The couple, who bought Maine’s sole Dale Carnegie training franchise a year ago, talked with Mainebiz about why the principles and practices established 84 years ago are especially relevant today.
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Nadra and Rob Edgerley bought the state’s Dale Carnegie franchise in June 2019. Nadra is the owner of a photography studio and Rob is a broker at Maine Life Realty in Scarborough, The couple are no strangers to business development training. Rob is a longtime Dale Carnegie trainer, Nadra a longtime business coach.
Mainebiz: What prompted you to buy the franchise?
Nadra Edgerley: Rob’s been involved with Dale Carnegie for almost 20 years. I’m on track to become a trainer this year. We both believe in professional development and coaching, and Dale Carnegie’s systems and methodologies work well to assist companies with the development of their team members. We witnessed the powerful transformations that participants were experiencing, and when the opportunity arose, there was no question that we wanted to be involved with this organization.
MB: You’d owned the business less than a year when the pandemic hit.
Rob Edgerley: We saw continued growth with local companies up until March, and we were projecting 10% to 15% growth, then, like many companies, saw sales and classes drop off overnight in March. Fortunately, Dale Carnegie Training has an 11-year history of live online courses, and we were able to pivot from in-person training to live online training within days. Our six local trainers are experienced and ready to adapt quickly. In fact, flexibility is a huge part of what we teach, so this year, while it was a lot of hard work, wasn’t out of our wheelhouse. We’re seeing companies come back to training, and we look forward to a future where our classes are increasingly hybrid models, both online and in-person.
MB: What about the program is particularly important now?
NE: More than ever, it’s important that we focus on our communication and human relation skills, as well as harness tools to deal with stress and worry. The principles we base our training on are time tested and work. Dale Carnegie wrote his first book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” in 1936, during the Great Depression. His follow-up, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” was written in 1948, right after World War II. Our parent organization has continued to be forward-thinking. They have commissioned studies on subjects like employee engagement, trust-based selling and timely subjects like agility and resilience, which were published just before the pandemic. It’s pretty easy to see the longevity and continuity of all of the subject matter during COVID-19 and its utility to enhance our lives.
MB: What are the biggest misconceptions about the Dale Carnegie program?
NE: That we’re really only a public speaking training organization. While teaching presentation skill is a strength of ours, our strength also lies in employee engagement, interpersonal skills building, leadership building, relationship selling. Our flagship course, “Effective Communications and Human Relations,” is offered both in person and live online. Our leadership courses engage leaders to bring out the best in their team members, whether they are new managers or seasoned.
RE: Also, our live online sessions aren’t webinars, they’re engaging and interactive sessions that engage emotions and shift thinking — really the crux of our methodologies. Adults and youth learn by doing, and with our programs, we get participants right into practicing skills. This practice, coupled with the right mindset, is the basis for performance improvement.
MB: What do you think Dale Carnegie would think about his program, 2020 style?
NE: Both Dale and his wife Dorothy, who was instrumental in building the global organization, would be proud. The use of different content delivery formats, from brochures, to books, and to radio and television were all leveraged by Dale and Dorothy themselves.
RE: Today’s reality, and the shift 11 years ago to digital platforms, would be an elementary move. I think that knowing that the Dale Carnegie principles continued to be used to help humans interrelate and deal with difficult times would be extremely rewarding.