New! 3 No Cost Ways to Increase Effectiveness

Hard fast and no-cost tips on increasing your effectiveness with three 15 min topics.
*Welcome Emails. Your first best chance for lifetime value.
*Increasing Your Repeat Rate. Get people back, every one counts.
*Staffing Costs. How much of your budget should be spent on staffing.

Greg Marsello, Senior Adviser, LERN, Jackson, NH.

New! How Gen Y Thinks

Whether you are a millennial yourself, or not, you will find out more new information from the research on the practical realities for this generation. Gen Y is your biggest market segment for the next three decades. Turn this info into helping your program market to and serve them better.
You can’t afford not to know as much as you can about this generation. Your presenter is the foremost authority on generations and lifelong learning.

Julie Coates, Senior Vice President, LERN, Presque Isle, WI.

New! The State of Higher Education

The state of higher education as we move into 2021. As seen from the perspective of continuing educators, find out the impact our changing landscape in higher education is having on continuing education.

PANEL, Moderated by Reginald Turner, Clayton State University, Morrow, GA.

Always New! The Top eTools for 2021

Discover the latest new eTools to boost your productivity and that of your staff. Your presenter spends hours every day researching what’s new, and what works.
Always a popular session, just one eTool can make a huge positive difference for your program. Your presenter is known internationally for his web and online work.

Dan Belhassen, Neovation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

New! Live Online Update

What worked, and what did not, with Fall 2020 Live Online (Zoom) class teaching and instructors. Find out what our Panel of successful programmers experienced with this new format. Then discover what they will do differently- – and what you should be doing- – for 2021. Pandemic or no, it’s an exciting new format for the field.

PANEL session, Moderated by Joe Miera, University of Las Vegas, NV

Always New! Hot Picks for Community Classes

Just one new class tip can mean thousands of dollars for your program. A LERN original and always a favorite. Bring one successful new class idea for community classes and take home 19 other hot titles.

SMALL GROUP BREAKOUTS, Moderated by Patrick Mogge, District 214, Arlington Heights, IL.

Virtual & Summer Camps for 2021

Our annual review and forecast for summer camps for 2021, whether virtual or in-person. Come away with exciting new summer camp theme ideas. Get the latest marketing strategies for summer camps. Find out how the top summer camp practitioners are preparing, and positioning, their programs for summer 2021.

PANEL, Moderated by Jill Korsok, Orange Community Education & Recreation, Pepper Pike, OH.

New! Online Certificates: Your Global Niche

Generate $200,000/year with a 50% Operating Margin. This is the biggest most profitable growth area for continuing ed programs moving forward. IF you do it right. The ROI on this session alone is worth the price of the entire conference.

William A. Draves, CAE, CPP, President, LERN, River Falls, WI.

Learning While Black

The learning experience for black students is often culturally and socially nuanced. Understanding their uniqueness can inform how you engage and guide them in successful learning. Learn techniques to improve your black students’ learning experience, and what to tell your instructors to help them serve this unique learner population, from kids to seniors.

Dionne Felix, Associate Vice President, Academic Administration, Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN; and Julie Coates, civil rights leader and author of Invisible Diversity, LERN, Presque Isle, WI.

New! Generating Customer Feedback

From surveys to actually speaking with your customers, get the latest best practice from successful practitioners. Find out about advisory boards, finding your 100 best customers, and much more.

PANEL, Moderated by Tim Litfin, Minnetonka Community Education, Minnetonka, MN; with Brenda Helmuth, Hawkeye Community College, Waterloo, IA.

New! Solve the Problem, Provide the Solution

Operations staff must be able to solve complex problems and make tough decisions in a timely manner. Your customers expect solutions. Learn a problem-solving process you can implement to improve your problem resolution rate and make decisions with confidence.

Carmen Powlen, Recreation Manager, City of Wylie Parks and Recreation Department, Wylie, TX.

