About
Shawn Davis has been a professional instructional designer since 1993. Shawn got hitched in 2012 and eventually let the business world know her last name is Davis, not Greene. She lives with her husband and monster kitty. For fun, she and her husband play golf, kick back and watch NASCAR, and try to resist the kitty’s attempts to persuade them it’s already dinnertime.
Savage and Greene is located in the San Francisco bay area and serves instructional design clients all over the U.S. Many clients are financial services companies: banks, credit unions, insurance brokers and providers, and financial advisors.
The short answer: Both involve writing, creativity, and being a good explainer.
The longer answer: Instructional design is creating teaching tools and references. Teaching tools include training programs, leader’s guides, and participant materials. References include policy guides, and various flavors of how-to.
“Adventures of a Successor Trustee” is a how-to guide that fills a gap: There are books by lawyers, but they only cover part of the picture and tend to use legalese. There are tons of articles on the internet, but their content is often misleading and sometimes flat wrong. I have filled that kind of gap many times, doing so in compliance with laws and company policy. In many ways the Guide is just another design project; this one happens to be inspired by personal experience.
Shawn often speaks on cold calling and sales. She will soon offer presentations for successor trustees.
“We knew this was a hot topic because we had one of our highest turn-outs ever and you did not disappoint. You’re a terrific speaker! Entertaining, interactive, right on point with advice. You managed to include time for questions but stick to our timeframe.” (M. Schultz)
When it came time to name her company Shawn chose to honor her mom, Theresa Savage, for raising her to have the guts to be herself… and to eventually run her own business.
As Theresa put it, “I wanted my daughters, especially, to have a certain sassiness — to stand up for themselves and be bold. Shawn was sassy from the get-go, which did especially try my patience during her teenage years.”
At the time, Shawn’s last name was Greene.
More comments from clients
“We had bad experiences with cookie-cutter training. The work you did made all the difference. Built enthusiasm, taught our team skills they need every day, gave them practical tools to follow through. Though we’ll probably have you back, we (managers) also feel ready to use the trainers guides.”
“Thank you for a terrific workshop. This is the best investment I ever made… I didn’t realize how useful it was to teach the reps to coach each other until a few days after training. My own coaching efforts kept slipping down the to-do list but it didn’t matter.”
“Everybody got a lot out of training. Heck, you even won Rusty over.”
“You pushed back hard and you were right. Steering us away from our first plan probably avoided a landmine.”
“Shawn Greene, you are a pain. Persistent. Focused. Courageous. Thank you.”