – Dancho – Nice. And this is the new platform, the scio.zone?
[00:01:59.610] – Renate – Yeah. It’s scio.zone.
[00:02:02.110] – Dancho – I was actually checking whether it’s in German, but then later you told me, actually, I let you tell us what it means?
[00:02:08.360] – Renate – Yes. “Scio” is Latin rooted and it means knowledge. So it’s called knowledge zone. And Latin is much better than German or English at this point. So scio.zone would be the word scio.
[00:02:24.510] – Dancho – I should start learning German, Latin, I’m not going to start with German. At least it’s a life language and people should know it. And I’m interested, I mean, 20 years in adult training, it means that you’ve been through a lot, with different, but was it mostly business trainings or was it mostly personal trainings? In which direction was your career path?
[00:02:46.350] – Renate – Okay, so I’m coming out of the soft skill, so I have always done personality development or stress management, time management or resilience or something. And I did it for trainers, so I always was in a business context. I never worked B2C, I always worked B2B.
[00:03:06.050] – Dancho – Yeah. That helps a lot because as a training, you can go in many different directions. But the B2B, especially the soft skills, is something that we all lack as managers and as owners of businesses. So actually, the scio.zone is an accumulation of everything that you know and how you transferred it into a platform.
[00:03:26.380] – Renate – Yes, this is quite interesting because in life, you got lessons learned. And so in a company I worked for, I get the honor to lead the IT Department as well. And so being head of development and head of IT, in this case, my whole life comes together in the new platform and so working on IT and working on learning processes and being an expert there not an expert in IT, but knowing the basics, this is a good life experience that comes together and help me to succeed in the current business.
[00:04:06.270] – Dancho – Yeah. And it’s interesting because you mentioned something when you are introducing yourself that it is a learning platform, but although that’s the primary purpose, you are more focused on the collaboration between the people. Can you tell me a bit more about that part?
[00:04:24.450] – Renate – So it has several perspectives. So one is if it comes to the topics we have, it’s not only soft skill, it is sales, it is marketing, it is technological trainings, it’s leadership trainings, it’s tax, it’s legal things. So we have eleven topics we cover with the platform and what we have is a shop in shop concept, where trainer and consultants can gain their own shop and could be a part of the community. And we help them firstly with how to market and how to get great products which are needed in the market. So we have a whole range of formats, educational formats like blended learning, like Life Online, like On Site training. At the moment a lot of people are trying to do is to build upon a video business and we don’t do that. So we have videos as well, we have ebooks displayed and we have all things, but we love mixture because we think education has to matter and so not one way is good, so a multi directive way to train. For us this is an important thing and we know we can’t do it alone and each trainer knows he can’t do it alone. So what we provide and what we are really believing in is that networking is a new future, community networks. And so if I am a single trainer and I do soft skill training and my customer asked me if I would do a tech branding, I can’t do it because I am not the expert in having a large community or network around me where I know there are experts in tech, I can invite them to a training, for example, for tach. And so I am strong for my customer because I can help them to fulfill his needs and his questions and the others on my network say participating on my customer as well as I do. And this is for me an important idea because if you look at the modern time, I think things will change and I always have to laugh if somebody talks from competition in between of Germany or in between of Europe, because I think our competition don’t come from Europe, it comes from somewhere else in the world. And so in my perspective, Germany and Europe in this way can win and can succeed if we start to collaborate in each brochures together. And so we do a start with scio.zone, because we deeply believe that network makes us stronger and even gives us a better revenue, as if we would be single or alone in the business.
[00:07:36.210] – Dancho – Yeah. And I was listening to you, one of our target audience are consultants, coaches, trainers. And when you said, well, it is actually a platform where people can open shops, it immediately got me curious, and since I’m curious, I’m assuming that other people that are listening will be, the first question was, is it German only? Can non-German trainers actually participate?
[00:08:01.350] – Renate – Platform always means worldwide and this is our perspective. And so we have contacts to Sweden, to somewhere in the world, because I personally have worked more than 17 years internationally. So our view is not only Germany, we dream that people all around the world could get good education in ongoing work life to really can stay in the working process a whole life. So we are looking, what do they need our customers to stay in work life, having a fulfilled work life. And we wanted to make them better and give them the things they need to be brilliant in their job. And then we have done a brilliant job and customer come.
[00:08:50.610] – Dancho – Nice. Well, a logical follow-up question here would be that how can I as a trainer or as a consultant join the platform? Is it a complicated process?
[00:09:01.170] – Renate – No. We have an intermediate platform right now and we are creating right now a new one. It will come in December this year and this platform will be German, English right now it’s German, but you can always contact us, go to our homepage, www.scio.zone, and you will find become a trainer and then you register and we come in contact with you and then we discuss which is your field of expertise, what you are interested on, what kind of trainings you are doing. And then we talk about the network effect and what’s important to us being in the community. And after we have done that, we have a short agreement and then we can start.
[00:09:54.270] – Dancho – Nice. I really love the part that it’s not where a platform people can just hold their training, but you put emphasis on the networking and the collaboration, which in one country are actually making it an exclusive group of people. And I was interested how is it not with the competition between you and other platforms, but for example, I’m into sales and I’m sure that there will be a lot of trainings in sales. And how do you actually either grade them or differentiate between different trainers?
[00:10:26.670] – Renate – For the starting point it’s always six questions for start, not for a whole running view, so we are starting right now. And so in this terms, it is we ask, we talk to each trainer and we ask what is your hard topic, what you’re standing for? And then we see, okay, you providing B2C leadership sales training. This we don’t have on the platform. So we say, okay, this is perfect because this completes us. And so in the moment we are looking for completion and see what’s around. And there are so many good topics. We try to be clear that we try, each one has its place and if it doesn’t tend thousands, then it’s equal. But in the starting point, you have to be careful. And what’s important for us, we talk from facilitator and experts. And so all experts and facilitators are welcome who are thrown through networking and believe in it and who are actual in his or her topics.
