Episode Details

Summary:

In this 99th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes John Waldron, founder of Learnedly, to talk about how financial services firms handle ongoing education. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 00:30: – John explains Learnedly as Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning but for Canadian financial services professionals. 

● 01:37: – John founded Learnedly because he found that it’s empowering to learn new ways to help your clients, and he wanted to make that learning accessible. 

● 02:55: – There was a demand in the industry for video-based content that was accessible on mobile. 

● 05:00: – A lot of Learnedly is inspired by and based in part on Lynda.com, which has now even sent Learnedly business. 

● 06:51: – With things changing in the industry and with technology so quickly, a platform that can be updated and referenced in real-time became more and more necessary. 

● 08:42: – With short-form courses like this, you can make a commitment to lifelong learning with only 30 minutes a week. 

● 09:25: – People are most motivated to learn and retain the information the best when they are in a position of needing to know something, and then put that knowledge to use shortly thereafter. 

● 11:00: – We take for granted how incredible a resource YouTube is, providing all this education for free, but you have to wade through a lot of low-quality content and Learnedly is a curated, high-quality platform. 

● 11:30: – Learnedly costs only $20 per month, in alignment with John’s belief that education is a right, not a privilege, and should be priced accordingly. 

● 12:15: – John shares how he was introduced to the financial services world by taking a Securities course in order to learn how to be responsible with his own money. 

● 17:00: – Some of Learnedly’s courses are approved for Continuing Education credits, and users can expect a true mobile experience with video that can stream on desktop, tablet, or phone, and can be downloaded for offline viewing. 

● 19:03: – Everything on Learnedly is researched and written beforehand, and video content takes ten times the effort of merely writing when you have to prepare, film, and edit the videos. 

● 20:55: – Learnedly has received positive feedback thus far and they plan to grow exponentially over the next six months. 

● 23:09: – In addition to supporting your current work needs, Learnedly can be used to grow your skills and help you advance in your career. 

● 28:10: – An advantage to Learnedly is that because their content is so modular, in 1-2 minute videos, if something changes in the industry, they only have to edit and replace small clips rather than entire courses. 

● 29:13: – If John could change one thing in the industry, it would be the level of complacency. 

● 31:50: – AI and automation are real things that will impact the industry in the future. 

● 33:35: – The advisors who believe that automation will eliminate their jobs are usually the advisors who don’t often deal with people face-to-face and those who treat their jobs in a highly transactional way that could easily be replaced by a computer. 

● 36:53: – The biggest challenge has been that Learnedly is a subscription service, so getting the content ready for launch and continuing to build the library was a big lift. 

● 39:18: – John is most excited about filling the need for education among the financial services industry. 

3 Key Points 

1. Learnedly supports an attitude of lifelong learning. 

2. Learnedly disrupts the traditional model of very expensive, outdated certification courses. 

3. The future is not a choice between human labor and automation, but will inevitably be a hybrid. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● “People learn more and they retain more when they need to know something. When the