Regardless of the size of your company or what line of work you are in, training is the cornerstone of any successful business. By developing your workforce, you don’t only help grow the individual, but the company as a whole.
This need for training has created a number of opportunities for potential providers, but how does one stand out from the rest.
Understand the demand
As a training provider our primary role is education, but without a good understanding of the business, you are destined to fail. Be willing to look at the bigger picture, what is your primary and secondary role and how can you best fill the gap?
If you are working with large financial organisations at least have a basic understanding of the industry, what are the different job roles, where is the biggest need for training and why? Far too often companies just come in asking for training and to be honest sometimes it’s not needed.
Strong Relationships
A fundamental to any successful business is developing and fostering long term relationships.
People buy people, if you are looking to stand out from the rest, start here. Once you create a successful working relationship it becomes far easier to get buy in from clients. A close working relationship promotes effective two way communication and allows the training provider to become fully integrated with the business.
Customisation
One of the sectors that our company focuses on is the call centre industry. At face value one centre might appear to have the same training needs as another, but on closer inspection they are actually completely different. For example, there is a huge difference between debt collecting and customer service.
If you are creating a training offering be willing to customise it. One of our most successful partners in the call centre industry, BPeSA Western Cape recently changed the structure of their Leanership Programme to focus on providing a customised solution for its partner companies.
This benefits both the company and the learner, as they are viewed as experts in the field when they leave. This targeted approach might be more time consuming initially, but in the long term it saves time and improves productivity.
Understand your market
When presenting a proposal to a potential client, don’t take for granted that they all expect the same level of interaction. In one city an email with an attachment might be the way things are done, while in another face to face is required.
Don’t just adapt your offering for overseas clients; provide a customised solution to each company and region.
Grow the team
As an SMME we don’t have the luxury sometimes of having one person who can focus on training in isolation. On any given day I might be required to fill the role of a trainer, coach, assessor and moderator. For this reason I promote training and education among my team. This prevents problematic situations occurring if I am unavailable. By relying to heavily on one person you are putting yourself at risk. Be willing to cross pollinate and learn from one another.
Education is vital to the growth and development of South Africa. As a training provider it is our responsibility to ensure this happens. As that famous Chinese proverb says, give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