[00:11:46.730] – Dancho – Nice. Yeah. I realized that if I’m a trainer, I need to do everything on my own and find the platform and create the trainings and everything, while you’re trying to have the group synergy, the effect of a group of similar consultants or similar trainers with similar needs. And that comes to the second part when it comes to the marketing and sales of the trainings. Of course, as a trainer I need to be focused on promoting. But does it scio.zone also support trainers in that area?
[00:12:20.100] – Renate – Yes, we support the whole process. So we do the participant management, we choose the selling processes and we do as well marketing. And we do it in a marketing mix. It is social media mix, it is classical marketing. So we approach companies through flyer, for example. This is working in Germany pretty well. And we have a direct contact, direct sales initiatives for company. And we work on all, on image as well as on putting consultants and trainers into the spotlight. So for us it’s important that people know the people who train. So we put effort that we not only promoting scio.zone, we wanted to promote the network and this means we wanted to promote faces, people’s life stories.
[00:13:18.050] – Dancho – Nice. You got me wondering, this is like an incubator for trainers because you gather people with similar problems with similar needs when it comes to technical needs, when it comes to marketing needs, when it comes to sales. And first you are directly helping them. But you’re also utilizing the network effect because if I have a problem, I could have a close friend, another trainer, that he could give me some insight on something that I didn’t know or someone else has a problem that I can help and that is actually the collaboration part. And on the other hand, collaboration you also mentioned in terms of profit because people can train, for example, if it’s a bigger topic which has three or four modules, two or three different people can join forces in order to deliver training.
[00:14:12.480] – Renate – Right. So we have what we have we call it single shop. Then you could do your own shop with your own product. But if you really wanted to collaborate with others, you don’t have to found a company. You just have a multi trainer shop and then you can put in seminars and processes and do trainings together and have fun with the others and have a shop, could display seminars with different people and enjoy it.
[00:14:46.730] – Dancho – And how much does the trust has role in this kind of collaborations?
[00:14:52.730] – Renate – Trust between whom? Between the trainers or between us and the trainers?
[00:14:58.850] – Dancho – In both cases. Because you said you don’t need a contract, it just crossed my mind. Well, yeah, because it is a collaboration. So the trust is also a critical role here.
[00:15:09.820] – Renate – Yeah. I mean, between the trainer and scio, we have a little contract because of some issues in Germany, but all the business, even you have a contract or not. It is trust business. So people business is always a story of trusting. If people don’t trust us or we don’t trust them or they don’t trust each other, then you can’t do training and business together. I don’t know if there’s any board in the world where you can work without trusting customer or having customers who trust you. I think this is a basic business ethic, that trust is a moodle machine, which works between customer and you and helps you to grow.
[00:16:03.030] – Dancho – True. Without trust, clients need to trust you to pay you to get the knowledge. And between trainers, there is also a big issue in the trust. I always ask all the participants on the show that if you had one thing that you want to be remembered for, even in 50 years or in 100 years from now, there was this woman, Renate. What is the one thing that you want to share it as a golden nugget?
[00:16:34.770] – Renate – To help the world through learning to come more to democratic processes, because we think learning should be lateral through all the world and each can learn from each other and this makes us rich and this helps us to grow as a world society. So we have big dreams, enabling and encouraging people to live their dreams through learning throughout the world, to collaborate together because the world is one village and this village we have to build up. And so we think learning is a major point we have to do and have to do impact into the world. So this is on a large scale.
[00:17:28.280] – Dancho – Yeah, noble vision. Well, we’re moving towards the end of the podcast. I was curious for people that want to reach out to you or either as a trainer or maybe they want to check out your learning zone and try to see whether some of the trainings they can join, where people can or they just want to reach out to you to ask some questions or book a call where people can actually find you Renate?
[00:17:58.490] – Renate – Yes, you will find us with our website and internet. This is www.scio.zone. Or you find us per email. It is mail@scio.zone, or you find us in LinkedIn and somewhere else in Facebook, Instagram and in all social media channels.
[00:18:20.390] – Dancho – What I usually do is right below the video we actually add the link that you’re mentioning now so people can just click and check them out.
[00:18:27.820] – Renate – Yes, you’re welcome.
[00:18:29.690] – Dancho – And with that we’re moving towards the end of the podcast. From what I can see that training for one of our target audience here are training consultants and coaches should consider about not just yes, I found a gig for delivering a training but actually joining a platform where they can not just open shop to delivery of training, but they actually first can get a lot of value from the platform whether it’s regarding registration in sales and marketing for their own product. But they can also utilize the network through networking and collaboration in order to first to become better and also to grow their training businesses as well. So Renate, I would really like to thank you for coming on the show. I really found these insights that you show us quite relevant and I will check out your platform as well. Because as we published our book last week the next focus would be to start creating some trainings around the B2B lead generation. So I’m sure that I’ll actually have another look at your platform.
[00:19:37.870] – Renate – Yeah, I hope so. And thank you for the summary you did, and thank you for having me today. This was a great pleasure.
[00:19:46.670] – Dancho – Yeah. We always try to find different lessons from different angles and I think that Renate, you’re part from the collaboration and network fits really perfect to the show. So thank you again for being guest of the show and for everybody out there, have a great day, guys.
[00:20:02.570] – Renate – Thank you. Bye.