Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Having recently spoke to both other trainers and clients, It has come to my attention that some Irish training providers are trying to pass “off the shelf training courses” as “bespoke work”. One client I know paid a substantial sum of money for a tailored training solution for his employees only to later find out that the very same course could be downloaded from the net for a fraction of the cost. Another scam is to stick together bits of off the shelf courses and deliver as a bespoke solution.

So how do you spot a fraud from the real deal?

A bespoke training solution requires the trainer to do three things

• Investigation and need analysis
• Design of course and materials
• Delivery of course followed by evaluation

Get the facts, understand the needs

The investigation piece should take a considerable amount of time. This is the piece where the trainer used various fact-finding tools to first identify the training needs. For instance before I prepare a bespoke sales training course one of the fact-finding mechanisms that I use is to spent a day with a sales rep on the road. I also like to interview anyone who is going to attend to identify individual problems.

Design

The design piece also takes time, roughly speaking five to six hours designing training should equal approx one hour of coursework.

Delivery

So by the time the course arrives, the trainer should have a good grasp of the business and people and be able to deal with and talk about problems particular to the organisation. Coursework should be targeted and modules specific to the company. Beware of what appears to be very general advice or examples that don’t relate to your industry.

Bespoke vs Off the Shelf

Off the shelf training courses have their place in the training world, as a cheap and cheerful mechanism for giving a basic understanding of principles and techniques they work just fine.They can not however, be used where a company is experiencing specific problems and needs a targeted training solution.

It pains and upsets me that disingenuous training providers are recklessly marketing and selling off the shelf courses as bespoke work. One potential unfortunate outcome is that this type of practice manages to turn people completely off the training experience.

My Experience

During my own sales career, I have attended many poorly prepared and badly thought sales courses. While this reinforced to me the need for the tailored sales training solution, I also often heard colleagues complain that it was a complete waste of their time. It is up the purchaser of training to ensure that the trainer is going to deliver.

Watch out for training consultants (and I use this term very loosely) that offer a quick fix solution. Investigation and analysis of training needs takes time and training solutions that will deliver real learning outcomes should to be delivered with identified objectives and a longer term strategy.

Good vs Bad

A recent meeting I had with a potential customer highlights some of the problems from the purchasers point of view. I spent an hour an half with them and highlighted my process for identifying their needs and coming up with a training/consulting solution. I explained that I would not be able to talk about the solution in detail until this consultation work was carried out.

Another training provider, in this case an English training company came in and presented an upfront solution without any mention of needs analysis or fact-finding. From the company point of view, this can seem attractive because its comes across as simple and is often the cheaper option. Unfortunately in my experience, it sometimes requires a company to experience a bad training solution before they truly grasp the merits of the consultative bespoke approach.

If it looks too good to be true?

I’m reminded of those TV infomercials on late night shopping, it looks great on the telly, its only after you purchase the product that it works nowhere near as well as it first seemed. Once the novelty value has subsided, it finds a new home in your wheelie bin.

BTB Bespoke Sales Training

Tags: bespoke sales course, business management training Ireland, Business training Ireland, business training solutions, sales courses ireland, sales training ireland, tailored sales training

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 am and is filed under business training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.