CVC Success Group coach, Jerry Isenhour
Join Jerry this week as he asks the question “What Flavor Of Training Works For You” with the various choices available today, picking the one that delivers the highest ROI may be a difficult choice, let talk about the pros and cons of each.
Video Transcript
Jerry: I want to welcome you to another episode of the Chimney and Fireplace Success Network. This is episode number 94 and the title of today’s episode is: What’s Your Favourite Flavour of Training?
Our podcast is brought to you each and every week by the CVC Success Group. Let us know how we can help you because our mission is to provide the tools to make your business dreams into your business realities.
Well today the subject matter I want to talk to you about is training and what is your favourite flavour of training. You know, we’ve got to face it. Training is one of the needs of every single company out there and this goes for both the new hires on the team and it also includes your experienced team members; because one of the success methods is continuous improvement.
Continuous improvement is going to involve continuous ongoing training; and you know, this goes for every member of the team, from the top to the bottom, from management all the way down to the new hires. No matter if you work in the warehouse, the office, the field, sales, production, re-lining, repairs… Whatever it is, training is an important part that everybody needs to go through.
We also have to face the following: The world of business and the changing customer habits, the technology and the other changes a business encounters – training is now more important than it’s ever been. And I said technology, right? Because if you look, technology is changing business around the world and it’s changing for you and it’s changing for others.
Well you see, in today’s world, the need for training, like we talk about, will exist in many areas of your company operations. It could be for technical skills. It may be documentation, inspection, sales, lean operations, office operations and a whole lot more.
And having access to the best training presented by great subject matters who understand how to speak the message of the utmost importance is what’s going to derive an ROI from the training investment that you make.
And you know, that is where we are at today and this is what brings up the question: What’s your favourite flavour of training? Because in this world now, there’s a lot of choices that you can pick from!
Number one is in-person training at your location. Another is remote training. They may be located in your area or it may be across the country. It could be something you’ve got to fly to, but you’ve got a lot of expense in getting there. In fact, the travel expense is more than the actual class tuition cost a lot of times!
You can also do hands-on training. It can be at your location or it could be at a remote location. We now have ride-along training and this is where an instructor trains one-on-one in the field with technicians that are going into the homes and on your own job sites.
We also have virtual recorded online platforms and we have virtual live stream training that’s presented for groups of companies and we even have virtual live stream training that you can have an instructor live stream direct to you from a remote location. So there’s a lot of choices that go on in the business world today.
You see, unless you are a sizeable operation it is hard to have a full-time trainer on-staff and on-site all the time with your people. So, bringing in outside trainers a lot of times – that is what a lot of the companies are finding out – it is helping them get the best ROI on the monies that they spent for their training needs.
But the question is: What works? What does not work? Well, what works will depend on the material being presented, what type of training it is, it’s going to depend on the instructor presenting the materials and it’s also going to depend on the learning styles of the team members that work for you. This is where the decision is made much more difficult because you have got to make some decisions in this.
Question #1 is: Do you have a training budget? And if yes, what is it and what percentage of your budget is that? What is that going to do for you?
Question #2: When you are doing training, do you have objectives for the training that you are going to be taking?
Question #3 And then this is one that so many people go through: “How can I implement training? We’re just so busy! We don’t have time to train”.
Question #4 Another one that hits a lot of people is: “How can I justify training, as it means we’re not producing income during this period of time?” and “How do we find the time for training?” and “How am I assured I’m going to get a return on my investment?”
You know, all of those questions – the previous ones – are good ones; and you may even have others, but those are the ones that come to light when I think about this. But to make the right decision requires you to do some planning to answer all of the above questions.
Here’s some answers that we would provide you on each of these. In person training – let’s start with that. In person training – you know, it’s your location. Many companies are doing this and we also find that they even partner with other companies close to them to assist in defraying the costs. But this can be an expensive proposition when you look at the costs of the instructor fees and expenses, plus: Do you have the proper classroom space to do this?
A great decision in regards to taking your training to the highest level and with a great ROI is in-house training, but it is going to be a budgetary consideration. This is where you bring a trainer in to work with you.
Then you have the choice of remote training that your team will travel to. There are some fantastic training opportunities out there available today, but with this you’ve got to wait until a distributor, an association or another group holds them at a time or place that works for you; but you also have the expense of travel and the particular issue of your team members building a relationship with other teams and actually headhunting! Yes, that’s right, companies often roam these classes headhunting for trained people to join their teams!
Many times, when you go to a training presentation, you are going to have other companies there headhunting for employees. In fact, some employers are now so cautious about this that they will not send their people to a remote location for training unless they go with it.
Hands-on training at your location – You know, that’s really a great process, it has a great ROI and this may well be the best for you to offer. You may even consider others to joining in you in your training to help defray the costs.
We talked about ride-along training. You know, this is a great way to build the individual skills of your workforce. This is where a subject matter expert goes to your job sites with your crews, your technician and uses your customer’s home, the customer’s site, as the training grounds. This is an approach that can deliver a great ROI for any member of your team because it gives the trainer an opportunity to look and review your technicians in process and from there they are able to suggest methods that will work better for them.
Today we also have the virtual online training platforms – And you know, over the last few years we have seen a lot of these develop up in the industry. Right here at the CVC Success Group we have ours which is called Base Camp. It’s a phenomenal platform with over 750 courses on it right now.
But here is the challenge: Getting your people to use it – because online recorded training is a tough one to get people to participate in and some people just can’t learn from recorded segments.
Now there is another method here that we have started doing which is virtual live stream training. We do this specifically for companies or we also do open trainings where other companies can participate as a group. This could be significant as it is remarkably like in person training. In fact, with new methods of teaching virtually it’s unreal how effective this can be with people.
You know, what you’ve got to be able to do is the instructor has got to be able to interact with the students and be able to answer the questions that they may have to derive the most significant value.
You know, these are all methods of training that work. The question is: What works best for you? What is your favourite flavour? And what gives you the highest return on your investments? They’re all methods that we provide here at CVC Success Group. In whichever way you’ve got, I’m sure we can cover your needs.
We have a team of subject matter experts that we feel is the strongest in the industry. For some, it’s their full time occupation. They spend countless hours on the road and traveling to see various team members around the country.
From our online training, we’ve got a very robust course library; but again, the problem is: Are your people buying into it? Are they buying into online training? What’s the best way? What is the best flavour that works for you? What works with your people?
You know, there’s going to be some training that’s going to have to be hands-on. Masonry training is one that needs to be hands-on. Fireplace retrofit training needs to be hands-on. Rope training needs to be hands-on. So you’ve got to make the decision of what works best for your company and what will work best for you and what delivers the highest ROI on your training.
So put your thoughts together. As we go through the year of 2020, a year of so much change, what are the changes that you need to do in your training program to take it to a higher level? Invest in the training and what you’re going to find is you’re going to get a significant ROI. It is going to return on the investment, but invest wisely! Get the right people to work with that can connect with your people and so it will make a difference to them.
So I appreciate you joining me here today on the Chimney and Fireplace Success Network. This is Jerry Eisenhower with CVC Success Group. Remember, we’re here to help you. We can provide the tools to make your business dreams into your business realities.
Hey… We’ve got systems. We’ve got processes that work for others. I bet you they’ll work for you! Hey, we look forward to talking to you. Reach out to us and let us know how we can help you here at the CVC Success Group. It’s as simple as an email to info@cvcsuccessgroup.com.
Talk to you later! We appreciate you joining us today for another episode of the Chimney and Fireplace Success Network.