Anthony Corwin didn’t start his career in CPR. He sold power tools for Makita, then moved to Hilti, then a global glass manufacturer, most of those years in sales and marketing. The through-line across all of it was the same question: what’s the real pain point, and how do I bring value to whatever this person is actually struggling with? He brought that question with him to HSI, and now spends his days with instructors and training centers who, in his words, are sitting inside businesses they can’t see.
This conversation is about that gap. The one between running a class and running a business that happens to deliver a class. If you’ve ever felt like you’re the instructor, the operator, and the sales team all in the same body, this one is for you.
It’s also the first SitRep episode where we brought on somebody who sees the market from the other side of the table. Different vantage point, same throughline: be intentional, or the market will be intentional for you.
1. Walk the facility before you teach the class. 0:00 – 12:00
Anthony’s opening frame is that most instructors stop at delivery. They show up, run the class, hand out cards, leave. The ones who build businesses use the class as a way in, then do discovery on the building while they’re inside it.
Where are the AEDs? Are they blinking green, or have they been on the wall for twenty years with no pads?
First-aid kits, bleeding control, locations, shift patterns.
Who’s your point of contact and why did they book this class? Was it a scare two weeks ago? A two-year renewal? A new hire?
Parking lot, door entry, sign-in, cameras. Situational awareness is a thing you model, not a slide you read.
“The good ones use the class as a way to get in the door, and then once they’re in the building, the value they can create is what keeps ‘em coming back.”
The move Anthony wants instructors making is from transactional vendor to trusted advisor. The class gets you in. What you notice while you’re there is what keeps the phone ringing.
2. The instructor is the product. 17:00 – 21:00
A lot of the industry is drifting toward smart mannequins, self-guided modules, heavy facilitation with less human in the loop. Anthony is having none of it at the provider level.
Curriculum is standardized. Thirty compressions, two breaths. Every brand has to meet the same objectives.
Difference between a good class and a great class is the instructor, not the curriculum.
Two classes with the same card at the end can be completely different experiences depending on who’s running the room.
“The instructor is not really, they are the product. They are the ones that are delivering the class.”
Anthony’s point isn’t anti-technology. It’s that the delta between an average training and a memorable one is the person standing in front of the room. You don’t get muscle memory for “did this person leave confident” from a device.
3. Devices supplement, they don’t replace. 22:00 – 30:00
Shubs pushed on this. His wife is a physician, takes CPR every two years, and Shubs admits he took one class years ago and wouldn’t feel confident running a real code today. Once every two years isn’t enough reps. So where do the smart mannequins fit?
We discuss watching a NASCAR crew change tires as a masterclass in repetition. Muscle memory on the tactical skill so everything else, the chaos, can get the attention.
Objective feedback on compression depth is genuinely useful. That’s signal a human can’t give in real time.
Devices are great for the tactical rep. Not great for the scenario.
The instructor’s job is to add the situational layer the device can’t. Shop floor vs. fifteenth-story office. Dry hands vs. wet hands. Lights on vs. lights off.
“I’m a big proponent of technology, but in an additive manner or supplementary manner.”
The car wins because the crew is trained. Not because the wrench is smart.
4. Cheap training is expensive. 30:00 – 34:00
One of Anthony’s most-engaged LinkedIn posts was the line that cheap training is the most expensive training. We asked him why it hit a nerve.
Price is a point-of-transaction variable. Readiness is the outcome.
When someone calls asking “what’s your price,” the question behind the question is almost never price. It’s “am I going to get what I’m paying for.”
Competing on price is a race you lose by design. Somebody is always cheaper, and in most cases they’re cheaper because they’re cutting quality.
“You’re selling readiness. You’re not selling a certification card.”
“You compete on price. If you win on price, you will lose on price. Someone’s always gonna be cheaper.”
The reframe is simple. When the moment of truth hits, nobody is going to say “but we saved money on the training.”
5. Segment on purpose. 42:00 – 50:00
Anthony’s masterclass walks new training centers through audience definition first. Not because it’s trendy, because it’s the thing people skip.
“My customer is anyone who needs a BLS card” is not a customer definition.
Dental offices, childcare, schools, corporate. Each one has a different buyer, a different compliance posture, a different renewal cycle.
Your website, your outbound, your pitch should look different per segment.
The opportunistic part stays. You don’t turn away the construction company because you said you target dental. But your targeted message, your reputation, the referrals you build, all of that lives inside segments.
“Market segmentation is critical for success. Understanding who your different audiences are and what your message is to each one of ‘em, because it’s should be a little bit different.”
The flywheel kicks in once word-of-mouth starts moving inside a segment. People change jobs. A dental hygienist becomes an office manager somewhere else and brings you with her. That only works if the segment knows who you are.
6. Build the portfolio, not just the class. 50:00 – 1:06:00
Anthony’s whole career model is what he calls “high, deep, and wide.” You walk in for one thing. You leave knowing the other five things the building needs.
CPR is the compliance anchor. Pediatric CPR for childcare and schools. BLS for dental. AVERT for active-shooter readiness. Stop the Bleed as a standalone ninety-minute course that goes beyond tourniquet basics into packing and pressure.
HSI’s online safety catalog (top twenty courses across slips/trips/falls, sexual harassment, workplace safety) gets layered in as blended, not as a replacement.
The partnership play matters. You don’t have to own every vertical. You do have to know who to call when your customer asks.
“I want them always asking you first and foremost. And then you start developing relationships. Maybe it’s not even inside your own training center, but other companies that do different services that still fit within the safety genre.”
“I may not always have the solution that they need, but I want them to reach out to me first to ask. And if I don’t, I’ll say I don’t, but let me do some calls for you to see if I can find somebody and help.”
The mental model that kept surfacing is portfolio-shaped. Anthony’s not answering “do you do this?” with yes or no. He’s answering with “tell me what you actually need and let me figure out how to get it to you.”
7. The key to the bathroom stall. 1:11:00 – 1:13:00
The episode closed with a story that’s been in Jon’s head for months. A customer told us once that when they walk into a new site for a class, they ask for the key to the bathroom stall. Not because they need it. Because the question itself is the pattern interrupt.
Everyone prepares like the emergency happens in the conference room. Odds are it doesn’t. The person passes out in the bathroom, door open inward, stall locked, and the clock on the AED is already running.
“You wanna create, as an instructor, environments that bring a little bit of stress, but help them understand what that’s gonna feel like without truly replicating that emergency medical situation.”
Tourniquet with your eyes closed. Compressions with wet hands. Rescue in a building you can’t fully get into. Those are the conversations that separate a certification class from a readiness session.
Anthony’s close
“There’s still a lot of opportunities for us to do better as a whole, and it takes all of us together trying to help keep pushing that.”
Anthony posts on LinkedIn Tuesdays and Thursdays. He calls it therapeutic. It’s also one of the more consistent operator-facing voices in the training industry, and worth following.
Anthony Corwin on LinkedIn: Connect with Anthony
HSI Masterclass: Training Center Master Class
Past SitRep episodes worth your time:
Live | Build It Worth Buying with Mike Andolina
Live | You Don’t Have to Be the Biggest with Ryan Johnson
When you’re done, hit reply and tell us which part landed hardest for you. If you walked your last client’s facility and found something you hadn’t noticed before, we especially want to hear that.
Jon & Shubs
