Skills · 3 min read

How to Build a Team of Trainers Inside Your Customer.

You cannot train everyone forever. Here is how to train a couple of people inside the account to teach the rest, so the product spreads without you in the room.

Will Koning

Founder, meritt

Train the trainer means you teach two or three people inside the customer well enough that they can teach everyone else. You pick them, you give them the material, and you back them up for the first month. Then the product spreads through the company at their pace, not at the speed of your calendar.

When training everyone yourself stops working

Running a session for each group of users works, and for a small team it is the right answer. But it breaks the moment the account gets big. Thirty people join in a year. Someone leaves and takes the knowledge with them. New starters arrive on a Monday and you are not there.

You end up as the only person who can explain the product, which sounds flattering and is actually a problem. Every new user has to wait for you.

What a good internal trainer looks like

The best trainer inside a customer is rarely the most senior person. It is usually someone who already uses the product a lot, who other people ask questions to, and who quite likes explaining things. Every team has one. Ask around for a week and you will spot them.

Give that person the material, a bit of status, and somewhere to send hard questions. What you get back is a product that keeps spreading when you are busy with something else.

How to do it

Pick two people, not one

Find the users who already answer other people's questions. Pick two, so the account does not fall over when one goes on holiday or changes job. Ask them directly rather than assuming they want it.

Sam, you seem to be the one everyone asks. Would you be up for being the go-to person for meritt here, with Priya as backup?

Teach them how to teach it, not just how to use it

They already know the product. What they need is the running order, the two things people always get stuck on, and permission to say "I don't know, let me ask." Run one session where they teach it back to you.

Walk me through it as if I'm a new starter. I'll stop you where new people usually get confused.

Hand over the material and let them change it

Give them your slides and your one-pager, then tell them to edit it to fit how their team actually works. Material they have reworded gets used. Material that still has your logo on it gets ignored.

Here's the guide. Swap my examples for your own accounts, it'll land better with your team than mine will.

Stay behind them for the first month

Sit in on their first session, quietly. Give them a direct line for anything they cannot answer. After a month, drop back to a monthly catch-up. The goal is that they need you less, not that you disappear.

I'll be on your first session but I'll stay muted. Anything you get stuck on, message me and I'll answer that day.

See the difference

Weak

I run every training session myself. Any time meritt hires someone new, they wait for a gap in my calendar, sometimes for weeks. New starters give up and go back to the old spreadsheet. I look busy and helpful, and usage never quite grows.

Strong

Sam and Priya run the training at meritt now. I taught them, gave them the material, and sat in on their first session. New starters get trained in their first week by someone who sits next to them, and I hear about problems from two people instead of none.

The weak version makes you the bottleneck. The strong version makes you unnecessary for the routine stuff, which is exactly where you want to be.

How you'll know it's working

You have got this when new users at an account get trained without you knowing it happened. Look at your biggest customers. Can you name the person inside each one who trains new starters? Has anyone been trained there in the last three months that you were not involved in? If yes, you are there. It feels strange to be less needed. It is also how accounts survive you being busy.

Questions people ask

What is train the trainer in customer onboarding?

Train the trainer means teaching a small number of people inside the customer well enough that they can train everyone else. You pick two users who already answer their colleagues' questions, show them how to run the session, hand over your material, and support them for the first month. After that the product spreads inside the company without waiting on your calendar.

Who should I pick as the internal trainer?

Not necessarily the most senior person. Pick whoever already uses the product often and is the one colleagues go to with questions. Being willing matters more than being important. Pick two rather than one, so the account is not exposed if that person takes leave or changes job.

Should I train everyone myself or train the trainer?

It depends on size. For a small team, running the sessions yourself is quicker and more personal. Once an account has enough people that new starters arrive regularly, training a couple of internal trainers scales better. Many accounts start with you running sessions and move to internal trainers as the rollout grows.

How do I stop the internal trainer teaching it wrong?

Have them teach it back to you once before they teach anyone else. That single session catches most gaps. Then give them a direct line for questions they cannot answer, and sit in quietly on their first real session. Correct things privately afterwards, never in front of their colleagues, because their standing with their team is what makes this work.