MCT Success Story: Bill Ferguson
MCP Success Story
Kurt Honbarrier, vice president of operations for TeKnowledgy Summit, a Microsoft Certified Technical Education Center (CTEC) in Birmingham, Alabama, describes Bill Ferguson as one of his best trainers. when they meet Ferguson, their positive feelings are confirmed.
"He’s one of those guys, I never worry at all about how clients will react to him—I know he’ll interact well with students," says Honbarrier, whose client list includes Mercedes-Benz and United States Pipe and Foundry Co., Inc. "He knows his stuff in-depth; he doesn’t just go by the book. Clients tell us he’s the best instructor they’ve ever had."
TeKnowledgy Summit’s customers—including Mercedes Benz and US Pipe—are impressed and put at ease when they’re told that Ferguson is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), he adds, because the credential assures them that the instructor has mastered the Microsoft technology at the heart of the curriculum. And
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"I’ve had instructors who know the programming side, but can’t convey it to students," says Honbarrier. "Bill is one of that rare breed that does both superbly well. He can interact with and listen to students to find out what they need to learn. He can focus the class in exactly the right direction for that particular group of students."
Sales Background Benefits His Students
Ferguson, a freelance trainer for companies including TeKnowledgy Summit, is aware that his ability to interact with and listen to students is one of his special strengths, which he attributes it to his background in sales. A sales manager for years, Ferguson got into training when he applied for a job as sales manager with a large national training company. The position had just been filled, but the people who met Ferguson were so impressed, they invited him get his MCT and join the company as a trainer.
"I received a lot of training while I was in sales," Ferguson recalls. "I watched how presenters handled their classes. I got to see how to do it right and how to do it wrong. I decided that if I ever had the opportunity to teach or present, I’d do it right."
To Ferguson, a key element of "doing it right" means telling everyone in his class, right from the start, that questions are welcome.
"Some trainers think that questions slow down the process of instruction, but I know they speed it up," says Ferguson. "I have to work with the building blocks the class already has, and questions are important because they show me what blocks a particular class has to work with."
Ferguson asks a lot of questions in his classes as well—but he’s careful always to ask them to the group at large, never to a specific individual."
"It’s fine for the class to put me on the spot—but I never want to put any of my students on the spot," he says.
The MCT Credential is Good for Business
As important as Ferguson’s talent and MCT credential are to TeKnowledgy Summit’s clients, they’re at least as important to the CTEC itself.
"The MCT credential is important to me in evaluating new instructors," says Honbarrier. "It’s a benchmark that confirms that the instructor has the expertise to teach Microsoft courseware."
Beyond that, Honbarrier says the MCT is literally good for business—especially when it’s attached to an instructor like Ferguson.
"When Bill teaches a class, it often leads to more business for our company," says Honbarrier. After Ferguson has worked with one department in a particular company, Honbarrier says," we can get calls from several other departments at that company, saying they’d like to do training as well. It’s a tremendous way to grow our business."
Building and Boosting a Career
Ferguson is not only growing the businesses of the Microsoft CTECs who hire him, he’s growing his own income as well. After becoming an MCT he served on staff at a large training company and then moved on to serve in the same role at a smaller, regional training company. When the company restructured, it asked Ferguson to stay on as a contractor.
Working as a freelance MCT gives Ferguson the freedom to work for a variety of clients—including the University of Alabama—and to put his MCT expertise to use in new ways. He’s now developing interactive virtual training materials on Windows XP for use by another national training company.
"Since becoming an MCT, I’ve experienced a constant increase in my job satisfaction," says Ferguson. "I continually get more opportunity to use my skills to teach in places where I would not have dreamed of teaching a few years ago. Now I’m producing technical training movies for a company on the Internet. I don’t think there’s any limit to where my MCT can take me."