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<td colspan="14" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" ><h1>Stop Learning And BUY Something! How To Turn Trainees Into Customers (Part 1).</h1>
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<h2>Everybody knows that your current customers are your best
prospects. But how about the current participants in your
training courses? </h2>
<p>Are course participants customers or clients
or what? And should you be cultivating them as a lucrative
incremental revenue source -- or focusing 100% on trying to
satisfy their learning needs.
<p>Let's begin with a simple acid test of whether or not you
should bother aggressively marketing to a given training population:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>- Were they DIRECTED to participate?<br>
- Or did they ELECT to attend?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our experience, if a given training audience was directed
by their company to receive training, then you will have an
extremely difficult time trying to persuade them to choose
additional training on their own initiative -- even if their
company is willing to pay. Looking at the flip side, individuals
who have participated in a learning experience as a result
of their own initiative are 5x more likely to respond to a
follow up invitation than their conscripted peers. </p>
<p>Let's see how this plays out in some typical training scenarios.
<h2>A. Licensed Training </h2>
<p>You make a living licensing course materials to the HR departments
of large companies who are ultimately responsible for training
delivery.
<p>You fantasize: "If only we could get a list of the individuals
who are trained with our materials, complete with contact
information -- then we could promote directly to them and
dramatically scale up our business."
<p><b>OUR RECOMMENDATION: </b>Don't bother. Most companies won't want
to go to the trouble to capture and communicate the identities
of individual learners, even if you bribe them or coerce them.
They may also perceive such a request by you as a ploy to
police usage. In our experience, you will do better promoting
to rented lists of proven training buyers than trying to hitchhike
on these "behind the fire wall" trainees who have almost certainly
been shanghaied into a learning experience.
<h2>B. Single Company Seminars </h2>
<p>Sometimes called "on-sites" or "exclusives", single company
seminars are where you provide both the course materials and
the instructor, while your customer is responsible for rounding
up a classroom full of course participants.
<p>You fantasize: "Wow, let's add on-site participants to our
mailing list and promote our public seminars to them."
<p><b>OUR RECOMMENDATION:</b> Do see if there's a way your instructor
can capture contact information for each on-site seminar attendee
-- perhaps in conjunction with arranging to mail them their
course completion certificate -- or collecting course evaluation
feedback. But don't waste your money promoting to all of them.
Instead, include some qualifying questions to determine the
extent to which each individual is inclined to personally
purchase information and training related offerings. For example:
<blockquote>
<p>Please indicate which of the following activities you have
participated in during the past 12 months (check all that
apply): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>( ) purchased a subscription to a business magazine,
newsletter or information service<br>
( ) purchased a business or professional book<br>
( ) attended a public seminar or workshop<br>
( ) purchased a multi-media or Web delivered course</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I participated in this course because: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>( ) my company required me to<br>
( ) my company encouraged me to<br>
( ) I personally elected to participate</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Please notify me of future public course events of potential
interest to me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>( ) yes<br>
( ) no</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h2>C. Enterprise E-learning And TBT Subscriptions </h2>
<p>You are a B2B e-learning provider focusing on selling complete
learning solutions accessible across an entire enterprise
via a simple Web browser. Typically these solutions capture
a wealth of information about each individual learner, not
only contact information, but also job roles, personal learning
plans, course participation and test history. Even better,
all of this rich data resides on your server.
<p>You fantasize: "What an opportunity. All we have to do is
to mine all of this data, and then we can direct upsell offers
to individual participants specific to their learning history
and job requirements."
<p><b>OUR RECOMMENDATION:</b> Whoa there! This thought is fraught with
peril. To begin with, most HRD professionals want to bless
and control all of the training everyone in their company
participates in. So it's highly unlikely your client will
agree to let you prospect among their employees -- especially
using proprietary information they provided you with in confidence.
Furthermore, even if you get permission at an enterprise level,
many employees are not going to take kindly to being spammed.
So you'll need to ask their permission, too. Finally, even
though e-mail promotion is "free" your rewards are apt to
be meager -- because 80% of all enterprise learning participants
will have been directed to learn and so will never buy anything
from you, even if their company pays for it. And those that
do buy will nickel and dime you into a transaction intensive,
costly B2C relationship.
<p>In summary, if you are seeking incremental business from
a current B2B e-learning customer, you are better off going
for some sort of an upgrade at the enterprise level than trying
to enter into a B2C relationship with their employees.
<h2>D. Public Seminar Attendees </h2>
<p>You are a public seminar provider, promoting both to individual
learners and to corporations who purchase course "vouchers"
or "passports" so they can send a sizeable population of their
employees at a reduced rate.
<p>You fret: "We're spending a fortune mailing course promotion
catalogues and brochures to our entire housefile of previous
public course attendees. Is it worth sending promotion to
previous attendees who were sent as opposed to deciding on
their own to attend?"
<p><b>OUR RECOMMENDATION: </b>Generally it's worth promoting to all
public course attendees, whether they personally decided to
attend or were sent. That's because companies that send individuals
to public courses are also usually supportive of individuals
who want to attend on their own initiative. So, even if a
given participant was coerced to attend by their company,
there is a reasonable chance that promotion which is sent
to them will be passed along to a co-worker who is more receptive.
<p>If you want to test being more selective, then ask course
attendees the qualifying questions in section B, above. This
will help ensure that you direct the bulk of your promotion
to the attendees that are the most inclined to act on it.
<h2>E. Executive Leadership Programs </h2>
<p>You are a prestigious university or private think tank offering
$7500+ residential leadership development experiences to high
potential senior executives. You fantasize: "All of those
highly placed big shots eating out of our hand. I'll bet with
a little persuasion we can get them to return to campus every
year."
<p><b>OUR RECOMMENDATION: </b>Don't assume that these senior executives
will be more responsive to your follow on education promotions.
Many participants in executive leadership programs are there
as a result of company policy -- not any particular eagerness
to learn. However, DO promote your organization's consulting
services and your ability to bring customized education programs
on site to address the needs of general employee populations.
If you make only one sale, you could be looking at as much
as $250,000 in incremental business -- maybe even more.
<p>Stay tuned to Part 2 of "How To Turn Trainees Into Customers"
in a future issue of Training Business E-Visory, where we'll
discuss how to use your public course instructors to effectively
sell on platform -- without diminishing the learning experience
one iota!
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