Creative Training Techniques Newsletter

In 1982, Robert H. Schuller, the founding pastor of California’s Crystal Cathedral and television’s “Hour of Power,” wrote a book called Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do! The U. S. was in an economic crisis as bad or worse than the one we face today. Interest rates on loans were in the double digits. Schuller wrote the book to encourage people.

For many of us in this field, the word “tough” doesn’t resonate particularly well. The words caring and sharing are a lot more attractive. But the truth is, if we want to care and share in these times, we need to be prepared to have tough-minded conversations about the things that we are asked to do.

Chuck Reaves, a friend of mine, writes a newsletter called the “CSO (chief sales officer)-The Missing Piece in the C-Suite.” In a recent article, he points out that in a tough economy what organizations do is eliminate the nonessentials. Organizations want to cut costs and implement strategies to increase revenues. He emphasizes that if our product or service is nonessential, it will be cut. He suggests that either we must show how we can generate or retain revenues or how we offset expenses.

A couple of the ideas that he recommends relate directly to training and performance improvement: give them a differentiation over their competitors, shorten the sales cycle, offset sales and marketing expenses, and, one of my own, reduce time to market.

How do these relate to training and performance improvement? Training that allows your customers to use your products and services faster, better, and easier is clearly a differentiation. A combination marketing and training program that equips your sales force to deliver a new product or service to your marketplace faster shortens the sales cycle, reduces marketing expenses, and reduces time-to-market. Challenging your management to see your training and performance improvement function in this way isn’t easy if you haven’t done it before, but it clearly is one of the best ways to add value and make a difference in these challenging times.

I’m going to be doing a special tele-seminar on three strategies that we do as training and performance improvement professionals can use to increase our value to our clients and our organizations in these turbulent times. Log on to our membership site  www.CreativeTrainingTech.com for the details. Until next month, add value and make a difference!

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