New! The Importance of Cross-Functional Teams

Growing revenue streams and improving customer satisfaction requires teamwork. Learn about the role of cross-functional teams – programming, marketing and operations – and their short and long-term impact.
Get guidelines you can put in place to develop, start and successfully operate cross-functional teams.

Brenda Ireland, Director of Operations, Continuing Education & Training Services, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA

New! Documenting Policies, Processes & Procedures

Documentation increases efficiency, consistency and overall performance. Without buy-in, efforts are wasted. Understand how to identify and document policies, processes and procedures, as well as getting tips to secure buy-in by other staff and units.

Travette Webster, Director of Administrative and Student Support Services, Houston Community College, Houston, TX

Top 11 Tips for Successful Operations

Operations is dynamic and many times chaotic, but critical to the success of a lifelong learning program. Understand the 11 proven actions you can undertake to ensure operations success. Whether you are a small or large operations unit, you will determine how to improve operations efficiency and productivity and overall operations effectiveness.

Greg Marsello, LERN Senior Adviser, Jackson, NH

Successful Contract Training Needs Assessment

As contract training shifts from information to solutions being able to perform needs assessment is critical. Learn proven ways to understand your client’s real needs and how best to propose a solution.
Walk away with the questions to ask and strategies for getting the answers you need.

Rod Holt, Dean of the School of Continuing Education, Red Deer College, Red Deer, AB, Canada

Making Apprenticeships Work

Contract training units are successfully utilizing apprenticeships to better serve clients, increase revenue and collaborate with academic departments.
Discover strategies for effectively developing, selling and delivering apprenticeships. Understand the role of apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, staffing needs, best practices and much more.

Amy Lasack, Senior Director of Corporate Training, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA

New! Getting In the Door, then Closing the Sale

Cold calling does not work. Find out winning strategies for getting that first face-to-face or remote visit and strategies for building a relationship that leads to a sale.
LERN’s latest research will be shared including generating referrals, making contact, sharing your expertise, and getting to yes. We guarantee you will increase your sales.

Julia King Tamang, LERN Senior Contract Training Consultant, Portland, OR

New! Successful Contract Training and Small Teams

Over 60% of contract training units have three or less staff and many handle both open enrollment and contract training. Discover the 13 small contract training units’ success factors you should employ and how best to execute them.
You will be given an action plan you can follow in order to grow your contract training unit’s revenue, contracts and outreach.

Greg Marsello, LERN Senior Adviser, Jackson, NH

Three 15 minute mini-sessions on pioneering new marketing techniques. Get their updates after the big Fall 2020 session experience.
-First print brochure with all online classes. Elaine Chapman, Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA
-Getting your program’s link on your institution’s home page. Tom Leaverton, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA
-First program to do continuous registration. Garrett Stern, formerly with the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA

New! Hypnotic Copy: Juicy Words to Seduce Customers

Make your class descriptions walk, talk, and breathe dragon fire! Discover the five secret laws of hypnotic persuasion. Find out the ways to write a hypnotic course title. In this interactive, crazy-creative session, we’ll cozy up with each other and play a fun writing game.
A digital pdf certificate will reward the participants for successful development of the juiciest-worded class description. Your presenter runs an award winning program, and she has an M.A. in English.

Betty Sedor, El Camino College, El Camino, CA

Wow! Premiere. Page Analysis

Worth the entire conference price, and more. Find out how relocating even a few courses in your print brochure can generate tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue and profit. Howard County College moved just four courses and gained an additional $90,000, they reported, following these Exclusive LERN Recommendations.
Premiere offering. We shouldn’t be giving away these secrets, but we are.

William A. Draves, LERN, River Falls, WI

Always New! Best Brochure Ideas for 2021

A whole new successful brochure format is emerging right now. Take home the best new brochure ideas from LERN’s top brochure and design experts for lifelong learning programs.
The print brochure generates 70% of your registrations and income, pandemic or not. It is the most essential marketing piece you do.

