Best Resources for freelance trainers and training course designers

Page Updated on May 18, 2023

Whether you are a new freelance corporate trainer or established in this area, here are some great resources and tools that can come in handy as a trainer or teacher in the workplace.

Page Contents

Designing Courseware & Lesson Plans

For designing any kind of graphic whether it be a blog banner, leaflet, Pinterest banner, Facebook banner, and so on, just use Canva! It is FREE!
FREE stock images to use on your trainer’s site or in courseware.
To find classroom activities to include in training, download the FREE 54-page eBook on ‘Training Activities’.
To create your own courses online if you wish to, Teachable is the platform we recommend. It is very intuitive and one of the biggest worldwide in terms of support and structure and the pricing is reasonable.

Marketing Yourself as a Freelance Trainer

Building your own blog/website to create an online presence is the thing to do and you find some useful SEO amd online marketing videos here.
Read the post we did on marketing yourself as a freelance trainer.
You can also get a free link to your website and social media profile/s by volunteering for a guest post in ‘Trainer’s Corner’, where we do email interviews with you, the trainers.
How to Start a WordPress blog for Beginners.
Cheap website hosting and domain name.
WordPress themes (such as Divi that this site uses)
Absolutely essential if you want to build a list of clients. You really should start an email list asap. We use Convertkit!
Learn more about Convertkit!

Learning How to Be a Freelance or Corporate Trainer

The best way to get a solid understanding of how to be a good trainer is by doing the ‘Train the Trainer’ course below.

Train the trainer online course — Click to Learn More…

Finding Trainers

Trainers Corner – is where we profile freelance trainers and it is a great place to find good trainers.
If you happen to be UK-based then you can email us and we will suggest a trainer.
Training Zone is arguably the best site online for finding trainers with a thousand plus trainers registered on training zone.
HR Zone is a great resource for networking with others involved in HR and training. Many trainers have a profile on HR Zone including our very own Dr Valeria Lo Iacono.
Guru.com can also be a good resource for finding trainers and is worth checking as they have a global network.
Likewise, Upwork is another decent option for searching for either work as a trainer or for placing an ad to find a freelance trainer.

Finding Courseware

There are several companies worldwide who offer training in a variety of topics

Customizable training course materials — **View Our Training Kits for Freelance Trainers**

Online Research Tools

Here are the tools we have used in the past for research and that you might also find useful as you research and develop

Keyword Analysis

LSI Graph – a great tool for finding related keywords. This is a fantastic resource for discovering all connected terms.
KW Finder – another great keyword term tool that you can use to also search specifically by country and language.
KeywordTool.io – One of my favorite tools, use this site to easily find related terms and terminology.

Twitter Analysis

Hashatit.com – another similar hashtag style tool. I like the way though, that it presents the results with graphics also (you can log in with your Twitter ID or Facebook although sign-up failed for me so this tool seems no good).
Hashtagify.me – Not a cheap tool to use but if your research is funded and there is a sizable budget, this tool can prove to be invaluable. This is one of the more sophisticated and hence more expensive options. This tool creates clever relationship diagrams.
Discovertext – Can create some deep analysis and is a good tool. You can use the trial and the FREE version or 50% academic discount.
Tweetarchivist – Subscription and not the most exciting option but you might want to give it a try.

Creating Online Surveys

Some of the best online survey options for researchers I would suggest are as follows:

Survey Monkey – is quite a popular one and does everything you will need for basic surveys and for more advanced surveys (you have to pay for the more extensive option).

Getting Data from Online Usage

There are some great reports that you can get access to on internet usage worldwide and these reports sometimes cost money to view or sometimes are available to view for free, such as through tour institutions.

Some of the best I would recommend are:

The Pew Reports – The Pew research center provides reports on a wide range of topics and although quite American-centric, these reports are extremely useful.
The Digital Futures Project is a wonderful resource for getting data and statistics on world internet usage, trends, and a whole bunch of other information.
The other big name is Forrester Research and they are also always worth taking a look at.

About
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Dr Valeria (Lo Iacono) Symonds

Involved with education for over 25 years, Valeria has taught at the University of Bath and Cardiff Metropolitan University (both UK) & Hankuk University (Korea). With a PhD, she has also worked as a researcher (Exeter University) & has many years of industry experience including with Cardiff University in management roles. She is the founder of Symonds Training.

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