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<title>How To Make A "Training Superstore" A Super Success.</title>
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<p> <b> How To Make A "Training Superstore" A Super
Success.</b></p>
<p> Once upon a time, training providers were small, specialty
firms with focused client followings.</p>
<p>Then along came some well-heeled folks with an enterprising
idea. They reasoned: "Let's acquire a bunch of these
niche providers and splice them together. Then we'll be able
to offer HR buyers a one- stop-shopping experience -- and
enjoy superior economies of scale for ourselves in the bargain."</p>
<p>They envisioned becoming a "category killer" in
the mode of Wal-Mart, Staples and Home Depot. But, surprisingly,
few of these training industry aggregations has amounted to
any more than the sum of its parts. Let's examine why, and,
if you're among them, what you can do to achieve the rewards
you were looking for.</p>
<p>A. Why "One-Stop-Shop" Is No Walk In The Park.</p>
<p>Sure you'd to like to wrap up all of a customer's training
needs in one blanket purchase order. But there's a problem.
Chances are the budget for training is spread across multiple
departments who see no benefit in combining their efforts
on your behalf.</p>
<p>Ok, HR is a good place to start for staples like supervisory
training or diversity training. But don't try to sell sales
training to anyone but the sales department. And, if you're
seeking to sell training on technology topics like systems
administration and application development, chances are IT
is the place you need to be. Got training in safety or ISO
9000? Call on Manufacturing. Get the picture? All too often,
there is no centralized training purchase authority.</p>
<p>So if you're seeking to achieve a pure one-stop-shopping
proposition, best to combine training providers that serve
the same buying center.</p>
<p>For HR, combine a supervisory training provider with a performance
appraisal specialist. Add in sexual harassment prevention
and diversity, perhaps project management and presentation
skills. And, while you're at it, sweeten the pot with basic
training in written and verbal communications and in social
and behavioral styles.</p>
<p>For Sales, try combining an interpersonal selling skills
provider with a specialist in account planning. Add in negotiating
and presentation skills. Don't forget proposal writing. How
about a specialist in selling to the executive level. And,
by all means, a custom product knowledge training provider.
Customer service training may also prove a natural add on
-- since it is frequently aligned with Sales.</p>
<p>For IT, consider adding Oracle and Cisco training to your
core Microsoft offerings. And expand your certification paths
to include Webmasters and Website developers. But be wary.
Sometimes IT training is partitioned right down to the individual
server or application.</p>
<p>And if your training portfolio covers the waterfront? All
is not lost. Consider repurposing courses to help you achieve
critical mass. For instance, customize a presentation course
aimed at managers to selling situations so you can complement
your interpersonal selling skills offerings. Or perhaps you
can tailor a basic business writing skills course to the requirements
of writing compelling sales proposals.</p>
<p>B. Sharing A Single Sales Force: Easier Said Than Done.</p>
<p>Another questionable assumption of "Training Superstore"
proponents is that efficiencies will be easily gained in channeling
multiple types of training through a single sales force. This
can pose not just one, but three problems.</p>
<p>Problem One: It can take a very different type of sales professional
to be successful across each training buying center. For instance,
sales training purchase authorities typically come out of
the sales ranks themselves. They welcome an aggressive, go-for-the-jugular
selling approach and lack patience for a lot of preliminaries.
Meanwhile, the folks who purchase management and supervisory
training are more apt to be academic types who want to endlessly
debate behavior theory and instructional design before they
open their wallets. Finding a single salesperson with the
style flex to appeal to both crowds is next to impossible.</p>
<p>Problem Two: Training is an intangible sell where a skilled
and savvy salesperson provides a great deal of the value.
Much of this value comes from being expert in what it takes
to be successful in a given industry and job function. Now
take a soft skills salesperson who can't figure out their
sales automation software or their digital phone and assign
them to sell in an IT data mining training solution. What
kind of value add is that!</p>
<p>Problem Three: While the need for product knowledge is over-
emphasized in most training sales forces, it's a fact that
most salespeople tend to gravitate to one or two product sets
for most of their business. So when you increase from three
lines of business to twenty-three, unless you're smart about
it, all you're doing is adding to the number of products on
the cutting room floor. What's worse, because of backbreaking
product knowledge requirements your people wind up spending
a lot more time cramming and a lot less time selling.</p>
<p>As for how to make a single sales force work, begin by thinking
externally, not internally. Don't knock yourself out with
cross training and elaborate revenue sharing schemes. Instead,
make your expanded product set easier for customers to buy
in a solutions way. Simplify pricing and purchase terms. Reward
high volume, cross product line purchases. Build in safety
nets to minimize risks for customers who engage with you across
the board. For some ideas on how to do this, visit the back
issues section of our Website for "Stop Arguing About
Training Pricing" (5/9/99), "Using Safety Nets To
Sell More Education Agreements" (5/27/99) and "How
To Write Training T's and C's That Sell Not Repel" (11/15/99).</p>
<p>Finally, rather than expect one salesperson to represent
all of your training offerings across an entire account, appoint
a senior person to serve as Account Manager. Charge this individual
with deploying and orchestrating the efforts of your specialists
where they can best add value. Support this account team with
goals and metrics that support and reward a collaborative
selling effort. Minimize internal channel conflict by also
making the Account Manager responsible for inside sales and
direct marketing initiatives directed at the account.</p>
<p>C. Pooling Your Product Development Resources: A Potential
Sinkhole.</p>
<p>People who develop training courses can be fiercely territorial.
So when you combine previously unacquainted development units
in the interests of increased efficiency and economies of
scale, you're more likely to wind up with an instructional
methodology turf war.</p>
<p>If the preponderance of your developers are dyed in the wool
ILT veterans, you can be sure that e-learning will be marginalized
into a superficial classroom training pre work or follow up
afterthought.</p>
<p>If the tightly choreographed ID proponents win out, then
you can say goodbye to your ability to develop topical, informational
public seminars.</p>
<p>Another problem in combining development groups is that you
create a functional ghetto that is more focussed on the instructional
state of the art than market needs. Which brings me to a general
concern.</p>
<p>Many niche providers that have sold out to aggregators originally
rose to prominence on a founder's visionary idea. However,
the core of this idea -- the intellectual property -- was
likely aging by the time ownership was transferred. But rather
than rejuvenate the idea -- or replace it with a new vision,
it's tempting for the inheritors to simply re-format or recycle
the idea -- and there's a limit to how long intellectual property
can be recycled before it begins to taste like yesterday's
leftovers.</p>
<p>So suggestion No. 1 for becoming a successful training superstore
is to hire talented course development people and push the
envelope in R&D to keep that product content fresh and
uncover tomorrow's visionary ideas. Pure consolidation is
unlikely in itself to lead to growth.</p>
<p>Suggestion No. 2 is to leave the development groups in the
business units where they are closer to market needs. This
needn't jeopardize the possibility for creating cross-unit
learning solutions, reusable learning objects and blended
learning. These priorities can be addressed by a tiny headquarters
group charged with encouraging course development and delivery
standards and with spurring each business unit to work together.</p>
<p>Will tomorrow's training industry be dominated by the Superstores?
Not necessarily. But with more realistic goals and better
execution, there's no reason why they can't claim a disproportionate
share of the spoils.</p>
<p><a href="evisory.html">Return to back-issue index</a></p>
<p><a href="index.html">E-learning or Classroom Learning (Home Page)</a></p>
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