Can Internal Training Organizations Survive?: Some Considerations For Staying In Business

Quality is simply giving people the product or service they really want and need. If you are a trainer or instructional designer, that means delivering the best quality knowledge product. It means transferring meaning in a way people can understand it and usefully benefit from it. Our product is sometimes intangible, but the results are solid and proven, and obvious. It doesn't matter if the deliverable is a learning manual, an interactive training course, or an instructor-delivered class; ultimately the product we deliver is knowledge. We aim to increase knowledge and competence that drives a given behavior (preferably positive, but sometimes neutral).

For companies that sell training, marketing the product is crucial. For training organizations that have to quantify their existence and show their contribution to the bottom line, marketing practices are sometimes difficult to define.

Proactive or Reactive?

The success of struggling training organizations rests squarely on their proactive or reactive approach to doing business. Training departments that support various functions throughout their company (or develop different types of training for other departments) can be proactive in soliciting work and planning ahead. The problem is that many departments take the reactive approach, allowing other department heads to send work their way as needs arise. The reactive approach leaves the training department vulnerable to not having any work at all; either because there are no projects to work on or because the decision-maker was lured by a training vendor who took the work away from you.

Here are some consideration for increasing visibility and marketing within your organization:

Have An Entrepreneur Mindset

Just because you and your team collect a paycheck every couple of weeks does not mean you can sit around hoping you have enough work to do. This is perhaps the biggest reason why training departments are the first to get the ax when sales are down. Like many first-time business owners, training managers often wait for the work to come to them. By the time they get proactive they have either lost staff, are in danger of being dissolved, or the work is already going to an external vendor.

Go after the business and show that your department can generate revenue and support those who sell or support product full time. If you do not have a sales presentation that shows your capabilities, put one together right away. A web page in your company's intranet is not a bad idea either, but don't just use it to tell people where to contact you. Design your web page to sell you.

Work Together

Get out of your office and meet with process owners, project managers, and department leaders to learn what is happening in their departments. Attend meetings and read briefings that give you a better insight into their needs. Then propose training solutions. I strongly suggest that you work closely with your marketing department. If they are working on an initiative for customers, chances are you can benefit from their knowledge and what new things are in the works. Share ideas on how you can co-brand training and save money in re-purposing copy and art.

Plan Ahead

Knowing what's coming your way is critical to resource allocation and internal learning. Create a plan of attack that defines what projects you are working on and who will work on them. Always incorporate the activities and events of your internal customers. Some of their efforts may help you understand them and the training they want done. Focus on what they need and when they need it. Remember that your own team may need to get trained, so plan accordingly.

Cooperation with external vendors / Not Competition

Vendors can be your best friends or your worse enemies. While many training vendors will support you to the bitter end, they are still in business to make money. Vendors can be exceptional resources. They can decrease production time, increase quality, and lower cost. View vendors as partners that help your team do better, faster, more cost effective work. But if your course offering starts to look like a clearinghouse for external vendors, your company may start to wonder why they need you. And they may have a valid point.

Julio Quintana is a writer and speaker based in Weston, Florida. Learn more about his practice and The Merge Point Method at http://www.merge-point.com.