With a new CEO in place and a base of Canadian customers, Presenters Podium has set an aggressive expansion plan to get their oral presentation tool into a range of schools across Canada and the U.S.

Presenters Podium was launched about three years ago by Matt Fanning, a former medical device salesman and St. Mary’s University student. He perceived that professors with large classes can never have everyone make oral presentations because there is simply too little time. So he developed Presenters Podium, an online tool that lets students rehearse an oral presentation, then submit it once it is perfect. In the latest iterations, it includes a peer review function that allows classmates to review each student’s presentation.

Fanning recently has moved on to further his sales career elsewhere and handed the reigns for Presenters Podium to Harrison Fisher. He also has a background in medical sales and collaborated with Fanning on the development of the business over the past two-and-a-half years.

The Halifax company now has paying customers in 22 post-secondary institutions, including one in the U.S.

“For the next 12 months, we have a goal of having 280 new professors using the platform,” said Fisher. He added that a customer base of 280 profs “translates in to an estimated 13,000 users.”

He said the company is planning to reach these professors with a mix of social marketing by delivering content that can help university and college professors, educational conferences, and outbound calling campaigns. For example, he is attending the conferences of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and the Teaching Society for Management Educators.

Grads Love Region, Worry about Jobs

Though he was quite detailed in his description of the sales process, Fisher doesn’t refer to himself as a salesman.

“Our approach isn't to sell someone, but to inform professors and universities that there is a solution to a challenge that they may not know they even had,” he said.

The problem is that modern universities and colleges have large classes – so large that professors could never find the class time to have everyone do a presentation on a particular subject. Presenters Podium lets every student research the subject, and work toward a flawless presentation. Once its submitted, the students’ peers can review the presentations, meaning the professor doesn’t have to wade through hours of video.

Fisher added that the goal is to have the students understand that they are engaged in an exercise in professional speaking, that they have to speak to about five viewers and to speak persuasively to them.

Fisher -- who is working with two part-time staff and hopes to hire a developer and sales person – said the aim has always been to produce an online tool that ensures the student learns and maintains the course material.

“If you think about learning in the traditional model, it’s about memorizing a bunch of things and regurgitating them on a final exam,” he said. “But if you ask someone to explain something to you, it’s going to be apparent whether or not they know it. You have to know it well enough to talk about it.”