Feature Article: Lessons Learned

by Edwin Ecob

Over the last 10 years, Cambashi has been organising, developing and delivering industry-related training programs to help customer-facing staff understand the activities and business priorities of the industries they serve.  This seems like a good time to reflect on what we have learned during that time.

You may recognise some of the observations – and I welcome your comments. Send me an email at edwin.ecob@cambashi.com.

Audience

• Our usual audiences, sales and pre/post sales support people, are generally bright, enthusiastic and focussed on performance. Both course content and delivery need to reflect this. 
• Having said that, it is difficult to obtain an accurate assessment of the knowledge level of the attendees, and there is often neither the time nor inclination for a skills audit before the event.  As a result it is important to neither under-estimate nor over-estimate the audience’s knowledge – chances are there will be a wide range of experience.

Corporate commitment

• Whilst product training is considered mandatory, gaining an understanding of their potential clients’ businesses via industry training is generally seen as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have.” In fact Michael Bosworth makes “situational fluency” a cornerstone of Solution Selling in his book of the same name.  It often requires senior management support to make this type of training happen in the face of a real or perceived loss in “selling time,” budget constraints and so on.
• Following on from that, senior management reinforcement is extremely valuable in “motivating” the group who attend the course. Here are a couple of examples from instructor-led, in-person events: 
• A notable introduction from a EMEA Sales VP set the tone for one event: “ I can’t promise that by attending this course you will get promoted  …….but if you don’t attend I can guarantee that you won’t!”
• At another 2-day event in Asia, the country manager of a well-known IT company set the ground rules to any sales person who was thinking of doing something else – including customer visits:  “This course is so important I am going to be here for all of it. So are you!”

Content and structure

• Over the years we have found that many of our clients have similar requirements when it comes to industry content. Most want us to provide a basic introduction to manufacturing and production as well as a more detailed look at specific “vertical” industries.
• It may be possible to address some of the basic concepts by pre-class reading but, in our experience, pre-work is rarely done without clear management leadership.
• For the material to be both engaging and useful the attendees need to understand how it can help them achieve their objectives (quota, lead generation, etc.).  Making the connection between a typical company’s business needs and our client’s product(s) or solution(s) is a popular and effective way to do this.
• Whenever the delivery method permits, some form of interactivity is highly desirable. This isn’t an arbitrary desire by trainers to extend the length of courses – and their fees.  All teaching and learning experts agree that participation is essential if learning is to occur - the “experience – reflect - learn” virtuous circle.
• There are ways of achieving this in most of the delivery methods identified below. It is easiest during instructor-led in-person classes and where workgroup activity/interaction should occupy over 50% of the allocated time.
• Interaction between participants – war stories, etc. – can be one of the most useful parts of the event. 
• In terms of attendee focus and achieving a productive outcome, nothing beats role playing – especially when external executives are involved.

Delivery methods

• For a variety of reasons – time, cost, convenience, etc. – clients need training courses to be delivered in a number of different formats. For providing information, and to a certain degree - understanding, some of the online techniques such as online self-paced training via web meetings work well. When a change of behaviour – for instance selling to line of business executives rather than the IT group – is required, the results delivered by in-person training are the most effective.
• Interaction during live online classes is best when the numbers are small (6-8).  I have attended a 3-hour online class where levels of both attention and interaction were excellent.

Course assessment

• The quality and suitability of courses can often be assessed by a regulatory body who then issue accreditation certificates subject to a successful post-course test. Our online courses have been through this process.
• In-person courses have two aspects:
• Course content, trainer performance, materials, etc. are usually assessed based on attendee feedback where an overall average score is calculated.
• Attendees can be assessed by a pre and post course test to demonstrate “learning.” In some circumstances, this is appropriate. However, a more meaningful, but much more difficult question to answer is, “Are people better equipped for their job than they were before the course?”  Most learning will and should happen following the training itself – so getting sales management involved in assessment following a training activity enables them to reinforce good behaviour and correct bad behaviour – plus measure business related outcomes.

Creating the opportunity for people to put their learning into practice, providing support and reinforcement and then measuring success takes us back full circle to the original management initiative for training.