The Rise of Online Learning

Celebrate National Online Learning Day with New Professional Education Options 

The past 18 months have been a time of immense change. Everything from family reunions, doctor’s appointments, and education switched to an entirely online or virtual setting. Online learning has expanded to professional education, as well as primary and collegiate courses. September 15th is National Online Learning Day. Take a look at how Exit Planning Institute embraced the rise of online education, virtual credentialing programs, and expanded our course offerings this year. 

The Evolution of Exit Planning Education

In 2019, EPI was a company that produced all in-person educational programming. From our Chapter events, large Exit Planning Summit, and our Certified Exit Planning Advisor credentialing programs, EPI hosted thousands of advisors at in-person events across the country. In March of 2020, we were dead in the water from a business perspective and most people’s lives were changing rapidly. We were forced to cancel three in-person programs at the onset of the COVID pandemic. We had nearly 300 paying customers awaiting a CEPA program option now that their programs were canceled. 

EPI President, Scott Snider said about this time, “My business partner and father, Chris Snider, and I had to take a risk. Without evolving our programming to meet the need for professional education in the exit planning advisor community, we would never have been able to grow value in our business and in the advisor’s practices.” 

The Creation of CEPA Masterclass

We invested $250,000 into building a virtual platform for our products to be deployed and delivered to our advisors. Scott shares, “We were able to not only go virtual and continue our momentum, but we were able to build an entirely new way to deploy our programming. Our team, in a matter of 45 days, was able to create an entirely new platform in CEPA Masterclass to deliver our education to our customers. This new educational offering transformed the way we were doing business and the way advisors were receiving our education.” 

CEPA Masterclass is completed in what we call “Three Layered Learning.” The first layer is our virtual classroom built by a film-production team in our EPI studio. The second is the self-study portion. This is a critical piece as it provides the attendee the application portion of their learning. The final component is our faculty meetup and networking. This allows us to continue to engage our audience, tell real-life stories, and bring a critical relationship-building component to the program in a virtual way. 

The Future of Online Education

In the past six months, our virtual CEPA Masterclass programs have educated over 516 advisors about exit planning and business strategy. The success of this program has proven that quality virtual courses for business professionals are an effective form of education. Scott says, “The CEPA Masterclass platform redefined the way EPI viewed online education. I think it really changed the way our industry looked at hosting professional designation programs online.”   

With the proven success of our virtual CEPA Masterclass programs, we are expanding our online educational offerings in EPI Academy. 

EPI Academy Is Your Interactive Online Learning Hub

EPI Academy is Exit Planning Institute’s new interactive online learning platform. In the coming year, EPI Academy will house all of our virtual education, our updated Member Center, student dashboard, and interactive chatroom networking functionality. 

We designed the platform in tracks that allow advisors to easily find the content and education they are looking for to enhance their practice. These include recommended learning and professional development plans. Scott Snider says EPI Academy is “continued professional development in a convenient way. It allows advisors a way to build and advance their own practice by completing courses at their own pace online.”   

EPI Academy is currently home to our Marketing for Professional Advisors Masterclass with marketing expert, Kiley Peters. In the next year, we will be adding more exit planning education to EPI Academy. Earning the CEPA Credential is the first step in mastering exit planning. Now is the time to build upon that knowledge with our CEPA Mastery learning track in EPI Academy. 

These courses include:

• Marketing for the Professional Advisor Masterclass – Available now
• Practice Launch Lite – Coming 2021
• Mastering the Triggering Event – Coming 2022
• Facilitating an Effective Owner Roundtable – Coming 2022
• Implementing the 120-Day Playbook – Coming 2022
• Building an Exit Planning Team – Coming 2022

Exit Planning Institute’s purpose is to create Significant Companies. Scott says, “In order to help business owners create significant companies, we need CEPAs in our market who surround business owners. CEPAs must be armed with the best tools, knowledge, skills, and network. EPI Academy allows us to advance our CEPAs.” 

Do you want to be the first to know when our new EPI Academy courses launch? Sign up for notifications about our latest releases! 

Register for an upcoming CEPA Masterclass program!

Join the vast community of Certified Exit Planning Advisors and begin to make a difference for clients by holistically building value in their businesses and lives.