Julie Coates, LERN Senior Vice President, Presque Isle, WI; Jordan Kivley, LERN, Portland, OR

New! Hot Marketing Techniques

Hard, fast, no-nonsense take away tips in three 15 minute segments.
*Your email’s first 5 words. How to word those stay-or-leave first five words in your email promotions.
*Post card marketing. Cheap, targeted, fast marketing you can get out in two days.
*Lowering prices vs. raising them. Here’s the numbers. Here’s the odds. Here’s your best bet.

William A. Draves, CPP, LERN, River Falls, WI

All new! Pioneering Marketing Campaigns

Innovative, creative and proven techniques in three 15 minute segments.
*Personalizing Your Ad Campaign. The international award winning campaign.
*Top 3 Email Strategies for 2021. No explanation needed, big ROI explained.
*Interactive Dashboards. How to convert your data files into interactive dashboards using Power BI.

Nigel Sutton, Wellington High School, Wellington, New Zealand; Dan Belhassen, Neovation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

New! The New Normal is Good

Bring on a Pandemic to also bring Silver Linings to higher education and particularly continuing education and corporate training. The New Normal brings opportunity for transformative change in how continuing education and corporate training develops, offers, repackages, and markets education through the lens of access, affordability and acceleration. Also, the continued emphasis on micro-credentials, unbundling academic courses, and partnering with innovative online development vendors is accelerating. This session provides an overview of these future strategies.

Kim Becicka, Vice President, Continuing Education and Training Services, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA

New! Generating Administration Support

Gaining support from your central administration, including your institution’s CEO, is now critical to having a successful lifelong learning or continuing education program.
Our panel of practitioners have successfully worked with their central administrations to enable growth, entrepreneurship, and the flexibility needed to win in the marketplace of today.

PANEL, Moderated by Aaron Sauerbrei, Hawkeye Community College, Waterloo, IA

New! Racial Justice: Educating White Communities

Now is the time for your program to make a big impact on your community and our society. This is what we do, this is our history, our mission.
Experienced practitioners in social change look at what can be done by lifelong learning and continuing education programs at this pivotal time in history.

PANEL, Moderated by Paula Hogard, Framingham State University, Framingham, MA; with Amystique Church, Delaware State University, Dover, DE

New Big Impact Strategies

Three more fast, hard hitting topics with big ROI.
Best Video Promotion Clips.Watch some of the successful video promotion clips from your colleagues. Then find out how they were used to create effective promotions.
Sharing Live Online Instructors. Another pioneering breakthrough in the field.
How Noncredit Students Become Credit Students. Between 5% and 13% of noncredit students later become credit students, generated huge bucks for your institution. Find out more.

PANEL, Moderated by Joe Miera, University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV; with Joe Cassidy, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL

Live from New Orleans! Elevating Employee Empowerment

Only 30% of the global workforce feels engaged (Gallup Research). This has a direct negative impact on the bottom line. Strengthening the leadership within your organization, be equipped to motivate team members, and connect staff with their strengths and aspirations.
Create an engaged and lucrative work environment.

Dima Ghawi, Leadership Guru, Live from New Orleans!

Hot! Increasing Registrations by Reducing Digital Friction

How to leverage free marketing and analytical tools offered by Google for your programs to show up in search results. Get into your customers’ minds by demystifying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and know what they are searching online.
The top rated new session by a practitioner from last year’s conference!

Goher Murtaza, CPP, Lehman College, New York, NY

New! SEO For Courses

Premiere. Never before released information. Get more visibility for your big dollar programs, like camps, certificates and UGotClass certificates. From a study of successful lifelong learning and continuing education units doing unpaid search optimization, take away the top tips for how to get ranked on that all-important first search page.

Garrett Stern, LERN, Richmond, VA; with Susan Hurrell, Neovation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Digital Marketing 2021 Best Practices

There’s new advances every year in the field on website design, email promotion, video and online advertising. See how the top Integrated Marketing strategies are doing with successful digital marketing practitioners. Get the latest on how to optimize your marketing mix.

