A Successful story of an Online EASA Compliant Regulatory and Vocation Training, by Steven Bentley owner and MD of EASAOnline.com (EOL).
Between 2015 and 2016 EOL has grown by an amazing 400% and as result we have extended our license and we can today support Unlimited concurrent users on the system.
How did you get into Aviation?
I guess Aviation was in my blood even if I did not realize it at the time. I joined aviation back in 1971 at the tender age or 16 as a maintenance engineer in the North West of England and more than 45 years later I am still involved!
Today as а Managing Director and owner of Sofema Aviation Services, a Bulgarian Based Regulatory Consulting and Training Company, and owner of www.easaonline.com
What is the role of EASAOnline?
www.easaonline.com is a wholly owned partner company of Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com. EOL is also supported by European Aviation Institute (EAI) an EASA Part 147 approved Maintenance Training Organization (MTO) with Certificate of Approval No RO.147.0003.
EOL provides competitively priced access to a growing portfolio of EASA Compliant Regulatory and Vocational training – with examination for every course. On completions Delegates are able to print out their completion certificate.
The portfolio of available training courses is constantly being expanded and includes all the 145 recurrent training courses, ESDS, SMS, Maintenance Planning and Production Planning. As well as the generic courses which are loaded and available for all users, there are company specific courses which can only be accessed by company nominated delegates.
In 2017 SAS was awarded a license by the Bulgarian Civil Aviation Authority (BG CAA) to deliver Dangerous Goods in Aviation (DG) Classroom Training. EOL currently offers all categories of DG awareness training online.
Working together SAS and EOL has currently issued more than 15,000 course certificates to delegates completing Classroom and Online training.
When did the online training story start?
Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) Commenced trading in March of 2008 by offering classroom based training both as “In Company” and open training courses. EOL commenced trading in 2013 with the intention of providing a low cost, but effective access to Sofema training material. The current Plan is to reach 100 courses by the end of 2018.
We saw a need for an optimized online training solution to supplement our current classroom offering. When considering the development of regulatory training, the challenge is always to address the cost of development and the return on the investment with the lower margins available for online offering developing the material where a single hour of classroom training may take between ½ Day and a full day to prepare.
What was your lucky break?
We had 2 distinct advantages over other start up:
The first one is that as an established classroom based training organisation, we had the cash flow and capacity to wait the 2 years need to see the success of the project. No income can be a serious impediment to any business and something which needs to be carefully explored.
Our second advantage was that we already had the material! As we deliver classroom based training with a portfolio of 250 courses we are in the favourable position of being able to offer our online clients a similar content (to our classroom clients) at a prices which is around 80 % cheaper than the classroom experience.
How powerful is the connection between SAS Classroom and EOL Online?
The simple answer is total!
We currently have more than 250 Courses available as classroom courses It is our goal to migrate all classroom based training to the online platform and to continue to optimise with the use of short videos which we place on our “you tube” channel (SAS e aviation).
Why does EOL have strong market demand?
The not so secret “secret” of any business is to seek out niche opportunities. EOL has create a unique niche where we are offering the same EASA Compliant Regulatory content online which our classroom based competitors are charging approximately 15 times our prices.
Essentially not only do they not wish to compete they are actually not in a position to do so, this is good for us and it is a situation which we continue to embrace and to develop.
What are the future Plans for EOL?
We expect to continue to see dramatic increases in user traffic and we are aiming to double our size in 2017 and to do so again in 2018.
Any advice for other online training startups?
Yes sure the old adage Rome was not built in a day is most appropriate!
We were very fortunate to be able to wait for organic growth, however we have to accept that without effective marketing no one will know who you are!
It takes either a lot of money to grow an online training presence or alternately to accept organic growth as a lower cost and potentially more successful (less debt) choice, with less hype and more connected reality, exposure and feedback.
Together with SAS we created a significant blogging presence with relevant and appropriate content. Running to many 100’s of Blogs we are all over the internet and I am very pleased to say people find us without have to spend significant money on google and Facebook ads.
In Conclusion
Building a successful Online training business is always going to take time to provide the return you deserve. Be prepared to work constantly with three goals in mind:
To continue to build your brand
To establish and maintain your credibility, and
To continue to grow your user base.