PANEL, Moderated by Joe Miera, University of Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV; with Guy E. Curtis, Director of Marketing, Workforce Development, Lord Fairfax Community College, Middletown, VA

New! Top Online Marketing Tips

Three 15 minute mini-sessions on online marketing tips with Big ROI.
*Contact us. Generate more leads and registrations with a more visible and action-oriented Contact Us web page.
*Model Website. New. Come get it. We now know from award winning programs the 5 key elements of a model home or landing page for the field of lifelong learning and continuing education.
*Paying Live Online Instructors. Stop giving away the store and needlessly hurting your program. Here’s a pay structure both you and your instructors can live with – – no, thrive with.

William A. Draves, LERN, River Falls, WI

New! Built a Lead Magnet

Learn how to create a lead magnet for your ideal customer. Then grow your target email list on a shoestring budget. Your presenter grew a non-existent email list from zero to hundreds and covered all start up costs within six weeks of launching. She fought through the naysayers in web design and marketing in her own organization to reach clients and grow profits. Find out how to crush it too!

Jillian M. Farrell, Director of Continuing Education, Sherman College of Chiropractic, Boiling Springs, SC

New! The Top 7 Marketing Metrics that Matter

Today’s websites and social media platforms can measure everything, but that can make you feel like you are drowning in data and suffering from analysis paralysis.
Let’s take a look at the metrics that matter to help you make sense of the marketing data you already have at your fingertips. Learn which ones you need focus on to drive more business.

Susan Hurrell, Neovation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Latest! Social Media Success Stories

From the historic Fall 2020 session in lifelong learning and continuing education, get the most successful social media strategies for our field from a panel of practitioners who know what they are doing.
*Increasing Followers.
*What works with LinkedIn
*Trending: Stories and Videos

PANEL, Moderated by Julie Coates, LERN, Presque Isle, WI

Key Benchmarks

Acquire the key indicators you should monitor to judge your program’s success. Whether it’s performance or financial success, you will explore the best numbers to monitor.
This data allows you to check your past success and plan for your next sessions. These numbers will simplify your decision making.

Brendan Marsello, Director of Membership Services, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Developing the Best Programs

Promotions and pricing are the two things programmers blame for unsuccessful courses. This is a myth. Know what you should focus on to improve your offerings. Understand the criteria for what you should repeat and selecting new courses.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Optimizing Prices

It’s not an art form. It’s a process. Know how to determine the best price to maximize both income and registrations.
Discounts, competition pricing, and image pricing will also be covered. Don’t guess about your prices. Know the steps to the best price.

Garrett Stern, LERN, Richmond, VA

Talk to Your Customers: Needs Assessment

Frustrated with not knowing what new courses to offer? Cancelling too many events? Don’t know the best way to offer programs?
Talk with your customers. It takes the same amount of time to set up a successful course as one that fails. Your customers will tell you what you should be doing.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Marketing Essentials

Everything you do is marketing. Yet in our field we need to pay attention to the most important strategies. The average person spends just 3 seconds to decide whether to open your brochure. You should not be marketing to everyone. Do you know what makes your program different from every other program?
Understanding these important marketing concepts and strategies are essential to your career, and your program’s growth.

Garrett Stern, LERN, Richmond, VA

Effective Promotions

Discover the key promotion techniques to increase your registrations. Understand the essential task that most programs neglect that will increase your bottom line.
Then know the different promotions to use and when to use them. These actions lead directly to income.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Finding & Keeping Great Instructors

Grow the best instructors by following key guidelines. Know where to find them and the best onboarding processes. Explore ways to evaluate your instructors and how to offer professional development for them. The biggest factor in your program quality is your instructors.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Keep Customers Coming Back

The best way to grow your program is to get your current customers to come back next time. Customer service is essential to boosting your repeat rate. A few tweaks and you can transform your customer service into something extraordinary.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, D.C.

Exhibitors add to your conference experience with a variety of products and services geared just for lifelong learning programs.

There is no additional charge to the exhibit area for conference attendees. Last year, more than 20 exhibitors were at the LERN Annual Conference.

Want to exhibit? Email Roy at roy@lern.org